Sameer Arshad Khatlani - Guru Nanak: Guiding Light As Bigotry Becomes Order Of Day
Dear all,
Gurpurab is being celebrated today to commemorate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, whose relevance has grown more than ever. Guru Nanak preached against religious prejudices and founded Sikhism as a monotheistic religion and a synthesis between Islam and Hinduism.
Guru Nanak’s relevance has grown more than ever before as he preached against religious prejudices and founded Sikhism as a monotheistic religion and a synthesis between Islam and Hinduism.
In August 2019, tensions escalated between India and Pakistan when New Delhi stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status to take full control of the Himalayan region. The two countries have claimed the region in full since the end of British colonial rule in 1947 and fought four wars over it.
Islamabad reacted to the change in the Muslim-majority region’s constitutional status. It downgraded diplomatic ties with India amid a lockdown and a communications blackout in Kashmir to prevent protests over the sweeping changes and restrictions.
The ties between the two countries deteriorated months after they were on the verge of another war. Islamabad retaliated against an Indian airstrike in Pakistan following a car bomb attack in Jammu and Kashmir‘s Pulwama in February 2019.
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Meanwhile, the construction of a corridor to provide visa-free access for Indian pilgrims to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib built at the last resting place of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, in Pakistan continued unhindered. It was finished and inaugurated within a year ahead of Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary in November 2019.
Common Ground
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, participated in the inauguration ceremonies of the corridor on either side of the border as the two countries found a rare common ground amid fraught relations.
Guru Nanak remained a unifier even as ties between India and Pakistan were at their lowest ebb. High-ranking officials of the two countries, who had been avoiding each other like the plague, rubbed shoulders with each other at the inauguration of the corridor on the premises of the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib on the Pakistani side.
Centuries after he passed away, Guru Nanak remained a uniter. Nothing symbolises it more than the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib. The gurdwara stands at the place where Hindus and Muslims are believed to have found flowers under a white sheet when they arrived for Nanak’s last rites.
Muslims buried a part of the sheet and flowers and built a mausoleum in Nanak’s memory. Hindus put their share in an urn and interred it. Both communities revered Guru Nanak equally. Guru Nanak’s relevance has grown more than ever before as he preached against religious prejudices. He founded Sikhism as a monotheistic religion and a synthesis between Islam and Hinduism.
Torn Apart
The composite culture Guru Nanak contributed significantly to is being torn apart with Muslims at the receiving end of bigotry passed off as nationalism for their erasure with full state patronage. Guru Nanak’s family was Hindu. But his association with Muslims was much deeper than is widely known. His teacher was a Muslim. He was the first to understand his spiritual prowess. The teacher called Guru Nanak a blessed and gifted child and attributed his superior intelligence to it.
Rai Bular, a Muslim landlord, was the one to prevail upon Nanak’s father and his employee, Mehta Kalu, to allow Guru Nanak’s otherworldly pursuits. While Guru Nanak wandered with holy men, Kalu wanted him to focus on his education. Bular was also the first to report miracles which indicated Nanak’s holiness.
Bular became Guru Nanak’s first devotee outside his family. He is said to have witnessed a hooded cobra shielding the Guru from the sun while he was sleeping under the open sky. Bular saw this as a sign of Nanak’s spiritualism. Bular also reported how the shade of a tree remained on Guru Nanak even when the position of the sun changed while he slept. He rushed to tell Kalu Nanak was an exalted person upon seeing this.
Bular was totally devoted to Guru Nanak and convinced Kalu that his son was a man of God. He dedicated much of his land to the Guru. Gurdwara Janam Asthan, which stands at the place of Nanak’s birth, and much of the city around it is located on the land Bular bequeathed to Sikhism’s founder.
Rai Hadayat, a 17th-generation descendant of Bular, led Guru Nanak’s 500th birth celebration. Bular’s family has continued a tradition of leading annual processions to celebrate Guru Nanak’s anniversaries in Nankana Sahib in what is now Pakistan.
Bular’s descendants are the custodians of the bequeathed land, whose revenues are spent on the welfare of the Sikh community and the maintenance of their places of worship in Nankana Sahib. Sikh emperor Maharaja Ranjit Singh bestowed the Rai Bahadur title on Bular’s descendant, Rai Issa Khan, a fellow Bhatti Rajput, and made him a revenue collector in recognition of his family’s contributions to Sikhism.
