Program: “Záróra” (“Closing Hour”)
Media outlet: Hungarian National Television (M2)
Date: June 1, 2011
Interviewer: Alinda Veiszer
To watch the original interview, please click on the tag “Záróra, 2011. június 1. – Vendég: John Shattuck” on the following site, under the video box: http://premier.mtv.hu/Hirek/2011/06/01/10/Matyus_Peter_gyogyszerkemikus_a_Zaroraban.aspx
Lead—Alinda Veiszer:
Good evening! One of the country’s most well-known universities, Central European University, is 20 years old. Its Rector was one of the first international diplomats who could enter the refugee camp in Tuzla in 1995, and could talk to the survivors who did not die in the bloodshed in Srebrenica. Furthermore, he was also the person who could defend in court those, whose conversations were illegally recorded in the Watergate Scandal. He then, much later, became part of the Clinton’s administration. Today we are going to talk about how such a career developed.
Alinda Veiszer:
I greet John Shattuck in the studio. Thank you for being with us tonight. Usually, on July 11, we commemorate the genocide that took place in Srebrenica in 1995. Although it is not July yet, could you share with us the stories you heard from the survivals when you entered the refugee camp in Tuzla?
John Shattuck:
Well, I entered the refugee camp in Tuzla from Split with a helicopter. There was gunfire going on all around, the war was in full swing. It was a very difficult time. I’d been told that there were refugees in the camp who had actually survived something that had happened; nobody quite knew what it was. There were many men who were missing from Srebrenica and we thought perhaps some of them might be in the refugee camp. So, when I arrived, the refugees were all assembled on the tarmac of the camp, and there was firing going on from the hillsides, so it was quite a dangerous situation for the refugees. I found several men whose names were given to me by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. They told me stories that were quite deeply disturbing, because they told me about being lined up in warehouses in the areas outside of Srebrenica, then being marched through the countryside, finally put on trucks and then taken off them; blindfolded and then one after another they were shot and sent into these pits. One whom I spoke to had survived these shots, because the shots hadn’t actually killed him. So I then told his story. I sent the information back to the White House, the State Department. I sent it also to the European headquarters of NATO, and then several weeks later the United Nations authorized NATO to intervene, to stop this kind of horror.
Alinda Veiszer:
Had all the survivors escaped from such a situation, or were these people survivors of various other situations? And how many survivors did you meet?
John Shattuck:
I met five survivors, and as far as we know there were probably no more than a 100 or so survivors, the rest of them were all killed. Seven thousand men who were killed in Srebrenica. Later on, Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general in charge of Srebrenica, was charged with war crimes and genocide by the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Alinda Veiszer:
What was the reaction of those who read your report or heard about your summary? Did they know about the slaughter, the genocide at all, or were you the first to inform them that you had met survivors; and according to them what had happened there?
John Shattuck:
Yes, I was the first one to actually meet the survivors who whose lives were to be terminated. There were reports of them being taken to the warehouses and situations in which we didn’t really know what had happened to them. So there was a lot of suspicion by the International Red Cross, but it wasn’t until my meetings that we learned the truth.
Alinda Veiszer:
After 16 years you are able to discuss this matter from a distance. I imagine though that back there, the atmosphere was one which had a deep effect and influence, meaning that emotions must have played an enormous role.
John Shattuck:
Well, it was a big shock to get these stories from these men; the pictures of situations where shots and fires from the hillsides, and the danger of the possibility of war crimes taking place. It was a very shocking situation. Even more shocking actually two months later when I was the first international investigator to go to Srebrenica itself. I took the investigator of the international criminal tribunal to investigate the places where the men had been shot. And I saw the actual warehouses and saw some horrible sights with blood on the ceiling of the warehouses.
Alinda Veiszer:
I don’t want to appear sentimental, however, for example, have you ever dreamt with these memories, experiences and situations?
John Shattuck:
I don’t think I would have been cowed by this or changed by this, in a sense. I was a witness, and as a witness it was my responsibility to tell the story. My feeling as a human rights person—I spent most of my career in the field of human rights, and I was a government official in human rights—it was my job to tell that story and make sure that actions are taken to respond to what happened.
