Dear all,
Welcome to the Spring 2012 semester, which is bound to be an exciting one for the IR Department. We have a still growing number of degree-seeking students, joining us from all corners of the world. We are all badly in need of adopting such a cross-cultural and multi-national perspective to make sense of the world in which we live – so thank you for being here, and welcome to the new students who have joined us!
The semester will be full of events, including IR fieldtrips to Montenegro and to New York. We will, as usual, host a series of extra-curricular events throughout the semester, starting this Wednesday evening at 18.40 in the Auditorium: Professors Walston and Thomassen will try to explain the political situation in Italy right now to new and old students. Italian politics are as eventful as ever, and the context of the current political and economic crisis, national and global, makes it a particularly important moment to be studying international relations and global politics.
Before the semester even really started, the IR Department was lucky enough to welcome Michael Lapsley to the AUR. Father Lapsley came to the AUR on Friday January 27, on the ‘day of memory’. Those of us who were lucky enough to listen to his talk were all deeply moved by what he had to say, on the importance of memory, on the need for acknowledgement of past atrocities, on healing wounds and moving towards peace and conciliation. This is how Ricardo Munoz, 2d year IR student, remembers the talk:
Remembering Apartheid: Talk by Father Michael Lapsley.
By Ricardo Munoz, IR student
To many of us, our knowledge of the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa does not go beyond what we have seen in the film Invictus. On January twenty-seventh I attended a conference organized by the International Relations department where the guest speaker was Father Michael Lapsley. Father Michael was born in New Zealand and began his studies of priesthood as an Anglican in Australia. As a student in the 1970’s he was sent to South Africa where he witnessed apartheid for the first time.
Father Michael describes his experience with apartheid as “losing his humanity”. He says that he ceased to live as a human once he arrived to South Africa and began living as a “white man”, a category that was impossible to get rid of, even if one tried to. Father Michael began his fight against apartheid to regain his humanity, he says. Due to his fight in South Africa he was exiled and later was victim of a brutal attack to end his life which instead took both his hands and an eye. Today, Father Michael runs the Institute of Healing Memories in Cape Town, South Africa. The institute’s goal is to find those in need of help and “contribute to the healing journey of individuals, communities and nations”, as their online site says.
To have personally met a man of such stature with such a tragic, yet inspirational life, was a once in a lifetime experience. Father Michael is a realist that sees things for what they are. When asked if there is now equality in South Africa since apartheid was abolished he answered “Dream on”. There is still a lot of work to do in South Africa – as there is elsewhere. Father Michael’s devotion to his fight is an attribute few have and is worthy of praise.