Foreign Policy - #215 November-December 2015

KHALED AL ASAAD RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY ARCHAEOLOGIST HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER SYRIA SRI LANKA FOR PROTECTING CULTURE TO THE DEATH. FOR DEMANDING JUSTICE FOR The man known as “Mr. Palmyra” U.N. PEACEKEEPERS’ wouldn’t abandon the site to CRIMES. which he had dedicated his life. This spring, the Islamic State An internal U.N. review recently docu- advanced on the millennia-old mented nearly 500 allegations of sexual ruins where Khaled al-Asaad exploitation committed by peacekeepers had been head of antiquities for between 2008 and 2013. Few perpetra- more than 40 years (he retired in tors, however, have ever seen a court- 2003). The archaeologist evacu- room. Under international law, the U.N. ated artifacts to Damascus, fear- enjoys broad immunity from legal action; ing they would otherwise fall peacekeepers, meanwhile, may be tried victim to the militants’ vicious in their home states, but as Sri Lankan quest to annihilate reminders of human rights lawyer Radhika Coomaras- the Middle East’s rich cultural his- wamy noted at a news conference this tory. Fighters detained the octo- fall, “Countries don’t like their soldiers genarian and, on Aug. 18, publicly to be prosecuted.” Coomaraswamy is the beheaded him—reportedly for lead author of a 400-page report, released refusing to reveal where relics had in October by U.N. Women, proposing a been hidden. The Islamic State new international tribunal for trying U.N. then destroyed much of Palmyra, staff and peacekeepers accused of serious but thanks to Asaad’s bravery, crimes, including sexual violence. “It is as well as the decades’ worth of truly a frightening phenomenon when research he had conducted before your protector becomes a predator,” the his death, the site won’t vanish study reads. “It is crucial that the UN sig- without a trace. nal a determined commitment to address this issue once and for all.” RODRIGO JANOT ATTORNEY GENERAL BRAZIL COOMARASWAMY: PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES FOR SHOWING dal, the result of an including a former pres- THE SKELETONS IN investigation led by Bra- idential chief of staf. In BRAZIL’S CLOSET. zilian Attorney General all, Janot’s office has Rodrigo Janot. Building issued 117 indictments The leadership of state- most powerful, includ- on more than 30 years and has cost Petrobras’s run oil giant Petrobras— ing President Dilma of government experi- CEO and five top exec- once the infallible corner- Roussef. But this year, ence, Janot, whose oice utives their jobs. And stone of Brazil’s econ- the company has been is constitutionally inde- that isn’t all: In March, omy—reads as a who’s upended by a nearly pendent of the execu- the Supreme Federal who of the country’s $3 billion bribery scan- tive, has been fearless: Court approved Janot’s Rousseff’s Workers’ requests to investigate Party has seen its trea- 12 senators, 22 deputies surer arrested and five of of Congress, and a hand- its lawmakers indicted, ful of former politicians. Illustration by PAUL RYDING FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 49

THE CHALLENGERS EAMON GILMORE In May, Ireland’s elec- ers. In 2011, the then- was “chilly” on the citizens and parliamen- torate said yes to Labour leader pushed matter, according to the tarians who deliberate POLITICIAN same-sex marriage, for a vote as a pol- Irish Times. In 2012, government reform. It IRELAND making the Catholic- icy goal, even though Gilmore became the voted overwhelmingly to majority country the the ruling Fine Gael most senior Irish oi- recommend a referen- FOR CHAMPIONING first state to sanction party—which Labour cial to publicly support dum. This year, Gilmore GAY MARRIAGE the practice through a had joined in a coa- marriage equality and described Ireland’s ref- IN A CATHOLIC BASTION. popular vote. Eamon lition and which had helped push the issue erendum as “a powerful Gilmore was one of the never taken a stance before the Constitutional statement to the rest of referendum’s key back- on gay marriage— Convention, a group of the world.” CHRISTOPHER & JIM OBERGEFELL; ANTHONY KENNEDY REGINA CATRAMBONE PLAINTIFF; SUPREME COURT JUSTICE FOUNDERS, MIGRANT CINCINNATI, OHIO; WASHINGTON, D.C. OFFSHORE AID STATION M A LTA FOR ENSURING THAT LOVE WINS. FOR OFFERING A LIFEBOAT WHEN THE EU WOULDN’T. After a ship carrying hundreds of migrants The path that Jim Obergefell took to become the lead plain- capsized in the Mediterranean in mid- tiff in one of America’s most significant civil rights suits began April, lifeless bodies floated in the water with a simple desire: to be recognized as the spouse on his hus- while many more remained trapped inside band’s death certificate. The years-long fight, Obergefell told the crowded vessel. This “grisly scene,” as the Washington Post, was “my way of honoring and protect- the New York Times reported, was exactly ing [my husband].” A real estate salesman by trade, Obergefell the sort of tragedy that Christopher quickly became a torchbearer for gay rights. This summer, his Catrambone, an American, and Regina commitment paid off: The Supreme Court ruled same-sex mar- Catrambone, an Italian, want to prevent. riage as constitutional in a 5-4 vote. The opinion was authored Using their fortune earned from an insur- by the linchpin of today’s court, Justice Anthony Kennedy. But ance and risk management business, the Kennedy went beyond simply providing the swing vote; he was couple runs the Migrant Offshore Aid Sta- praised for the substance of his legal prose. “It’ll be the Brown v. tion (MOAS). Staffed by humanitarian and Board of Education for sexual orientation,” Kevin Russell, a lawyer security experts, MOAS sails the Phoenix, who covers the court for SCOTUSblog, told Yahoo News. a former fishing trawler, and offers food, water, and medicine to Mediterranean migrants in need; it also escorts them to shore to begin the asylum process. The Catrambones are showing that it’s possible to save lives—close to 12,000 to date, MOAS reports—when governments are faltering. CATRAMBONES: COURTESY PHOTO 50 NOV | DEC 2015 Illustration by JAMES DAWE

SELAHATTIN DEMIRTAS CO CHAIRMAN, PEOPLES’ DEMOCRATIC PARTY TURKEY FOR DASHING ERDOGAN’S DREAMS. EKA ZGULADZE GLUCKSMANN Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a thorn in his side, and his name is Sela- FIRST DEPUTY INTERIOR MINISTER hattin Demirtas. The 42-year-old lawyer led UKRAINE the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in June’s national election. It won FOR INSTILLING THE MAIDAN’S SPIRIT enough seats to prevent Erdogan’s party IN UKRAINE’S POLICE FORCE. from maintaining its legislative majority. Demirtas broadened the HDP’s appeal, When protesters flooded Kiev’s Maidan in November 2013, cops showing it as representing not only Kurd- wasted little time in subduing the demonstrators with tear gas, water ish interests but also liberalism: wom- cannons, and rubber bullets—just one brutal example of the police en’s and gay rights, environmentalism, force’s notoriously dirty tactics. For Ukraine’s subsequent government, and opposition to Erdogan’s increasingly reform was crucial: “A Soviet legacy, our police is not about protect- authoritarian politics. Demirtas’s views ing people,” parliamentarian Anton Gerashchenko told Bloomberg and charisma earned him the media nick- Businessweek this February. “It is about protecting the authorities name “the Kurdish Obama” and launched from the people.” But who could pull off an overhaul? Eka Zguladze- him into Turkey’s political stratosphere, Glucksmann, a Georgian national who had previously launched where he seems likely to keep challenging reforms among her own country’s police. In less than a year, Zguladze- a frustrated Erdogan. Glucksmann has suspended thousands of Ukraine’s cops and has ZGULADZE GLUCKSMANN: MISHA FRIEDMAN; DEMIRTAS: DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/GETTY IMAGES added 2,000 new recruits, who have received higher salaries and Western-style training. The new force, she told FOREIGN POLICY in Sep- tember, “is like an injection of an anti-virus.” FEI FEI LI & OLGA Fewer than one-third of the world’s sci- running “wogrammers,” a movement to RUSSAKOVSKY; ence, technology, engineering, and math end the “brogrammer” stereotype and ERIN SUMMERS & ZAINAB (STEM) researchers are women. But that highlight the technical accomplishments GHADIYALI; ROBYN might not be the case for too much longer. of their peers; in its first year, wogram- Fei-Fei Li, a computer-vision expert and the mers highlighted 50 female engineers from COMPUTER SCIENTISTS; director of the Stanford Artificial Intelli- around the globe. Across the pond, Swedish ENGINEERS; POP SINGER gence Laboratory, joined Ph.D. student pop star Robyn organized Tekla, a festival PA LO A LTO , C A L I F., P I T TS B U R G H ; Olga Russakovsky to found SAILORS, the to support girls ages 11 to 18 with interest MENLO PARK, CALIF.; SWEDEN first summer camp for girls interested in in STEM fields. Sponsored by Sweden’s artificial intelligence. Nearby, in Menlo Royal Institute of Technology, it offered FOR CRACKING THE Park, two female engineers at Facebook, workshops on robotics, 3-D printing, and STEM CEILING. Erin Summers and Zainab Ghadiyali, are electronic music. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 51

THE CHALLENGERS AYMAN ODEH CHAIRMAN, JOINT LIST ISRAEL FOR UNITING ISRAEL’S ARABS. Middle East peace the first time ever to talks may be all but run in Israel’s March dead, but Ayman elections. The group Odeh still dreams of is now the Knesset’s resolving the world’s third largest and the most intractable con- biggest Arab legisla- flict. The 40-year- tive faction in Israeli old lawyer heads the history. Odeh yoked Joint List, a coalition diverse leaders—Isla- of Arab political par- mists, secular femi- ties that united for nists, socialists—with a forthright argument that Arabs deserve the same rights as Jewish citizens. Equality, he said in his inaugu- ral Knesset speech, “enriches the space we live in.” CATHERINE MURPHY POLICY ADVISOR, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL UNITED KINGDOM FOR LEGITIMIZING SEX WORK. Amnesty International announced in NICOLA STURGEON STURGEON: ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; ODEH: COURTESY PHOTO August that it now supports legalizing prostitution, long a wedge issue dividing FIRST MINISTER human rights activists who believe crim- SCOTLAND inalization makes sex workers more vul- nerable to poverty and abuse, from other FOR DISRUPTING U.K. POLITICS. campaigners—often from feminist or reli- gious groups—who argue that it does the Britain’s Labour Party failed to win over the Scots for the first time opposite. Amnesty policy advisor Cather- in decades this May. The upset can largely be credited to Scottish ine Murphy chiefly engineered the shift, National Party head Nicola Sturgeon, who took the party’s reins based on over two years of research and after 2014’s failed independence referendum. Voters, the Guardian evidence collected from sex workers, reported, connected with her “authenticity” and the fact that, despite health experts, and other sources. In her political ascent, “she remains ‘one of us.’” Her personal appeal the wake of the announcement, Murphy complemented her steadfast opposition to austerity at a time when defended Amnesty against backlash. For Labour was tacking right. many, she argued in an NPR interview, sex work is necessary to make ends meet; it cannot and should not be legislated out of existence. “We don’t see … criminal law as a silver bullet to end prostitution,” Murphy said. 52 NOV | DEC 2015

IVÁN VELÁSQUEZ COMMISSIONER, INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION AGAINST IMPUNITY IN GUATEMALA GUATEMALA FOR FOLLOWING THE MONEY ALL THE WAY TO THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE. When the United ensnare the Guatema- Nations appointed lan president himself. Colombian Iván Nevertheless, in Sep- Velásquez, a former tember, two years after judge, head of the the commissioner’s International Commis- appointment, Otto Pérez sion Against Impunity Molina was arrested on in Guatemala (CICIG) in corruption charges. 2013, it knew what it was getting: someone Velásquez had sparked whose career was built protests in April, when he on dismantling paramil- publicly released CICIG’s itaries and criminal net- findings into La Línea, a works. What it couldn’t customs-fraud scheme have predicted was in which companies paid that, under Velásquez’s bribes to public oicials watch, CICIG—a group in exchange for lower of judges, prosecutors, import duties. The report and law enforcement marked a capstone to officials investigating CICIG’s eforts to take on pervasive corruption pervasive graft among and criminality—would Latin America’s most powerful. VESTAGER: COURTESY PHOTO; VELÁSQUEZ: JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES MARGRETHE VESTAGER EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER FOR COMPETITION BELGIUM FOR BURSTING GOOGLE’S BUBBLE. On three consecutive Wednesdays this spring, mold. Her predecessor pursued three failed Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s settlement deals with Google and let cases new antitrust chief, rocked the business against Amazon, Apple, and Starbucks lan- world. On the first two, she sued Google and guish. Vestager’s actions, which could help Gazprom, respectively, alleging abuse of mar- smaller companies take on Goliaths in Euro- ket dominance; on the third, she announced pean courts, have earned her high praise: a probe into whether European government “Amid constant reminders of the EU’s weak- subsidies to electrical utilities constitute ille- ness, from Mediterranean migration to the gal aid. These cases and Vestager’s promise endless Greek saga,” the Economist wrote in to pursue more companies “regardless of May, “Ms. Vestager’s shows of strength are a the nationality or size” are breaking the EU reminder that Brussels has bite.” FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 53