Alinda Veiszer:
In her memoirs, Kati Marton, who is Richard Holbrooke’s wife of Hungarian origin, writes that Richard Holbrooke, who was one of the chief negotiators of the Dayton Peace Agreement, simply referred to those leaders who participated in this war as criminals. Obviously, among others we can name, for example, Milosevic, whom he specifically declared to be a criminal. According to you, can this matter be simplified like this? Is he a criminal?
John Shattuck:
Well, Milosevic was a criminal leader. He was the leader of his country, for sure, and he chose to get further into power by essentially fanning the flames of ethnic conflict, religious conflict, so in many respects people started killing each other that otherwise were quite close to each other. There were many Serbs and Bosnians who intermarried, but the danger of a leader like Milosevic, or a leader like Mladic, Karadic, is that they essentially stirred up the really negative passions that made people afraid of each other.
Alinda Veiszer:
But for sure, it was a huge responsibility from the part of America what kind of an agreement could be reached. Was there an agreement between you about whom you could talk to, and whom you couldn’t? For example, Richard Holbrook claimed that he had no choice but to talk to Milosevic. However, with others, like Ratko Mladic, he was not willing to engage in discussion at all, saying that Milosevic would share the information with them. But he did not want to meet them.
John Shattuck:
Well, it is true. We decided, I was part of that negotiation, we decided to negotiate with Milosevic and with the other leaders like Tudjman of Croatia. At that stage Milosevic was seen to be a very negative leader, but he wasn’t charged with any criminal conduct, he hadn’t actually been charged with crimes, with some of the crimes we would see a bit later—we refused to negotiate with the war criminals like Karadizic and Mladic, who had already been charged with crimes like Srebrenica. I think that was the right decision, because if they had come to Dayton, then the Bosnians wouldn’t have come, and there would not have been peace. Not only that, but it would’ve rewarded them for the crimes that we knew they’d committed at that stage.
Alinda Veiszer:
Was there a real danger that no agreement would be reached?
John Shattuck:
Yes, yes. I think there was a very serious risk that Bosnians would decide not to come if Karadzic and Mladic and others, the Bosnian Serbs who committed all these crimes, had actually come to Dayton.
Alinda Veiszer:
What was that crucial factor that led to the agreement? What was your personal role in the process?
John Shattuck:
Well, Holbrooke and I worked very closely together. I was on the ground, gathering evidence about what was happening, even as these negotiations were getting started. For example, I was the first person to interview not only the Srebrenica survivors, but also some of the people who had been forced out of their homes. There were more than a thousand in the area of Banja Luca, etc., and then I’d come back and report this. I also investigated crimes that were committed by the Croatians against the Serbs, because the Serbs themselves were victims of war crimes, they were forced out of their homes in Krajina, in southern Serbia. Also I investigated the criminal conduct of the Bosnians. So, everyone felt that their own human rights abuses were being investigated. That was part of the strategy of getting Dayton to go forward.
Alinda Veiszer:
When did it become clear that there would be an agreement? Can you define the moment when it became absolutely sure that the parties could sit down, and there would be a contract that could be signed?
John Shattuck:
Well, I remember a very dramatic moment early in this negotiation when they were all complaining about each other. I remember Tudjman and the Bosnian leader, Izetbegovic, were both griping about problems that they each had, and neither of them said they wanted to be with Milosevic. So Holbrooke said: “I’m standing up and leaving this room. This is the end of the negotiations, you go back to fight, just keep fighting.” They took a deep breath and continued the negotiations. I think that they had recognized that they had their fate in their own hands.
Alinda Veiszer:
Clearly, this was a diplomatic tool, which Richard Holbrooke could use professionally. Were you an experienced enough diplomat then to know about these tools? Did you use them too, from time to time, in unusual ways when needed?
