The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University presented their annual Ideas Exchange event last Thursday, April 14. — Photo by Sal Ghamo

By Sal Ghamo

On Thursday, April 14, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University presented their annual TED-type event known as The Fletcher Ideas Exchange. An eclectic group of individuals, that included students and faculty, shared years of their own personal research in regards to human security, peace building, and inclusion.

The event kicked off with Eileen Babbitt who began the discussion with Human Security, Legitimacy, and Inclusion. Human security became the salient point of conversation because it acts as the foundation for our perceptions of government and the way our society operates. While we’d like to believe that Human Security is primarily defined as protection of individuals and communities from physical or psychological harm, there’s also the more expansive definition that can be expounded as the promotion and reliance of well-being.

Essentially, human security is about both negative peace (the absence of violence) and also positive peace (societies and institutions that promote equity, dignity, and well-being). Fletcher incorporates these ideas by using human security to draw on fields such as conflict resolution, human rights, as well as humanitarian assistance and development.

This understanding of human security did well to augment our concept of what it actually is and how it affects us. It also functioned as a good segue into legitimacy. It was interesting to see how legitimacy is a goal that we as people would like to foster. The question then becomes, what are the relationships between enhanced human security and legitimacy?

The take away here is that the more inclusion there is with the state and people the more legitimacy is improved, even though politicians will only consider inclusion if it is expected to improve legitimacy. This strategic move, which of course needs more research before it can be considered 100 percent accurate, suggests that legitimacy is not a certain quality but is instead a subjective notion.

Following Babbitt’s introduction there was a video concerning legitimacy that unfortunately stated that there is no simple relationship between providing people with basic services and their perception on the legitimacy of their government. People receiving services don’t care about who’s delivering their services, they are more concerned with the quality of them. At local and central levels, individuals who receive poor services will have a negative perception of government. High quality services, transparency, and good relations between people and the state will result in a better perception of government legitimacy.

The next speaker was Ian Johnstone, who served in the Executive Office as the Secretary-General of United Nations. Mr. Johnstone talked briefly about the UN Peace Operations. The UN peace keeping brand has been under extreme scrutiny in the past and is experiencing one of its worst critiques ever. Host governments are asking peacekeepers to leave, local populations are throwing rocks at UN vehicles, and violent extremists are bombing UN compounds. Mr. Johnstone talked about how UN peace operations have become more ambitious, in accordance with, their mission to help transform societies. This means getting at the root causes of internal conflict. That entails disarming x-combatants, it means monitoring human rights and conducting elections, and it also means helping to rebuild security, justice, and political institutions.

Today we have scholars who are considering the UN peacekeeping operations to be a failure, but Mr. Johnstone pushed the idea that we as people need to be aware of the relationship between legitimacy and government. Legitimacy has nothing to do with objective standards, but it is about perceptions and beliefs. That is the UN’s biggest obstacle today. Local people don’t believe in the mission, not because operations are not being carried out in a professional manner, but instead because there is no consultation between local representatives in communities. It seems to be that inclusion is of crucial importance in terms of legitimacy and the struggle for peace.

Samantha Karlin, the next speaker, highlighted the plight of victims of rape. Women who become pregnant because of rape have nowhere to go for help. In El Salvador women are being put in prison for having illegal abortions. The prison sentence for rape, which few are convicted of, is 6 to 8 years, whereas the sentence for an illegal abortion can be up to 40 years.

A victim of rape can’t even go to the authorities to single out the perpetrator, because she’s terrified that the perpetrator will go to authorities and she will be put in prison instead. 47,000 women per year die from illegal abortions, and the U.S. Helms Amendment actively prohibits women from accessing safe abortions. More restrictive abortion laws have not led to fewer abortions, but they have instead led to higher infant and maternal mortality.

The speaker following Ms. Karlin was Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, The Director of Infection Control and Medical Response at National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Boston University. Dr. Bhadelia explained the horrors of the ebola outbreak and how her experience in Sierra Leone brought the many realities of disease prevention and control to our attention.

Dr. Bhadelia emphasized that we as a people need to be more involved in the consistent investment of health care, especially during outbreaks of dangerous pathogens. There were only two laboratories for ebola treatment in the entire country of Sierra Leone. She stressed that we need to create better platforms for collaboration. A goal like that will result in a more efficient system free of corruption.

Alex de Waal, The Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation and a respected scholar, shared a video with everyone. The subject of the video concerned helping post war countries transform and reform their security sectors. Student speaker Sophia Dawkins followed up the video with her discussion about peace processes. Dawkins spoke of the research she collected running diplomacy activities in South Sudan, as well as the precedents set by crooked governments signing illegitimate peace treaties. Her research looks at when mediation can make a difference, and she also looks at the value of written agreements.

Professor Diana Chigas, who has been with The Fletcher School since 2003, is in the field of international conflict management and negotiation. Professor Chigas talked about corruption and what can be done to fight it. There is no easy solution to the corruption, according to Chigas, so instead just being knowledgeable about certain situations make it easier to conduct research and work towards a better future. She stressed that we need to start to understand the role political leaders have in corruption so we can do more than just swing in the dark.

The next speaker was Sarah Hearn from The New York University Center on International Cooperation who talked about poverty in fragile states.

The final speaker at The Fletcher Ideas Exchange was Basma Alloush, who is currently a student at Fletcher studying the art of communication. Alloush is from Syria, has traversed around the world, and has come a long way traveling down a road of introspection.

As a Syrian, Alloush lived in constant fear. She felt as though she was a hostage, living in silence and forgetting what it was like to be free. She was unable to share her thoughts or feelings out of the fear that there were people waiting in the shadows to catch someone with enough bravery to share their ideas. In April of 2011, Alloush participated in her first protest against corruption in Syria. She explained how in the media she is depicted as vulnerable and helpless, a refugee in the U.S. who can never return to Syria, but they could not be more wrong. Alloush is liberated, and as a Syrian she is now free.

Alloush took some time to talk briefly with The Somerville Times about her experience: “Initially, like I mentioned, I was really nervous to speak out against the government because I had a lot of family members and my parents actually lived in Syria at the time. But after 2012, a few months after my first time protesting, they left. They came here to the U.S.,” Alloush stated.