By Mark Warren

Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon on the Obama administration’s vision for Southeastern Europe

Southeastern Europe is home to a centuries-old tradition of instability and conflict, and it remains today one of the world’s most politically complex and fraught regions. The Balkan Peninsula, known for precipitating the First World War, is home to deeply rooted ethnic and nationalistic divisions that have been blamed for countless conflicts, from revolts against the once-ruling Ottomans to the more recent Bosnian War. Strong ethnic identities—geographically inconsistent with the constantly fluctuating political boundaries that are meant to separate them—prevent the nations of this region from breaking the cycle of international and internal instability.

It doesn’t take a foreign policy expert to explain that Southeastern Europe is a volatile region, but figuring out how to fix—or at least ameliorate—its predicament is another story. On February 17 (incidentally, the two-year anniversary of Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia), Dr. Philip H. Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, spoke at the Kennedy School of Government to explain the Obama administration’s plan for Southeastern Europe.

Dr. Gordon opened with an assurance that while the administration’s focus might appear to be elsewhere (there are still a couple of wars going on, after all), Southeastern Europe has not been forgotten. The European Union sees the region’s instability as a liability on the EU’s doorstep, and since American security and European security are linked, it is in both America’s and the EU’s interest to help the perpetually troubled region. One of the Obama administration’s main goals in dealing with the European Union, Gordon explained, is to “complete the project of bringing stability and democracy to all Europe,” which is so far “successful, but unfinished.”

But how does this ambitious project reach fruition in an area where the mismatch between geopolitical and ethnic boundaries seems to prevent any course of conflict resolution other than force? Gordon’s solution lies in political and economic integration into the broader European community: if the political boundaries become less important, it won’t matter as much where they lie. Force only leads to more force further down the road, but a venue for peaceful resolution of conflicts could end the cycle of conflict, and shared economic markets would take some of the pressure off of individual, competing nations. Furthermore, complete integration would make local politics—in this region basically synonymous with corruption—much less important, thus reducing the potential for conflict.

The means to this integration, Gordon claims, lies with the EU and NATO. Once these nations are allied militarily via NATO and integrated economically and politically through the EU (especially if borders are opened to permit easier travel between the nations), they should see the prosperity and growth experienced by the central and eastern European states that followed the same path after the Cold War.

Albania and Croatia are already members of NATO, and membership has been offered to other countries in the region, including Serbia. Croatia and Macedonia (pending the resolution of a dispute with Greece over the use of the name Macedonia) are currently candidates for EU membership, and other Balkan nations are working to meet the requirements for entry, though some (Bosnia, for example) appear to be having serious difficulties in doing so.

Gordon also strongly advocated (while stating for the record that it is solely a European decision) Turkey’s ascension to the EU, which he claimed would greatly help to stabilize the region. This is especially true if a natural gas pipeline can be built through Turkey to Southeastern Europe, as an alternative to the sole Russian pipeline. This would do much to neutralize the political clout accompanying Russia’s complete control of energy resources.

Essentially, Gordon claimed, while the ethnic, religious, and linguistic divisions in Southeastern Europe still exist, political and economic integration into European and trans-Atlantic institutions will alleviate these tensions. The burden for this lies with the EU—this is, after all, a European issue—and with Southeastern European leaders, whose participation in bringing their countries up to EU standards of democracy, law, human rights, and economic strength is crucial.

In theory, Gordon’s policy sounds good, but it might be more optimistic than realistic. Of course, it would be lovely if all the states in Southeastern Europe lifted themselves up to the EU’s entry standards (their economies bolstered, of course, by investment from Greece), agreed to cede a certain degree of sovereignty to join the EU, had the member nations unanimously accept them, and then seamlessly integrated themselves into the EU’s political and economic structures, opening their borders and making their international divisions obsolete.

Certainly, this is an excellent end result for Europe and the United States to try to effect—isn’t it nice when neighborliness and self-interest intersect?—but a less lofty goal might be more beneficial, though less utopic. A country-by-country approach to international and ethnic reconciliation in Southeastern Europe could be a more effective strategy. Nevertheless, one has to give credit for a plan as ambitious as the one being implemented now by the Obama administration and the EU.

If the plan posited by Gordon fails, the same problems that have existed in Southeastern Europe for centuries will remain. And with the Obama administration’s unveiling of new plans to put missile bases in Romania (along with the Moldavan breakaway region of Transnistria’s response of offering to host Russian Iskander missiles next door), global attention is shifting to this region of Europe and stability is as important as ever.

