On October 12, Dr. Javier Corrales—Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science at Amherst College—visited campus as this year’s Jarvis International Fund Lecturer. This year marks the eighteenth annual Jarvis Lecture, named for the Reverend Tony Jarvis, who for thirty years led Roxbury Latin as its 10th Headmaster.

“A person who knows only one country knows no countries,” began Dr. Corrales, citing a quotation from sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset. “I am here to speak with you today about the importance of being internationally curious.” Dr. Corrales insisted that those who don’t seek the perspective of other countries, people, cultures, and languages are prone to exaggerating the pros and cons of their own home nation—in other words “a comparative perspective is critical for an informed analysis.”

Dr. Corrales’s research and teaching focuses on varied, but connected, topics: democratization, presidential powers, and ruling parties; economy, energy, and foreign policy; populism and democratic backsliding; and sexuality. Specifically, Dr. Corrales has published extensively on Latin America and the Caribbean.

“It is a commonly accepted belief that Latin American countries have had a hard time achieving democracy, and that in many ways is true,” Dr. Corrales began. “Some Latin American countries have made great strides toward democracy, but those countries are typically vulnerable and unstable, given their histories. I would argue, however, that this reality has helped to spur great innovations toward protecting that democracy.”

Dr. Corrales went on to talk about Latin American countries—in the face of their struggles for democracy—having developed measures such as inviting impartial, international arbiters to ensure that elections are fair and just; introducing presidential term limits, to keep at bay presidents who stay in office too long and become dictators; and introducing quotas to achieve a 40-50% female representation in democratic ruling bodies.

Dr. Corrales is the author of several books including Fixing Democracy, on Latin America’s penchant for constituent assemblies and the impact on presidential powers; and Autocracy Rising, about the recent Venezuelan transition to authoritarianism. His book Dragon in the Tropics, about the legacy of Hugo Chavez, was chosen in 2019 by both The Financial Times and The Guardian as essential titles to understand the crisis in Venezuela.

A regular contributor to the New York Times, he has published recent opinion pieces there on what the oil spill in Venezuela tells us about their politics; why former Latin American presidents have far too much power; and how the widespread solidarity in this summer’s protests in Cuba may hint at a long-awaited shift in its ruling Communist regime.

Dr. Corrales has taught courses all over the world, including in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Bogotá, Colombia; and Salamanca, Spain. In 2000, he became one of the youngest scholars ever selected as a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant for the World Bank, the United Nations, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been a Fulbright Scholar twice, in 2005 in Caracas and in 2016 in Bogotá. He earned his bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown and his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. Currently, Dr. Corrales is at work on two timely projects—one on populism and polarization, and the other on populism, religion, and LGBT rights.

“A lesson for the United States and other democracies is that it is critically important to both reinforce and reinvent the pillars of your democracy,” concluded Dr. Corrales. “There will always be both foes and champions of an equitable and just democracy, and those who care about preserving it have to be creative and fight to uphold it.”

Established in 2004, the F. Washington Jarvis International Fund Lecture has brought to campus several distinguished public servants and thinkers on foreign affairs—including economist Paul Volcker; Roxbury Latin alumni Ambassadors Richard Murphy and Mark Storella; Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense; Lisa Monaco, homeland security advisor to President Obama; John Brennan, former Director of the CIA; Professor Bill Taubman, who spoke about Russian and U.S. relations over many decades; and, last year, Ambassador Harriet Elam-Thomas, who reminded us of the critical role of diverse perspectives in the work of foreign affairs.The fund is a generous benefaction of Jack Hennessy, Class of ’54, and his wife, Margarita. The Hennessys have, throughout their lives, represented an unusual engagement with other nations and cultures. Throughout their lives, too, they have generously provided the philanthropic wherewithal in order that others might come to know and appreciate our broader world. Through their generosity, hundreds of Roxbury Latin boys and teachers have been afforded the opportunity to travel to foreign countries over the years, developing new perspectives on many political, economic, historical, and cultural issues.

On October 7, Qais Akbar Omar—author of the highly praised coming-of-age memoir A Fort of Nine Towers—shared his story with students in the Smith Theater. With photograph slides illustrating his account, Mr. Omar walked the audience through his experiences of living in Kabul, Afghanistan, during its decade-long civil war, under the rule of the Taliban, and post-9/11, after the arrival of American troops. He showed photographs of the culturally rich, modern, and sophisticated Afghanistan that predated the country’s turmoil of these last three decades.

“Especially as headlines have been dominated by the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan after 20 years; the return of the Taliban to power; and the ensuing uncertainty in that country, we are glad to welcome to Roxbury Latin an eyewitness to contemporary history,” said Headmaster Brennan, in introducing Mr. Omar. 