THE CHALLENGERS LORETTA LYNCH SHUKRIA BARAKZAI THE ATTORNEY GENERAL PARLIAMENTARIAN INNOVATORS WASHINGTON, D.C. AFGHANISTAN FOR WAGING WAR FOR TELLING THE ON BIG SOCCER. TALIBAN WHAT’S WHAT. Just one month into her landmark tenure This summer, Afghan cessful, because they as U.S. attorney general—she is the first legislator Shukria said they never thought African-American woman to hold the job— Barakzai flew to Oslo, Afghan women could Loretta Lynch announced indictments for Norway, to participate be so frank, honest, racketeering, money laundering, and other in unprecedented talks and tough.” crimes against 14 officials of FIFA, soccer’s between Taliban lead- international governing body. Lynch, who ers and an all-female “SOMETIMES, I purposely has compared FIFA to the Sicilian Mafia, group of Afghan pol- wanted to bother them. has been lauded by the media for going iticians and activists. We were traveling by after soccer’s famously crooked leader- Some women didn’t bus from one place to ship. German newspaper Bild hailed her want their identities another. I played music as “shocking FIFA like an earthquake.” revealed publicly for fear because I like music. A Soccer’s overlords are feeling the pain of of retribution—but not participant from the Lynch’s scrutiny, which includes exposing Barakzai, despite sur- Taliban side said, ‘Any- $150 million in bribes. As of November, viving a suicide attack in one who wants to listen FIFA hadn’t secured new sponsors in over November 2014 for her to music, they should a year, and its secretary-general acknowl- candid support of wom- use earphones.’ Why edged that “the current situation doesn’t en’s rights. In a recent did I do this? Because help to finalize any new agreements.” interview with FOREIGN I want them to respect According to Lynch, her investigation is POLICY, she discussed the and accept us the way only getting started. talks, her brave politi- we are. They should cal career, and Afghan- feel sorry for what ter- istan’s future. rible lives they gave to An iPhone app that serves as eyes BARAKZAI: SHAH MARAI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Afghan women.” for the blind. A book with pages that “BEFORE WE went in, clean dirty water. A device that turns we organized our ideas “I BELIEVE I am one a smartphone into a microscope capa- and our demands. We of those who planted ble of diagnosing tropical diseases. A have been very clear the seeds of equal- process for growing new bones in a lab about what we want ity, the seeds of wom- using human stem cells. A digital index from them: mean- en’s empowerment. that grades businesses on their support ingful participation of Through the consti- for gender equality. The groundbreaking women in every single tution, through social work from this group of Global Thinkers layer of political, social, and political activi- serves as a snapshot of the leaps for- and economic power. ties, they’re growing: ward that technology took in 2015— The other important The seeds are now a and of the good this progress can do point was a cease-fire. tree. But this tree still for global health, human rights, secu- Because if we don’t go is shaking when there rity, and more. for a cease-fire, we is too big a wind.” cannot find a solu- tion for the peace pro- “I LOVE TO be loud. cess to move forward. Whenever there is injus- It is unacceptable that tice, I like to be louder.” at the same time we are sitting and talking about peace, suicide attacks are happening.” “WE WENT there to change their opinion and ideas. If by talking we can change a group opinion from extreme negative to a little bit positive, that is a suc- cess…. So it was suc- 54 NOV | DEC 2015 Illustration by PAUL RYDING

THERESA DANKOVICH NANOTECHNOLOGIST PITTSBURGH FOR RIPPING APART BOOKS TO HYDRATE THE WORLD. The 663 million people who don’t 2 have clean water could get it if 3 they had reliable, efficient filters. Theresa Dankovich of Carnegie Mellon University has devel- oped sheets of paper laden with bacteria-destroying nanoparti- cles made of silver and copper. Tests show that pAge papers, as they’re called, can remove up to 99.9 percent of microbes—includ- ing those that cause typhoid and cholera—from water poured through them. At the American Chemical Society’s 2015 confer- ence, Dankovich presented “The Drinkable Book,” which contains 25 pAge papers that can be torn out and filter 650 gallons in total—enough, Dankovich says, to provide one person with clean water for up to four years. NINA TANDON and other conditions. After three weeks, the CO FOUNDER, EPIBONE cells have essentially NEW YORK CITY formed a new bone. This method requires FOR HEALING BROKEN BONES BY only one surgery and GROWING NEW ONES. avoids implanting for- eign materials into the Nina Tandon was struct bone, surgeons co-founder of EpiBone, body, thereby reducing just 3 years old when must take bone either has created a third way: pain and complications. her father taught from somewhere else growing new bones. A EpiBone has success- her to say “orthope- in a patient’s body, patient’s stem cells are fully replaced the jaw of dic surgeon.” Fast- necessitating a dou- placed in a mold, which a pig and is gearing up forward three decades: ble surgery, or from is then put into a special to start its first clinical Now she’s revolutioniz- an outside source, chamber that simulates trials, to be held within ing the profession. such as a prosthesis the body’s temperature, two years. or a donor. But Tandon, nutrient composition, Typically, to recon- FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 55

THE INNOVATORS MIGUEL NICOLELIS; JUSTIN AMY WILLARD CROSS SANCHEZ; ANTHONY ZADOR ENTREPRENEUR NEUROSCIENTISTS NEW YORK CITY DURHAM, N.C.; ARLINGTON, VA.; COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y. FOR HARNESSING ECONOMIC GIRL POWER. FOR TESTING American women earn don’t have power,” to grade companies How users spend THE BOUNDARIES only 84 percent of what Amy-Willard Cross told on metrics such as the dollars could bend OF OUR MOST men do, yet recent Fortune in August, “but number of women in the curve of gender POWERFUL ORGAN. research shows they as consumers we have leadership roles and the inequality, encourag- also make 85 percent huge power.” That’s availability of maternity ing businesses to pro- This year, scientists made significant discov- of buying decisions. why she co-created the leave. It currently rates tect their own interests eries about the least understood part of the “Working women Buy Up Index, an app about 150 compa- by instituting female- body: the brain. Duke University neuroscien- sometimes think we that uses public data nies and 800 brands. friendly policies. tist Miguel Nicolelis synced the brain activity of monkeys so they could collectively accomplish THELLE KRISTENSEN & HANS JØRGEN WIBERG tasks. The “brainet,” as it’s called, could even- tually be used to connect a stroke patient with, FOUNDERS, BE MY EYES say, a physical therapist to aid in recovery. Jus- DENMARK tin Sanchez’s team at DARPA developed a pros- thetic hand that’s connected to the brain and can FOR INSTALLING “feel” physical sensation in its fingers, which EYESIGHT IN THE PALM someday could help paralyzed people or ampu- OF YOUR HAND. tees regain feeling and manipulate objects. And Anthony Zador and his team at Cold Spring Har- Even the most self-sufficient blind per- bor Laboratory determined, by slicing into a brain son cannot, alone, determine the ink- and studying its neural makeup, what a mouse stamped expiration date on a milk carton. had learned prior to its death. If scaled up, the This is but one example of an everyday science could be used to create a postmortem hurdle that Thelle Kristensen and Hans map of memories. Jørgen Wiberg hope to remove with their iPhone app, Be My Eyes. Launched in MICHAEL CIMA & mid-January, the program uses video ROBERT LANGER to connect visually impaired individu- als with full-sighted volunteers who are BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERS able to assist with common tasks; users CAMBRIDGE, MASS. simply press a button to request assis- tance, and volunteers receive a notifica- FOR ELIMINATING PILLS tion. Within 10 months of launching, the AND SYRINGES FROM app, which works in dozens of languages, had PATIENT CARE. attracted nearly 320,000 users worldwide. According to a 2012 Annals of Internal Medicine DANIEL FLETCHER KRISTENSEN AND WIBERG, BE MY EYES: COURTESY PHOTOS report, Americans’ noncompliance with medi- cal prescriptions costs between $100 billion and BIOMEDICAL ENGINEER $289 billion and leads to 125,000 deaths each year. BERKELEY, CALIF. So biomedical engineers Michael Cima and Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- FOR USING A CELL PHONE TO FIND DISEASE. ogy found a way to simply eliminate user error: a fingernail-size microchip, embedded beneath the In a fast-paced Amer- by bioengineer Daniel LED lights and micro- can shoot footage skin, that directly delivers tiny drug doses to the ican lab, it can take Fletcher at the Univer- controllers that, when of the tiny Loa loa, body. The devices function like glands and release a few hours to diag- sity of California, Berke- attached to a smart- a parasitic worm that chemicals into the body over the course of years, nose tropical diseases ley, have developed a phone, becomes a infects the eyes and making them ideal for treating chronic illnesses like through blood-smear gadget that may dras- video microscope. skin. The technol- diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and osteoporosis. testing. Put the burden tically improve diag- Insert a tiny tube con- ogy could help iden- Clinical trials began in 2011, and this June, Cima and on a poorly resourced nostics: the CellScope taining a drop of a tify other diseases, Langer struck a $35 million deal with Teva Pharma- clinic, and the wait time Loa, a 3D-printed plas- patient’s blood, and including malaria ceutical, the world’s largest generic-drug producer, grows. Researchers led tic base containing health professionals and tuberculosis. to start commercial development. 56 NOV | DEC 2015

THE JOANNE LIU WAI WAI NU ADVOCATES INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES WOMEN PEACE NETWORK ARAKAN SWITZERLAND MYANMAR FOR GOING TOE TO TOE FOR ENSURING THE WITH A SUPERPOWER. STATELESS AREN’T VOICELESS. These Global Thinkers stood in solidar- After the United States attacked a Médecins Rohingya Muslims captured ity with some of the world’s most vul- Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, attention this year when thou- nerable populations, from transgender Afghanistan, on Oct. 3, killing at least 23, sands fleeing violence and pov- individuals to victims of sexual abuse, U.S. Defense Department officials labeled erty in Myanmar were stranded ethnic minorities to civilians caught in it an error. But Joanne Liu, MSF’s interna- at sea; no country would admit the crosshairs of war. They used social tional president, likened it to a war crime. them. Rohingya activist Wai media to build unprecedented politi- “If we let this go as if it were a nonevent, Wai Nu traveled to the United cal movements, ofered safe spaces we are basically giving a blank check to Nations and Washington to for discussion in societies that restrict any country [in conflict],” Liu said at a denounce how widespread free speech, and educated publics about news conference. She rejected NATO and religious discrimination in taboo subjects. Some were bullied for Pentagon efforts to investigate the bomb- Buddhist-dominated Myanmar their work. One survived an assassi- ing, calling instead for an inquiry by the was fueling the flood of refu- nation attempt; another was not so International Humanitarian Fact-Finding gees. A former political prisoner, lucky. But no matter the risks involved, Commission—an independent body of she runs an NGO that con- for these advocates the fight for justice experts established under the Geneva Con- ducts trainings aimed at build- was necessary. ventions but never before called to action. ing bonds between Muslim A probe is perhaps unlikely, because Wash- and Buddhist women. She’s ington would have to consent to the com- criticized her country’s govern- mission’s work. Yet Liu’s tough words ment for selectively violating are making waves: U.S. President Barack its citizens’ liberties. “People Obama called her personally to apologize can demonstrate freely—against for the attack—a rare act of contrition by Muslims,” she told the Wash- a U.S. leader. ington Post’s editorial board in July, “but when people ask for their rights or their education or their land, they are arrested and charged.” WAI WAI: YE AUNG THU/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Illustration by PAUL RYDING FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 57

THE A DVO CATES JOHNETTA ELZIE & If the Black Lives Matter movement is the engine driving a debate DERAY MCKESSON about racism in America, then social media is the fuel: Activists use it to organize demonstrations and demand reform. With more than ACTIVISTS 300,000 combined Twitter followers, Johnetta Elzie and DeRay ST. LOUIS Mckesson are at the movement’s vanguard. They are part of the team that runs Mapping Police Violence, an online platform for data on FOR MAINSTREAMING police brutality, and they’ve chronicled protests from Baltimore to #BLACKLIVESMATTER. St. Louis, where both were detained for civil disobedience in August. That same month, they launched Campaign Zero, which outlines policy proposals to eliminate police violence (e.g., requiring body cameras). It also grades presidential candidates on their criminal justice proposals. PETER BLOOM CO FOUNDER, RHIZOMATICA MEXICO FOR SIDESTEPPING MOBILE GIANTS. Around the world, large mobile operators an Oaxaca-based telecom NGO, allows in Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s least connected have refused for years to set up networks poorly connected rural communities to states. In the long term, the organization has in remote areas, arguing that it isn’t profit- have total control over their own decen- global ambitions: Rhizomatica’s official mis- able. Mexico has been no exception: Some tralized, open-sourced cell networks—and sion is nothing short of increasing “access 50,000 communities don’t have reliable for fees that are just a fraction of what Mex- to mobile telecommunications to the over cell service. Then Peter Bloom came along. ico’s large mobile providers charge. As of 2 billion people without affordable cover- The American co-founder of Rhizomatica, June, Rhizomatica had set up 19 networks age and the 700 million with none at all.” 58 NOV | DEC 2015 Illustration by JAMES DAWE

MARA GLENNIE & LENORE ZIETSMAN NICK BOSTROM FOUNDER, TEARS FOUNDATION; LEARNING SPECIALIST PHILOSOPHER SOUTH AFRICA UNITED KINGDOM FOR PLAYING GAMES TO STOP SEXUAL VIOLENCE. FOR SOUNDING THE ALARM ON OUR South Africa has among the highest rates of sexual assault in the FUTURE COMPUTER world. Many victims are children, and a bombshell 2009 govern- OVERLORDS. ment survey found that one in four men admitted to having raped BOSTROM: COURTESY PHOTO; PEJIC: NICHOLAS HUNT/GETTY IMAGES FOR GQ a woman. The TEARS Foundation (Transform Education About Nick Bostrom is rag- “SUPPOSE YOU wanted Rape and Sexual Abuse) plans to decrease these numbers by influ- ing against machines. to know, out of all the encing young minds: Founder Mara Glennie and learning specialist The Swedish philos- things you could do as Lenore Zietsman have created LifeBoard, a game that both educates opher is warning that an individual, which of children about sexual violence and helps identify signs of abuse artificial intelligence these possible actions already suffered by its players. After a 2014 pilot project, the foun- (AI) could advance would have the best dation announced this year that it’s working with the South African rapidly, force its pref- long-term conse- government to put LifeBoard in schools nationwide. erences on the world, quences—not only for and pose an existential you but for other people ANDREJA PEJIC threat to humankind. as well. From a moral “Before the prospect of point of view, this is MODEL an intelligence explo- very important, and yet NEW YORK CITY sion,” he writes in his it’s extremely diicult to book, Superintelli- answer because there is FOR REDEFINING THE CONTOURS OF BEAUTY. gence, “we humans so much uncertainty. But are like small children without a view on it, we Andreja Pejic is a 6-foot-1-inch blonde playing with a bomb.” are just fumbling around with a size 11 shoe who has walked the In an interview with in the dark, as likely to runway for the likes of Marc Jacobs and FOREIGN POLICY, Bostrom make the world worse Jean Paul Gaultier—in both men’s and discussed his prognosti- as to make it better. Illu- women’s clothing. This 24-year-old Bos- cations about “the most minating this macro- nian-born supermodel was scouted when important thing to hap- strategic landscape is she was just 16, living in Australia as a ref- pen … since the rise of what we are trying to ugee, flipping McDonald’s burgers, and the human species” do … trying to figure going by the name Andrej: Pejic was born and how his research out what really would male but has long identified as female. In team—drawing from be the best thing to do 2015, she spoke publicly about gender- ethics, mathematics, about something like AI, reassignment surgery, which she under- economics, and other all things considered.” went last year, and became the first openly fields—is trying to pre- transgender model to be profiled by the vent them from com- “UNTIL RECENTLY, there American edition of Vogue. At a time when ing true. wasn’t much of a con- Caitlyn Jenner is grabbing headlines, but ceptual apparatus for transgender people are still widely mis- “THERE’S THIS tendency thinking systematically understood and subjected to violence and in popular culture to about these big-picture discrimination, Pejic is sharing her story project human psy- questions for human- in order to urge acceptance. chology onto artificial ity. Anybody could feel minds and assume entitled to speculate that they would have about them at their lei- this whole complicated sure; maybe the state emotional machinery of the art could be that we humans have found in some science- for evolutionary rea- fiction novels. … Now sons. But there’s no we have the rudiments particular reason to of an academic field— think that it would be if not all the answers.” there, unless we spe- cifically build it in. The tendency to anthro- pomorphize AI is the source of the main blockages to under- standing what it might be like.” FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 59

