It’s been 60 years since Algeria won freedom. The nation’s former ruler, France, is still struggling with its colonial legacy, national identity and values. Abdelkrim Sid, son of a “harki” who fought for France in Algeria, stands in a derelict...
Fewer than four decades ago, an emerging China joined its first Olympic Games. Like today, geopolitics loomed large at the Los Angeles event. Members of the Chinese Olympic team line up before the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, 28 July...
Neighbors Russia and Ukraine share a common history that looms over Europe’s deepest security crisis in decades. In this image released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on 2 February 2022, Russian soldiers attend military training at the Yurginsky...
Reminiscent of tensions during the Cold War, the Ukraine crisis represents the most serious East-West confrontation since the end of the Soviet Union. A Ukrainian guard patrols the border with Russia near Hoptivka village, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, 2 February 2022. (AP...
For a deeper dive into the history leading up to the war in Ukraine, consider this report from Daniel Warner, a political scientist, lecturer and expert in international organizations. While diplomatic negotiations have failed, the article provides an overview to decode historic ties between Russia and Ukraine, NATO’s actions, the potential impact on energy supply chains and thoughts on the future of the security architecture of international alliances.
Exercise: This article was written three weeks before the conflict began. Ask students to compare the theoretical discussion of conflict to what is happening in reality. What do they think was the tipping point for Russia to invade?
French voters may have their minds on other matters ahead of April’s election, but President Emmanuel Macron stands firmly for a strong Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, 19 January 2022 (Bertrans Guay,...
A year after supporters of ex-U.S. President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol Building, a young poet reflects on the American dream — or nightmare. A police officer stands on the steps of the U.S. Capitol before a prayer vigil marking the one-year anniversary of the...
Sanctions have been a foreign policy tool since ancient Greece. Nations are increasingly using sanctions, even if they fail more than they succeed. Afghan protesters demand the unfreezing of central banks assets abroad, in Kabul, Afghanistan, 2 January 2022....
The term “woke” is caught up in America’s divisive culture wars. Will citizens in other nations adopt the notion describing those alert to social injustice? A demonstrator holds a placard reading “I can’t breathe,” left, during a...
Social media memes are at the forefront of the latest form of passive resistance against China’s grinding work culture. “Lying flat” meme. I’m supposed to write a piece for News Decoder, but if I were a hip young Chinese, maybe I’d just “lie flat”...
So much reporting about China by Western journalists focuses on the Communist Party, human rights and economic growth, that it is refreshing to read an account by an “old China hand” that explores a quiet rebellion by Chinese youth expressed in purposefully ambiguous social media memes. Lying flat, touching a fish, being Buddha-like and saying “Whatever” sound innocuous enough, but they belie deep disenchantment among many young Chinese over “the relentlessness that has driven the economy to growth rates far faster than any developed country in the West,” as David Schlesinger puts it. Schlesinger’s account is all the more relevant as many young people outside China, fed up with COVID-19, are deserting the workaday world for a time out.
Exercise: Ask students to list their main grievances and what they can do about them.
Tibet’s many languages are under threat from Beijing’s policies and economic realities, putting cultural traditions and memories at risk. Tsupkhu Lama in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India in June 2019. (Photo by Li Keira Yin) This story won honorable...
Li Keira Yin of The Thacher School examines the difficulties that minority languages face surviving in Tibet without falling into the trap of concluding that it’s all the fault of the Communist Party leadership in Beijing when economic pressures in a globalized economy are part of the explanation. For her nuanced view, Yin draws from her unique perspective as someone raised in China who is studying in the United States. Her account of the complexities of language in Tibet started when Yin listened to her Chinese grandmother speak a dialect at home while speaking in Mandarin when picking up the phone. “I started wondering why dialects and minority languages have to be overpowered by Mandarin in China, and so I dug deeper,” Yin said. A lesson for other students struggling to understand how their lives fit into the bigger scheme of things.
Exercise: Ask students to discuss when it’s important for authorities to protect minority languages.