Pulitzer-winning journalist Thomas Friedman speaks at FAS

Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman spoke in Hodson 110 last Thursday night to an audience filled with students and faculty, with President Ron Daniels in attendance.

The lecture was sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS), whose speaker theme for the year is “Global Citizenship.”

“The FAS’s presentation of Thomas Friedman was a rare opportunity,” freshman Gauri Wagle said. “Not only is he a fantastic columnist, but he’s just as eloquent improvising answers as in his writing.”

Friedman opened by discussing the turmoil in the Middle East and how it could affect other countries in the area, as well as globally. He then tied the subject in with America’s energy crisis, an issue he discusses in detail in his most recent book, Hot, Flat and Crowded.

“It’s the most remarkable story I’ve ever covered — nothing’s even close,” said Friedman, who was in Tahrir Square when the civil unrest in Egypt unfolded. “It was about the most basic human emotions: dignity, freedom, opportunity . . . You don’t need any political science class to understand this. You just need to look in the mirror.”

Friedman then showed how other countries could follow in Egypt’s footsteps, “The lid is coming off — you’re going to see a lot of bats flying out of these caves.”  According to Friedman, no country is safe from the type of revolution that is occurring in Egypt and Tunisia. “I have friends at Twitter who told me there have been mass sign-ups from Saudi Arabia for Twitter accounts in the last two months, and I have absolutely no doubt . . . that you’re going to see some kind of movement emerge there,” Friedman predicted.

He maintained that the people need to own their revolution, especially in Libya and Egypt. Friedman urged the United States to stay at a distance,

offering to help with debt relief, but not policy or troops.

“I’ve never seen this before: martyrs for democracy,” Friedman said of the events in Egypt.

The fact that this call for democracy is coming from the people makes it unique and likely to inspire other societies being oppressed under dictatorships.

Ironically, the oil revenues that have maintained many of these dictators have now turned against them. Friedman cited world food prices as one of the causes of the events in Tunisia and Egypt.

“Rising food prices trigger instability, instability triggers rising oil prices since there’s a huge amount of oil in fertilizer and transportation of food, [which] trigger rising food prices. Rising food prices trigger more instability, more instability triggers higher oil prices. That’s the loop that we’re in right now,” Friedman explained.

Friedman grew visibly more distressed as he transitioned to America’s role, particularly in our addiction to carbon fuels and its many ill effects.

“The discussion we should be having . . . is the most serious energy conservation conversation in this country that we’ve ever had, and we’re not having it at all.”

“We’ve been reading some of Thomas Friedman’s work in my Energy and Environmental Security class this semester, so I was extremely interested to go hear him speak,” sophomore Katie Malzbender said.

“He makes great, logical arguments to support conservation of resources and energy, and they’re really impossible for anyone with common sense to ignore.”

“We’re consuming one-and-a-half earths right now,” Friedman cautioned.

“Mother Nature . . . always bats last, and she always bats 1,000. Do not mess with Mother Nature. Yet, that is exactly what we’re doing.”

Friedman ended by giving a solemn warning. “This is not going to wait for your grandchildren. This is not going to wait for your children. We need to do this for ourselves.”

“He made a great argument that even if you don’t believe with the ‘hot’ part of his “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” argument, the other two are enough to motivate us to move towards a more sustainable path. I thought that was one of the strongest, most unique parts of his argument because it really speaks to everyone, not just environmentalists,” Malzbender said.

Friedman also answered several questions from the audience after his lecture, encouraging the funding research and putting into effect a gas tax to end dependence on foreign oil that props up despots around the globe.

In responding to objections to new taxes, Friedman explained, “If you don’t think having your gasoline prices set by the world’s biggest cartel isn’t in effect a tax, than you’re not paying attention. What differentiates us is that I like my tax money to go to build U.S. schools, U.S. research, U.S. hospitals . . . and you, sir, seem to be happy to see our tax dollars build the Iranian army, the Saudi treasury, Kuwaiti highway . . . If you can’t win that debate, you don’t belong in politics!”

Friedman’s best advice, however, flying in the face of all the disheartening warnings of future environmental perils and political inertia, was how he avoided being cynical throughout his career.

His answer: “Politics can actually work. All the great change in history was done by optimists.”