11 July 2009

The week in comments

This week featured strong talks and we've found some equally strong comments to go with them. From touching reactions on Sophal Ear's escape with his family from the Khmer Rouge to amazement at Kary Mullis' strikingly deft cure for killer infections and appreciation for Eames Demetrios' sentimental portrait of his legendary designer grandparents. Here they are:

On Tom Wujec's talk: 3 ways the brain creates meaning:
awesome!..what's not to like?..this is breakthrough education with a soul!..and it's cool! BRAVO -- Chand via facebook

On Sophal Ear's talk: Escaping the Khmer Rouge:
didn't really grip me until the end - then tears actually came to my eyes. Great talk. -- Howard via facebook

A very moving personal story told with much sincerity and honesty. -- Somboun via facebook

On Kary Mullis' talk: A next-gen cure for killer infections:
A brilliant idea, well explained in less than 5 minutes. -- Rick

Medical students' ears should be ringing with excitement and new opportunities now, thanks to Mullis' discovery. This is too cool! -- Jason

On Eames Demetrios' talk: The design genius of Charles and Ray Eames:
Eames Demetrios is a great evangelist for his grandparents as well as for today's design process. He's right that design is no longer only for designers. Watch this vid if you can. -- Nate via facebook

I just had a designorgasm! -- minusfive via Twitter

Powerful stuff people, keep it coming.

Posted by Mischa Nachtigal | Permalink

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09 July 2009

Q&A with Sophal Ear: From refugee stories to international policies

In yesterday's TEDTalk, development economist and political scientist Sophal Ear shared the deeply personal story of his family's escape from the Khmer Rouge. In today's interview with the TED Blog, he continues that story and gives us details on his current path in international aid policy.

Your mother cleverly pretended to be Vietnamese to escape the Khmer Rouge, but how did your family continue to survive after reaching Vietnam?

Yes, you see, just getting to Vietnam we weren’t off the hook. The Vietnamese required that people who had returned from Cambodia be picked up by their relatives, or they would be sent to “kinh tế mới” (New Economic Life) -- which was essentially hard-labor, working in agriculture.

My aunt, my mother’s sister, was married to a Vietnamese man and living in Vietnam. Somehow, my mother got to the market and managed to meet a friend who then got word to her sister that we had arrived in Vietnam. It was a completely random occurrence. Her sister’s husband managed -- I think he must have bribed his way through -- to get us in the middle of the night from where we were detained. Then we went to Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, where we spent one and a half years before we got out.

There was no way to get to the US, where my mother had another sister living in California. We redeclared ourselves as Cambodian, and as we were not Vietnamese there was suddenly no problem with letting us leave. They wanted us out! My mother had a nephew in France who was a university student. He was really poor, just a starving student. And, he had to somehow figure out a way to get us all there. My aunt in the US sent him some money. Then, he happened to meet a French gentleman who, for some unknown reason, decided that he wanted to help. This gentleman went to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find out what could be done. He then found a lady whose last name was the same as my mother’s, and convinced her to sign paperwork claiming familial ties.

Now, keep in my mind that through all of this my mother has five kids with her, and two of them she hadn’t given birth to. One was my half-sibling and another is an adopted daughter. When this opportunity came about, people offered her money left and right to switch their children with hers. She could have compromised her principles, she needed the money. But, she didn’t.

We all managed to make it to France by ’78. We were only supposed to be staying there temporarily. But, for some reason, my mother just decides that she’s had enough and we’re going to stay put indefinitely. It ended up being seven years before we moved to the US, to California. That’s when I started seventh grade as an American kid.

My mother struggled so much, sacrificed so much, and by doing so she allowed all the kids to pursue their dreams. And our story, it’s about the kindness of strangers, about people taking critical actions at critical points. It’s not Schindler’s List, but just five siblings who were able to succeed despite difficult circumstances.

Can you speak a little more to the value of civil complaints like the one you filed about your father?