John Shattuck:
Well, we were doing this, all of this was on a completely new territory, and these were negotiations that never had really been conducted. This was after all the post Cold War period. The great powers were no longer as important; what was really important was to try to stop some of these terrible local wars. We had already been through a crisis in Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of people had been killed, and it was a time to put an end to this. So we decided to use some very unconventional techniques. I was the first Assistant Secretary for Human Rights ever to be dispatched during an investigation, during an effort to bring peace, to investigate criminal activities. We also didn’t have cables and written documents that took every single moment of these negotiations and recorded them, because we thought it was important to do this in real time, with real individuals sitting across the table. So, there was a, yes, there may have been a sort of a Hollywood aspect of this, but also there was a personal aspect of it in forcing these people to come to grips with the fact that hundreds of thousands of people, most of them civilians from each of those countries, had been killed already.
Alinda Veiszer:
The reason I asked this question is because you came to diplomacy from the world of academia, from the area of human rights, as a lawyer. I am very interested in knowing how one reaches a diplomatic circle that goes on to make the peace agreement of the biggest genocide since the second world war. What is you family background? Do you come from a family that is committed to democracy and sensitive to law and rights?
John Shattuck:
Well, my background is in human rights as you say. I was a civil rights lawyer in the United States for a number of years, very much involved in trying to end the racial discrimination in the US and lawsuits in that area; also protecting the civil liberties of individuals who have been wire-taped, as you said in your introduction, by President Nixon and his administration. This was my background, this was my career, this is my belief. Where did I get it from? Well, in a certain way, I did get it from my father. My father was a marine in the second world war, and he was involved in the landings in the Pacific against the Japanese. Many of his friends were killed and it was a very dramatic time for him. But he came away from that war really feeling very strongly about why he had been fighting, what it was all about. Well, it was about defending the basic liberties he knew. So when I was a young boy, my father at one point—I found he was in the newspapers, because he was defending a woman who was being accused of being a communist. She had been accused in the small town that we lived in, of being a communist sympathizer, and she was running for office, she was in politics, running for the school board. He said: “I don’t agree with anything that this woman is saying, but she has a right to be defended. So I’m going to go down and defend her.” So he went to the school board and defended her, publicly, in front of everyone else, by saying “she has a right to explain herself, you can’t just accuse her of being a communist.” I didn’t know what to make of this. I was seven years old and I said “Dad, why are you in the newspapers so much?” and he said “Sit down, I’ll tell you.” It was there that he explained to me what it means to have civil liberties.
Alinda Veiszer:
Was your mother involved in similar things? In which city did this happen?
John Shattuck:
My mother was an Irish-American, and Irish-Americans have a deep commitment to civil liberty. I always like to say that the two countries in the world that have the closest connection to the US are Ireland and Hungary, because almost everybody in one of these countries has an American relative. My mother was also a believer in basic issues of freedom. She got that naturally I think from her Irish roots.
Alinda Veiszer:
Which city did you live in?
John Shattuck:
We were living in a small town, north of New York city, Hastings on Hudson. Only seven thousand people in town, a small town.
Alinda Veiszer:
That’s really a small town. I find it interesting that you would bring up that example, but I was also thinking that in the 50s and 60s, when you were a teenager, or in your twenties, racial discrimination against colored people was at its heights in America. For example, 1963 is the date when Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech. Did you happen to be there?
John Shattuck:
I was not there. I was actually still a little too young to be there, but I certainly was a big admirer of Martin Luther King. In my school there were several African-American students, who became good friends of mine. Then in university I also had African-American friends. I became involved in defending the rights of students, to demonstrate against the causes, or in favor of the causes; for example, civil rights. I was also against the war in Vietnam, and many of them demonstrated about that.
Alinda Veiszer:
What was the greatest such abuse that you can recall, or the strongest case of discrimination that happened in your life and gave you a special calling to the profession?
John Shattuck:
I’ll give you a very good example. I have a very close friend, he has just visited me in Budapest. He was the highest ranking African-American in the US Justice Department before the administration of Barack Obama. He was the Solicitor General of the United States. He is now a Professor at the Yale Law School. When he and I were students, we traveled across the United States. We got to a small town in Oklahoma and we were thirsty, we wanted to go in, wanted to have coke and maybe a hamburger. We went into this little diner and we sat down; and they came up to me and said “I’m sorry.” They came up to both of us, but they looked at me and said “I’m sorry; your friend will have to leave. You can get some food and take it out to him.” And I said “We’re both leaving.” This was, I guess, maybe 1962, something like that.
