Harold Hongju Koh
Unlike most of you, I have spent the past few years far from the
halls of academe, in the tumultuous and often grim world of US foreign policy.
Days that I ordinarily would have spent writing and teaching, I have spent
instead visiting refugee camps, consoling political prisoners and families of
the disappeared, and fighting endless diplomatic and bureaucratic battles. From
this different vantage point, I was touched to read of the noble and
inspirational purposes of this Academy: "to cultivate every art and
science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness
of a free, independent, and virtuous people." I emphasize the word free
because a tre-mendous challenge to this institution in the new millennium will
be guiding the process of globalization-not just the obvious globalization of
ideas, finance, commerce, and technology that already preoccupies so much of
the Academy, but also the globalization of human freedom, which to my mind
marks the most profound social revolution of our time.
Only three decades ago there were fewer than thirty democracies in the world.
Today some 120 of the world's 190-plus countries qualify, in form if not in
substance, as governments with stated commitments to the preservation of
freedom and democratic self-governance. Yet every day, in dealing with
governments that nominally embrace the democratic path, I find that freedom has
proved to be a distinctly double-edged sword for most of the world's peoples.
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| New Fellow Glenn Loury with Development
Committee Cochair Robert Alberty |
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On the one hand, the collapse of the iron curtain, the decline of
dictatorship across Latin America, the rise of African continental awareness,
and the retreat on Asian values have left millions newly free to vote, to form
political parties, to march in the streets, and to express their most primal
and heartfelt desires. On the other hand, the lifting of governmental controls
has also unleashed for millions the "freedom" to be victims of
corruption and has led to increased trafficking in drugs and human beings, the
spread of disease and environmental damage, and the most terrifying forms of
terrorism, ethnic and communal violence.
In just the past few days, through the miracle of the global media, we have
witnessed again these two faces of the globalization of freedom. From our own
living rooms we have simultaneously watched both at work: on the one hand, the
extraordinary lust of the Serbian people for self-government; on the other, the
tragic downward spiral of retaliatory violence in the Middle East. And even as
we marvel at Kim Dae Jung's Nobel Prize and contemplate the end of more than
half a century of division in my parents' homeland, we must wonder as well-as
the thirty-eighth parallel recedes from political prominence-which face of
global freedom will ultimately emerge on that peninsula.
To guide this headlong rush to global freedom, what role do we in the
Academy-particularly those of us in the social sciences-have to play? My time
in the government has confirmed my worst fears: that in the world of foreign
policy, those with influence have too little time to think, and those with time
to think have too little influence. To be sure, part of the blame properly
falls on the bureaucrats and the politicians-but much, I fear, falls on us as
well. Too often we speak only to safe audiences, to one another, or to our
students, in lecture halls far from the refugee camps, in books and journals
whose readership we already know intimately, and at academic conferences in
serene places far from the misery whose alleviation is ostensibly the object of
our scholarly inquiry. Too rarely do we speak directly and bluntly to the
policymakers who are actively seeking answers to the world's most vexing
problems, but who lack the energy or time to find the best answers or to seek
us out. The irony is this: our commitment to truth and our insulation from
politics give us unique freedom and independence to speak truth to power, but
the hard-won privilege of choosing our audiences may lead us unwittingly to
squander that freedom in the name of not getting our hands dirty.
When the cold war ended, the academic community built an impressive array of
nongovernmental institutions to help educate newly free peoples on the
responsibilities and opportunities posed by their newfound freedom. University
centers, research institutes, and entire schools were built to advance the
study of democracy. Those institutions have made outstanding contributions, and
the need for individuals committed to their mission has only accelerated in the
past few years. As members of an august body dedicated not just to the
advancement of knowledge and the truth but also, more fundamentally, to the
promotion of human freedom and human happiness, we collectively have so much
yet to give. This institution has devoted more than two centuries to the
building of a free and independent people. Perhaps we can use this occasion to
recommit ourselves to the task of using our privileged position to teach others
how to build and perpetuate their new and frightening freedom through the
construction of wise restraints, the teaching of cultural understanding and
tolerance, the development of self-sustaining social, political, and economic
institutions, and the acceptance of human dignity and human rights as genuinely
universal values.
Back to the Winter 2001 Bulletin
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