THE A DVO CATES MAHMUD: FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; RICHARDS: MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES SABEEN MAHMUD OWNER, T2F PAKISTAN FOR CREATING A SAFE SPACE IN AN ILLIBERAL SOCIETY. On April 24, human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud hosted a panel on thousands of disappearances that many believe Paki- stan’s government is carrying out against perceived supporters of Balochistan’s sep- aratist movement. The event was held at Mahmud’s T2F (The Second Floor) cafe, a haven for Karachi’s liberal thinkers. After- ward, two unidentified gunmen approached Mahmud’s car at a red light and killed her. Pakistan’s civil society is under attack from both religious radicals and an abusive state security apparatus. But Mahmud was uncompromising in her commitment to free speech. T2F, founded in 2007, staged hundreds of provocative events, including Pakistan’s first hackathon. In fact, Mah- mud welcomed the Balochistan panel after authorities ordered its cancellation at another venue. “Fear is a state of mind,” an acquaintance, writing in the New Yorker after the killing, recalled Mahmud once say- ing. “You can make it much bigger than it actually is.” CECILE RICHARDS PRESIDENT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD NEW YORK CITY FOR KEEPING HER COOL IN A HOT WASHINGTON MESS. In her nearly 10 years as Planned Parenthood’s pres- discussing illegal profits from fetal-tissue sales. But ident, Cecile Richards has reiterated that the gov- the five-hour grilling went far beyond questioning ernment money the organization receives pays for the legitimacy of the videos; members of Congress abortions only under rare circumstances and that attacked all of Planned Parenthood’s operations, dis- the procedure amounts to only a tiny fraction of the sected Richards’s salary, and tried to school her on services it provides. Neverthelesas, under her lead- women’s health care. She remained calm and steely, ership, federal and state governments have threat- the epitome of grace under fire. “It is clear [the vid- ened to pull funding some 20 times. This fall, that eos’ creators] acted fraudulently and unethically— animosity reached a fever pitch when legislators and perhaps illegally,” she told the panel. “Yet it is summoned Richards to Capitol Hill to testify about Planned Parenthood … that is currently subject to sting videos that allegedly showed her employees four separate congressional investigations.” 60 NOV | DEC 2015

PIERRE CLAVER MBONIMPA LI TINGTING FOUNDER, ASSOCIATION FOR ACTIVIST THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS CHINA AND INCARCERATED PERSONS BURUNDI FOR STICKING IT TO THE COMMUNISTS. FOR BEING A CONSTITUTIONAL Ahead of International Women’s Day BODYGUARD. in March, Beijing authorities detained Li Tingting, a feminist lesbian activist, When Burundi’s pres- on live radio; a few for planning to distribute stickers and ident Pierre Nkurun- months later, Mbon- fliers decrying sexual harassment on ziza announced he impa brought evidence public transportation. It wasn’t Li’s first was seeking a third of apparent vote rig- run-in with the state: In 2012, her phone term this year—violat- ging to the Interna- was tapped, and her family has been ing the constitution— tional Business Times. harassed for her role in organizing sit-ins Bujumbura’s streets These eforts, though, to demand more public toilets for women. raged with protests have come at a great She has also marched against domestic and violence. Amid personal cost: In late violence in a bloody wedding dress. This the chaos, human summer, Mbonimpa time, she claimed officials strapped her to rights activist Pierre survived an assas- a chair, blew cigarette smoke in her face, Claver Mbonimpa sination attempt. deprived her of sleep, and tried to shame emerged as the gov- Then in October, her for identifying as gay. But Li’s growing ernment’s most vocal his son-in-law was fame helped her. Foreign politicians and critic. In April, he murdered. Mbon- activists, including now-U.S. presidential was arrested shortly impa’s own son met contender Hillary Clinton, put an unusual after calling for pro- the same fate the next amount of pressure on China to release democracy protests month. her. It did so after 37 days. Li is now plan- ning her next provocation: She says she’s studying to become China’s first openly lesbian lawyer. REBECCA GOMPERTS FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, WOMEN ON WAVES NETHERLANDS FOR DELIVERING A CHOICE BY DRONE. MBONIMPA: CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES A drone hung in the sky above the small Polish border town of Slu- bice and dropped—what else?—abortion pills. The gift, delivered this June by abortion-rights NGO Women on Waves, called atten- FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 61 tion to restrictions on access to the procedure: Nearly 40 percent of the world’s people live in countries that deny or limit a woman’s right to choose, and in predominantly Catholic Poland, abortions are rarely permitted. When anti-abortion groups vowed to shoot down the drone, Women on Waves founder Rebecca Gomperts told the Guardian, “Fortunately, guns are not that easy to get in Europe.” Illustration by PAUL RYDING

POWER It is no coincidence that the notion of SURGE lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights is spreading globally at the WHY VLADIMIR PUTIN AND YOWERI MUSEVENI ARE exact moment that old boundaries are FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE AGAINST SEXUAL FREEDOM. collapsing in the era of the digital revolu- By MARK GEVISSER tion, mass migration, and international commodity markets. The breakdown Ireland became the first country to legalize same- of these boundaries has meant the rapid sex marriage through a popular vote this May, spread of ideas about sexual equality— concluding a campaign that legislator and and, at the same time, a dramatic reac- 2015 Global Thinker Eamon Gilmore had waged tion by conservative forces, from states for several years. The following month, the U.S. to religious groups, that fear losing control. Supreme Court issued a long-awaited ruling that struck down prohibitions on the same practice: This introduces a troubling new equa- “No longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice tion: the more rights that are gained by Anthony Kennedy, another Global Thinker, wrote sexual minorities in some parts of the in the majority opinion. Also over the summer, world, as they were this year, the stronger Mozambique decriminalized homosexuality, and the backlash against them in others. More Nepal began issuing passports recognizing the than 70 countries still outlaw “homosex- identities of third-gender people. ual conduct” or “same-sex sexual acts,” many doing so with the old colonial British 62 NOV | DEC 2015 penal code. Six punish it with death. And several countries have recently strength- ened their legislation, have recriminal- ized homosexuality, or are looking to do so. (One of them is Nigeria, where the pub- lic flogging of a gay man prompted artist and Global Thinker Adejoke Tugbiyele to craft a haunting sculpture called A Queer African Spirit.) The term “global culture wars” is increasingly being used to describe the new international discussion around sex- uality and gender identity. The suggestion is that a conflict is being fought on foreign fields between Western governments and human rights defenders on one side and religious and political right-wingers on the other—exemplified, most crudely, by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a Global Thinker who has taken up the cudgels for “traditional values.” It’s true that the West has put financial pressure on some homophobic countries to change their laws, through the threat of sanctions or withdrawing development aid. And there is compelling evidence of another inter- national patronage network at play: In Uganda, at least, the campaign for anti- gay legislation was sparked and funded by American Christian missionaries. But the global culture wars paradigm makes a problematic assumption: that, much as in the Cold War, there are main actors (Washington, Moscow) and there are proxies (the global south). In so doing, Illustration by MARK SMITH

it denies the agency of people who live in movement actually makes things worse fashions to more deep-rooted values. These countries that violate LGBT rights—and for sexual minorities in the way it imposes voices are heard mainly in Eastern Europe who live in a world where there are now fixed, binary, and Western categories of and Africa. They view LGBT advocacy as an as many sources of information as there sexuality upon the far more fluid envi- act of neocolonial “social imperialism,” as are ideas. ronments that exist in other cultures. The Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni put most eloquent proponent of this view has it in 2014. Their discourse seeks to protect The conventional liberal narrative plots been Palestinian academic Joseph Mas- the cultural sovereignty of societies, sup- the gradual but ineluctable extension of sad, who has written that the movement posedly vulnerable in the face of Western human rights for sexual minorities from has become a proselytizing, neocolonial capitalism. In this way, the battle against the liberal West outward to more repres- “Gay International,” provoking unneces- LGBT rights is an attempt to erect a barri- sive societies. This measures regional sary cultural conflict in the Arab world cade against the forces of globalization. social and political practices against a by forcing its Western “Orientalist” defi- universal standard of human rights. Such nitions of gay identity on societies that These two arguments might come from rights, of course, are necessary and essen- it deeply misunderstands. Such provo- opposite sides of the ideological divide, but tial. But some scholars and activists, par- cations, he maintains, have exacerbated they share a common impulse: nostalgia. ticularly from the developing world, are rather than ameliorated matters: They have Both imagine a world where national or beginning to question the relevance of this shut down space, rather than opened it up, cultural boundaries are still mostly intact. view—and thus the efficacy of a rights- by “destroying social and sexual configu- Yet neither comes to terms with the con- based approach to the extension of sexual rations of desire” and by making homo- temporary world, where actors might be freedom—in parts of the world that do not philic customs—such as holding hands subject to all manner of influences but still have the same traditions that spawned the in public or washing one another in a make their own decisions. This was the contemporary gay rights campaign, and hamam—suspect. case for fiancés Tiwonge Chimbalanga, that have their own customs for accom- a transgender woman, and Steven Mon- modating sexual and gender difference. On another front are those who insist jeza when they held an engagement cer- on the subjugation of newfangled Western emony in Malawi in 2009, just as it was These critics claim that the global LGBT for Senegalese activists who were tried the same year for “belonging to a crimi- nal association”: AIDES Senegal, an HIV prevention and treatment organization that allowed gay men to meet and mobilize safely. (These individuals were convicted and imprisoned; their sentences were later overturned or they were pardoned under international pressure.) The claim by patriarchal leaders that their cultures don’t talk about matters of sexuality no longer passes muster, partic- ularly in the African environment. One of Museveni’s greatest achievements was that he understood his country needed, pre- cisely, to talk about sex and sexuality if it was to combat AIDS. He played a key role in starting that conversation and in his coun- try’s admirable early response to the virus. There is disingenuousness, too, in Senega- lese President Macky Sall’s plaint that the West is asking for the decriminalization of homosexuality in Africa before the conti- nent is ready for it. African LGBT activists are demanding something far more urgent: basic respect for their rights—a respect that is, in the context of AIDS, not only life- saving but good public health policy too. In the Senegalese example, then, the formation of AIDES Senegal was not—to borrow Massad’s framework— FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 63

an incitement itself, so much as a response TANIA BRUGUERA; MARÍA MAGDALENA to the incitement of the epidemic. It was THE CAMPOS PONS also a response to the effects of all the vec- ARTISTS ARTISTS NEW YORK CITY; BOSTON tors of globalization impressing them- FOR AMPLIFYING FREE selves upon a midsize, mid-income African SPEECH IN HAVANA. country in the early years of the millen- nium. This isn’t to say all the effects were desirable: When Senegal dusted off its anti- gay laws for the first time, a traditionally respected community of cross-dressing men—or transgender women, depend- ing on how you see it—called goor-jiggens While it remains to be seen what Washington’s rapproche- was suddenly vulnerable for being “gay,” ment with Havana will mean for human rights in Cuba, even though its members are not neces- two women are already test- ing the waters of free speech. sarily homosexual. Last winter, performance art- ist Tania Bruguera attempted Sall might respond that things are mov- to set up a lectern in Hava- na’s Revolution Square and ing too fast. But is it even possible to put invite members of the public to speak on any topic for one on the brakes—in Senegal or anywhere minute. Before she could do the performance, the govern- else? The fact of individual agency and the ment detained her and confis- cated her passport for months. knowledge that drives it provides a clear By this summer, however, art- ist María Magdalena Campos- answer. Hear the words of Ukrainian activ- Pons was able to take a sim- ilar stand unmolested: She ist Olena Shevchenko: “Ukrainian LGBTs, and several art students asked locals during the Havana themselves, they cannot be restrained Biennial to write responses in notebooks to questions about anymore,” she recently told me. “They go different topics, including cur- rent events. This elicited out- online. They watch TV. They travel. They spoken critiques of the Castro government, prompting the see how things can be. Why should they New York Times to ask, “Could it be … that art really did con- not have similar freedoms? Why should stitute a censorship-free zone here?” they be forced to live in hiding? The world Unfettered participation, is moving so fast, and events are overtak- the women seemed to be argu- ing, is fundamental to art— ing us in Ukraine. We have no choice but and to Cuban citizenship. to try and catch up.” The LGBT debate might be influenced by human rights discourse and by Chris- tian missionaries; people reading this might hold the strong opinion that one side is right and the other wrong. But in the end, the dueling notions articulated by leaders like Sall and Museveni and by their liberal, activist opponents are Afri- can ideas, because they come from Afri- cans and act upon the African context. The same goes for ideas in Russia and Ukraine, Nigeria and Malawi, Mozam- Across a range of media—rap, opera, sculpture, filmmaking, and more—these bique and Nepal. The dynamism of both Global Thinkers are bound by the belief that art serves a higher purpose. They resistance and change is not imported. It have challenged the Islamic State with verses, staged apocalyptic scenes to comes from within. Q warn of the dangers of pollution, bent the constraints of theatrical genres to MARK GEVISSER is a South African writer illuminate new creative pathways, and currently writing a book about global built a distorted theme park that scru- sexuality. His previous books include A tinized the failures of Western culture. Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and If all the world’s a stage, these individ- the Future of the South African Dream and uals have trained spotlights on press- Lost and Found in Johannesburg. This ing issues and viewpoints that demand essay was adapted from one published in more of the global audience’s attention. the 2015 Hivos publication Boldly Queer. 64 NOV | DEC 2015

