DUMMERSTON — “¡Hola! Bonjour! Ciao! Saluton! Goededag! Guten Tag! Salut! Zdravo! Dobrey Dyen! Merhaba! As Salam 'Alaykum! Habari! Neih hou! Annyeong-hasimnikka! Konnichiwa! Bondjou! Namaste! Aloha! Hello!”
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Those were the first words I heard at orientation on a hot August day 11 years ago. Retired School for International Training Professor Alvino E. Fantini made such an impression on me with his ability to say “hello” in several foreign languages.
I was one among 162 students attending SIT's Program in intercultural management. We all came from 28 different countries, spoke more than 40 different languages, and brought different socioeconomic backgrounds and life experiences.
Fantini's welcome and the make-up of my class reassured me that I was in the right place.
One of the great surprises of life coming in with certain expectations yet going in a completely different direction.
That's the best way I can describe my experience at SIT, which last weekend celebrated 50 years of international experiential learning.
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I'm also a two-time alumnus of the institution. I studied abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia through SIT in the spring of 1995.
That program was much more about learning Russian language and culture. I took so much out of my four months there and came back to the United States with a whole different outlook on life, and, as an American.
When I arrived at SIT for graduate school, I expected to pursue a career in grassroots solidarity movements, the anti-U.S. Peace Corps, USAID, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund approach to sustainable development.
All of that changed in the last course I took at SIT.
International Public Policy, a one-credit course on drafting and implementing social change, pushed me in a direction toward the social change I could believe in.
My class met with independent journalist Frank Smyth, who covered the Shia uprisings in Iraq after Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
The Shias comprised the majority of Muslims in Iraq, but they were ruled under a secular Sunni Muslim regime headed by Saddam Hussein. The Shias rose up against Saddam Hussein, without U.S. support, and they were brutally repressed.
Smyth and two photojournalists, Alain Buu and Gad Gross, were captured by Iraqi soldiers. Smyth and Buu survived in Abu Ghraib prison. Gross was executed; Smyth and Buu were eventually released by Hussein.
Since then, Smyth has dedicated his life to journalism freedom. He co-founded the Committee to Protect Journalists, an international organization promoting press freedom worldwide. Then, in 2011, he founded Global Journalist Security, a consultant- and safety-training organization for journalists.
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Smyth's story made an impression on me. It wasn't just what he endured in Iraq; he taught me how journalism can be used as a tool for social change.
When one student in our class mentioned that media reform is what's needed, Smyth responded, “Don't assume the mainstream media isn't interested in stories about social change.”
Smyth backed up his words with stories that he wrote about human rights abuses in Guatemala, published in The Christian Science Monitor, The Wall Street Journal, and other major publications.
In the mid-1990s, he worked in Colombia and obtained U.S. Department of Defense and Colombian documents to show the diversion of U.S. drug war aid to military death squads. He broke the story in collaboration with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, according to his bio.
Smyth's works on the Rwandan genocide, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Osama bin Laden, and gun control appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Economist, International Herald Tribune, Salon, The Progressive, The Nation, The New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsday, The New Republic, the Village Voice, and many more. He also reported for CBS, appeared on shows such as Democracy Now and on MSNBC and CNN.
“[Progressive media watchdogs] and others' critique was long that 'corporate media' would not do stories of social change. And in recent years MSNBC's increasingly unequivocal progressive tilt has proven that theory completely wrong. MSNBC and NBC Universal are owned by Comcast, owned by G.E.,” Smyth said to me in a recent email exchange.
“So don't assume the major networks aren't interested in stories related to social change. But find a way to pitch the story that makes it clear why the audience should or would care. Find a way to connect with them that goes beyond politics or especially any ideology.”
When I asked if he thought his works made a difference in social change, he took me back to seeing the big picture.
“Making some level of difference is not to change the world. At best you can help illuminate people's understanding of a situation.
“But the moment you think you are going to 'save' anyone or anything, you would be letting your ego get the best of you, while setting yourself up for real failure,” Smyth said.
I admired Smyth's perspective. He convinced me that effective social change is not about changing the system. It's about sticking to the issues you care about, staying focused on the immediate tasks at hand, and not giving up.
“You have to pace yourself. Social change isn't easy,” I recall him saying.
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Meaningful social change isn't ideologically based. It's not about sloganeering, or taking issues and breaking them down into the lowest common denominator.
I've seen left-wing causes and right-wing causes employ the same tactics, locally, nationally, and internationally, and I have only seen them end up with the same results over and over and over again. They end up stuck in the same place where they started, without having made any noticeable impact.
I believe in the holistic social change that addresses the complexities and nuances of the issues we believe in. I think that's why Smyth has been so successful with what he does.
So I took Smyth's advice to heart. In 2005, I wrote my first piece for a former statewide weekly, the Vermont Guardian, a recap of a talk by former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and Windham County State Senator Peter Galbraith at (ironically) the School for International Training.
I checked my beliefs and ideologies at the door and wrote my story in a manner that was informative. I went beyond the antiwar and pro-war perspectives that dominated the discourse on Iraq. I wanted to address the complexities of Mideast geopolitics conveyed by Galbraith. I emailed my first article to Smyth and he commended me.
Since that article, I never looked back. I found a calling in journalism.
The media world is changing dramatically with the rise of social media, a broken business model, and mass layoffs at newspapers all over the country. I may be unemployed now, but I will never stop writing. And I'll never stop writing about social change that addresses the complexities of world affairs.
I never thought I'd end up where I am today. Thank you, Frank Smyth, and thank you, SIT.