I feel that the tribunal as it’s currently set up at least allows for civil complaints, which I think is important, but I’ve been a skeptic. It’s deeply troubled. I’m not trying to be an advocate for the tribunal itself. I don’t want to lend credibility to a process by sanctifying the tribunal in some way. I have to accept that it’s deeply troubled -- with corruption and such. In 2002, I wrote to The New York Times and praised the UN for pulling out of discussions with the authorities, as the UN was clearly being manipulated.

For me, the complaint is really about justice for the past accountability for the future. If you have a situation where nearly two million people die and no-one is held to account, then it can happen again. Impunity is a problem in Cambodia. If you’ve got power and money, then nothing can happen to you. As a victim -- and I hate to call myself that -- but, this could be a step towards holding those who are responsible to account.

Also, although some in the international community consider the state of affairs in Cambodia to be disagreeable, they don’t see what’s happening now as unacceptable because if you’re better than the Khmer Rouge, then you’re OK. Many current political leaders are, let’s face it, former Khmer Rouge lower-ranking cadres. Obviously, there are issues of reconciliation and governance when some of your own people caused this.

But, at least, I can put it on record that my father passed away and that it was as a result of the conditions he was subjected to.

Today you work on post-conflict reconstruction and development. How much of what you do today has been influenced by the events of your childhood and your experiences? Did you always want to do this?

I grew up as a refugee. My experience has been very different from that of people who haven’t. I’ve traveled and lived around the world. It’s shaped my view of my responsibility to others. I feel like I have a responsibility to help other people in conflict situations.

I went back to Cambodia in 1996. I was riding around in a cyclo, which is essentially a rickshaw, and being led by this young boy who was about my age at the time. I couldn’t help thinking, “If I had stayed here, if my family hadn’t been able to escape, I would have been him.” I’ve been very lucky.

And, because I was a refugee in France, I speak fluent French. People think that I’ve had a privileged childhood because of my languages and my traveling. But, no, I haven’t. And as a result of all this, I was able to work for The World Bank as my first job coming out of Princeton. There, because of my French, I ended-up working on Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

You’ve spoken to your family’s achievements, but you’ve achieved quite a lot in your own right. Could you tell us about your personal journey as a young man?

I think I was very lucky. Just as we talked about those refugee stories and how random those things can be, that’s how my life continued. As a kid, I was going to school in the Bay Area and so I knew, of the universities around, I needed to go to Berkeley. Now, when I came to the US, I was placed in seventh grade at 10, so that I was at Berkeley at 16. And the opportunities were all very rich.

I got to Princeton because I saw a flyer on the Berkeley campus for a public policy program at Princeton. I decided to apply because, naively, I wanted to see New York. I had this idea that Princeton was much nearer the city than it is! Anyway, I was accepted and I went.

Then, I ended up at Princeton doing my Masters, and while I was there I remember being asked what I wanted to do. I said that I wanted to be a governor at the World Bank, and I didn’t realize then that I would first have to be the Finance Minister of a country in order to be a governor. And then, my first day out of Princeton, I did a phone interview for a job with the World Bank and I became a consultant for something called social protection -- I didn’t even know what that was at the time. I do now!

On July 1, 1997, I was in DC and started work at the World Bank. Social protection turned out to be, essentially, international welfare policy. I had grown up on welfare, so now to be working on these policies was simply amazing.

But then, what do I do next? I was 25, I had all this experience, but I really looked like I was still a kid. I decided to do a PhD. I ended up working on a dissertation that explored aid dependence and governance. You see, I discovered at the World Bank that things were not working quite the way they were supposed to. It was at the point where religious organizations were promoting debt forgiveness because countries simply could not repay their debts.

I’ve really been lucky. It’s been a series of random occurrences. I could not have imagined all that has happened to me. To work at the World Bank, to get to work on Cambodia, to think that my country of origin could benefit from what I’m doing is amazing. Now, I feel that I’ve had some impact on the issues around Cambodian development. I’m glad that at a critical point I could make a difference.

READ MORE: Sophal discusses what he learned in his time at the World Bank, a new perspective on the global recession, academic apologists for the Khmer Rouge and the effects of foreign aid on developing countries.

Posted by Shanna Carpenter | Permalink

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