Alinda Veiszer:
This must have given a really strong impulse to become a human rights activist. Another thing which is also very interesting is that—if I understand it well, we are talking about the Nixon administration and the Watergate Scandal—you defended the illegally wiretapped people in court when you were around 30.
John Shattuck:
Yes, I was. That was, well, that was a time when we felt that our government was abusing its power. It was using its powers too strongly, for example, collecting lists of enemies of the government, and sometimes starting investigations against them. Or in case of some of my clients, conducting wire-taps on people without the authority of a court. This was done on the orders of President Nixon, during a very, very unsettled time in the US. There were a lot of demonstrations for one thing, and the Nixon administration felt that they needed to take strong action against the demonstrators, particularly the leaders of those who were demonstrating against the war in Vietnam. So I was immediately drawn to that, to those events.
Alinda Veiszer:
As it is well-known, Nixon has been evaluated in interestingly opposing ways ever since. At one of his anniversaries 9000 people celebrated him, even if he was named the violator of American democracy previously. If you personally had to judge Nixon today, would you say that he was a criminal who harmed American democracy; or looking back you would rather not be so harsh?
John Shattuck:
Well, Richard Nixon was impeached by the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, which meant that they had to find that there were high crimes and misdemeanors that had been committed. The crimes and the misdemeanors that he’d committed were against, in some cases, American citizens, in the manipulation of his power to try to push back some of the things that he didn’t like, or approve of. He never went to trial in the United States Senate, because he resigned from office in the summer of 1974, and so he was never brought to trial. Richard Nixon was a very complicated man. He was in some ways a great president; he was a leader in the field of foreign relations. He opened up US relations with China, which was a very important development. It was the first time that an American president had recognized China. But, we all know that in the end, no person should be above the law. No leader should be above the law. And Richard Nixon in some cases chose to put himself above the law. That’s why he got into trouble and that’s why he was forced out of office.
Alinda Veiszer:
Frost Nixon is a recent film. Have you seen it?
John Shattuck:
Yes, I have.
Alinda Veiszer:
Do you think it’s a good film? Does it reflect what really happened?
John Shattuck:
Well, I think it is a good movie. I think it is a good movie and I think it sets a good narrative. I met Richard Nixon two years before Frost, David Frost did his interview, or maybe one year before I think it was. I felt that we learned more about Richard Nixon in the court case than from David Frost’s interview show in the film. I don’t think Richard Nixon came across as particularly brilliant or effective, and I think he was made to look stupid and silly in the film. I think he was actually a much more complicated figure, and that is the figure that I got to know. But above all, he chose to violate the law, and he was held accountable for that; and that is right.
Alinda Veiszer:
The trial that you participated in as a pleader, the one where you defended those whose conversations were recorded: it was an extraordinary opportunity for you as a lawyer, wasn’t it? Let me also add: it was an extraordinary opportunity for a lawyer who sympathized with the democrats—although I don’t know how important role this played. But since you later became a member of the Clinton administration, I assume that as a result of your participation in the trial, the Democratic Party got to know you and relations tightened, so that positions were easier to obtain, right?
John Shattuck:
Well, I don’t know. I know that President Clinton had to have someone who had a strong background in civil rights and human rights, and that’s why he chose me for the position of Assistant Secretary of State. I had no real political experience. I had not previously served in government, and I was not a kind of campaigner in a formal way for President Clinton. I admired President Clinton, because he did look for people who had experience.
Alinda Veiszer:
Sorry for interrupting you, but did your phone simply ring and somebody called you from the then forming Clinton administration? Or how were you asked for the position? You have just said that you did not have any experiences in politics back at that time.
John Shattuck:
No, I knew people who were in the administration. I did know some, a number of people who were in the administration. One who had been the campaign manager for President Clinton was a very close friend of mine, a very good person, his name was Eli Segal. There were several others that I knew, as well. So, I was not completely sitting out among the 300,000,000 Americans waiting for the call, in that sense.