In May 2018, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which manages Sikh places of worship, acknowledged Bular’s ‘immense contribution’ to Sikh history and erected his portrait at Amritsar’s Central Sikh Museum. The SGPC unveiled another Muslim Nawab Rai Kahla’s portrait at the museum in July 2017 for sheltering Guru Nanak’s spiritual successor, Guru Gobind Singh, in 1705. Kahla ruled a small principality in Punjab when he offered Guru Gobind refuge in defiance of Mughal ruler Aurangzeb’s decree.
Guru Gobind gave Kahla a holy pitcher known as Ganga Sagar, which holds water despite its asymmetrical holes, and a sword as a token of gratitude. Kahla’s descendants have preserved the relic, which they took to Pakistan in 1947 after they were uprooted from the Indian side of Punjab at the time of the Partition in 1947. It has remained in the custody of Rai Azizullah Khan, a former Pakistani lawmaker, since 1975.
The courage Nawab Sher Mohammad Khan, the ruler of Malerkotla in what is now the Indian side of Punjab, showed in speaking out against the execution of Guru Gobind’s sons, Zorawar and Fateh, in 1705, ensured his kingdom remained untouched in 1947 when the subcontinent’s division triggered violence.
Centuries-old Coexistence
The violence left around a million dead and triggered a virtual exchange of populations between the Indian and Pakistani sides of Punjab. It damaged the centuries-old coexistence and continues to cast a long shadow.
But Malerkotla has remained untouched by the upheavals. It remained the Indian Punjab’s only Muslim pocket while the rest of the region was emptied of Muslims in 1947. Malerkotla continues to be an exception even amid the fresh wave of violence against Muslims thanks to what is seen as Guru Gobind’s blessings to Malerkotla.
Guru Gobind is believed to have blessed the nawab that ‘his roots shall forever remain green’ when he learnt about his stand against Zorawar and Fateh’s execution. Baba Bulleh Shah, a Muslim saint and direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, also spoke out against the Mughal highhandedness. He was a friend of the ninth Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur and hailed Tegh Bahadur as a ‘holy warrior’ when he was executed.
The saint earlier dissuaded the guru from seeking revenge on Muslims for Aurangzeb’s attitude towards the Sikhs. He followed in Guru Nanak’s footsteps and promoted inter-religious harmony. Nanak travelled to Arabia in the 16th century with his Muslim companion, Mardana, for inter-religious dialogue, which provided him with deep insights into Islam. In Baghdad, Guru Nanak stayed with a Muslim saint. A courtyard at the tomb of the saint in Baghdad commemorates Nanak’s stay in the city.
The Muslim descendants of Mardana, known as rubabis, performed kirtans or devotional songs at Amritsar’s Golden Temple for generations before partition ended the tradition. They began the practice at the instance of the ninth Sikh Guru Guru Tegh Bahadur as Mardana played a musical instrument called rubab as Guru Nanak sang his poetry.
Baptized Sikhs alone have since 1947 been doing kirtans as partition tore apart Punjab’s syncretic culture. But syncretism remains integral to Sikhism, whose scripture Guru Granth Sahib includes the writing of Muslims including Baba Farid.
Guru Arjan, who compiled the first edition of the scripture and had it installed in 1604 at the Golden Temple, is widely believed to have invited Mian Mir, a Muslim saint, to lay the shrine’s foundation in Amritsar. Muslim holy men such as Farid, whose picture adorns the entrance of Gurdwara Janamasthan and is among revered Muslim figures in Sikhism, also made vital literary contributions.
Waris Shah gave full shape to Heer-Ranjha and contributed to Punjab’s syncretic culture until the revivalism in the 19th century weakened it. But Guru Nanak has remained a guiding light, who in poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal’s words ‘awakened India from a deep slumber.’ Iqbal hailed Nanak as ‘mard-e kaamil [perfect]’ in a poem about him.
Iqbal lamented that ‘our people paid no heed to the message of Gautam [Buddha]’; and did not recognise the worth of that ‘jewel of supreme wisdom’. In another poem, Iqbal paired Guru Nanak with Muslim saint Moinuddin Chishti and wrote: ‘The land [India] in which Chishti delivered the message of truth; the garden in which Nanak sang the song of oneness that homeland is mine, that homeland is mine.’
Sameer Arshad Khatlani is a journalist and the author of The Other Side of the Divide.
