Nick Birnback (LA '92) received the Light on the Hill award Friday night and offered anecdotes and pointed commentary to an intimate group of students and faculty in Cabot Auditorium.
Birnback is currently a political officer with United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping operations and has participated in missions in far-flung locations including East Timor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ethiopia and Liberia.
Birnback was introduced by Tufts Community Union (TCU) President Dave Baumwoll and Director of the Institute for Global Leadership Sherman Teichman, who was Birnback's teacher and mentor at Tufts through the Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) program.
Despite being "unsentimental, tough-minded, bold and brash," Teichman said Birnback had "unbelievable sensitivity" toward international issues.
When Birnback took to the podium, he said the experiences that most prepared him for peacekeeping were managing EPIIC's "uncompromising" workload and observing human behavior working as a bartender in New York City.
The EPIIC program, which he described as comprised of "a merry band of lunatics," is a course that "demanded a tremendous amount from students," he said.
EPIIC's many responsibilities helped Birnback learn that "it's OK to have things thrown at you a mile a minute; which ended up preparing me for what I did for the next 10 years," he said.
Aside from being a two-time EPIIC participant, Birnback was also an ROTC student, an international relations major, a varsity baseball player, and a fencer.
In his speech, Birnback described four key elements of successful peacekeeping, the first of which is to maintain credibility by following through on decisions. "If you say you will do something, you've got to do it," he said. "You have to be willing to take certain risks and be robust."
Next, Birnback said peacekeeping missions require realistic goals. "Don't try to keep the peace where there is no peace to keep," he said. "If two groups decide that if it is in their best interests to resort to violence, it is difficult to stop them physically given the resources at our disposal."
Birnback said he first learned this principle while bartending. "If two guys at the bar have already started to fight, don't jump in front, or you'll get hit," he said.
Thirdly, Birnback said peacekeeping "has to be part of a whole set of activities, probably by the entire international community," he said, stressing the importance of long-term investments in health care and education. "If you don't stay long enough, you end up back there."
Finally, he spoke about the international community's resistance to taking action even when the situation clearly requires it. Sometimes, "it's impossible to do certain things in the international system that you feel deeply you should be doing," he said.
Birnback said the current humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan is an example of U.N. member nations' lack of initiative. "It's a massive crisis and people are dying every day," he said. "You don't read about it most of time because there is no political will to address the issue in a serious matter."
What then, he asked, can one do? "You take a page out of the book of Teichman and ring a bell," Birnback said, calling upon students to pressure politicians to take action in matters of international concern.
Birnback then took audience questions, which mostly addressed the U.N.'s role in the changing international system.
He said the U.N. can potentially improve conditions in nations wracked by violence and that U.N. peacekeeping has "made a lot of peoples' lives a lot better." But post-World War II international system "is very much under threat" due to nations' decreased adherence to international legal protocol.
When asked about the potential for U.N. action in Iraq, Birnback said the situation there is currently too volatile for U.N. peacekeeping efforts, though his views do not reflect official U.N. opinion.
Though working for the United Nations has at times placed him in physical danger, Birnback expressed no regrets about his career choice. Under situations of extreme stress, he said the self-preservation instinct takes over and "you really can't actually think."
Birnback related one such experience from his mission in East Timor in 1999. When a large number of East Timorese fleeing militia groups took refuge in the U.N. compound in Dili, most U.N. peacekeepers evacuated to Australia.
But Birnback and a small coterie of U.N. staffers petitioned the U.N. leadership to allow them to stay, buying time for the international community to pressure the East Timorese leadership to halt the violence.
As a result Birnback and the U.N. mission in East Timor were awarded the Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Award in 2000.
The Light on the Hill award is presented to a Tufts alumnus who has "accomplished extraordinary things in his/her career and brought pride and recognition to the Tufts Community," according to an e-mail from Baumwoll.
Recipients are selected annually by a TCU Senate committee.