Even if the Balkan states and Turkey wind up in the EU, the potential for further problems exists. While the addition of these states would provide a unified Europe with more security, it could weaken the EU economically, especially at a time when Europe is still trying to recover from the global financial crisis.

By Branden Adams

Harvard’s announcement of plans to build the Allston science complex contained a variety of justifications for the construction. The first one was stated as a syllogism: “For Harvard to maintain its leadership in the life sciences and compete effectively to attract preeminent research scientists and programs, it is critical that a state-of-the-art science complex be developed as soon as possible.” This phrasing created a situation in which rejection of the construction project could be read as a simultaneous rejection of Harvard’s desire to “compete effectively” with other institutions. Such a technique is nothing new: the University’s planners, as well as its alumni development machine, have by now mastered the practice of accomplishing goals. And it works!

Developers, like those involved with the Allston project, want the public to believe that growth is natural without accepting that growth no longer may be necessary. It seems odd because we Harvardians imagine that Harvard is like an old man—wise and past the tremors of his youth. When Harvard’s Allston Development group tells the city of Boston that it is “critical” that Harvard do this, what exactly do they mean by “critical”? Is it the “critical” situation of a child who has outgrown his playpen?

The most significant quality of the Institutional Master Plan as presented to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) is the one that is implicitly elided: the past story of Harvard’s expansion in Cambridge. A re-telling of this story helps to elucidate how Harvard could claim that its demands were “critical” and thus force the city to allow Harvard to build as it pleases.

The story of Harvard’s expansion begins in the first years of the college’s existence. Starting in the area around Grays and Matthews, the college continued to fill in the current Old Yard. The current Tercentenary Theatre along Quincy Street once hosted professors’ mansions. It is perhaps these homes that Edward Johnson described in his 1654 description of the campus—a description that still carries meaning regarding Harvard’s land acquisition in Allston: “The scituation of this Colledg is very pleasant, at the end of a spacious plain,more like a bowling green, then a Wilderness, neer a fair navigable river, environed with many Neighbouring Towns of note, being so neer, that their houses joyn with her Suburbs, … it is atpresent inlarging by purchase of neighbour houses…”

Until the end of the nineteenth century, expansion continued north across Cambridge Street to the academic buildings that now house the Law School and the Divinity School as well as the cadre of chemistry, biology, geology, and other laboratories. In the early twentieth century, the University began additional development along both sides of the river, building the Stadium in the 1910s, the Business School in the 1920s, and several of the current undergraduate houses in the 1930s. More recently, the University continued to acquire parcels of land in between Massachusetts Avenue and Mount Auburn Street, as well as several plots closer to Brattle Street. Some were for institutional use; others were simply real estate holdings. Important recent growth was the construction of the twin buildings of the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS). Located on opposite sides of Cambridge Street, the two buildings, completed shortly after 2000, were the subject of a bitter dispute between the University and that sociological category referred to in newspapers as “local activists.” The fight was over a proposed tunnel that would connect the two CGIS buildings and would pass underneath Cambridge Street. The Harvard Crimson blamed a failure of communication for the demise of the tunnel project and predicted, as both the community and the university suffered from the failure to reach an agreement, that town and gown would work better together in the future.

This editorial, published in February 2003, might seem odd to the unacquainted for its unequivocal support of the tunnel project. But the language of the arguments doesn’t make sense to anyone unaware that there was supposed to be a tunnel there at some time in the past. This raises an interesting counterpoint to the Allston Development Group’s justification for Harvard’s expansion into Allston.

An article on the tunnel controversy in The Crimson, written more than a year before the tunnel’s eventual failure, states: “The center formerly known as Knafel came under fire again last night—this time for a tunnel crucial to its current design.”

Certainly, no one today would say that the tunnel is “crucial” to its current design.

In fact, if one did not know that there was supposed to be a tunnel there, then one could not even fathom making such a statement. We use CGIS and it works. None of the currently perceived drawbacks of the building–windowless lecture halls, the perfusion of granite, boring white drywall—are in any way related to the tunnel controversy. Yet the controversy was echoed in Allston, along the same lines and in the same language as the CGIS controversy. We begin to see how this notion of “crucial” gets emptied of its meaning when we consider the projects that the University considered “crucial” in the past.

The idea that a new Science Center is not crucial to the development of the university might seem impossible to the Allston Development Group. It would not be difficult to imagine similar discussions happening around every plan that the University has made.