Alex Gladstein - How to Dictator-Proof Your Money
Cash is king, even if you are an activist leading a democratic movement against some of the world’s worst dictators. That’s why Bitcoin has quickly become the currency of choice for dissidents working everywhere.
April 2024 - Reposted from Journal of Democracy
Human-rights activists around the world have a new tool: unstoppable electronic cash. From Russia to Cuba to Nigeria, advocacy groups and nonprofit organizations are increasingly adopting Bitcoin — an open-source, decentralized, censorship-resistant digital currency — to help keep their donations coming and their payrolls flowing, even when authoritarian regimes and state forces shut down their bank accounts.
In almost every dictatorship, the financial system is weaponized. Whether it be Erdogan in Turkey, the military regime in Zimbabwe, the Gnassingbé family in Togo, the Maduro junta in Venezuela, or Putin in Russia, a “first-choice” tool of autocrats when dealing with dissidents or political opponents is financial deplatforming. Protests are expensive, and if organizers can no longer receive donations or pay community members, democratic momentum can fizzle out. Within this context, Bitcoin’s rise as a dissident currency of choice starts to make sense.
Bitcoin’s spread as a currency of choice for activists accounts for a small portion of its global appeal as money for people living in antidemocratic countries or with access to nothing more than weak currencies. As of today, only about 1.2 billion people enjoy the benefit of a liberal democracy that protects property rights and free speech and a native reserve currency such as the dollar, euro, or yen. Everyone else — meaning more than 80 percent of humanity — lives either under tyranny or a weak currency that is prone to devaluation and very hard to use abroad.
In Gaza today, one of the only ways to get money into the besieged territory is with Bitcoin. In Cuba, a good way to short-circuit the Communist Party’s predatory dual-currency system is to send Bitcoin to family and friends, which they can freely trade for goods, services, or Cuba’s digital currency. In Ukraine, in the days after Vladimir Putin’s invasion in 2022, the banking system went down, but Bitcoin kept working, and groups like the Open Dialogue Foundation were able to save lives by using it to get equipment and aid where it needed to go. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently frozen the bank accounts of the country’s main opposition party, and has frequently targeted the accounts of environmental groups, labor organizers, and abolitionists. But Bitcoin is beyond his grasp.
In Venezuela, where hyperinflation destroyed a once-proud and productive country, and created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, Bitcoin played a key role in helping people escape with their wealth intact. Many like Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, who now runs a successful payments company in Canada, were able to emigrate with their wealth intact and accessible via a seed phrase of twelve words that could be written down, sent abroad, or memorized.
In Afghanistan, the humanitarian Roya Mahboob started paying her female employees in Bitcoin in 2013, as male relatives would seize cash and other digital-payment forms were sanctioned or not available. Bitcoin, she said, gave the girls and women that she worked with freedom and sovereignty. Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, Bitcoin remains a critical way for her to get money into Afghanistan to fund underground education for girls who have been out of school for more than two years. Dollars simply don’t work for this purpose, but Bitcoin does, with the teachers on the receiving end able to walk into town and swap the digital currency for cash at hawala brokers.
Bitcoin was invented in 2009, and only really began to find widespread global use after its price bubble in 2017. For many years, it didn’t make a lot of sense as an activist currency, simply because it was something few people would accept. But that has changed dramatically. Today, in nearly every place on earth, there is someone happy to buy Bitcoin in exchange for local currency — whether on Telegram, in person, on WhatsApp, or on some kind of exchange — making it an ideal technology for getting value to some of the toughest places in the world where the banking system can no longer safely meet activists’ needs.
In Hong Kong, activists send Bitcoin to colleagues inside the now-occupied city, who withdraw it at ATMs without needing to show ID, keeping out of the Chinese Communist Party’s watchful eye. In Belarus, democracy protesters keep their marches going and journalists keep their stories flowing with Bitcoin. In Zimbabwe, the military regime is trying to impose a new currency, causing chaos in exchange markets. But Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention keeps working, processing new transactions every ten minutes, without government interference.
Perhaps the most surprising case was revealed at the 2022 Bitcoin Conference in Miami by North Korean human-rights advocate Yeonmi Park. She explained to the audience that most people who escape from North Korea are vulnerable women, who are often sex-trafficked or enslaved without ID and without even speaking the local language. Christian missionaries are one of the only groups working to free them. She explained that it was hard to send dollars to help the pastors on the ground in northeastern China do this work, but with Bitcoin it was much easier. If Bitcoin can work on the North Korean border, or in Gaza, or in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then it can work just about anywhere.