Mr. Omar’s memoir begins when he was 8 years old, living an idyllic childhood in Kabul, surrounded by his large, colorful, and prosperous family. Mr. Omar, his siblings, his parents, and six uncles and their families all lived together in his grandfather’s spacious home. His grandfather was a carpet dealer, as was his father, who was also a champion boxer and physics teacher at Habibia High School, alma mater of Afghanistan’s former President, Hamid Karzai.

Mr. Omar’s early life in Kabul included the traditional kite flying competitions, popularized in the West by Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner. Life as Mr. Omar knew it at that time was changed forever with the emergence of the Mujahideen, the American-supported rebels who rid Afghanistan of its pro-Soviet government. They brought to Afghanistan and its people a decade-long civil war, displacing thousands of families and, in its savagery, leaving many more casualties. When it became too dangerous to continue to live in his grandfather’s home, the family traveled to a home owned by his father’s carpet-business partner, an 18th century fort called the Qala-e-Noborja, or the “Fort of the Nine Towers.”

Throughout these years, Mr. Omar and his family were forced to endure unspeakable atrocities, and were saved from almost certain death by the coincidences of life: a former boxing student of his father’s, and then the kite-flying partner of Qais himself, became saviors rather than oppressors based on their prior relationships with Qais and his family. The family traveled through Afghanistan in hopes of being smuggled out of their beloved country, but then the tragedy of September 11, 2001 intervened and the family was subjected to the United States’ strikes on the Taliban.

When the Taliban were forced out of Kabul, Mr. Omar and his family reclaimed part of their lives and their home. Mr. Omar helped to rebuild his family’s carpet business. He became an interpreter for the U.S military and worked for the United Nations. He developed a Dari-language production of Love’s Labour’s Lost and then co-wrote, with West Roxbury resident, journalist and playwright, Stephen Landrigan, an account of the experience in their book Shakespeare in Kabul.

During his presentation he shared photographs of his family; talked about the unconventional methods of fishing he enjoyed, introduced by Soviet troops; recounted the months he spent living in artfully adorned caves in the Afghan countryside and with a nomadic tribe; and about the losses he endured, including that of his family’s prosperous carpet-making business.

Mr. Omar earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Kabul University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. A Fort of Nine Towers has been published in more than twenty languages. Mr. Omar has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, and many other reputable publications. In 2014-2015, he was a Scholars at Risk Fellow at Harvard University.

Mr. Omar writes in the conclusion to his memoir: “I have long carried this load of griefs in the cage of my heart. Now I have given them to you. I hope you are strong enough to hold them.” After presenting to students and faculty in Hall, Mr. Omar joined several upper-level English and history classes, where he answered students’ questions about his life, his family, his country—then and now, and the craft of non-fiction writing.

“Earlier this month, across the United States, citizens paused to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, commonly known as 9-11,” Headmaster Brennan began in Hall on September 21. “Regardless of one’s personal connection to the attacks of that day, all of us were affected by them, and all of us continue to be affected by the concerns about security and terrorism that have resulted from it… Twenty years ago we would probably not have known of someone identified as an expert on homeland security and terrorism. But today we have the pleasure of welcoming to RL one of the foremost thinkers on these issues, Juliette Kayyem.”

Juliette Kayyem is the Robert and Renee Belfer Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she is faculty director of the Homeland Security Project and the Security and Global Health Project. She served as President Obama’s Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security—a department created in the wake of 9-11—and has been a national leader in America’s homeland security and emergency management for nearly 25 years.

Ms. Kayyem began her Hall talk by defining terrorism as violence, or the threat of violence, used against civilians for political purpose. “This is the definition we operate with,” Ms. Kayyem said. “I will acknowledge that one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. That’s a debate you can have in your classes.”

She continued by offering a concise master class on the evolution of terrorist threats in America over 20 years, chronicling the events and inventions that have caused people in her area of work to shift focus as the terrain of threats changes.

“It used to be the case that terrorists wanted a lot of people watching, but not a lot of people dead, because killing a lot of people makes others less sympathetic to your cause,” Ms. Kayyem began. She explained how terrorism out of the Middle East began to rise in the mid-90s, though the political motives were vague. “In 1995, there was a real ratcheting up of terrorist violence, specifically with the first World Trade Center bombing. With the rise of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda—who began specifically targeting American civilians—the terrorist agenda had changed: they wanted lots of people dead and lots of people watching.”

Ms. Kayyem explained how in 2004, when Facebook was founded, the dynamics of how we communicated changed. Terrorist groups began to capitalize on the ability to use social media’s reach to radicalize people. “Around that same time, in 2005, there was a significant shift in U.S. security efforts; that’s when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. We realized that we had to expand our focus beyond counterterrorism efforts—on keeping guys off planes—to all hazards and threats. When Katrina hit, we weren’t able to protect an American city from this environmental crisis.” Threats that she and her colleagues began to focus on at that time persist today: climate change and climate disaster, but also pandemics and cyber-terrorism.