SONITA ALIZADEH RAPPER MT. PLEASANT, UTAH FOR REFUSING TO BE BOUGHT AND SOLD. Sonita Alizadeh was worth $9,000. At least, that’s what her mother estimated the Afghan girl, then 16, would fetch in a bride price. Before her mother could finalize a deal, though, Alizadeh secretly recorded a video for her rap song, “Brides for Sale.” “I scream for a body exhausted in its cage,” she sings in Farsi, “a body that broke under the price tags you put on it.” After posting the video on YouTube in October 2014, where it has been played more than 250,000 times, she was offered a scholarship to a high school in central Utah. The ordeal is the subject of Sonita, a documentary that was selected to be screened at the International Documen- tary Film Festival in Amsterdam this November. BANKSY ARTIST UNKNOWN FOR TAKING THE PISS OUT OF DISNEY. ALIZADEH: SCREENSHOTS VIA YOUTUBE; BANKSY: JIM DYSON/GETTY IMAGES Upon entering the cas- most timely and polit- tle in England, visitors ical. In one installation, were confronted by an small, remote-con- accident. Cinderella’s trolled boats car- carriage had crashed; ried figurine migrants she and her horses on a faux waterway. were dead. In a scene And when Dismaland that evoked the death closed, many of its of a real-life princess— materials were shipped Diana—paparazzi wildly to France to help build documented the car- shelters for refugees nage. Dismaland, a sar- near Calais. donic take on Disney’s amusement empire, For Banksy, whose included works by doz- identity remains ens of contributing art- unknown, the cookie- ists; it was Banksy’s cutter family vacation biggest project to date— proved yet another and among the artist’s canvas for critiquing the modern condition. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 65

THE ARTISTS HELLY LUV INVISIBLE BORDERS POP SINGER ARTISTS LOS ANGELES NIGERIA Nearly every year has selected a group of FOR MAKING THE FOR FERRYING THE since 2009, Invisi- African photographers, PESHMERGA’S JACK KEROUACS OF AFRICA. ble Borders, a Nigeria- writers, and other artists FIGHT GO VIRAL. based art collective, to make a pilgrimage. CARLA DIRLIKOV CANALES Starting in Lagos, Nige- ria, they travel by bus OPERA SINGER to different African PHILADELPHIA destinations, depicting— in pictures, blog posts, FOR HARMONIZING and videos—the diverse LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY. lives they encounter to rebuke notions of a homogeneous African experience. They focus not on tropes of pov- erty and conflict, but on everyday scenes in mar- kets, schools, streets, and other spaces. And in telling a story that transcends colonial-era borders, they defy the idea of Africa as a place neatly carved into distinct nation-states. According to a 2012 history of El Camino Before the music begins in her “Rev- INVISIBLE BORDERS: COURTESY OF ARTIST; CANALES: COURTESY PHOTO; LUV: SCREEN SHOTS VIA YOUTUBE National Endowment Real—the oldest and olution” video, Kurdish pop star MONTEIRO: COURTESY OF ARTIST; CROSBY: COURTESY OF ARTIST for the Arts report, longest historical trail Helly Luv stares down an Islamic socially and econom- in the Western Hemi- State tank. “If I can fight against ically disadvantaged sphere—she’s using them with my music, then my song American teens are music to explore the is as powerful as, or more power- three times more likely region’s culture and ful than their weapons,” she told to earn a bachelor’s foster dialogue about its NBC News. Viewed nearly 3 million degree if they have a legacy. Since its launch times on YouTube, the video was strong arts education. in 2014, the project has shot only a few miles from where Such disparity—com- brought together artists actual Iraqi Kurdish forces, known bined with the fact that from around the world as the Peshmerga, were fighting the more than 32 percent of to perform Mexican Islamic State. “I didn’t want to shoot Hispanic students in the baroque pieces. Music this in Los Angeles, because I just United States live below “creates a community,” needed to show the truth of the war,” the poverty line—drove Canales told Classical the singer told style website Refin- Mexican-Bulgarian Singer. “When it sud- ery29 in July; that truth includes opera superstar Carla denly becomes acces- the strength of Peshmerga fighters, Dirlikov Canales to sible, it opens up and who’ve been critical in stalling the launch El Camino Proj- reveals something new Islamic State’s advance. The young ect. Inspired by the to people.” singer has received death threats for her work, but she isn’t fazed. As she told NBC News, “If my life is at risk but I can get the message to millions of people then that is a privilege.” 66 NOV | DEC 2015

LIN MANUEL MIRANDA PLAYWRIGHT, COMPOSER, ACTOR NEW YORK CITY FOR RAPPING THE AMERICAN DREAM. Theater audiences were The show tells the story Hispanic, or Asian- inated U.S. media and calling Lin-Manuel of Alexander Hamilton, American actors, and intellectual conversa- Miranda a genius before an immigrant orphan the cross-genre com- tions, Miranda not only the MacArthur Founda- from the West Indies position weaves hip- reinvented an old art tion awarded him one whose intelligence and hop, R&B, and pop form and reimagined of its prestigious fel- bluster assured his music with the tradi- the Founding Fathers lowships in September. meteoric rise through tional sounds of musi- as young, scrappy reb- Miranda is the writer, America’s revolution- cal theater. els. He also pushed composer, and star of ary ranks. But there are audiences to con- the hit musical Ham- a few notable twists: In a year when sider: Who really has ilton, which opened on All the main characters identity politics, racial access to the Ameri- Broadway this summer. are played by black, discrimination, and can dream? immigration often dom- FABRICE MONTEIRO NJIDEKA AKUNYILI CROSBY PHOTOGRAPHER ARTIST SENEGAL LOS ANGELES FOR FASHIONING A WARNING ABOUT POLLUTION. FOR COLLAGING THE IMMIGRANT In one image, a woman wearing a full- environmental devastation in the Belgian EXPERIENCE. length, multicolored dress made from photographer’s adopted home of Senegal. plastic stands atop a waste dump. In By dressing his models in elaborate cos- another, a woman clad in black leather, tumes built partially from found materials, with what look to be six enormous metal Monteiro captured otherworldly portraits tentacles emerging from her back, kneels that signal the merging of humans and in the bloody sand of a bay polluted by the pollution around them. “West Africa wastewater from a slaughterhouse. The believes in the spirits,” he told online maga- haunting photographs, part of Fabrice zine the Mantle. “The idea was to use those Monteiro’s series The Prophecy, highlight spirits to deliver a message.” Illustration by PAUL RYDING This year, Nigerian-American Njideka Akunyili Crosby exhibited in New York’s New Museum Triennial, “Surround Audience,” which focused on how technology alters the human condition. The exploration of identity is central to Akunyili Crosby’s work, which blends paint, charcoal, and pastels, among other media, with family photos and clips from the Internet and Nigerian mag- azines. For Akunyili Crosby, mixing forms and merging styles is about bridging the complex- ities of the old world and the new, between her native home in Nigeria and her adopted one in the United States. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 67

THE ARTISTS FIONA HALL ARTIST AUSTRALIA FOR ADMONISHING THE PRESENT BY CONJURING THE PAST. Sculptor and visual artist Fiona Hall told the Austra- lian Broadcasting Corp. that she named her Venice Bien- nale exhibit “Wrong Way Time” because humanity has “descended” politically and socially, “but we can’t turn the clock back.” Hall trans- formed found objects— including bank notes, bread, teeth, and strips of military fatigues (symbolizing Aus- tralia’s legacy of colonial- ism)—into ghoulish masks and sculptures of endan- gered animals. To highlight the gradual erosion of indige- nous traditions, she created some items—extinct creatures described in oral lore—with the Tjanpi Desert Weavers, a collection of roughly 400 Aboriginal women who use grass and other natural mate- rials in their work. Prais- ing Hall’s show, the Guardian noted that in her imagination, “Time ticks both forwards and backwards.… [A]rt makes the future look ancient.”

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THE ARTISTS HANYA YANAGIHARA NOVELIST NEW YORK CITY FOR FORCING FICTION READERS TO THE BRINK. No holds barred. I don’t think you get SUZAN LORI PARKS on Odysseus: a black slave whose mas- PARKS: COURTESY OF AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER; OSHAGAN, PARIAN, AND THOMASIAN: COURTESY OF ARTISTS; YANAGIHARA: NIKLAS HALLE’N/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Beyond the pale. anywhere by second- ter promises him freedom if he fights for Unsparing. Those are guessing what the PLAYWRIGHT the Confederacy. Incorporating a Greek just some of the words reader can, and can’t, NEW YORK CITY chorus—“Less than Desirable Slaves” used to describe Hanya handle. Certainly, when who reappropriate minstrel stereotypes— Yanagihara’s novel, A I’m a reader, all I want FOR BRINGING THEATER philosophical monologues, and folk music, Little Life—a wrenching is a consistently logi- AUDIENCES ON AN Father transforms and fuses dramaturgi- story of sexual abuse cal invented world and ODYSSEY. cal styles to meditate on liberty, identity, and emotional trauma the unexplainable but and other classic themes. When judges sufered by an orphan undeniable presence “Suzan-Lori Parks has a lot of nerve.” So awarded Parks the 2015 Kennedy Prize, named Jude. The book of what I might char- begins New York’s review of Parks’s play they called Father “a compelling contri- toggles between Jude’s acterize as an autho- Father Comes Home From the Wars, which bution to the urgent American conversa- adulthood and flash- rial confidence.” stretches the boundaries of the Ameri- tion about race.” backs to his horrendous can stage. The protagonist, Hero, is a riff youth, which left him “THE same-sex physically deformed, relationship in the ARA OSHAGAN, LEVON PARIAN & VAHAGN THOMASIAN encumbered in roman- book isn’t intended as tic relationships, and a larger comment on PHOTOGRAPHERS; ARCHITECT tormented by powerful same-sex relation- LOS ANGELES demons. FOREIGN POLICY ships—neither of the spoke with Yanagihara characters is gay—and FOR PRESERVING THE One hundred years ago this past April, the Otto- about her book—a final- it’s been fascinating HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE. man government began systematically exter- ist for the Man Booker to see how younger minating some 1.5 million Armenians—an act Prize and National readers don’t see it as that modern Turkey refuses to recognize as a Book Award—which she a gay relationship, as genocide. Three artists of Armenian descent are describes as an efort such. But I suppose working to ensure that history isn’t forgotten. “to wed two unlike lit- that makes sense: In Ara Oshagan and Levon Parian spent 20 years erary genres: the con- the three or so years photographing and interviewing dozens of aging temporary naturalistic between my begin- survivors. Collaborating with architect Vahagn novel and the fairy tale.” ning this book and its Thomasian, they then created a public art project publication, the con- that debuted this spring in Los Angeles. (Southern “I WANTED to write a versations you hear California has the United States’ largest Arme- character who never about sexual fluidity nian community.) got better, who never have become much found redemption, more expansive, and The installation consisted of massive black- and who would strug- evolved as well.” and-white portraits, as well as printed snippets gle with this idea of life of survivors’ testimonies, situated around Grand itself: Why do we do “I TRIED to take Park. The installation, Oshagan said in a state- it? Is simply moving risks in this book, to ment, is “a temporary monument to the men and through life—with duty be messy and big women who rebuilt their disrupted lives and com- but without conviction— rather than tidy and munities in the aftermath of genocide.” enough of a reason to composed, to write as stay alive?” if I didn’t know what I wasn’t allowed to “MY EDITOR was do. And that, I think, is concerned that parts of what any work of art it would be too punish- must ultimately try .” ing for the reader. But 70 NOV | DEC 2015

GENE LUEN YANG & MIKE HOLMES CARTOONISTS SAN JOSE, CALIF.; CANADA FOR MAKING CODING COOL, FRAME BY FRAME. Only 27 U.S. states cate readers on binary’s readers to program- allow computer science basics. Secret Coders, ming. “Not everybody courses to count toward published in Septem- is meant to be a pro- high school graduation, ber, is set in fictionalized fessional software according to the non- Stately Academy, where developer, but every- profit Code.org. For the founder left a series one can benefit from a cartoonist and longtime of puzzles for pupils to general understanding computer-program- solve. With a diverse set of coding,” Yang said ming teacher Gene Luen of characters, including in a September inter- Yang, this gap in edu- a female protagonist view with Entertain- cation was unaccept- named Hopper and her ment Weekly. “Secret able, so he paired with African-American best Coders can’t replace a illustrator Mike Holmes friend, Eni, the book good computer science to develop a graphic unravels like a mys- teacher, but I hope … it’s novel that would edu- tery while introducing an on-ramp.” ADEJOKE TUGBIYELE SERIK ABISHEV & ADILKHAN ARTIST YERZHANOV NEW YORK CITY FILMMAKERS FOR EVOKING KAZAKHSTAN A QUEER AFRICAN SPIRIT. FOR BUCKING YANG AND HOLMES: COURTESY OF ARTIST; ABISHEV AND YERZHANOV: COURTESY PHOTOS; TUGBIYELE: COURTESY OF ARTIST On CNN last year, artist Adejoke Tugbi- STATE CINEMA. yele, a lesbian Nigerian-American, came out publicly while still living in Lagos. Not Kazakhstan’s film industry doesn’t long before, the Nigerian government had exactly have an international passed a draconian anti-gay law under presence—a fact not helped by the which one’s sexual identity could lead to 14 government’s desire to fund only years in prison. Or, in the case of Mubarak patriotic flicks like 2011’s Myn Bala, a Ibrahim, a public flogging: Ibrahim was the warrior epic that got much of its esti- first man convicted of sodomy in a wave mated $12 million budget from the of homophobia that surged nationwide state. Without government support, after the law was passed. Tugbiyele felt a a production is as good as dead. Or responsibility to capture Ibrahim’s pain; at least it was until a group of dissi- A Queer African Spirit, the resulting sculp- dent filmmakers, including producer ture, bears a horsehair tail and features Serik Abishev and director Adilkhan a golden skull haloed by a leather whip. Yerzhanov, founded the film collec- Shown as part of an exhibit in Florence, tive The Partisans in 2014, enabling Italy, alongside work by other African art- work on social issues with just shoe- ists, the piece “evokes the death of one’s string budgets. The duo has collabo- soul,” Tugbiyele told Okayafrica. rated on three feature films so far. A recent Partisans feature, co-written by Yerzhanov, won the jury’s prize for best film at this year’s Eurasia Inter- national Film Festival. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 71