Some of these early adopters are gathering on the University of Virginia campus this weekend, as the Serbian-based Center for Applied NonViolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) hosts its 5th People Power Academy, an event focusing on equipping the leaders of global democratic movements with better tactics and tools for revolutionary change.
CANVAS itself, founded by Srdja Popovic, has recently incorporated Bitcoin education into its global programs. The Freedom Academy — a project of the World Liberty Congress, founded by Garry Kasparov, Masih Alinejad, and Leopoldo López — is in its second year of Bitcoin education, having hosted trainings and events to help its community members in Africa, Europe, and Latin America use this new tool to overcome authoritarian controls and surveillance. They will be in attendance, as will Anna Chekhovich, the financial director of the Alexei Navalny–founded Anti-Corruption Foundation, which started using Bitcoin in 2016 as a reaction to the increasingly censorious and confiscatory Putin regime. Also present will be Félix Maradiaga, a Nicaraguan civil society leader who recently spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, about the Ortega regime’s strategy of freezing the bank accounts of anyone it doesn’t like, ranging from activists to the Catholic Church.
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) — where I serve as chief strategy officer — has run Bitcoin and human-rights programming since 2017. Each year, we add more, as we see governments around the world step up their attempts to fluster dissidents and opposition groups by cutting off their funding. HRF focuses on authoritarian regimes, where this behavior is unfortunately commonplace. But the world arguably saw the first major practical use of Bitcoin in 2011, when Julian Assange posted a Bitcoin address on the WikiLeaks Twitter page in response to the U.S.-led banking blockade of the whistleblower organization.
Two years later, HRF was contacted by activists on the frontlines of protests against the Viktor Yanukovych regime in Ukraine. They asked us, and our chairman Garry Kasparov, if we could help them with a Bitcoin fundraiser. Their bank accounts were closed or shut off from the outside world. As they titled their Reddit post about the fundraiser, “Only Bitcoin Can Reach Them.” To our surprise, the campaign was a success, and the protesters received the much-needed aid, despite the government’s efforts to keep them isolated. Over the years, we kept seeing cases like this pop up, eventually prompting us to run regular programming connecting Bitcoin developers and entrepreneurs with dissident leaders in authoritarian countries. In 2020, we launched the Bitcoin Development Fund to make grants to related open-source software and educational projects in authoritarian regimes. Since then, we have made more than a hundred grants across more than forty countries, deploying more than US$4 million.
To be clear, there are many challenges with using Bitcoin. The currency remains volatile day-to-day, prompting some activists to supplement Bitcoin use with “stablecoins,” such as Tether, that are pegged to the U.S. dollar but come with the downside of being centralized and freezable. Bitcoin transaction fees can be high (currently around $5 to $10 at the time of writing), so more and more Bitcoin apps are adding technology called the Lightning Network that can send Bitcoin transactions for pennies. Of course, true bad guys can also use Bitcoin — just as they can use encrypted messaging apps such as Signal — as it cannot discriminate and is money for anyone. The biggest obstacle remains education: Most activists still haven’t heard about Bitcoin being a human-rights tool, and it remains difficult for newcomers to sort through the vast sea of scams and Ponzi schemes in the cryptocurrency space to focus on Bitcoin. Given enough time, however, anyone can learn how to overcome these obstacles.
If you are running a human-rights group and your bank account hasn’t yet been frozen, flagged, or compromised, it likely will sooner rather than later. The human-rights defenders gathered at the People Power Academy in Charlottesville know that. The good news is, there’s a tool they can use to keep their work going, even if dictators want them to stop.
Alex Gladstein is chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation and the author of Check Your Financial Privilege and Hidden Repression.
30 Birds Global Ambassador for Women and Girls, Nila Ibrahimi Has just won the 2024 International Children’s Peace Prize!
We are thrilled to announce that 17-year-old Nila Ibrahimi, 30 Birds’ Global Ambassador for Women and Girls, has won the International Children’s Peace Prize 2024!
Three years ago, while Nila was in hiding in Pakistan, she recorded videos for supporters, helping us raise the funds to bring her and hundreds of others to safety.
Today, she runs her own nonprofit, speaks on behalf of 30 Birds on the global stage, and has inspired thousands with her voice and her song.
Nia’s story embodies the leadership journey we hope for all of the girls we support at 30 Birds. Our leadership and education programs are designed to take the girls from merely surviving, to growing and thriving. May Nila’s voice continue to be a catalyst, motivating others to take action in building a world where all Afghan girls can learn, lead, and live freely.
We are collecting letters and notes of congratulations for Nila, so if you’d like to wish her well, please email info@30birdsfoundation.org
Josh Goldblum honored as Blooloop 50 Influencers
Founder and CEO of Bluecadet
The blooloop 50 celebrates the work of fifty key individuals whose creativity, passion and drive has helped shape and improve the industry.
Influencers are those who impact the attractions business with their innovation and creativity. Each year our readers vote in their thousands to recognise the people they think have had the most impact in the last 12 months.
Padden Murphy - America Works: How Entrepreneurial City Leaders Can Shape the Future of Work Now
Author: Padden Murphy
Reposted from Hatch
Dramatic changes to the way we work are already in motion. Automation, artificial intelligence and advanced robotics are having cascading impacts on the workforce. This report presents the state of work in cities today and investigates the five drivers that will shape the next 10 years and strategies for city leaders across four pillars: Opportunity, Talent, Place and Social Infrastructure.
The future of work will be defined by entrepreneurial city leaders. The strategies and case studies outlined in this report showcase mayors and city leaders who turned bold visions for their city into actionable plans with clear goals, owners and integrating community voice.
Many of the challenges cities face, and the strategies outlined in this report, require city leaders to embrace bold ideas, allow for agility and adaptability, and test innovative solutions through policy, programs and public-private partnerships. As conveners, employers and policymakers, city leaders can take entrepreneurial steps to successfully navigate the changing nature of work and build inclusive cities of opportunity and community for years to come. Download the report to learn more.
Yarrow Kraner
Yarrow is the Founder of HATCH and H360.ai, is an Aspen Institute Fellow, RSA Fellow, and named 2015 top 100 creatives in the U.S. by Origins. He is a pioneer of social networking and has been building communities for twenty-five years. He’s directed projects with Richard Branson, The Rock, Jody Watley, Rakim, and more. In 1999, Yarrow created an online network – The Hero Project, which grew to 1.5 Million users and was acquired by FOX Studios. In 2004, Yarrow founded HATCH, connecting global influencers to accelerate solutions for the UN’s SDGs, which has led to thousands of collaborations, companies formed, and systems change at the policy level within the United Nations. In 2016 Yarrow founded H360.ai, a machine learning impact collaboration platform. H360 connects people to resources and unlocks the potential of communities and organizations, powering a “Network of Networks.” Yarrow is featured in the book Talent for Humanity, is on the Advisory Board for the Water Innovation Accelerator (WIA), was honored with the Audfest Impact Award in 2019, and has led think tanks with Intel, Hasbro, Ernst & Young, NASA, spoken at TEDx, Vivatech, EarthX, Day One in Monaco, Business Innovation Factory Summit (BIF), and the Volcano Summit.
Alex Zerden
Alex Zerden is the founder of Capitol Peak Strategies, a risk advisory firm based in Washington, DC. Capitol Peak works with leading financial institutions, companies and organizations to navigate emerging technologies, financial regulation, and economic crisis. As a regulatory lawyer, economic policymaker, and financial diplomat, Alex brings a depth of public and private sector experience at the intersection of financial services, economics, and national security covering anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), economic sanctions, investment security, financial regulation, economic crisis response, anti-corruption, financial enforcement and oversight investigations, and public-private partnerships. Alex has worked across the U.S. government, including at the White House National Economic Council, House of Representatives, Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), and the Treasury Department’s Office of International Affairs, Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). In 2018-2019, Alex deployed to Afghanistan to lead the Treasury Department office at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as the Financial Attaché. Alex is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow at CNAS, a Senior Advisor to WestExec Advisors, and a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Svetlana Savranskaya
Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya is a Senior Analyst at the Archive and since 2001 the director of the Archive’s Russia programs. She leads the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program of the Archive, focusing on the Nunn-Lugar initiative and the ongoing challenges of U.S.-Russia cooperation, and manages the Archive’s relationships with Russian academics and organizations. She served as lead organizer for the historic 2013 Nunn-Lugar conference at Musgrove, and the 2015 Kazakhstan Nunn-Lugar conference in Astana and Kurchatov. Previously, she organized and led six summer schools in Russia, the successful Archive partnerships with Kuban State University, Tbilisi State University, the Gorbachev Foundation, Memorial, the Moscow Helsinki Group, and organizations in the Caucasus culminating in the series of four major international conferences on access to information in the former Soviet space. She earned her Ph.D. in political science and international affairs in 1998 from Emory University, where she studied with Professors Robert Pastor and Thomas Remington. A "Red Diploma" (equivalent of summa cum laude) graduate of the Moscow State University in 1988, she went on to study at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1989-90, before moving to Emory.
Melanie Robbins
Melanie is a Jewish-American, Israeli advocate for peace, justice and reconciliation with nearly two decades of experience in the field. After her BA in Political Science, Middle East Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Melanie moved to Israel to work in a joint Palestinian-Israeli peace education program, and later became Director of Development for the veteran Israeli peace movement Peace Now. In Israel, Melanie built an alternative tour to the West Bank, bringing hundreds of Jewish-Americans to experience the effects of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and complicate the narratives of this conflict. Melanie earned her MA in Security and Diplomacy from Tel Aviv University’s Executive Leadership program. In 2016, Melanie joined the Anti-Defamation League becoming Deputy Director for the New York – New Jersey regional office. In her role there, she continued to build bridges, between Jewish-Muslim-Arab, Black, and Latin American communities across NY and NJ. After her tenure with ADL, Melanie joined the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest as Director of the Global Connections Department (Israel and Overseas Programs). Currently, Melanie works as a media, policy and strategy consultant, focusing on individuals and initiatives which practice principles of democracy, and seek to build an authentically shared society across political, social and religious divides. She remains particularly connected with Palestinians and Israelis who are part of building peace and reconciliation.
Negar Razavi
An anthropologist by training, Negar Razavi joined Princeton University's Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies, from Northwestern University. The research project she's working on is titled: "The Security Paradox: Policy Expertise, Transnational Security, and the Politics of Knowing (and Unknowing) Iran from Washington." Intersecting political science and anthropology, Razavi's research brings a critical, people-centered approach to studies of international security, gender, expertise, and empire to U.S.-Iran relations. Her proposed project draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Washington D.C. and Tehran where she evaluated the expanding influence of a transnational network of policy experts in shaping U.S. security policies toward Iran and the broader Middle East. She explores how and why non-state analysts have collectively promoted security approaches toward the Islamic Republic that not only exacerbate insecurities for local communities but seem to contradict the U.S.' stated security objective. Her Ph.D interests in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania State concentrated on political subjectivities, citizenship, and knowledge formation. Her dissertation title: “With Grave Concern”: Policy Experts, National Security, and U.S. Policy towards the “Middle East.”
Claire Putzeys
Claire is the Deputy Director for U.S. Refugee Admissions for the U.S. Department of State. Previously, she was the Director for Refugees on the National Security Council at the White House. She is the former Syria Team Lead at the U.S. Department of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). She also held the same position as Team Lead for Iraq and Yemen. Prior to that, she was the Humanitarian Policy Officer for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. Her government work also included a Political Assistant role in the U.S. Embassy in Rabat, Morocco and earlier, she was a Refugee Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Her earliest work, which confirmed her interest in refugee issues included a consultancy for Mapendo International (now Refuge Point) and work with the Refugee Family Reunification Program for the International Rescue Committee while studying at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she received her MALD degree.
Sherif Mansour
Sherif Mansour is the Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), where he has dedicated over 20 years to advocating for democracy, human rights, and press freedom. With a master’s in international relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a bachelor’s in education from Al-Azhar University, Sherif has extensive experience in protecting journalists, monitoring elections, and building capacity for civil society organizations across the Middle East and the U.S. He has written for leading international outlets and appeared on major news networks, earning recognition for his impactful work.
Linda Kulman
Linda Kulman is a New York Times, Amazon, and Wall Street Journal bestselling ghostwriter who has successfully collaborated on more than a dozen books. Her most recent work is Dr. Anthony Fauci’s memoir, On Call, which debuted as a #1 New York Times bestseller in June 2024. Kulman’s elite list of clients also includes former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, two-time heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman, former First Lady Hillary Clinton, Senator George McGovern, former Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and Amanda Knox, who was wrongfully imprisoned for murder in Italy. Kulman is known for her expertise at telling each person’s unique story in the most powerful manner possible.
Daniel Kramer
Daniel is a Managing Partner at Duo Group, having several years of experience as a founder and operator of hospitality ventures in Washington, D.C. including Duke’s Grocery, Gogi Yogi, and Duke’s Counter. Most notably is his work with Duke’s Grocery where he draws upon his Jewish and his love for food from celebrating Jewish holidays as a kid in Los Angeles. East London-themed pub and supper spots in Dupont Circle, Navy Yard, Foggy Bottom & British Embassy, featuring scratch made seasonal dishes inspired by that creative culinary scene in the English capital.Prior to opening his first restaurant, Daniel worked in government, consulting, and youth athletics. He is a graduate of Tufts University who was in the Pi Sigma Alpha Honor Society and President of Delta Tau Delta. He also played varsity sports in Lacrosse and golf for all four years where was Captain and All-NESCAC.
Allison Jeffery
Allison Jeffery is a humanitarian protection practitioner and researcher focusing on child protection and gender-based violence prevention and response. She is experienced in case management, mental health and psychosocial support, child marriage, gender analysis, and reproductive health in humanitarian, development, and nexus settings. Allison gained skills in quality improvement, project management, policy analysis, qualitative research, and training design and implementation. She graduated with her BA in International Affairs from Tufts University and MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Peter Della-Rocca
Peter Della-Rocca is an analyst on the U.S. Climate team at the Environmental Defense Fund, where he pushes rapid decarbonization on the state level. He leverages timely research and analysis to advocate for responsible climate policy in states including Pennsylvania and Virginia, while contributing to the knowledge base of EDF’s coalition partners in those states. Previously, he worked at the Climate Leadership Council, where he conducted research and advocacy on carbon pricing and related policies. He holds a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University.
Valerie Cleland
Valerie is a senior manager for Ocean Energy and Nature for the National Resources Defense Council, Valerie advocates for policies that protect and restore our oceans. Prior to joining NRDC, Cleland was a NOAA Sea Grant Knauss Marine Policy Fellow in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation where she worked to develop, analyze, and guide oceans legislation through the committee process. She originally hails from the Pacific Northwest where she worked as an environmental scientist on marine and aquatic projects for a small environmental firm and taught sea kayaking. Cleland attended Tufts University and received a master's of marine affairs from the University of Washington. She is based in NRDC's Washington, D.C. office.
Matan Chorev
Matan Chorev is the Principal Deputy Director of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and the associate director of the RAND Global and Emerging Risks division, as well as a senior policy researcher at RAND. In his role at the State Department, he helped shape and drive strategic planning and coordination, policy development, and public articulation of key Department priorities and initiatives. Prior to his appointment, he served as Chief of Staff of the National Security and Foreign Policy team on the Biden-Harris Transition and as the foreign policy author of the 2020 Democratic Party Platform. From 2015-2020, he was Chief of Staff of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He previously served as speechwriter and advisor to Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns and as a member of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff. He has also served as a Crisis, Governance, and Stabilization Foreign Service Officer at the United States Agency for International Development with assignments in Morocco and Yemen, and as a Rosenthal Fellow at the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. Chorev has received numerous recognitions for his contributions in government, including two Superior Honor Awards.
In addition to his government service, Chorev has served in policy research and management roles, including as Chief of Staff of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and as a researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where he was the Executive Director of the Future of National Security Project. He is a David Rockefeller Fellow at The Trilateral Commission and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds degrees from Tufts University, New England Conservatory, and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Tom Blanton
Tom Blanton is the director since 1992 of the independent non-governmental National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org). He won the 2004 Emmy Award for individual achievement in news and documentary research, and on behalf of the Archive received the George Polk Award in 2000 for “piercing self-serving veils of government secrecy.” His books have been awarded the 2011 Link-Kuehl Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, selection by Choice magazine as “Outstanding Academic Title 2017,” and the American Library Association’s James Madison Award Citation in 1996, among other honors. The National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame elected him a member in 2006, and Tufts University presented him the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award in 2011 for “decades of demystifying and exposing the underworld of global diplomacy.” His articles have appeared in Diplomatic History, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and the Washington Post, among many other journals; and he is series co-editor for the National Security Archive’s online and book publications of more than a million pages of declassified U.S. government documents obtained through the Archive’s more than 60,000 Freedom of Information Act requests.
Ralph Alswang
One of the nation's premiere photographers for more than 25 years, Ralph worked for Newsweek, Reuters, and, for eight years, at the White House under Bill Clinton as the President and First Lady’s official documentary photographer. This job took him to every state in the union and to more than 60 countries, where he captured history as it was unfolding. Ralph has photographed hundreds of celebrated people and events. Here is his site.