This is not a question of Harvard’s standards; rather, it is about the construction of a certain kind of idea: that of absolutely necessity. If or when the new science complex is completed, those who use its spaces will not see it the way the developers do now. If it is not built, or is built according to a significantly reduced plan, new faculty who come to Harvard will not feel that they are perpetually slighted due to Harvard’s failure to fulfill its original development plan because the details of the original plan will become irrelevant.

By Oscar A. Zarate

- And you thought you were behind on your moral reasoning paper…

By Michaela Ross

Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series has certainly received a lot of criticism. It has been attacked for being sexist, “abstinence porn,” and just plain badly written. Many have commented on the negative impact of filling the minds of young women with the idea that sex is dangerous and scary, or that women should define their femininity through their vulnerability to their partners. The books unquestionably contain a troubling account of the ideal young romance.

But the truth is that much like the rap songs with vulgar lyrics we all sing along to, the books are catchy. They are fun to read. They have taken the nation by storm and have sold in record numbers. I am embarrassed to admit that not only have I read them, but they probably significantly reduced the number of friends I made during Freshman Week…I was too busy reading about Edward and Bella.Thus, I was very satisfied to come across The Harvard Lampoon’s Nightlight: A Parody, which keeps the entertainment and loses the unsettling undertones of the original series. In fact, Nightlight uses those disquieting elements as fodder for its comedy. In this 160-page satire of the first book in the Twilight series, the Lampoon turns the original book on its head in a way that makes for fun reading and a satisfying answer to the questionable aspects of Meyer’s original series.

The comedy begins with the premise. The original series tells the story of Bella, a high school girl, falling in love with Edward, a centuries old and very attractive vampire. In Nightlight, the young Belle forces herself upon a dorky young fellow human, Edwart, all the while harboring hopes of his secretly being a vampire. At every turn, Belle interprets his nerdy actions as signs of his deep desire to drink her blood.

Thus, it remains the story of a girl obsessed with being overtaken by a strong, potentially lethal man. Bella’s role in the original series was, as journalist Laura Miller writes, “…more of a place holder than a character. She is purposely made as featureless and ordinary as possible in order to render her a vacant, flexible skin into which the reader can insert herself and thereby vicariously enjoy Edward’s chilly charms.” This lack of any feature but vulnerability was one of the most unsettling aspects of the character of Bella in the original series. Nightlight, however, asks the reader to mock, rather than identify with, the protagonist and her desires to be dominated by a vampire. When first talking to Edwart, Belle writes, “I doodled a picture of what I’d look like as a vampire. I’d look very feminine.” This portrayal of femininity as only accessible solely through male domination is at the core of what readers found sexist in the original book. Yet here, the Lampoon uses Belle’s narrative to show just how silly that idea of femininity is. As the book progresses, it becomes increasingly clear to the reader that Edwart is not, in fact, a vampire. Yet, Belle persists in believing that he is.  Belle is turned into a caricature of Meyer’s original portrayal of womanhood, and thus makes for an amusing answer to the original series.

The entire debate over the original Twilight series provided insight into popular views on female sexuality in this country. Many argued that the books promoted an unhealthy image of love and sex for young girls. Yet, as Sady Doyle pointed out in the American Prospect, there are two sides to every story. While many have claimed that Twilight is a step back for feminism in this country, Doyle points out that similarly poorly written sexual fantasies exist in the works of Tom Clancy and Dan Brown, yet the media is not overly concerned. Rather, she argues, the responses to the Twilight series have been so vehement precisely because the books have provided what few others do: a non-threatening sexual fantasy world for young teenage girls, a group whose sexuality makes many people uncomfortable.

While Doyle does make a valid point about responses to the original Twilight series, Nightlight avoids this simply by choosing a different audience. Nightlight, unlike Twilight, isn’t meant for the tween girl set.  It is clearly targeted at college students and adults. The dorky, Harvard-y academic references add even more humor for the informed reader and mark another contrast between the parody and the original. Says Belle after one of her friends has a premonition (this book is filled with zany stuff like that): “Was that an omen? As far as I knew only vampires and girls who’d read the major works of Jane Austen had unique abilities. In any case…I tend toward diplomacy even in games such as Risk, decreeing a ceasefire for everyone by swiping the board off the table.” Belle is not meant to represent our deepest sexual urges. Rather, she is a silly character intended for an audience that recognizes the faults of the original series.

In the end, this book is probably not intended as a political statement. Rather, it is meant to be funny. And it is. The Lampoon does a great job of satirizing what was perhaps the most commonly noted flaw of the original series: its bad writing. The Lampoon makes the voice of Belle silly to the extreme, with odd metaphors and clunky wording.  For its humor alone, for vampires and humans alike, this book is worth a read.