Alinda Veiszer:
As far as I know, you were considering leaving this position several times, but then you always stayed, as you were interested in the debates. Do you remember any particular point at which you wanted to leave the government; and for what reason?
John Shattuck:
Well, any job in government can sometimes be frustrating. And you always have to decide: can I do more by staying in, or would it be just as well if I left? And so there were frustrating moments. One big frustration was at the time the genocide in Rwanda, in which I hoped that the US and Europe would be much more active intervening to try to save lives—but for various reasons that did not happen. That was frustrating. But I decided, look, I’ve learned things and maybe I can do a better job in Bosnia—that was another crisis at the time, so I decided to stay.
Alinda Veiszer:
Rwanda is an interesting example, because one of the nations there, the Hutu, started killing and practically exterminate the Tutsi. You’ve mentioned that the international law or community should have intervened. We know that stronger intervention did not take place because Rwanda, in a certain sense, in a political sense, wasn’t interesting enough. What is more, white people left the country immediately after the first conflicts took place. This is interesting since you, as someone who believes in human rights above all else, and gets into a government position from this idealistic perspective, has to face the reality of politics. Was this a big conflict for you; was it difficult to accept?
John Shattuck:
Yes, it was very difficult to accept. But I was not really standing away, I actually went to Rwanda and I traveled throughout the region. I met with all the leaders of the region and I urged in my cables back home to the US that we should become more involved, the European countries should become more involved. But everything was happening so fast. 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda in less than 100 days, which is extraordinary if you think of it. And so it was horribly frustrating. I certainly feel today that we didn’t do what we should have done. But I don’t feel any personal guilt that I did somehow stand in the side. I was trying to do what I could.
Alinda Veiszer:
If I know it correctly, your position in the Clinton administration was Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. I assume this could have caused conflicts apart from international issues. Was there an issue which could have had an effect on internal affairs, one that could have led to such a divide that you decide to stand up and leave the government?
John Shattuck:
No, not really, no, because my job was really external, my responsibilities were international, not domestic, so I was not involved in domestic affairs. One thing I was particularly pleased to do, however, was to work with the civil rights agencies in the US government who were domestic and to make a report, the first report the US had ever made to the United Nations about what the US situation was on civil rights in the United States. There were people who disagreed with my report. In fact, several senators on the floor of the US Senate said that they didn’t think that the US should be reporting about its own internal problems to the UN. I disagreed with that. I said of course we should be and that’s what all member states in the UN should do. That was one area where I had some involvement in domestic politics.
Alinda Veiszer:
Was there another political career waiting for you which you decided not to choose?
John Shattuck:
I always had the opportunity to return to Harvard University. I had been Vice President at Harvard University and a professor, a teacher, part-time at the Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government. I planned to return at some point after my government service. But about four or five years into my service when I was getting ready to leave, the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, and others, said it would be very good if I took another assignment—that is to be the United States Ambassador to the Czech Republic. That’s what I did after that.
Alinda Veiszer:
But this isn’t so exciting.
John Shattuck:
It was pretty exciting actually, I’ll tell you how. First of all, I had an opportunity to meet one of the great leaders in human rights, Vaclav Havel, who was then the President of the Czech Republic. Second of all, it became a very interesting diplomatic responsibility, because it was my job to help the Czech Republic and then, indirectly, also Hungary and Poland to become members of NATO. It was at that time that I first met the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Janos Martonyi, who is a very good friend, who was also then the Foreign Minister. He and I traveled together to Independence, Missouri—he as the Hungarian Foreign Minister and I as the US Ambassador to the Czech Republic—for the ceremony, when Hungary and the Czech Republic and Poland were all admitted to the NATO. For me that was very important.
Alinda Veiszer:
I agree, it is important. It is important for both countries, it is important for everyone. However, this is very far from your original profession. That is, it is much more exciting to work in an administration than to be an Ambassador in Eastern or Central Europe, isn’t it?