“In 2008, when President Obama was elected, we saw a rise in white supremacy and domestic terrorism in America,” Ms. Kayyem continued. “By 2016, this domestic terrorism was a more present threat than the Middle East or Al Qaeda. From 2008 through 2016, we saw more of what we call ‘lone wolf’ attacks, like that at Pulse Nightclub, which are more distributed and less existential. ‘Lone wolf’ is a misnomer, actually, since these individual terrorists were actually together online, where groups like ISIS were enlisting social media with intent to lure and radicalize individuals around the world.”

“In 2016, when Donald Trump was elected and perpetuated a narrative of America first—us versus them, pointing to Mexican immigrants, instituting a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.—another key factor came into existence: The year 2016 was the first time in American history when the birth of non-caucasian babies outnumbered the birth of caucasian babies. This ‘great replacement,’ as it’s referred to, marks a resurgence in the white supremacy movement, perpetuated by social media.”

Ms. Kayyem described how this domestic terror threat, as well as threats posed by climate crises and the COVID-19 pandemic, are in her opinion the most pressing threats in the United States today. Homeland security professionals and counter-terrorist efforts also have a keen focus on what they call “over the horizon” threats, posed by technology and cyber-terrorism.

“Remember,” she concluded, “people are certainly allowed to have any political beliefs and opinions they wish—that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about combining these political beliefs with violence—use of violence, threat of violence. That’s terrorism, whether it’s coming from outside of the U.S. or from within.”

During the Q&A session that followed, one student asked: What is the most important thing we can do to keep our country safe? Ms. Kayyem’s response was that we are safer, as a country, when we help people coming to the U.S. from outside our country buy into the American experience, buy into being American, buy into being proud of living in America and the best of what we represent as a country.

Prior to her work in the Obama administration, Ms. Kayyem was Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s homeland security advisor. She has served as a member of the National Commission on Terrorism; a legal advisor to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno; and a trial attorney and counselor in the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department. Ms. Kayyem is also the CEO and co-founder of Grip Mobility, a technology company looking to provide transparency in the rideshare industry. She is an award-winning author, journalist and commentator, and is featured regularly as a national security analyst on CNN and WGBH, Boston’s Local NPR station.

On April 8, Clint Smith—writer, poet, scholar, and activist—spoke with students and faculty in virtual Hall about his poetry, his passionate support of the racial justice movement, and his newest project—his non-fiction book debut, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which will be published this summer.

“I’ve spent the last four years reading and being transformed by history books,” Mr. Smith began, “and I wondered, ‘How can a poet contribute to this historiography?’” Prompted by watching monuments to the Confederate Army come down in 2017 in his home city of New Orleans, Mr. Smith launched into this project, through which he explores how different cities and sites across the country reckon with, or fail to reckon with, their relationship to the history of slavery. For this project, Mr. Smith traveled to—and chronicled what he learned and experienced in—places like Monticello Plantation and Angola Prison, Galveston Island and New York City.

During Hall, Mr. Smith spoke about how important it is that we learn about, discuss, and understand the totality of our country’s history, and the people within it. He talked about how Thomas Jefferson, for instance, was “a brilliant mind, who helped to create the greatest experiment in democracy that the world has ever seen,” but that he also held more than 600 slaves over the course of his life, including four of his own children who he had by his slave Sally Hemings. “How do we hold and understand two truths at the same time?,” he asked. “It’s important that we face these difficult realities and deal with these tensions. And we might not all agree in the end, but these are conversations we need to be having.”

Mr. Smith also read aloud some of his poetry, including a new poem that was “a letter to four presidents who held slaves,” and the title poem of his 2017 collection, Counting Descent. In an extended Q&A session he answered questions about his writing style and process; the topics he addresses in his poems and essays; and about how we grapple with American history, reconciling the admirable with the loathsome.

Mr. Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and other esteemed publications. His first full-length collection of poetry, Counting Descent, won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.

Mr. Smith is a 2014 National Poetry Slam champion and a 2017 recipient of the Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review. He has been named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” list as well as Ebony Magazine’s Power 100 list. His two TED Talks, The Danger of Silence and How to Raise a Black Son in America, collectively have been viewed more than 7 million times. Mr. Smith has received a number of prestigious, national fellowships; he has taught high school English in Maryland where, in 2013, he was named Teacher of the Year by the Maryland Humanities Council. He currently teaches writing and literature in the D.C. Central Detention Facility. Mr. Smith earned his B.A. in English from Davidson College and his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University.