Sao Lao

Here are the photos from the inside of Leiden Law School that I took a few weeks ago. The classrooms are very nice because one wall is facing the library and a part of the ceiling has a sunroof for the light to shine in. I wanted to go inside the library and take some photos but there is no camera allowed and I only took a photo through a glass wall.

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Some photos I took on April 10, 2008 after a special lecture I attended for Latin American Politics Seminar. Leiden Law School is located only a few minutes from the botanical garden and from the main Church. The building is a blend of traditional and modern architecture.

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On April 10, 2008, we were invited by the Honors Class to attend a special lecture at the Faculty of Law. I didn’t even know where the law building is at but have met many Chinese students from that faculty at the beginning of the year during the registration process. After searching on Google map I found the location of the faculty of law which is only a few meters from the international office. Below are some photos from the university website of Leiden University Faculty of Law. I particularly like the photos of the library with rows of computers for the students and the sun roof.

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On April 03, 2008 I had an early class at 9:00 AM. That means I had to catch the 7:00 AM train to Leiden. I was fortunate to have found an empty seat for that morning. It beats standing for almost an hour journey to school. At least I can just read and eat my breakfast while sitting down.

By the time I got to school it was almost 8:30 hour and the lobby was quiet with only few souls walking around. This is my last seminar course and I can only miss one meeting so I have to do my best to keep up with the reading assignments as well as the weekly essays. Just a couple of months and this will all be over. I can’t wait to graduate finally!

On April 02, 2008 I had to go to Leiden University book store to find a book for my Government and Politics in Latin America course. This is the last seminar that I have to take before graduation. It was nice and sunny where I was so I didn’t take my umbrella with me. By the time I got off the train at Leiden Centraal Station the sun went a way as I was walking toward the book store, the rain started to come down. I didn’t mind and just kept walking in the rain and took some pictures and made a few clips for my blog later. It was good timing to be there because I found out they have a city market at the center of the town. They didn’t have the book that I needed in stock so I went shopping afterward for Asian goodies.

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In addition to reading Kagan’s book, we were randomly assigned a book to read. For my assignment, I had to read Allies: The U.S., Britain, and Europe in the Aftermath of the Iraq War by William Shawcross. Since we don’t read just for fun, our task was to make a presentation of the assigned reading (summary and suggestions for further research). I was happy to be given this book because it provided me with more understanding of the current situation in Iraq.

Allies: The U.S., Britain, and Europe in the Aftermath of the Iraq War by William Shawcross starts out by depicting the Arab world through the Arab Development report created by the United Nations Development Programme in 2002. The report delivers a grim outlook on the Arab world from a social, economical and political perspective.

The combined gross domestic product of all Arab countries combined in 1999 was less than that of Spain. Productivity is declining, wages are down and with the current trend it will take the average Arab 140 years to double his income. Unemployment is high and many Arabs live in poverty, about one fifth is living on less than $2 per day. The report also concluded that out of the seven regions of the world, the Arab region had the least freedoms of all.

The report attributed much of these problems to the lack of good governance of Arab countries. One of the most prominent countries with such problematic governance was, of course, Iraq. Ruled by one of the most ruthless dictators the world ever has witnessed and rising through the Baath Party apparatus, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq in 1979.

After a long and bloody war with Iran, Hussein attempted to annex ate its smaller neighbor Kuwait which was the direct cause for retaliation of the US-led Coalition in 1991: Operation Desert Storm. Desert Storm was won swiftly but Saddam’s military rule was ultimately not overthrown, not through external forces and neither did an internal revolt of Kurds and Shiite cause this regime to topple.

After the cease-fire, the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) was created to inspect Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) of which he proved little hesitations to actually implement them on his enemies within Iraq and Iran. However, these inspections led to a persistent prevarication, obfuscation and harassment of UNSCOM personnel. After 1998, the UN inspectors were not allowed to return to Iraq for four years which was unacceptable to the world community. Inspections could no longer deal with the long-term threat posed by Saddam’s regime that apparently was determined to defy the world.

The Clinton Administration had decided to leave Saddam “in his box”, a policy of containment, and continued to pressure the regime through economic sanctions which turned out to be ineffective in the long run. Saddam resistance defied the world, weakened the United Nations and the international rules of law. The UN’s inability to force permanent compliance by Iraq through disarmament and monitoring measures led to the case of regime removal. The end of Saddam’s regime also demarcated a significant change in the transatlantic relationship within the coalition of the West.

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During our Christmas break we had to read two books as an introduction to the International Relations (International Politics) MA Thesis. One book was assigned to the entire group and that was Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order , written by Robert Kagan. We were required to write 2-3 pages summary of the book, including criticisms and suggestions for further research. It was a good way to start Christmas vacation.

Of Paradise and Power: American and Europe in the New World Order Summary

Americans and Europeans no longer share a common understanding of the world. Basically, Americans are mired in an anarchic Hobbesian world while Europeans are entering the postmodern paradise of Immanuel Kant’s perpetual peace. Kagan argues that America and Europe are divided by a gap of power and ideology that are self-reinforcing. One of the causes for that is the decline of military power in Europe.

The early promise of a “new Europe” was created through the European Union after bonding together into a single political and economic unit with the treaty of Maastricht in 1992. During that time it was widely believed that Europe would be the next superpower in economic, political and military terms.

However, the “new Europe” did not fulfill its promise. In economic and political terms the achievements of Europe were high. However, Europeans discovered that economic power did not necessarily translate into strategic and geopolitical power. The Balkan conflict in the 1990s revealed European military incapacity and the unwillingness to deploy decisive force into regions beyond the European continent.

Kagan posits the question why Europe hasn’t fulfilled the promise of the European Union in foreign and defense policy away from US dominance. The answer lies in the realm of ideology and European attitudes not only towards military spending but towards power itself. Europeans have developed a genuinely different perspective on the role of power in international relations. This perspective stems directly from post WWII experiences where power politics, which has brought such misery upon European people over the past century and more, was rejected.

Military, Europe is much weaker than the US. This weakness has produced a powerful European interest in building a world where hard power and military power matter less than soft power and economic power. Europe is seeking an international order where international order and law and international institutions matter more than individual nations. The “brutal laws” of an anarchistic Hobbesian world where power is the ultimate determinant of national security ad success is simply not congruent with the new European style of politics.

For Europeans, ideals and interests converge in a world governed according to the principles of multilateralism. Europe exercises an emphasis on negotiation, diplomacy, commercial ties, on international law over the use of force, on seduction over coercion and on multilateralism over unilateralism. However, after the post Cold War era, the US was becoming more unilateral in its approach contrary to Europeans who sought to build a more comprehensive international legal system in order to avoid such unilateralism.

To Europe, the power of the US and its willingness to use this power, unilaterally if necessary is considered a threat to Europe’s new sense of mission. Americans believe that their power politics made it possible for Europe to think that power was no longer important. US military power has solved the “German Problem” and allows Europeans today to think that US military power is outmoded and dangerous.

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Last Friday I was in a panic mode because there was a problem with the train between Rotterdam and Den Haag. There was no train going in that direction for awhile and I would have to take a different route and then come back around to Den Haag. But after a few minutes everything was back to normal, well not really since the schedule was +50 minutes so almost an hour behind schedule. I found a stop train to Den Haag and then got on it, then on the other side of the platform I saw a fast train to Amsterdam coming to a full stop. I had to make a decision and figuring out which train will get me there faster and whether or not the fast train will actually leave in a few minutes. In the end I fought the crowd to get off the train and went for the fast one.

I made it to school on time and had a couple of extra minutes since I didn’t have to walk to the main Faculty of Social Science building and had a class on a newly built structure that reminds me of a school building in Laos but more modern. This building gave me an inspiration of how I can build something like this in Laos.

I was in a hurry to get home and forgot to buy a couple of Vietnamese egg rolls across the street from the train station. You can see the egg rolls stand in the last picture above with that white trailer at the bottom. After all these years I still have not bought one egg roll from the friendly lady. She smiles at me every time she sees me. Next week I will buy some egg rolls from her.

I woke up this morning and saw Dallas’ post in the chatbox at Laovoices.com about the shooting at Northern Illinois in De Kalb. According to the news report, 6 people have died in the shooting (5 students and including the gunman). I have been to NIU in the spring of 2005 for the First International Conference on Lao Studies. It’s a small and quiet town and a place that I couldn’t imagine an incident like this could take place there. The timing of the event on Valentine’s Day has given us a hint on the state of mind of the gunman. What kind of a world are we living in? You are not even safe in your own classroom. My heart goes out to the friends and families of the deceased students.

BBC News coverage of the shooting.

Part 1

Part 2

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I’ve been back to school for a week now. The first day of class Johan took me to school. Then I got a nice surprise with the road being blocked on the way into Leiden. We had to go up to the next exit and did a turn around. Funny how there was only like a couple of minutes that could have made a difference.

They must have opened up the road right after they tolled this car away. I was just happy to be able to made to school on time. Didn’t want to be late on the first day you know.