[news] Prof. Raymond K. Kent: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE Condeleezza Rice

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AN OPEN LETTER TO                                                          THE  U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE                                                                        R.K.Kent, Historian  Condeleezza  Rice, Secretary of State, State Department, Washington, D.C.                                                                                                              10 June 2005 Dear Secretary of State (and former Colleague at  Stanford) In December of 1992, I sent a 19-page memo to Your Predecessor Warren Christopher. Although the rest of the memo focused specifically on Yugoslavia, its Preamble did not. I take the liberty of reproducing it herewith:             “We are now the sole remaining super-power. What we do or fail to do in the immediate future will undoubtedly have some lasting consequences. We might be able to arrive at some sort of benign Pax  Americana not only among the formal states but also within them. On the other hand, our New World Order bears an almost uncanny resemblance to the Nineteenth-century Mission Civilizatrice; and we could thus become the most hated nation in the world without really resolving any of the more serious internal conflicts. Where the Communists repressed nationalisms, leaving them to smolder, we could easily encourage their most irrational components by taking local sides. This is hard to avoid, as will be illustrated in the case of Yugoslavia. Yet, it is absolutely essential that we learn to master and control our own behavior in such situations. Our failure to do so could lead to simultaneous  nationalist explosions in so many areas that a global conflict will creep-up on everyone. Any sense of our own immunity from sustained hate and deadly vengeance is apt to run into a novel reality. Relatively minor  nationalist  groups, with access to portable biological and chemical weapons, could become a monumental threat to us by targeting the American population centers. It is clear that we cannot hide from the world’s problems  through  Isolationism. No American would wish our country to be widely hated because of its inept entries into local conflicts. If isolationist perceptions are  incompatible with the status of a super-power and if an acceptable Pax Americana is to prevail, we must do three fundamental things. One is to learn in-depth local histories in order to find the context of each conflict and come to understand the mentalities of nationalisms we must deal with. The second comes in two parts. We need a really tough law barring our Congressional Representatives from lobbying  AGAINST  particular ethnicities around the globe. At the same time, we should not allow our media to stampede our government into military actions. Objective and dispassionate journalism is steadily losing ground to journalistic advocacy, probably the  most shallow enterprise at the moment. Thirdly, with sophisticated knowledge of local histories we should be able to appeal to the positive aspects of  each  nationalism. Calls for Democracy  and  free markets alone are not enough to end local conflicts and may even make them more intractable.” Warren Christopher is a person of exceptional civility. He never even acknowledged what turns out to be a prophetic statement with concrete ideas that no one heeded some thirteen years ago or almost a decade before 9/11. I should tell you that I am an American of Serb origin who has spent his professional years in reconstructing the   hitherto   denied   History of Africa, which I taught to both undergraduates and graduate students at Cal for some 25 years. I went into this as yet uncharted field because of a personal revolt. As  an  angry young  man, in the Fifties, I could not accept the obvious inferiority assigned to Americans of African ancestry, people without ancestors and hence without a past. As others marched for their civil rights and liberties I decided to work without stop to return the ancestors to where they belong and thus restore dignity to fellow-humans. Yes, and I was influenced by Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, after a lengthy interview with David Susskind, in which he brought out the subject of African History, not very long before his assassination. I bring this biographical note not to ingratiate myself to you. My career is over (I am 75). I seek no position, no glory, no remunerations, not even a simple acknowledgement that you took the time to read enclosed text. It is entitled “Poisonous Trees and Decaying Forest – The Civilized World and anti-Serb Racism.” It runs into 32 single-spaced pages and has a  number  of  typos due to  poor vision. But, I do hope that, this time around, my Government will think about what I am saying instead of filing the pages into oblivion. I conclude by adding  that I have voted more for Republicans than for Democrats but foreign policy is for this writer the acid test as to whom my ballot will go in the next Presidential election.                                                                                                      Respectfully,                                                                                                     Raymond K. Kent, Emeritus, History Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA. 94720 (510/642-1971)