Students Try to Make Sense of Uncertain World at Summit

Students Try to Make Sense of Uncertain World at Summit

by Una Hardester
Think Magazine
February 20, 2007

On January 11 and 12, the Stanley Foundation, in collaboration with Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), hosted a summit for young global leaders entitled, “Leveraging US Strength in an Uncertain World,” in Muscatine, Iowa. The event was directed at leaders on university campuses in the Midwest, in whose hands the future of the United States in the international community will one day soon rest.

Forty-four students attended the two-day summit. Some flew in from as far away as Pennsylvania. Others got up at 4 a.m. to drive from neighboring states. As the parking lot began to fill at the meeting location, the character of the event became obvious. Cars adorned with political bumper stickers and those bearing the names of half a dozen universities sat next to Stanley Foundation employees’ cars with bumper stickers that simply read, “Think Multilaterally.”

And summit participants were certainly thinking.

Nuclear proliferation. Iran and North Korea. The continuing—and worsening—war in Iraq. The future of relations between the United States and the Muslim world. United Nations reform. These and other timely issues were on the minds of the student participants.

Before the summit formally began, they sat at tables discussing matters of geopolitical importance over tacos and glasses of iced tea. The energy in the room was palpable and the conversations animated. One could have been excused for momentarily forgetting that the summit was taking place in Iowa, in the middle of America, and not in the policy centers of Washington or New York, where the vast majority of such events are held.

Michael Kraig, director of Policy Analysis and Dialogue at the Stanley Foundation, spoke to the students about the lingering legacies of the Cold War in US foreign policy. Military spending, nuclear weapons, and regional security regimes were just some of the topics Kraig touched on.

Stanley Foundation program officer David Shorr presented “What Kind of Superpower Do We Want to Be?” The students were not short on answers to that question, but the general consensus was that they wanted the United States, more than anything, to live up to its own principles—to be a real exemplar of justice, democracy, human rights, environmental protection, and constructive diplomacy.

Later, the students gathered to watch Control Room, a provocative 2004 documentary about the role of the young Arab news channel Al Jazeera in covering the Iraq war and the centerpiece of the Stanley Foundation’s newest Now Showing event toolkit. The film’s sympathetic portrayal of the often-demonized channel and its staff took some students by surprise. Others, including some journalism students, lamented what they saw as a lack of media diversity and independence in the United States. Several students remarked that they felt they could no longer rely on domestic media outlets for reliable coverage of the Iraq war.

When the students left, they took with them copies of the U.S. in the World Guide, a guidebook for how to discuss international affairs with the American public . Most students remarked that they were looking forward to “bringing the world home” by holding events on their campuses in the near future.

“I really enjoyed the speakers, they were incredibly relevant to the topics that I am interested in and want to pursue in the future,” said Xian Zhang, a Drake University student. “I thought that the entire experience was worthwhile—everyone was genuinely outstanding and all of the activities we did were thought-provoking.”

— Una Hardester

This article was written by Una Hardester, a senior political analyst for Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) , a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization working to raise global awareness on more than 1,000 US university campuses and in more than ten countries. Her focus areas are international law and institutions, European affairs, and human rights.