THEGEORGE CHURCH confined to Juras- width and finan- sic Park: de-extinc- cial resources to go HEALERSGENETICIST tion. Using CRISPR, around, de-extinction CAMBRIDGE, MASS. a gene-editing tech- threatens to divert CHURCH: STEVE JURVETSON VIA FLICKR/CREATIVE COMMONS; GARRY, RAPID EBOLA TEST: COURTESY PHOTOnique, Church and hisattention from the FOR RESURRECTING THE team spliced mam- modern biodiversity WOOLLY MAMMOTH. moth ear, fat, and crisis”—but Church hair genes into ele- argues that de-ex- The last woolly mam- phant DNA, creating tinction isn’t a “one- moths died around the basis for a hybrid of stunt.” As he wrote 4,000 years ago, that may one day wan- in the same maga- but Harvard Univer- der the frozen north, zine, “The goal is to sity geneticist George just as its ancestors adapt existing eco- Church has taken did. That prospect systems to radical a step toward what isn’t without contro- modern environmen- has been heretofore versy—the editors of tal changes, such as global warming, and Scientific American possibly reverse those wrote, “[W]ith limited changes.” intellectual band- ROBERT GARRY; MOSOKA FALLAH ALEXANDER BUKREYEV & MICHELLE MEYER EPIDEMIOLOGIST LIBERIA IMMUNOLOGIST; PATHOLOGISTS N E W O R L E A N S; G A LV ESTO N , T E X A S FOR KEEPING THE FIGHT AGAINST EBOLA ALIVE. FOR RACING TO STOP THE NEXT EPIDEMIC. Many of these Global Thinkers racked The world is better armed to combat Ebola The week of Oct. 4 was project, the Partner- up firsts: developing some of the first thanks to three scientists in the southern the first in a year and a ship for Research on tools to combat Ebola, devising the first United States. Robert Garry, a Tulane Uni- half in which the World Ebola Virus in Liberia successful method to keep transplant versity immunologist, was a lead investi- Health Organization (PREVAIL). The goal hearts viable without putting them on gator in the creation of a rapid Ebola test, recorded no new cases of the five-year study, ice, and replicating human organs so approved for emergency use by the U.S. Food of Ebola in West Africa. which began in June, is that, for the first time, animals might and Drug Administration and the World But for Mosoka Fallah— to understand Ebola’s not be needed for medical testing. Other Health Organization last winter. Unlike an epidemiologist who aftermath: whether sur- Global Thinkers, meanwhile, went back existing diagnostics, which take hours or spent the worst days vivors become immune to basics—or even ancient history: dig- days to deliver results, the new finger-prick of the outbreak track- to the virus, for example, ging in the dirt to find new antibiotics, blood test works in 15 to 25 minutes. ing infections in West and whether they can for instance, and working to revive the Point, the Liberian slum still transmit it to close woolly mammoth. Yet they were all on Alexander Bukreyev and Michelle where he grew up—the contacts through a shared quest to protect and improve Meyer, researchers at the University of crisis isn’t over. Fallah is sex. With plans to the world’s health. Texas Medical Branch, published findings a principal investi- enroll 1,500 survi- demonstrating that a vaccine had protected gator in a new study vors, it is the largest- monkeys from Ebola. Its major advantage that’s part of a joint ever Ebola study over other immunizations in development Liberia-U.S. research of its kind. is that it’s an aerosol, which would end the need to stick patients with needles. Next up: human clinical trials. Illustration by PAUL RYDING

WALEED HASSANEIN DONALD INGBER PRESIDENT AND CEO, TRANSMEDICS BIOMEDICAL ENGINEER CAMBRIDGE, MASS. CAMBRIDGE, MASS. FOR TRANSFORMING ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION. FOR MAKING MEDICAL TESTING BEAUTIFUL. One fateful night in 1994, Waleed them, he thought, maybe the organs Hassanein, then a first-year sur- could be preserved longer. gical resident at Georgetown Uni- versity Hospital, found himself Hassanein’s medical-device com- transporting a human heart—in a pany, TransMedics, started devel- red cooler, on ice—from Washing- oping technology that keeps donor ton, D.C., where a donor had died, hearts warm and beating in a ster- to Virginia, where a patient waited. ile chamber into which blood is The experience was so seminal that, pumped through tubes. The first a few years later, he abandoned a clinical trials using the method career in surgery for one in medical went smoothly, according to results devices. By replicating the condi- published in the Lancet in April. tions under which organs normally Experts predict this could increase function rather than by refrigerating the number of transplantable hearts by up to 30 percent. SLAVA EPSTEIN & Animal testing isn’t just controversial. It’s also KIM LEWIS imprecise, “often fail[ing] to mimic human dis- eases or predict how the human body responds FOUNDERS, NOVOBIOTIC PHARMACEUTICALS to new drugs,” Donald Ingber said in a news BOSTON release. That’s why he and his research team have invented thumb-drive-sized plastic chips FOR FINDING MEDICINE IN A PILE OF DIRT. that mimic organs. This year, Ingber’s organs- on-chips, which could eventually make animal HASSANEIN, TRANSMEDICS: COURTESY PHOTO; EPSTEIN AND LEWIS, ICHIP: CHRISTOPHER LEAMAN; MARRINUCCI: COURTESY PHOTO Some 700,000 people die annually because block called the iChip; then the device is testing obsolete, won Design of the Year from of antibiotic resistance, but few drugs buried in the same dirt for a few weeks London’s Design Museum. have been developed in recent decades before being exhumed for analysis. In to address the global crisis. This is partly January, the scientists announced they DENA MARRINUCCI because just 1 percent of microbial spe- had detected teixobactin, a new antibiotic cies, from which antibiotics are derived, that can vanquish tuberculosis and drug- CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER, EPIC SCIENCES flourish in labs. So Slava Epstein and Kim resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). SAN DIEGO Lewis developed a different technique Remarkably, microbes appear virtually to culture bacteria: grow them in their unable to develop resistance to teixobac- FOR HUNTING CANCER native environments. Microbes are iso- tin. The next step is testing the antibiotic WHEREVER IT MAY HIDE. lated from soil and placed in tiny wells on humans—and using the iChip to find on the surface of a domino-sized plastic more game-changing drugs. Illustration by BROWN BIRD DESIGN Part of why it’s so challenging to keep cancer from metastasizing is because diseased cells are diicult to spot on conventional scans; also, these cells are typically viewed as a group, which obscures diverse and individual mutations. This year, biotech start-up Epic Sciences, co-founded by Dena Marrinucci in 2008, announced a cutting- edge method of isolating and sequencing sin- gle cells. Epic’s process enables medical labs to be more eicient in identifying and responding to the evolution of cancer in real time, before it becomes treatment-resistant. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 73

THE CHRISTIANA FIGUERES STEWARDS EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, U.N. FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE GERMANY FOR FORGING A NEW BRAND OF GREEN DIPLOMACY. If December’s climate confer- ence in Paris delivers meaning- ful emissions standards, it will be due to Christiana Figueres’s tireless advocacy and political savvy. The executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Conven- tion on Climate Change has trav- eled the world meeting with state leaders and pushing a simple message: Don’t fight the inevi- table—a low-carbon economy is the future. She believes that tout- ing doomsday scenarios won’t incentivize action, but cold eco- nomic calculus will. As she told CBS News, “The global market is going to be demanding clean energy, and the question is, who is going to be producing it?” TRANG TRAN POPE FRANCIS CEO AND CO FOUNDER, FARGREEN POPE VIETNAM VATICAN CITY From the Vatican’s pulpit to Aus- FOR CULTIVATING FOR PREACHING THE tralia’s Aboriginal communities, the MUSHROOMS TO CLEAR FAITH IN SCIENCE. halls of the United Nations to the rice THE AIR. fields of Vietnam, these Global Think- ers wielded influence across diverse Vietnamese farmers annually burn tens of million Pope Francis is ignoring critics who insist that the locales in hopes of cleaning up the of tons of rice straw (the stalk that remains after Vatican has no business influencing global poli- planet. They deregulated fuel prices in a harvest) to prepare fields for the next growing tics. In June, he issued an impassioned 184-page a major oil-producing state, banished cycle. Scientists know that this practice, which encyclical about the environment—a first for the cars in a city of more than 2 million peo- creates thick smog, contributes to global warm- papacy—addressed to “every person living on ple, filmed a seminal exposé on China’s ing. The problem is persuading farmers to change this planet.” Framing climate change as a human stifling air pollution, and even used pop- their behavior: “What’s in it for them not to burn?” rights issue, he criticized how the “foreign debt of music celebrity to promote solar power Trang Tran asked in an April interview with TED. poor countries has become a way of controlling in Africa. Their platforms may have var- She is answering that question with Fargreen, a them,” while rich nations spoil the planet. The ied, but their message was the same: company that educates farmers on how to use pope called for governments to enact new energy The world must stop dithering on cli- rice straw to cultivate mushrooms—offering them and economic policies, a plea he reiterated when he mate change—before it’s too late. work between rice seasons and a way to use what addressed Congress and the U.N. General Assem- has long been considered waste. Partnering with bly during a September trip to the United States. 10 farmers from Hai Duong province, Fargreen Francis has made it clear that he doesn’t want to completed its first successful mushroom har- stick to reading scripture; he wants to change the vest this spring. Catholic Church—and the world. Illustration by PAUL RYDING

AMELIA TELFORD SUHAIL AKON AL MAZROUEI ACTIVIST POP SINGER AUSTRALIA ENERGY MINISTER NEW YORK CITY UNITED ARAB EMIRATES FOR RALLYING FOR TURNING ON THE LIGHTS. ABORIGINAL YOUTH FOR PUSHING TO A CLEAN CAUSE. THE GULF TO PAY Grammy-nominated pop artist Akon AT THE PUMP. grew up in the dark in a small Sene- As a young environ- and industries. Mem- galese town, part of the two-thirds mentalist, Amelia Tel- bers fought the expan- Governments around the world of sub-Saharan Africa without elec- ford grew frustrated sion of a port, Telford spend some $500 billion annually tricity. Now he’s made solar power with how few Aboriginal wrote on Seed’s web- subsidizing fossil fuels. By ending his priority with the Akon Lighting voices were in Austra- site, by “knocking on this practice—thus dismantling the Africa initiative, which has set out lia’s green movement— the doors” of prospec- incentive to buy dirty fuel—global to bring electricity to hundreds of even though indigenous tive funders and urg- carbon emissions could be cut by millions on the continent and cre- people will suffer the ing them to oppose the 20 percent. This summer, one oil ate local employment in the process. country’s worst con- project. In August, Aus- producer did just that. In July, the sequences of climate tralia’s Commonwealth United Arab Emirates’ energy min- ANNE HIDALGO change, from food Bank and London- ister, Suhail al-Mazrouei, announced insecurity to loss of based Standard Char- that the nation would be the first MAYOR, PARIS land. So in 2014, the tered cut ties with Middle Eastern oil-rich country FRANCE member of the Bund- the port developers, to deregulate fuel prices, thereby jalung nation started which green activists raising gasoline costs for domes- FOR RECLAIMING PARIS Seed, Australia’s first counted as major victo- tic consumers. The surprise move FOR PEDESTRIANS. climate network for ries. “We’re seeing the was partially driven by economics— indigenous youth. Seed young people we work freeing up money to pay for infra- On Sept. 27, France’s capital boldly accomplished something few operates across Aus- with transformed,” structure and for “diversifying other cities have: its first car-free day, which nearly halved the tralia, raising aware- Telford, who is just 21, sources of income,” in Mazrouei’s city’s smog levels for 24 hours. The brainchild of Anne Hidalgo, ness and speaking out told Generosity maga- words—but the environmental Paris’s first female mayor, that day was just one aspect of the ambi- against environmen- zine, “[and] leading in impact was also a significant fac- tious green agenda she has pushed since her election in 2014. This tally harmful policies their community.” tor. “We have 3 million cars on the February, the city council approved Hidalgo’s plans to ban Paris’s streets, and the growth is about highest-polluting vehicles. A few months later, she started laying RACHEL NOTLEY 9 percent every year,” he told the the groundwork for a major pedestrianization of the Seine’s right National. “That is not sustainable.” bank. She’s not just focusing on her own city though: Hidalgo and PREMIER, ALBERTA The country may have jump-started former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg are co-hosting a CANADA a trend: Oman is expected to begin summit for local leaders and mayors during December’s interna- cutting fuel subsidies next year. tional climate conference in Paris. As she told Cities Today, urban FOR KNOCKING OIL leaders must “share our experiences and learn from one another DOWN A PEG. because it is from dialogue, debate, and collective knowledge that tomorrow’s solutions will emerge.” CHAI: SCREEN SHOTS FROM UNDER THE DOME; AKON: SIA KAMBOU/AFP/GETTY IMAGES In May, Rachel Not- panies pay the provincial ley surged from fourth government in royal- CHAI JING place to lead Alberta’s ties, and recently cre- New Democratic Party ated a cabinet position JOURNALIST to a decisive victory in devoted to economic CHINA the province, the heart diversification. Perhaps of Canada’s contro- most importantly, Not- FOR MAKING CHINA’S versial tar sands and a ley is hammering out SILENT SPRING. Progressive Conserva- a new climate change tive stronghold for more strategy for the prov- There’s viral, and then there’s China viral. In February, jour- than four decades. Her ince. “I’m afraid that nalist Chai Jing released Under the Dome, a self-funded online historic rise has hinged 50 years from now, documentary about the costs of China’s massive pollution on attacking the prov- our great-grandchildren problem. Within a few days, the film, which goes after some of ince’s sacred cow—the will look at what we did the country’s biggest energy companies and extractive indus- energy sector, which with our resources and tries, racked up more than 100 million views. Although it was accounts for a quarter they’ll rip up our pic- suppressed soon after—censors tried to scrub the film from of Alberta’s GDP. She tures because they’ll the Internet and instructed news sites not to “hype” it—Chai withheld support for the be so angry at how we showed Beijing just how worrying dirty skies are to China’s Keystone XL pipeline, squandered them,” she 1.4 billion people. The documentary prompted intense discus- promised to reconsider told the Globe and Mail sion online, and even Premier Li Keqiang, when asked at a news how much energy com- in April. conference to respond to the film’s criticisms, declared, “We need to make the cost for pollution too high to bear.” FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 75