John Shattuck:
In some ways it was more exciting to be in Prague, I’ll tell you why—here’s another story. During the time when I was the Ambassador in Prague, the Czechs were admitted to NATO as I just said, and soon afterwards NATO decided to intervene in Kosovo. Very controversial, a very controversial issue. I went with the Czech military, down to Kosovo. I was able to help and observe the Czech military, and went with the Commander-in-Chief of the Czech armed forces, General Sedivy, to the Kosovo situation. I also was then in the position and had to defend this intervention, which as I say was very controversial; many Czechs opposed it. This was a chance for me to debate the issues of human rights and intervention. It’s not an easy topic and I debated it among many people in the Czech Republic.
Alinda Veiszer:
We are getting close, I find this exciting myself. But if you mention Kosovo, it is still a crucial question to what extent the Dayton Peace Agreement really facilitated the peace process—which was its original aim. You mentioned the very example of Kosovo, which is a much later after-effect of the present lack of peace in this region. In other words, is what is happening in Kosovo a criticism of the Dayton Peace Agreement?
John Shattuck:
Yes, in some ways it is, and I’ve written about this in my book. However, in other ways Kosovo was not part of Dayton because it was not the crisis at the time. The crisis at the time was Bosnia, and by 1998 the crisis had become Kosovo. By that time, the US had learned about Milosevic. Milosevic had begun to commit major crimes which involved massive crimes for which he was later indicted; which involved massive ethnic cleansing, forcing of Kosovar Albanians out of their homes, and the creation of a terrible refugee crisis—this was not something that was part of the Dayton Agreement. The way I could criticize Dayton, and I do in my book, is it would have been possible perhaps, to go and not negotiate with Milosevic, to try to force Milosevic out of power, and maybe that would have ended all the controversies in the whole region. I think it was premature to do that, however, and in the end I think we made the right decision to negotiate with Milosevic in Dayton and then subsequently after the crisis in Kosovo.
Alinda Veiszer:
Looking back, is there any time where things could have been done differently?
John Shattuck:
I can think of many things along the way that could have been done differently. Maybe if we are talking just about Bosnia, I think the mistakes in Bosnia were made earlier. It wasn’t directly my involvement, but it was in the time of the UN peacekeeping operations when the European troops were sent to Bosnia and they had no authority; they really were just observers. So they watched this war, and the war become worse and worse. The fact that they were there was even in some ways making the war worse. Then the humanitarian assistance that came to help the refugees—which was stolen by one or another of the warring parties—and then the UN would have to stand by. The UN made some terrible mistakes. The US made mistakes in not trying to take this away from the UN and give it to NATO. And the European forces made mistakes by thinking this will go away.
Alinda Veiszer:
All of the things that we are discussing now, if put it in an idealistic way, could make the world a better place, or influence how things happen in the world and world politics; and in American politics, as well. Without any doubt, we are talking about historical moments, from Nixon until Kosovo. But if someone has the chance to be part of these, why does he accept to become Vice-President of Harvard? What did you find attractive in it if there was a fantastic diplomatic career ahead of you that many would love and wish for themselves? Even if Harvard is a prestigious university, being the Vice-President of it, or of any other university—what is so challenging in being the Rector of a university, as you are now of CEU’s?
John Shattuck:
The reason I returned to the academic world was, and I felt very strongly about this, because I think that there are many aspects of the world of action which I participated in, which need to be understood, to be analyzed, to be taught; we need to teach new generations of students who are going to face the same kinds of problems, give them the experience that we have benefit of. So I embraced that opportunity to go back and teach. When I returned to Boston, I went and taught at Tufts University, which is another university in Boston. I was the President of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. I was able to bring many people to the library, to teach many students about the lessons I learned in all the crises that I’ve been through—both civil rights and human rights crises. That was what made me above all attracted to come to Budapest, and to come to Budapest to become the President and Rector of Central European University, the most interesting university that I’ve encountered. More interesting, because it is so diverse, so many students coming from so many parts of the world—we have over a hundred countries represented. We also have forty countries among the faculty. And to be in Budapest, to be in Hungary, to be a Hungarian university in the midst of this crossroads that I think Budapest is, that makes CEU a particularly strong competitor with all the rest of the universities.
Alinda Veiszer:
What you’ve just said sounds great, and I am sure that it is part of your job as Rector to say this. However, on the other hand, when you said that this is a much more exciting or much more important challenge than Harvard, I don’t remember which expression you used exactly, some doubts emerged in me. After all, things that happen at Harvard, that is, at one of the leading universities of the world, can have a much greater effect, either politically or in any other sense, than those that happen at CEU, right?
John Shattuck:
Harvard is a great university. I was there, I was teaching there, I was Vice-President there for nine years, and then I went into government. I have many friends at Harvard. I continue to stay connected with Harvard. Harvard is already something of a partner with CEU, because I am here. Harvard is, in the end, an American university and that’s terrific. But CEU is a Hungarian, a US and an international university. There is no other university with the kind of complex character that CEU has. It’s also a graduate university in the field of social sciences, humanities, law, business and public policy. In that respect it is the only university, I believe, in the world that has as many students from as many different countries.
Alinda Veiszer:
Is it more difficult to keep in touch with the government from here, than from America?
John Shattuck:
They’re different. They’re very different. But I’d say that there are more aspects of what I have to do here. Some of what I do, of course, relates to being a professor and teaching at the university. I teach, I actually have a course in human rights and the rule of law and foreign policy. But above all, I have to be an administrator and chief academic head of the university. I have very good people with whom I work, an excellent Provost and others. But then, I also have to do external work. Some of my work is almost like being a diplomat again, because I work closely, of course, with the Hungarian government. I am very pleased to be able to work with the Hungarian government—we are a Hungarian university. I also work with the governments in the region. I’ve been recently in Moscow, and in Lithuania. I am meeting CEU alumni there. All of these elements add up to a very complicated and fascinating university.
Alinda Veiszer:
One of the things that will come into existence through the contribution of CEU, though I am not sure which stage the project is at now, is the establishment of the center for the study of genocide and mass violation of human rights. Is it going to come into existence? It was promised to be set up by the first part of 2011, which will end soon, but I haven’t heard any news of this center being established yet.
John Shattuck:
We are in the process of establishing a center for the study of genocide and conflict issues. The center will most likely be named after Richard Holbrooke, who of course, is a great figure in this region because of his work in the Dayton peace process. And this is the center where the university, across many disciplines, will look at the issues that I’ve had to address in very practical ways, on the ground.
Alinda Veiszer:
Practical work, but in what sense? Will it examine these phenomena in the region, or in a wider sense? It is going to be established jointly with Karoli University. Why in Hungary? Hungary, at least as we like to believe, has no history regarding the issue of genocide—if we, of course, do not consider the second world war. But since then, Hungary in this field, if you will, is not the most exciting region.
John Shattuck:
The focus of the center will not be Hungary, or perhaps even Central Europe. It will be more the world and various experiences, particularly modern experiences of genocide. I’ve mentioned two which I have personal experience with, Rwanda and Bosnia, and I should mention a third, Kosovo. But then there’s the broader question of how do we stop conflict, how do we manage and resolve the kinds of conflicts that lead to genocide, because that’s obviously above all what we need to do. There are new tools that are being developed in the world, I think quite effectively. We need to understand those tools better. They have to do with getting countries to work together, rather than just individually. We try to intervene in situations like the ones developed in Yugoslavia in those early days.
Alinda Veiszer:
The basis of each genocide is an ethnic conflict, and since Central European University stands up for open society and democratic values, I am curious about your opinion regarding ethnic conflicts in Hungary. How dangerous are they, or what dangers can they lead to? According to what you see of it, what do you think as a professor?
John Shattuck:
Let me say that conflicts, ethnic conflicts, are one of the great problems of the world today. They are happening in many different parts of the world. They have to do, I think, with some degree of fear that people have that the globalization process is going to leave them behind. They relate much more to their immediate environment—who are their family and who is their home. But I think, I’ve also seen over a long period of time, a lot of progress on the subject of ethnic conflict. Some of this has to do with the progress that’s been made since the Balkan war, the Bosnian war that I’m talking about. Some of it, in my own experience as an American, has to do with the conflict in the US. As I said, when I grew up, at some points there were, I mean my very own friend was not able to get served in the restaurant when I was white and he was black. So, I think we are learning how to address these issues. I think here in Hungary there’s a very good learning process in a way. I know how much effort is being put into the issues of the Roma, for example, and under the Hungarian presidency of the EU I know the government is leading an effort to try and develop a strategy for helping the Roma.
Alinda Veiszer:
One of your countrymen got quite involved in these conflicts in Hungary and rented buses for the Roma to be able to leave some villages. Your answer was quite diplomatic, however, I am interested in your opinion of how dangerous you think the situation is in Hungary.
John Shattuck:
I can’t comment on what somebody did in some other part of Hungary, I haven’t followed the story that closely. I understand he was an American, but I don’t really know anything about him or what he did. What I would say is that I think what we need is that the people, the community must recognize that all members of the community, in this case the Roma, are very important, and have a contribution to make—particularly in a region where more education is needed, so better and more effective workforce can be developed.
Alinda Veiszer:
Another very interesting area for which, if I know it correctly, you have just recently received big funding for from a commercial company, is the study of how senior leaders in Hungary or anywhere in the world become corrupt, and how clearly defined such circumstances are. Is the fact that CEU finds this an important research area a criticism of Hungarian senior leaders?
John Shattuck:
We picked this subject because it is part of our work in our Business School. I think the issue of corruption and the issue of the rule of law and transparency is something very broad throughout the world. I know it’s a European, an Asian issue, and an African, a North American issue. I don’t think any business school today can seriously teach issues of business without having a program that addresses strategies and the practices of ways to try to limit corruption. Again, there’s a lot of work to be done on this in Hungary. Certainly in other Hungarian universities.
Alinda Veiszer:
These are very exciting areas. CEU, which is 20 years old now, organized several such exciting conferences, and will do so in the future, as well. But if you had to evaluate the university now, what is it that you think should be improved, either by you or your successors? What else could make the university better?
John Shattuck:
We have three or four really big initiatives right now that we’re undertaking. One is we’re creating a new school of Public Policy and International Affairs, which will help train new generations of leaders to be officials of government in the same way that I was an official in the government. We’ll teach them what are the ways in which public policy needs to be addressed these days. What are the big problems in the world, such as global warming and issues of ethnic violence. So this is our School of Public Policy and International Affairs. The second big project is to revitalize the CEU campus, to expand it slightly. There are two buildings, Nador 13 and Nador 15 that we’re going to renovate. One of those buildings is where the public policy school will be. Our third project will be to develop a new approach towards business education—we are very excited about the prospect of working with Hungary and other countries in the region on issues of innovation, management and entrepreneurship. This is a region in which there is great human talent, there are not many natural resources; so the human talent can be most effectively used economically by being entrepreneurial. For one example, how do we develop new software manufacture companies? This example shows the kind of focus we will have in our business school. Finally, we’re going to be concentrating on new areas of specialization at the university and, interestingly enough, in both cases they involve Hungarians who return home to teach at CEU. A very exciting group of people who’ve been overseas and now return back to Hungary. One works in the field of network science, which is a very trendy subject now; because we are all on the Internet all the time, and these networks are everywhere. We are trying to understand better how these human networks work. We have a very distinguished professor, Laszlo Barabasi, he is known well in Hungary. He will be working at CEU with us. Another field is cognitive science, which is how the human brain first began to be social and think of social relations. We have several outstanding Hungarians who’ve returned to run the Cognitive Science Department: one is Gergely Csibra, the other is Gyorgy Gergely. They are both leaders in the field and we expect CEU to soon be one of the centers of cognitive science and network science.
Alinda Veiszer:
That is, you go back to the foundations: human rights are very important and so is the development of human communities. Thank you for coming to us to the studio, and for talking to us. We could go on but we are unfortunately running out of time. And we thank you for your attention; please join me next time, as well. Good-bye.
More than 500 people— public figures, politicians, artists and influential individuals—have been guests of Alinda Veiszer at “Záróra,” the 50-minute discussion program about life, career and achievements. The popular late-night pre-recorded program has been running for 5 years on the Hungarian National Television’s second channel (M2). A book containing some of the interviews has also been recently published. Alinda Veiszer is the recipient of several awards, among them the Prima Primissima Prize (Hungarian Media category, 2010).