[May 2011 Issue]
By Peter Gruskin
I had studied revolutions and the Middle East but never the two together, until I came to SAIS. This semester changed the landscape of the region—or was it the other way around? Powerful narratives have emerged, but of what doctrine or fate, I am still unsure. As my International Financial Markets course drilled into my head only weeks ago: randomness. Because the opposite doesn’t explain much. This certainly holds for the Middle East these days.
Trying to explain too much in one breath is a massive risk with non-commensurate reward, even at a policy school. We all rely on syllabi for grounding in reality but as events unfolded in the region this semester, we needed more than books and articles. The buzz around the TV in the lobby was bright. The response of expert faculty was rapid and bold. Students of other regions and functions all of a sudden cared about our turf. Hail the changes in the Middle East?, we humbly wondered. Among the student body, as of the day before Tunisia’s uprising, who among us knew Tunisia well beside the professors?
To be sure, we were all equally stunned. It’s amazing how much learning goes on at a school like this outside of the pages of standard history—whatever that is. All to its credit! The recognition of mankind’s inability to accurately see the future is often lost in Washington, but it was dropped in front of us like a grand piano out of a high-rise on more than one occasion this semester.
When Egypt hit, I suppose we knew considerably more about the place: Nasser, a U.S.-brokered peace deal which led to the assassination of Sadaat, Cold War rapprochement with the West, then Mubarak’s dictatorship. I had fatefully read my first Middle Eastern novel about the brutality of life in Egypt just last fall in another Middle East studies course, Politics and Literature. Fortunately for spell-bound students of the world, such stories never end.
A plug for events in the Middle East Studies Program and SAIS more generally:
Lunch-ins with famous scholars and practicioners are a regular occurrence in Middle East Studies Program, and all students are welcome to attend. The plethora of talks and conferences hosted by the other departments at SAIS in any given week is astounding too if you compile them (sais-jhu.edu/events). The SAIS administration sends out a weekly synopsis from “dc.linktank.com” which summarizes everything that’s happening in Washington during the week relating to international relations, policy (divided into all its million subsections), domestic and international economics, human rights, security studies, etc.
Monetary economics, revolutions in the Middle East, development, every war and struggle on earth, the future of China, private equity in frontier states—this is just a random sampling of the multitude of subjects, all with their concomitant cadre of experts, that the SAIS student has access to morning, noon, and sometimes night. You really could stay between 16th and 19th Streets and catch a great lecture and lunch, if not both for free, almost anytime of the day, every single day. Dinners on the other hand, you can count on paying for.
Peter is a second-year M.A. candidate concentrating in Middle East Studies and and International Finance.
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