THE STEWARDS GINA MCCARTHY MARJAN MINNESMA BOYAN SLAT ADMINISTRATOR, CO FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE OCEAN CLEANUP ENVIRONMENTAL URGENDA FOUNDATION NETHERLANDS PROTECTION AGENCY NETHERLANDS WASHINGTON, D.C. FOR LASSOING FOR DRAGGING THE OCEAN’S JUNK. FOR PRACTICING GLOBAL WARMING JIU JITSU TO TO COURT. Constantly rotating currents have made it extremely CLEAN UP U.S. challenging to clean up the 5 trillion-plus pieces of ENERGY. Marjan Minnesma’s model of how to sue plastic floating in the world’s oceans. That problem environmental orga- states in the name of pushed entrepreneur Boyan Slat to wonder, “How When she became an assistant nization, the Urgenda saving the Earth. “80% can we fix this?” Two years ago, the then-19-year-old administrator at the U.S. Envi- Foundation, won a land- of all our arguments and launched The Ocean Cleanup, an organization that’s ronmental Protection Agency in mark lawsuit this July in supporting documenta- developing technology to intercept ocean debris using 2009, Gina McCarthy reportedly which it argued that by tion can be used in any water flows. Slat and his team—some 100 engineers, told colleagues, “I cannot shy failing to adequately country,” Minnesma oceanographers, translators, and other experts—have away from controversy.… I don’t curb greenhouse wrote in the Guardian; devised a V-shaped array of long, stationary floating know if it’s my Irish blood, but gases, the Dutch gov- similar complaints are barriers that reach 10 feet below an ocean’s surface. I love it.” Named the agency’s ernment was “know- already in the works in Currents carry plastic into the barriers, which collect head in 2013, McCarthy has lived ingly contributing” to Belgium and Norway. and trap trash while marine life continues flowing up to her tough talk. As Inside- global warming and underneath. The plan is for the rubbish to be picked Climate News put it, she was the violating citizens’ rights. up by boat every 45 days and ultimately recycled. “jiu-jitsu artist” who managed The judge ordered This May, Slat announced he’d reached an agreement two years of negotiations and the government to with the Japanese government to conduct The Ocean 4.3 million public comments on slash emissions by 25 Cleanup’s first test next year, off Tsushima island. a draft proposal to ensure the percent in five years. creation of President Barack Urgenda’s much-lauded Obama’s Clean Power Plan. case now serves as a Announced this August, the first national limits on car- KINLAY DORJEE bon emissions from power plants require a 32 percent cut MAYOR, THIMPHU from 2005 levels by 2030— BHUTAN a reduction of 800 million tons of greenhouse gases annu- FOR ASSERTING ally. While conservatives have THAT A TINY NATION CAN challenged the plan in court, SET GLOBAL TRENDS. McCarthy isn’t worried: The complaints, she told the Guard- Kinlay Dorjee doesn’t cover. Since his 2011 MINNESMA: COURTESY PHOTO; MCCARTHY: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES ian, are the “same tired old plays believe that economic election, Dorjee has from the old special-interests progress and environ- pursued green urban- playbook.” mental protection have planning projects and to be at odds. He’s the has improved the city’s mayor of Thimphu, the sanitation. This year, he capital of Bhutan—a tiny took his message global: country nestled between He met with mayors in China and India, which Bangkok, Seoul, and Sin- are the first- and fourth- gapore. “While Bhutan largest producers of may have resource prob- greenhouse gases, lems given its size,” he respectively. Bhutan told news site Climate is carbon neutral, and Home in August, “even its constitution stipu- then we aren’t looking lates that its land main- at polluting or deforest- tain 60 percent forest ing the environment.” 76 NOV | DEC 2015 Illustration by PAUL RYDING

THE KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA CHRONICLERS JOURNALIST AZERBAIJAN FOR STANDING STRONG AGAINST CASPIAN CORRUPTION. In September, an Azerbaijani court sentenced Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty journalist Khadija Ismayilova to seven and a half years in prison. Prosecutors had brought charges against her for libel, tax evasion, and illegal business activity, but the allegations are widely believed to have been politically motivated: Ismay- ilova has spent years investigating corruption within the Azer- baijani government. Even on her sentencing day, the reporter was uncompromising in her critique of the state’s failings. “Many are familiar with the ability of Azerbaijan’s law enforcement system to invent crimes,” she told the court. “[Honest journalists] have forced the repression machine to cover its disgraceful acts with even more shame. The more lies that were exposed, the more they were forced to tell more lies.” She added, “I might be in prison, but the work will continue.” ANAS AREMEYAW ANAS JOURNALIST GHANA ANAS: COURTESY PHOTO; ISMAYILOVA: GETTY IMAGES These Global Thinkers showed that there FOR EXPOSING GHANA’S of Ghana’s 12 High Court aren’t two sides to every story—there are BROKEN COURTS WITHOUT justices have been sus- many. Plumbing the depths of conflict, EXPOSING HIMSELF. pended, pending inves- inequality, and vice around the globe, tigations; another 22 they documented the terrors of living Despite shaky cinema- debuted to packed the- from lower courts have under the Islamic State, peeled back tography, the revela- aters in Accra—exposes been sidelined too. tropes used to narrate Mexico’s drug tions in Anas Aremeyaw rampant misdeeds in violence, and gave voices to individu- Anas’s documentary, Ghana’s judicial sys- Anas, an investiga- als silenced for being gay or transgen- tem: judges and other tive journalist for 15 der. Several even shook away earthly Ghana in the Eyes of oicials allegedly tak- years, is well known in constraints, seeking the origins of life God, come through ing bribes, for instance, Ghana, partly because and all that sustains it on a comet’s sur- clearly. The product of and demanding sex he never fully reveals face and at the solar system’s fringes. more than 500 hours in exchange for legal his face. “What is the Some of their stories sparked protests, of hidden-camera favors. As a result, seven essence of journal- debates, even reform. Others, however, footage, the film—which ism if it doesn’t bene- simply inspired awe. fit society?” he asked in a TED talk, wearing a concealing veil of woven string. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 77

THE CHRONICLERS ALICE BOWMAN ROBIN HAMMOND MISSION OPERATIONS MANAGER, NASA PHOTOGRAPHER LAUREL, MD. FRANCE FOR REVEALING THE EDGES OF FOR CHAMPIONING THE SOLAR SYSTEM. FORBIDDEN LIVES. RAQQA IS BEING The New Horizons spacecraft took the first-ever pho- Time ran a June cover After three months, SLAUGHTERED tographs of Pluto’s surface this summer. There were image of a Ugandan we had 100,000 fol- SILENTLY mountains, evidence of freezing, possibly even indi- lesbian activist for a lowers on Instagram. cators of tectonics—everything was more dynamic feature titled “Out in When we reached six ACTIVISTS than scientists had expected from a body downgraded Africa.” The photo was figures, I kind of had to SYRIA from planet status nearly a decade ago. taken by Robin Ham- pinch myself, to take mond as part of “Where a moment to under- FOR NARRATING Alice Bowman leads the group that controls New Love Is Illegal,” a doc- stand what we had LIFE UNDER ISIS. Horizons. (The flyby team is also 25 percent female, umentary campaign going here.” notable in the United States, where, as of 2013, just that shares portraits In July, the Islamic State released a 11.8 percent of physicists and astronomers were and intimate stories of “I USED A Polaroid- video of two orange jumpsuit-clad female.) An October Science article that Bowman persecution in coun- type film and allowed Syrian men. They’d been charged co-wrote noted that, among other important find- tries that suppress each of the subjects with spying and working with ings, the mission could have “profound implications” lesbian, gay, bisexual, to destroy the image Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently for understanding how and when the Kuiper Belt, the and transgender rights. if they felt it endan- (RBSS). A group of citizen-journalist ring of debris at the solar system’s edge, formed. And FOREIGN POLICY spoke gered them. We didn’t activists, RBSS works to document new revelations will only keep coming: Close to 95 per- with Hammond about have to do that often, the Islamic State’s brutality— cent of the spacecraft’s data has yet to be downloaded. the power of photog- though, as the photos crucifixions, beheadings, and sexual raphy and the social were made in collabo- slavery—in the Syrian city that movement he’s hop- ration with each of the RBSS: COURTESY PHOTO; HAMMOND: COURTESY OF ARTIST; BOWMAN, NEW HORIZONS: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI serves as the self-declared caliph- ing to build. people I photographed. ate’s de facto capital. The men in the We worked together on video were shot. Though RBSS later “IN PHOTO school, I their pose, their clothes, said the duo in fact was not working picked up a heavy their expression—but for the group, the executions served book of black-and- they always had the last as a gruesome reminder that activ- white photos by the say over whether or not ists remain a threat to Syria’s terror- American photog- they’d be identifiable in ists. Since RBSS was formed in April rapher W. Eugene the photo.” 2014, its Twitter following has sur- Smith called Mina- passed 30,000 users, and its You- mata, about a fishing “WE ARE trying to raise Tube videos have garnered hundreds village in Japan poi- money to have all of of thousands of views. soned by mercury from our stories translated a nearby factory. Never into other languages— MARLON JAMES Weaving gang vio- before had a series of we really don’t want lence, drug traicking, photos made me feel language to be a bar- NOVELIST and government cor- so much for a people rier to connecting with ST. PAUL, MINN. ruption into a chroni- I would never meet, in people. And we’re cle of modern Jamaica, a place I would never planning a phase two FOR PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN ON Marlon James’s A Brief go. That work, as well where I will document JAMAICA’S DEFINITIVE DECADES. as some other bodies more stories and run History of Seven Kill- of work by great pho- workshops so that L isten. Dead people never stop talking. ings is narrated by, tographers, made me activists on the ground Maybe because death is not death at all, among others, Jamai- understand what pho- can become story- just a detention after school. cans living in late 20th- tography could be used tellers themselves. century America who for and what I wanted The intention is to are “stunned by a to do with it.” create a global com- racial and economic munity of people who landscape that is not “WE LAUNCHED ‘Where refuse to be silenced their own,” James told Love Is Illegal’ in June. by bigotry.” the Washington Post. The book’s innovative crafting earned him the Man Booker Prize. 78 NOV | DEC 2015

JOHANNA SCHWARTZ DOCUMENTARIAN UNITED KINGDOM FOR TRUMPETING THE RESILIENCE OF MALI’S MUSICIANS. MÁRIO MACILAU PHOTOGRAPHER MOZAMBIQUE FOR ERASING STEREOTYPES ABOUT STREET CHILDREN. MACILAU: COURTESY OF ARTIST; SCHWARTZ: COURTESY PHOTOS Mário Macilau’s photography series, Growing in Johanna Schwartz’s 2013 vacation Darkness, captures the street youth of Mozam- plans to attend a music festival in Mali bique’s capital in their adopted living spaces, were disrupted when the government including the undersides of bridges and aban- was overthrown and militant Islamists doned buildings. In the black-and-white images, overran the country’s north, imposing shadows represent the urban children’s margin- a draconian version of sharia law that alization—like their peers in other African cities, effectively banned music. The festival many collect trash or scrap metal—while the con- was canceled, but Schwartz got on a trast of natural light emphasizes their humanity. plane anyway. The filmmaker created They Will Have to Kill Us First, a docu- Remarkably, Macilau, whose series was fea- mentary about musicians displaced by tured at the Venice Biennale, lived on the streets conflict, even threatened with torture for some of his own childhood. “It is from this and death, yet fighting to keep their position of a friend,” he told CNN, “that I man- art alive in refugee camps and in Mali’s aged to capture their existence: the adversity capital. The Austin Chronicle called it of their environments, the endurance of their “[s]ocial journalism of the highest order young but possibly condemned bodies, and … front-loaded with sonic heroism.” their resilience that, daily, defies the inhuman- ity of their hardships.” FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 79

THE CHRONICLERS ROSETTA MISSION TEAM SCIENTISTS WESTERN EUROPE FOR PROBING HUMANITY’S ROCKY ORIGINS. Among the goals of the Euro- pean Space Agency’s Rosetta mission is trying to prove what scientists have long sus- pected: that comets crashing onto Earth may have delivered some of the molecular materi- als necessary to produce life. In June, data from the Phi- lae probe, which in late 2014 became the first spacecraft to land safely on the surface of a comet, began streaming in. Among the early findings is the occurrence of carbon- and nitrogen-rich molecules that, as the agency’s website put it, “could have played a key role in fostering the formation” of organic compounds, such as amino acids. Rosetta will con- tinue into 2016, but the first measurements already “pro- foundly modify our view of comets,” according to the mis- sion’s scientists. 80 NOV | DEC 2015

COURTESY OF ESA/ROSETTA/MPS FOR OSIRIS TEAM MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

THE CHRONICLERS Images of refugees—such as those of Syrian asylum-seekers crossing the Mediterranean—have long been part of how West- TOBIAS ZIELONY erners understand faraway conflicts. But German photographer Tobias Zielony wanted to reimagine the relationship between PHOTOGRAPHER audience and subject: He documented African refugees who GERMANY have settled in Europe and then, counterintuitively, published those photos in the local papers of his subjects’ home countries. FOR CHANGING THE LENS OF Showcased at the Venice Biennale, his work is a series of news- THE REFUGEE STORY. paper clippings, offering a window into the refugee story for peo- ple who are rarely its target audience. “We know the pictures of refugee camps in Sudan,” he told Deutsche Welle, “but [not] the other way around.” RAIF BADAWI On his blog, writer and activist Raif Badawi asserted Department urged the Saudis “to cancel this brutal ZIELONY: COURTESY OF MANUEL REINARTZ his belief in human rights and the dangers of reli- punishment and to review Badawi’s case and sen- ACTIVIST gious extremism. In Saudi Arabia, that made him tence.” His subsequent lashings were delayed on SAUDI ARABIA a criminal. Badawi was publicly flogged in January, medical grounds—doctors reportedly said his scars receiving the first 50 lashes of the 1,000 he was had not healed—but observers speculate that Riyadh FOR PUTTING THE sentenced to endure over 20 weeks for, among fears another round of rebuke. KINGDOM’S MEDIEVAL other ofenses, “going beyond the realm of obe- JUSTICE SYSTEM dience.” The penalty drew worldwide condemna- Badawi wrote in his 2015 book, 1000 Lashes, ON TRIAL. tion, even from the kingdom’s allies. The U.S. State which he dictated from prison, “All this cruel sufering happened to me because I expressed my opinion.” 82 NOV | DEC 2015

LESLEE UDWIN EKA KURNIAWAN DOCUMENTARIAN NOVELIST UNITED KINGDOM INDONESIA FOR FOR PINNING INDONESIAN LITERATURE ON THE MAP. BROADCASTING INDIA’S SEXUAL O ne afternoon on a weekend Until this year, when Eka Kurniawan’s 2002 Beauty ASSAULT CRISIS. in March, Dewi Ayu rose Is a Wound was translated into English, Indonesian from her grave after being literature had largely been a black hole on the world dead for twenty-one years. stage. (The Indonesian language, formalized as a nationalist project in the 1940s, has not supplanted the hundreds of local languages spoken across the archipelago.) Drawing on oral storytelling traditions, local literary forebears like Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and Latin American magic realists like Gabriel García Márquez, Kurniawan presents characters caught in the rushing currents of modern Indonesian history, including the 1965-1966 massacres of accused communists. Kurniawan, wrote his translator, Annie Tucker, “is helping to establish Indonesia’s voice.” MATTHEW HEINEMAN CHIGOZIE OBIOMA DOCUMENTARIAN NOVELIST NEW YORK CITY LINCOLN, NEB. FOR PENETRATING MEXICO’S FOR CRAFTING DARK UNDERBELLY. A PARABLE OF NIGERIA’S DECLINE. With India’s Daughter, a documen- Dozens of journalists have died covering Mexico’s W e were fishermen: My tary about the 2012 sexual assault of drug war. In 2012, six were killed in a month’s time. brothers and I became a 23-year-old Delhi student, direc- Yet the following year, armed with only Canon video fishermen in January tor Leslee Udwin intended to fuel cameras, Matthew Heineman went deep into the coun- of 1996 after our father a public reckoning with India’s sys- try to embed with the Autodefensas, an armed vigi- moved out of Akure, a town in the temic gender-based violence. There lante group fighting the Knights Templar drug cartel west of Nigeria, where we had lived was one problem though: An Indian in Michoacán state. The result is Cartel Land, a docu- together all our lives. court banned her film—part of a BBC mentary celebrated for its extraordinary access to some series—prior to its March premiere. of the world’s most dangerous territory. The movie, News channel NDTV, in protest, which also follows U.S. citizen volunteers patrolling broadcast a static screen that read, the Arizona-Mexico border with guns, paints a pic- “India’s Daughter”; meanwhile, ture of what happens when people lose faith in their activists showed the film privately. government’s ability to protect them. In April, Udwin told an audience at UDWIN: COURTESY PHOTOS; HEINEMAN: COURTESY PHOTO the Women in the World summit Nigerian Chigozie Obio- Man Booker Prize, is also in New York, “My documentary is ma’s debut novel, The an allegory for Nige- a drop of water on a stone, and we Fishermen, is a recast- ria’s failings as a state. should all globally hang our heads ing of the story of Cain Obioma told the Mich- in shame [if ] we don’t stop war and Abel: A mad- igan Quarterly Review, on women.” man prophesies that “Distinct tribes, like 15-year-old Ikenna Yoruba and Igbo, they will be killed by one of are their own states. … his three brothers, after But then a colonizing which anxiety and sus- force came in and said, picion lead to tragedy. ‘Be a nation.’ It is tanta- But the book, which mount to the prophecy was shortlisted for the of a madman.” FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 83

THE RAJAN ANANDAN MOGULS MANAGING DIRECTOR, GOOGLE, SOUTHEAST ASIA AND INDIA INDIA FOR LOBBYING ON BEHALF OF THE UNCONNECTED. If the Chinese dream is, in the words of President Xi Jinping, the “great rejuve- nation of the Chinese nation,” the dream of its southwestern neighbor seems to be something more individualistic: amass tech wealth and improve the lives of India’s poor. No one epitomizes this more than tech doyen Rajan Anandan. He has used his stewardship of Google in India to greatly improve tech access for the poor by successfully lobbying Indian manufacturers to launch low-cost phones, pushing carriers to bring down the prices of data plans, and increasing the transla- tion of Google products into many Indian languages. Beyond that, he’s also one of the country’s most active tech investors: Between January 2014 and June 2015, he was the most prolific, according to Quartz, investing in 15 start-ups. Anandan’s work proves that good business doesn’t have to be at odds with good citizenry. Even corporate titans known for EMILY LEPROUST single-mindedly protecting their bottom lines can sometimes do the right thing— CEO AND CO FOUNDER, TWIST BIOSCIENCE especially with a nudge from a vision- SAN FRANCISCO ary thinker. The business leaders who comprise this category made it easier FOR FAST TRACKING THE BUILDING for parents to take time of from their BLOCKS OF LIFE. careers after having children, enabled cheap mobile access for India’s poor, Several companies a device that uses sili- opment of new vac- LEPROUST: COURTESY PHOTO invested in female-founded start-ups create and ship syn- con to create DNA 100 cines, crops, fuels, (of which there are woefully few in the thetic DNA straight times more eiciently and bio-based prod- world), and sought to remove deep- to scientists’ door- than its competitors. ucts—many of which rooted gender and racial biases in hir- steps. Emily Leproust (Other methods use could replace petro- ing. Together, they showed that progress of Twist Bioscience, plastic.) Twist, which leum-derived ones. is possible, whether in corner oices or however, has fig- had raised more “Our lifestyle is very on factory floors. ured out how to do it than $80 million by diicult on the envi- faster and cheaper. this summer, will be ronment,” Leproust Her company, which able to deliver more told Wired in March. began working with genes to more clients “It’s expensive and it’s select customers in than ever before. The harmful; there needs April, has developed result? The devel- to be another way.” Illustration by PAUL RYDING

LAURA MATHER TAWNI CRANZ CEO, UNITIVE CHIEF TALENT OFFICER, NETFLIX WOODSIDE, CALIF. LOS GATOS, CALIF. FOR Workplace biases can start in a job listing. “Fast-paced” and “work FOR GIVING PARENTS HELPING hard, play hard” tend to attract male applicants; “support” and A BREAK. COMPANIES “teamwork” appeal to minorities; and “analytical” and “com- HIRE petitive salary” are turn-off phrases to women. That’s why eBay BLIND. alum Laura Mather created Unitive, a program that flags trig- ger words in job listings and keeps race and gender hidden in résumés. Unitive also reveals only portions of a résumé at a time. As Mather told ThinkProgress, “We are constantly reminding people about what is most important to [a] job.” Hiring managers America doesn’t guaran- only see the full tee paid leave for new par- r sum when they’ve ents, which means employers rated each compo- autonomously define pol- nent of the document. icies, most of which have long prioritized productiv- CRANZ: PHOTO VIA LINKEDIN; SCHUYLER: COURTESY PHOTO; KHANNA: COURTESY PHOTO; MATHER: SCREENSHOTS COURTESY OF UNITIVE Unitive creates a ity over family. But the tide structured interview may be turning. In August, process, so that all Chief Talent Officer Tawni applicants are asked Cranz announced that Netflix the same questions. would start offering qualify- ing employees unlimited paid leave so that parents can “take off as much time as they want during the first year after a child’s birth or adoption.” SHANNON SCHUYLER & AYESHA KHANNA CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY LEADER, PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS; FOUNDER, CIVIC ACCELERATOR CHICAGO; ATLANTA FOR NUDGING WOMEN INTO THE CORNER OFFICE. According to TechCrunch, between 2009 resources to help women gain access to cap- and 2014, just 15.5 percent of U.S. start-ups ital. This spring, with PwC funding, Civic had at least one woman on their founding Accelerator’s cohort of 13 U.S. start-ups—all teams, while only 10 percent of solo found- of which had at least one female founder and ers were women. Wanting those numbers to 11 of which were started entirely by women— grow, Shannon Schuyler, head of corporate participated in a 10-week boot camp to test responsibility at PricewaterhouseCoopers ideas and connect with investors. At least (PwC), and Ayesha Khanna, founder of the half of future Accelerator-supported ven- investment fund Civic Accelerator, pooled tures will be owned by women. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 85

Embracing change, expanding McCannJHB 912648 investment opportunities South Africa has an infrastructure development plan with $73.23 billion being committed towards economic infrastructure development. This ongoing expansion will create sustainable economic ecosystems built on solid foundations of infrastructure that will positively impact the changing African landscape. www.southafrica.info

MAPPA MUNDI NATIONAL SECURITY ENERGY ECONOMICS THE FIXER 4 Why supergirls Beijing and At an economic Do Netflix, Virgin, Where in Kigali in comic books Washington are crossroads, Modi’s and other corpo- to eat posho, pale in com- playing a danger- India must decide rate giants really drink with parison to real- ous spy game between burning care about giving politicos, and life female in the South more coal or parents more remember leaders. | P. 88 China Sea. | P. 90 going green. | P. 94 time off? | P. 98 the genocide. | P. Illustration by KAROL BANACH FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 87

mappa mundi by DAVID ROTHKOPF The Making of the Modern Superheroine Why comic-book crusaders have nothing on the real-life women who changed the world in 2015. During the interminable but reli- Presented to the world as a bit of female empowerment-based ably ridiculous early phases of entertainment, Supergirl, played by Glee alumna Melissa Benoist, the 2016 presidential campaign, is pretty much your typical superhero—and that is the problem. Republican aspirant Jeb Bush felt Everything that makes her “super” is essentially the same thing it appropriate to note that televi- that makes other famous superheroes special: overstated male sion’s new Supergirl looks “hot.” traits that can be summed up as a unique ability to beat people Because FOREIGN POLICY is dedi- up. Super. Super-duper. cated to public service, I took it upon myself to watch several epi- Most superheroes are set apart from average citizens almost sodes of the show to determine exclusively by physical strengths: They are stronger, faster, and precisely what it was that this often less vulnerable to physical attacks. And sometimes they have potential commander in chief superhuman powers, such as the gift of flight or X-ray vision. They was referring to. ¶ I will not com- all would be pretty good in the NFL or a bar fight or any other tes- ment further on Bush’s assess- tosterone-rich zone. But, really, is that as super as traits can get? ment, except to note that it is freaking 2015 and that he should Why is it so seldom that superheroes are actually smarter than go to the nearest lending library your average person, more perceptive, strategically supergifted? and see if he can borrow a clue. Why is it that they don’t have the ability to outsmart and defeat That said, after watching the epi- sodes it is clear to me that Bush’s view of the show is not the most backward one on display. There is, for example, the perspective of the producers. 88 NOV | DEC 2015 Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

OBSERVATION DECK villains without throwing them through time in the award’s seven-year history, the women’s rights—or, in some cases, relate semitrucks or brick walls? Why are they not majority of the recipients are female—there to fighting to be recognized and identified, inventors or artists who, with their brains, are 61 women and 60 men. This is per- once and for all, as a woman, period. There can produce revolutions or transform soci- haps less a milestone for women than it is is no single path to becoming the kind of eties? That is to say, why is it usually the a sign that FOREIGN POLICY is coming to its standouts acknowledged on our list, except hero—the tough vigilante—who wins a senses, awakening to the remarkable work that the skills being tapped are far more reader’s heart by beating the “mad” scien- being done in every field by women with diverse and far-reaching in their impacts tist who, inevitably, has a brow or cranium real superpowers—namely, world-altering, than any celebrated in even the most fan- that’s slightly too big? life-changing, barrier-breaking intellect, tastic of fantasy publications. creativity, and decisiveness. As for Supergirl, wouldn’t even That gender looms large isn’t surpris- the slightest thought to the feminist- Each year, in producing the list, FOR- ing: 2016, for example, is the first year empowerment themes that are allegedly EIGN POLICY considers hundreds of achiev- that a woman, Hillary Clinton, has a real associated with the show (and referenced ers who meet our criteria: that is, people opportunity to become the leader of what periodically by Supergirl’s female boss, whose ideas are being translated into is currently the world’s richest and most played by Calista Flockhart) result in, I action and impacting many lives across powerful nation. The fact that this is the don’t know, a woman whose superpow- borders. The recipients are all real-life first time in almost 240 years of U.S. his- ers might somehow not be the exact over- superheroes (or in a couple of instances, tory suggests the powerful forces that have stated stereotypically masculine traits that supervillains) who transcend the typical been opposing it. But now we are on the you find in most traditional comic-book by applying their great mental gifts and characters? Isn’t there something more, related talents. None of these remarkable something different that is possible? Some- individuals has, to the best of our knowl- thing other than merely changing the cut edge, achieved success by turning green of her requisite superhero leotards? and growing muscles so big that his or her clothing has been torn to tatters. All have It is not a new error. As we were reminded last year in the excellent The Secret History WHY IS IT SO SELDOM THAT of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore, even though there was something of a feminist SUPERHEROES ARE ACTUALLY theme to that icon’s story, at the end of SMARTER THAN YOUR AVERAGE the day she spent most of her time fight- PERSON, MORE PERCEPTIVE, ing and winning (Amazing! Boff! Kapow!), STRATEGICALLY SUPERGIFTED? not to mention the fact that the stories also contained idiosyncratic sexual under- influenced the world by cultivating, to threshold of great change led by women, tones related to the unconventional living unusual levels, gifts involving not just aca- arrangements and tastes of the Amazon demic achievement or narrow professional for women—and benefiting everyone. As warrior’s inventor, the certifiably strange success but often remarkable sets of cross- dude Dr. William Marston. cutting talents—musicians who are knit- Clinton has said, “Women are not victims, ting together nations, pathbreaking artists We need not wait indefinitely, however, who are leading political movements, sci- we are agents of change, we are drivers of to find stories of women with supergifts entists with great political or entrepreneur- that help them stand apart without aping ial skills who are forcing us to question our progress, we are makers of peace—all we the look and ethos of, say, a WWE match. core philosophies. You can look at the list of FOREIGN POLICY’s need is a fighting chance.” That kind of 2015 Leading Global Thinkers. For the first When you look at the list, you can’t help but notice a remarkable mix of women thinking and hundreds of years of perse- who have made it in traditional male- dominated arenas and others whose great- verance have brought us to a moment when est accomplishments relate to fighting for the recognition of long-denied or neglected everywhere we look women are at the fore- front, improving the world and doing it in their own special way appropriate to the truth of who they are. Now that is hot. Q DAVID ROTHKOPF (@djrothkopf) is CEO and editor of the FP Group. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 89

national security OBSERVATION DECK by JAMES BAMFORD Cloak and Danger Could risky U.S. intelligence missions in the South China Sea provoke war with Beijing? In May, the U.S. Defense Depart- When CNN broadcast its story, it played a recording of the ment invited a CNN team onto warnings, and Jim Sciutto, the correspondent who had been on the Navy’s newest, most sophis- the plane, dutifully adopted the Pentagon’s party line as his own. ticated spy plane, the P-8A Pose- “China’s enormous land grab … [is] alarming,” Sciutto said. “It’s idon. After taking off from Clark hard to see how this tension doesn’t escalate going forward.” To Air Base in the Philippines, pilots reinforce the need for alarm, the network also featured former CIA flew the aircraft near three islands Deputy Director Michael Morell, who cautioned that war is “abso- in the South China Sea, where lutely” a possibility. (CNN did not present opposing viewpoints Chinese reclamation and mili- on the complex legal issues involved in the South China Sea.) tary building projects are taking place. The operation, however, The incident is just one confrontation in a duel now escalat- wasn’t just intended to collect ing between the United States and China. This September, the intelligence. It appears it was also Pentagon blamed China for allowing military jets to make an meant to provoke a hostile reac- unsafe maneuver by passing in front of the nose of a U.S. RC-135 tion from China and, thanks to reconnaissance aircraft over the Yellow Sea. The following month, the news cameras on board, use the U.S. Navy penetrated the 12-nautical-mile limit that China that response for propaganda— claims as territory around its artificial islands in the Spratly to blatantly tell the world that archipelago—a deliberate challenge to Beijing’s self-declared America thinks China’s territorial sovereignty. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told Con- claims are illegal and dangerous. gress, “We will fly, sail, and operate wherever international ¶ The Chinese sent eight strong warnings to the plane. “This is the Chinese navy,” said one radio operator. “Please go away … to avoid misunderstanding.” Later, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the flight “very irrespon- sible and dangerous” and noted that Beijing would “take the nec- essary and appropriate measures to prevent harm to the safety of China’s islands and reefs as well as any sea and air accidents.” 90 NOV | DEC 2015 Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

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national security OBSERVATION DECK law permits and whenever our operational the plane crashed into the East China Sea, planes over islands in the South China needs require.” China’s Foreign Ministry killing all 16 crew members. Although Sea—with or without a media team responded to the incident by stating that there was never proof, it was presumably present—to draw Beijing’s ire seems Beijing “will not condone any action that shot down. Afterward, in a secret meet- unwise. But it’s also important for the undermines China’s security.” ing at the White House, President Dwight White House and intelligence agencies Eisenhower told Adm. Arthur Radford, the to formally assess, through some kind of American history shows that this per- chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “We coordinated review process, which rou- version of purpose—turning missions into seem to be conducting something that we tine missions are no longer necessary. provocations—is fraught with hazard. cannot control very well. If planes were With so many spy satellites now in orbit, Half a century ago, for instance, the Pen- flying 20 to 50 miles from our shores, we able to photograph even small objects on tagon ordered a National Security Agency would be very likely to shoot them down Earth and eavesdrop on everything from (NSA) spy ship, the USS Maddox, to breach if they came in closer, whether through cell phones to radar signals, the need for North Vietnam’s territorial limit in the error or not.” Gulf of Tonkin. The series of events that ensued (namely false reports of attacks on Similar concerns weigh heavy in the the ship) led Congress to pass the Gulf of ongoing American-Chinese standoff. In Tonkin resolution, which authorized the the spring of 2001, for example, an EP-3 use of force in Southeast Asia and cata- NSA eavesdropping plane operated by pulted the United States into a war that the Navy collided with a Chinese military killed millions of people. jet sent up to observe it. As the Chinese craft plunged down, killing the pilot, the But even routine intelligence missions that do not defiantly breach boundaries AMERICAN HISTORY SHOWS sometimes go terribly wrong. The NSA has a long history of risky air and sea operations THAT THIS PERVERSION OF that have turned deadly. Deep in the agen- PURPOSE TURNING MISSIONS cy’s Maryland headquarters, in fact, is a INTO PROVOCATIONS IS wall of black granite with the names of more FRAUGHT WITH HAZARD. than 150 personnel killed on such missions. damaged U.S. plane was able to make an expensive air and sea operations may be During the Cold War, more than 50 U.S. emergency landing on China’s Hainan and allied aircraft were attacked by the Island. Had it crashed, it’s very likely that overkill: spying for the sake of spying, Soviet Union, China, and North Korea; at many members of Congress immediately least 15 NSA spy planes were shot down. would have accused China of purposely sometimes with lethal consequences. In one incident, a plane was patrolling shooting down the EP-3 and killing two 32 miles off China’s coast on Aug. 22, dozen crew members. And there’s a good Given that the purpose of intelligence 1956, when Chinese fighters were spot- chance the next step might have been war. ted approaching. Minutes later, halfway (Beijing set the crew free, but not before should be to prevent wars rather than through an alert message back to its base, analyzing top-secret documents and sen- sitive NSA gear found on the plane.) start them, the current U.S. administra- As tensions continue to mount between tion would do well to ask when espionage is the United States and China, it’s time to take a closer look at U.S. spying practices necessary to national security—and when and determine which ones aren’t worth the risks involved. Certainly, zooming it simply means playing with fire. Q JAMES BAMFORD (@WashAuthor) is a colum- nist for FOREIGN POLIC and the author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on Amer- ica. He also writes and produces docu- mentaries for PBS. 92 NOV | DEC 2015

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energy OBSERVATION DECK by KEITH JOHNSON Green Gamble Can India avoid repeating China’s dirty-energy mistakes? Leaders in India have long faced economic might. Upon election in 2014, Modi announced an ambi- their share of momentous choices tious economic goal of 8.5 percent annual economic growth. It is to with epoch-making implications. be driven in large part by manufacturing, which he hopes to boost The Mughal emperor’s decision to from around 17 percent of GDP to 25 percent over the next decade. grant trading rights to the British East India Company in 1612 opened Achieving those targets requires India, yet again, to make a the door to colonization. Local lead- momentous choice. It can prioritize economic development at all ers’ commitment to disgruntled costs, using dirty energy (though India’s development thus far has Indian soldiers who sparked the relied so heavily on fossil fuels that, according to the World Health great rebellion of 1857 led directly Organization, the nation now has 13 of the top 20 most polluted cit- to the end of the Mughal crown and ies, overtaking China as the world’s smoggiest country). Or it can the rise of the overbearing British attempt what no country, rich or poor, has so far managed, which Raj. Acceptance of Britain’s plan is to skip the deadliest and messiest stages of economic growth for partition along religious lines and forge a new green path. in 1947 birthed massacres, blood- shed,andPakistan.¶ Thedecisions It’s a crucial choice because Modi’s economic vision depends India made proved, in many ways, on securing a whole lot more of something India doesn’t have to be worth it. Arguably, if tortu- much of: reliable sources of energy, especially electricity. Through- ously, they eventually made India out the country, blackouts and brownouts are commonplace; a major economy and a key player factories depend on their own generators to stay in business. In in global affairs. But still, India’s 2012, for example, a nationwide power failure affected almost potential has not yet been fully realized. To do so, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, known for revi- talizing business in the state of Gujarat, has pinned his political future on unleashing India’s latent 94 NOV | DEC 2015 Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

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energy OBSERVATION DECK 700 million people, or around 10 percent 50-fold. Beijing’s intensive, consequences- date, Modi hopes to boost that 25-fold to of the global population. And even more be-damned development push birthed 100,000 megawatts by 2022. (By compari- problematic: More than 300 million Indi- a $10 trillion economy, but also gave rise son, the United States has just shy of 23,000 ans lack electricity altogether, essentially to choking air pollution, dead rivers, and megawatts currently installed.) The gov- creating a blacked-out block nearly the size shrinking life spans, and made the Mid- ernment also hopes to nearly triple wind- of the United States buried in the middle of dle Kingdom the world’s biggest source of power capacity to 60,000 megawatts by the the world’s second-most-populous country. greenhouse gas emissions. So coal could same date and to accelerate big hydroelec- turn India into another China economically tric projects. So what, then, are India’s options for —at the risk of turning it into another China finally reaching its economic potential and environmentally. But plenty of obstacles remain for renew- bringing power to the unlit masses? One is ables. Wind and solar power are still more the same dirty rock that powered the West This monkey-see, monkey-do poten- expensive than coal power, and the rivers and modern China’s rise: Over the past five tial matters not just to the families fleeing of red tape that drown the rest of India’s deadly air pollution in Delhi, but also to the economy deluge clean energy develop- entire planet. If India—already the world’s ment too. The rules for land acquisition third-largest source of greenhouse gases— and land use are byzantine, making large- cannot commit to clean growth, then there’s scale developments, whether for factories little hope that other developing countries or solar farms, a huge challenge. And the will feel compelled to do the same. utilities that, ultimately, would need to buy all that squeaky-clean electricity are broke Modi’s big aspirations seem to have a themselves. Unless India can fix the dys- green patina. In the lead-up to December’s function of the power market, these sunny climate summit in Paris, India submitted visions might just be a mirage. to the United Nations its plan for dealing with emissions. As expected, the country Still, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. has stressed its “right to grow,” even as it Modi himself overhauled Gujarat’s indebted power sector a decade ago. And he is acutely IF INDIA CANNOT COMMIT aware that China, after going down a long, dirty road, has realized that cleaner growth, TO CLEAN GROWTH, THEN THERE’S if a bit more expensive, can pay for itself LITTLE HOPE THAT OTHER environmentally, politically, and econom- ically by removing the costs of health- DEVELOPING COUNTRIES WILL FEEL related absenteeism and shorter life spans. COMPELLED TO DO THE SAME. When reading the tea leaves, what’s per- years, India has installed one-quarter of the has pledged to make its economy gradu- haps most important is that, at the end of world’s new coal-burning capacity. And ally cleaner and more efficient within the the day, Indian leaders are responsible to looking ahead, Modi has vowed to triple next 15 years, particularly by trimming the the mass of voters hungry for jobs now— India’s coal production to a whopping 1.5 amount of emissions per dollar of GDP by not an elite, clean, and green minority. And billion tons a year, which would make it 33 to 35 percent over 2005 levels. Consider that, at heart, is India’s conundrum: A coun- second only to China. Between 2012 and these pledges, though, in light of Modi’s try with a per capita income on par with 2017, the government plans to install 85,000 relentless development push, which will Sudan’s feels little moved by the sort of cli- megawatts’ worth of power plants, the vast likely amount to a near doubling of India’s mate angst that drives well-off campaigners majority of which are coal-fired. carbon emissions by 2030. in Denmark or Denver. Yet the environmen- tal costs of acting otherwise could be more For Delhi, China’s remarkable meta- Yet while India’s Paris plan seems lack- than Modi, or the country, can bear. Q morphosis in decades past undoubtedly luster, it belies the green advances the coun- serves as an economic guide. Beijing rode try is actually pushing. On paper, India has KEITH JOHNSON (@KFJ_FP) covers the geopol- coal and big industry to one of the world’s some of the world’s most ambitious targets itics of energy for FOREIGN POLIC . most sweeping economic transformations, for renewable energy, especially solar and lifting 600 million citizens out of poverty wind power. Although India has installed and expanding China’s economy almost only 4,000 megawatts of solar power to 96 NOV | DEC 2015

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economics OBSERVATION DECK by DEBORA L. SPAR The Baby Benefits Club Generous parental- leave policies at Netflix and Virgin might signal a shift in the global labor market. This past summer, several prom- found there with the ones surrounding them at home, yet among inent firms seemed to be com- industrialized nations, the United States is the only country that peting for the title of America’s does not guarantee the right to paid leave. Sociologists have long most family-friendly company. known that more generous maternity (and paternity) leaves In August, Netflix announced would allow greater numbers of parents to remain in the work- plans to offer new mothers and force. And members of the millennial generation (burned, per- fathers “unlimited leave”—that haps, by watching their baby-boomer parents struggle to mesh is, as much time off as they want in career and personal lives) have been pushing for more workplace the first year after a child’s birth. perks—casual dress codes and bring-your-dog-to-work days, for Microsoft countered quickly, instance—ever since they first entered offices. Extending largesse promising to increase its own into the more crucial area of parenting seems like such an obvi- paid leaves substantially. Face- ous way for companies to go. book had already made its mark, granting four months of paid time If one looks closely at some of the newly hyped parental-leave off for both parents and $4,000 in plans, however, limitations are in the small print. Netflix’s pol- “baby cash.” ¶ It’s tempting to see icy is offered not to all of the firm’s 2,000-plus workers, but only these policies as early evidence to those employed by its streaming division, the company’s that the U.S. labor market, at least fastest-growing slice. Meanwhile, Richard Branson’s Virgin, at its upper end, might finally be headquartered in the United Kingdom, recently began offering pushing in the direction of gender both mothers and fathers (including adoptive ones) up to a equality and more accommodat- ing family practices. For decades, women streaming into the profes- sional workforce have been trying to balance the demands they’ve 98 NOV | DEC 2015 Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER