Patty Vest: Hi, welcome to Sagecast the podcast of Pomona College. I'm Patty Vest in these extraordinary times, we're coming to you from our various homes. As we all shelter in place. Mark Wood: This season on Sagecast, we're talking to Pomona, faculty and alumni about the personal professional and intellectual journeys that have brought them to where they are today. Patty Vest: Today, we're talking with former US Diplomat Mietek Boduszynski assistant professor of politics at Pomona. Mark Wood: Welcome Mietek. Thank you. Great. So yeah, thanks for taking the time to talk to us here in the cyberspace. So how are you adjusting to life in the strange new world of coronavirus? Mietek Boduszynski: Uh you know, not so badly, first of all, I should say I'm lucky to have a job, like a job at Pomona, which some people don't have now. So, you know, I'm collecting my, my salary. I had just generous parental leave this semester. So so you know, all in all could be much worse than, you know, you mentioned my diplomatic career in some ways that prepared me for this. Cause I've been at a couple of, of postings where I was also on a sort of, sort of lockdown because of security concerns in some, in some ways this kind of reminds me of, of that. Yeah, just being ready, you know, for the, not a lot of uncertainties about what's going to happen the next day. So Patty Vest: Mietek. Tell us about your early years. What, what, and when was that that sparked your interest first in international relations? Mietek Boduszynski: Well, I was an immigrant to this country as a child along with my parents. We actually didn't intend to to stay here originally, but my father came on a, on a scholarship, a Fulbright scholarship, which sends both foreigners to the States and Americans overseas. And he was posted or placed in Wyoming of all places in the West. And um for him, for him, actually, it was kind of exciting because one of the kinds of American TV shows you could watch or American movies, you could watch him, communist Poland were westerns. And so Wyoming kind of reminded him. And so my father went first and my mother and I came to visit him with all intentions of, of going back. My father was like my, both my parents, especially my father, weren't big fans of the communist regime. Mietek Boduszynski: He wasn't a major dissident, but a little bit of a dissident and, but things are a little bit better and this was very end of the seventies. Things seem to be a little bit better. And also they were very close to their families in Poland. And so the idea of starting over somewhere else at that point already, and they're in their late thirties or whatever would seem, seemed like too much. So so while we were in Wyoming things took a turn for the worst in Poland at the turn for the worst, excuse me a movement called solidarity, a workers movement that Rose up against a communist state. And you think about the ironies of bad workers, workers, rebelling against what was supposed to be a worker state you know, became a very widespread movement and shook the communist regime to its core. Mietek Boduszynski: At one point, you know, raising, raising the ire of the Soviet union, of course you know, there was talk of, of, of an invasion by Moscow and so on. Anyway, things got bad in Poland and my father started getting messages from his coworkers at the, he was an engineer at this technical Institute where he was where that was his home base in Poland saying that, you know, people are being locked up, especially people who are known to be opponents of the regime. You know, maybe you should consider consider I'm not coming back. And at the same time as this was happening, Wyoming is a, is a small place. Everybody knows, knows everyone. And through someone at, at the, at the energy Institute where my father was working he got connected to to the sole member of Wyoming's congressional delegation at the time who was called Dick Cheney. Mietek Boduszynski: And it was Cheney in fact who really pushed, you know, out of an kind of an abundance of anticommunist ideology pushed. My father said, you know, just don't worry. You can you can you know, stay here, Reagan. This was just at the, at the kind of moment when, when when, you know, Reagan had already won the the election, it was still Carter, but he was, he was coming into office the following year. And and he said, don't worry, you know, Reagan, he's, anticommunist, you know, we'll give you a political asylum and everything will be fine. It turns out that it wasn't so easy. He may have had good intentions, but there's a bureaucracy has to deal with the former immigration and naturalization service, which has now been morphed into VHS and it's called called something else. Mietek Boduszynski: And they, they weren't so forgiving because my father was on a visa called the J1, which some of you may know from your expenses with Pomona students, it's it's an exchange visa and knew there's a requirement attached to it. Then you have to go back to your home country for two years. And that's the only way you can only be waived by the secretary of state. And it's very difficult to be wait. So, so, you know, long story short we, we didn't automatically get an adjustment in our status. And so we were out of status for a number of years, actually almost seven years until we benefited from, we applied for political sound, but eventually benefited from what was called a general amnesty under Reagan. And ironically again, a Republican president, you know, amnesty is metaphor. Then we can just find finally you know, the process to get our green cards we got and so on. Mietek Boduszynski: So we were sort of in this, in this uncertain limbo for a while, very unpleasant limbo, but of course, you know, the privilege of having a father, an educated father with who was employed during that time and so on. So, so I guess, you know, going back to your question, Mark or sorry, it was Patty you know, just the experience of, of, of being in that situation of, of, of, of being in this, in this limbo, you know, knowing that I had lots of family back in Poland, that we may never see again, because effectively the decision to stay at that time, nobody thought that system would change. Wasn't a decision that you would never see her family again. And, and, you know, going to court as a little kid I had one client in, in a court in Denver, which was the closest place where there was an immigration court. You know, we were on the verge of deportation and the judge asked us where we you know, where we would go if we were deported. And I remember as, as a, you know, little kid, for some reason, being fascinated by China and blurting out China, which was the completely wrong answer to demean another communist. Mietek Boduszynski: And I remember the the lawyer elbowing my father. Mietek Boduszynski: I spent an extended kind of, you know, I remember when we finally did get a status that was already, when we had moved to California, my father was hired by Chevron Richmond refinery up North. You know, both my parents, tears coming down, their faces as the judge, you know, gave us that, you know, because of the new legislation gave us the right to stay. So it was, you know yeah, so that, so that, that whole experience, I think, of, of, of you know, being from a place where I couldn't go back to not fully understanding that, but you know, that definitely got me interested in aging myself with a kid, a kid throughout this. But so, you know, at the moment we got the permanent residency or, or, you know, that process was locked in, I was 11, 1286. Yeah. Mark Wood: Tell us about your, your educational journey and how you got interested in life in foreign service. Mietek Boduszynski: Well, you know, I, I grew up in, in the, in the Bay area and although my father had a good job at, at Chevron because we started late in this country, I grew up in a neighborhood that was a pocket and a city Richmond, which was, which was okay, but a city that in the, in the eighties, in particular, in an early nineties, was having a hard time know the crack epidemic and, and gang issues and all these things. So, so I you know, grew up in close to a high school that a public high school that had a metal detectors and song going, and wasn't the most pleasant place. And my parents sent me to a Catholic school in Berkeley, which was a better environment, but not necessarily, you know, full of academic high achievers. They drew on a lot of students from different backgrounds. Mietek Boduszynski: I get a lot of scholarships, especially as students from, from inner city, Oakland and so on. So I grew up in a very diverse environment, I think, very aware of inequality in United States, but also not in an academically. You know, not at the kind of high school where there was a lot of aid or any AP or honors classes or whatever. And, and, you know, certainly not knowing about liberal arts colleges and also not having any connection to places like Washington DC, you know, beyond the fact that we had this immigration issue issuing we had some assistance from politicians at one point, but, but not really having you know, any kind of insight into, into certainly the state department or anything like that. So, so very little, you know, kind of at that point, I think one of the things I sort of remember, you know, well from growing up in the Bay area, which was, which was a very progressive place, which in some ways was wonderful because I think it gave me some very progressive values that I, that I that cherish, but at the same time because of its very, for lack of a better word, you don't kind of lefty left the field. Mietek Boduszynski: There was also a lot of people who, you know, well, meaning people who had grown up in in the, in the Bay area who, who for instance, you know, expressed admiration for some, for some communist dictatorships, whether that'd be, you know, the Cuban regime or, or Mao or whatever. And I remember my, my father, especially with both my parents, you know, reacting very kind of strongly through that because it was sort of a, you know, again driven by ideology and, and, but, but not, not at all as being clear eyed about the fact that, you know, human rights abuses can certainly take place on the part of on the part of right-wing regimes, which the U S supported at the time and Latin American song, but also, you know, can equally take place in communist regimes. And so I think that also, you know, I should, I should add that, that, you know, some of those conversations, which I, which I heard at home, you know, also got me interested in in questions of, of democracy, democratization, repression, human rights and so on, which also animates my work. Mietek Boduszynski: So, so I didn't have a lot of exposure to, you know, those kinds of international things. It wasn't until I was 16 years old. At that time we still have, didn't have access to U S passports. I managed to get a reentry document, which would be much harder to get now. So we were still sort of in that, you know, you know, permanent residence, but we couldn't have the Polish passport anyway, cause the regime hadn't changed there. And I went on a, I got a scholarship to go on a, an exchange program called youth for understanding to Sweden for the summer. And that made a huge impression on me because at home I had heard that communism was bad, you know, but then I'd grown up in, in kind of, you know, some of the parts of the Bay area that were really hit hard by some of the issues of the eighties. Mietek Boduszynski: And I need some, you know, sort of seeing any quality of clothes and then going to a place like Sweden, where it seems like they had a little bit of socialism that worked right. And it challenged some of my, some of my assumptions. It seemed like this kind of paradise, everybody had access to healthcare and in ways it was especially back then. And then the following summer, I did an exchange program in Mexico and one today in Durango. And that, that also you know, kind of started opening through, through my high school, started opening my eyes to the possibilities of international travel and so on. I think I was, I was hooked. Patty Vest: What are some of the posts that you held as a diplomat? Can you tell us about some of the experiences you had and what was it like to represent us diplomacy in these parts of the world? I Mietek Boduszynski: Had a post in three different regions. I started in the Balkans in a certain, both Albania and Kosovo both transitional countries in the case of Kosovo at the time, it wasn't even an independent country yet. It was just on the verge of becoming independent. And now it is, although it's not recognized fully Albania was a a fascinating place that had been under a communist dictatorship. That's very different than Poland. It was a hard line kind of Neo malice North Korea, like place that was completely close to the world. And and had, you know, suffered greatly as a result, both from repression, also economic deprivation. And so I was there not long into the, into the transition considering the decades of being so closed. But it was also a place because you asked, what was it like to be an American diplomat? Mietek Boduszynski: Where were Americans were, were well loved? And so it made it easier at some point, because that was the period when we had invaded Iraq and Americans weren't well loved around the world. Certainly my, my European colleagues you know, have had some difficult conversations about that. And but I'll be honest, themselves were very welcoming and it was you know, ideal in a way first place to serve as a diplomat. You, they didn't have any security restrictions or very few I could, you know, go out and meet people who hadn't been trained in the language which, which made it even better. And I was working in public diplomacy, so educational cultural programs. And and so I didn't just deal with elites. I dealt with a lot of you know, filmmakers and artists and students and so on. So it was really a wonderful first assignment. Mietek Boduszynski: And then I went to Japan where I had lived before as an English teacher and you know, similar to Albania, Japanese are generally or favorably predisposed to Americans. I didn't have to answer or deal with a lot of, a lot of heart issues about, about policy and had a very nice, did a advanced Japanese training in Oklahoma. And then, and then had a hosting in Tokyo at the embassy, which was really lifestyle wise, the most wonderful posting of all it's a wonderful place to live. And did some interesting work actually on, on promoting clinical trials between the U S and in Japan, Japan often doesn't want to participate in clinical trials for, especially for, for, for drugs, for rare cancers. And so on. I started thinking about those clinical trials. So as I hear about the clinical trials for the COVID now, so, you know, diplomacy is not only about the hardcore political issues or trade issues. Mietek Boduszynski: It can also be about promoting international cooperation in areas like clinical trials. And and then after that, I was, I was in Japan and I had, I was choosing my next posting and it's kind of an internal competitive bidding process. And I ended up with two choices. One was, was a Cambodia which came with a year of training and Camair, which is a an interesting, but rather boutique language it's spoken in one country Cambodia, or to go through Libya via two years of Arabic training. And and to serve there and Tripoli. And at the time this was 2009, 2010, Libya, as well as other Arab countries had been under the throes of dictatorship for many decades, Libya had been led for nearly four decades by, by one man, you know, kind of Louis, the 16th type type you know, they taught [inaubile] type figure Kadafi. Mietek Boduszynski: And so I remember friends telling me, Oh, you know, don't go to Libya because in Cambodia, it's know, kind of authoritarian, but you'll have more, more freedom of movement. Southeast Asia is beautiful and Tripoli you'll be, you know, confined to the politics are boring. It's just one guy's in charge. You know, we have a bad relationship. And you know, of course in the interim, everything changed. And the Libya ended up with proceeded by Egypt, actually for extra Arabic training. You know, both of those countries ended up being very different countries and I had agreed to go to and, you know, this is one of the things about the foreign service or, or any kind of work really where you're, where you're an expat or working international unit. You never know what's going to happen. Right. And, and and I, you know, ended up being lucky to be in the region at this, at this revolutionary moment which will stay with me forever. Mark Wood: Yeah. If you can tell us about that. I mean, having witnessed the Arab spring up close you know, what was that experience like? Mietek Boduszynski: It's, it's really hard to, you know, to, to recreate or to, to explain what it was like to be in Egypt, especially literally months after the revolution when you had, you know, for the first time people felt like there was this, there was this kind of psychological weight off their shoulders. You know, people were talking, everybody was talking about politics, but the people who are apolitical are not interested, right. They really saw this new future. And so part of it was almost like a caricature of a revolutionary moment. You're on the main square Tucker square and Cairo. There was, there was just groups of people, young, old, different social classes, different backgrounds you know sitting down together, you know, kind of these tents had been erected during the revolution and they remained afterwards you know, discussing things sometimes very intensely. Mietek Boduszynski: It was, it was a moment also when, when there's fears about security, because the police had melted away that the police was, was feared by the people. And, and but now things have been reversed and the police feared the people, so the police melted away. And so there's this just a little bit of a sense of kind of anything goes I'm in the streets and yeah, it was, it was you know, the, I was there for my main duty. There was to continue studying Arabic and each of those, there was a diplomat. And I remember our teachers these young Egyptian teachers of Arabic who taught me so much, not only about Arabic, but about the country would take us outside and we just stopped people on the street and ask them questions, you know, which was unthinkable before. Mietek Boduszynski: And I'm thinking about again today, regrettably thought about what was happening. And same thing in Libya. You know, I was there for the first elections and I used it as an academic kind of poop of the first elections now elections, you know, do have democracy make, and yet it was, you know, for a lot of ordinary Libyans, it was this incredible sense of empowerment to be able to vote for the first time in their lives. And you know, it was, it was a really, really amazing, magical moment that unfortunately, you know, quickly faded in both places and other places. And I had experienced Arab Spring. Patty Vest: So what happened there, the Arab spring was, was a hopeful time. You said that even apolitical people were interested in politics and what did it go wrong? And are there still some hopeful signs for that area? Mietek Boduszynski: Yeah, let me answer the second question first. I think we've seen hopeful signs in other Arab countries over this, this past year. Algeria is an example where there've been protests now interrupted by the, by the pandemic, but, but the weekly protest since last year calling for a meaningful change, even after they overthrew and a long time strong men tenured, demanding change Lebanon also calling for better governance, you know good governance us. So then also last year a political transition, the deal between the military and the opposition was formed and the former strong man, Omar El Basheer was not only taken down, but now he's in jail and, you know, possibly will be transferred to international criminal court for, for crimes against humanity and Iraq, a country where I also served later on when I took a leave from Pomona as my last foreign kind of foreign service assignment Iraq, where there has been a kind of, you know a corrupt corrupt governments that use second ethnicity for their own purposes. Mietek Boduszynski: You know, people have had a young people, especially had organized large protests for, for many weeks calling for, for more accountable governance. So I think the, the spirit of the Arab spring, the idea that the street is more powerful than the regime stands, but at the same time in countries like Egypt you have a resurgence of authoritarianism that's externally supported by some of our allies, US allies like the Emiratis and the Saudis. And then in Libya you have a situation of virtual civil war which is, which is also fueled by outside powers. And you ask Patty why or what, what happened? I mean, each country's unique and in Egypt there was a very powerful military that never went away that had its own kind of interests and, and goals. Certainly didn't believe in democracy that was sort of standing by and willing to pounce when the chance presented itself. Mietek Boduszynski: Certainly people were, were some, some Egypt has got tired of, of sort of the chaos and uncertainty. But I would also again, point to outside powers. And here, I would say the role of the Gulf countries, who again are U S allies and in pushing their own goals for which is military rule you know, funding that and pushing it and all kinds of other overt and covert ways. And, and the U S eventually, you know, losing its resolved Obama administration, and now much, much worse way the Trump administration giving up on support for democracy and the region Libya more complicated situation where the, where, where when Kadafi fell, everything fell, all the institutions fell. And there were there was a couple of years of, of hope, but the there were divisions in the country that that from Kadafi era and, and that predated Kadafi. Mietek Boduszynski: And but there were also political decisions made that that I think took the country in the wrong direction without going into details. But again, perfectly focusing on outside factors, the us and Europe as well as a couple of Arab countries that had led to intervention in 2011, they also dropped the ball, you know, that they intervened on behalf of the deduction of responsibility to protect, to protect civilians for humanitarian reasons. But then, you know, didn't want to own the situation afterwards. And certainly myself and many other people involved in Libya at the time, didn't think that Iraq style, you know, Marines military intervention was the right thing, but between doing nothing and doing some, doing that, there's, you can, you can do something. And unfortunately, the Europeans, which Obama had hoped would take the lead, did very little we did very little, especially after the Bengazi debacle. And then on top of that, again, you have these outside powers the Gulf countries Turkey eventually, you know, also getting involved in, in the conflict for their own on reasons that helped bring, bring things to where we are today Mark Wood: And your, your newest book US democracy promotion in the Arab world beyond interest versus ideals. You you get into a lot of that, right? The, can you tell us a little bit about the, about the book, the origins of your book and, and how you went about doing that? Mietek Boduszynski: Yeah, I think, I think I tried to in this book to connect my experience being in U S diplomat during the end, after the Arab spring and the disappointment of, of how our efforts, what I thought were, were pretty sincere efforts at, at a certain point in the Obama administration to, to really change the playbook, the U S playbook in the middle East, where by, for decades, we had supported authoritarian, governments and leaders. We thought that that was better for stability, better for fighting terrorism and so on to a new approach, which acknowledged the demands of, of ordinary people from our accountable government. You know, we sort of gave up on that. We dropped the ball all, we we got distracted. We lost faith. We lost faith for some good reasons to be fair. Let's do some things on the ground weren't going that well. Mietek Boduszynski: I tried to connect that experience with my experience in the Balkans. Both as a PhD student, when I had studied the Balkans written a dissertation and then a book about, about the process, the democratization process there. And one thing I realized I'm thinking about the, the two regions and the role of outside democracy promotion is that in the Balkans there had been, there had first, the first point is that it had been real faith that, that, that democracy could succeed in a real coordinated effort on the part of the U S and the European union and, and consistently promoting democracy in their world, a very different approach. And I think that part of that comes because democratization was frankly more difficult, but, but part of it also comes from this just this deeply rooted sense among Western policymakers, that the Arabs, the people in the middle East aren't ready for democracy, right. Mietek Boduszynski: That democracy doesn't serve people well. And and then sort of playing to the hands of, of, you know, the naysayers playing into the hands of the Gulf monarchies, who also believe that very much. And so one also contrast another contrast between the Balkans and the Arab world was that in the Balkans, you didn't have these outside, powers intervening to roll back democracy. Russia has become that more recently and China to a degree, but especially Russia, but at the time that I was doing that research, Russia was still weak and didn't try to exert its influence in that way. But in the Arab world, by contrast, you do have these outside outside powers. And here I'm going to point at them or Nazis and Saudis, especially will have a particular view of what kind of governance there should be in the, in the region. Mietek Boduszynski: And it's not compatible with democracy. And so in a way, you know, despite all the internal problems in places like Libya and Egypt and, and, you know, Syria and other places, Yemen, I still think that, you know, it was outside intervention. You know, the role of, of these, what I call the countervailing powers really you know, never gave it a chance. And the U S also I think the Obama administration, you know, kept saying, well, we don't have leverage. There's nothing we can do, but the problem I see with that, and when I say in the book is that, well, how do we know that if we never meaningfully tried, there were several moments where I think we could have acted in a principled way, but, but for various reasons, we didn't, you know, once ISIS Islamic state came about, especially, we got distracted by that. Mietek Boduszynski: We had other, other kinds of needs for cooperation from, from authoritarian regimes in the region. And then of course the Trump administration comes in and now, you know, embraces authoritarianism people like, like the, like CC the I keep mentioning Egypt cause I know it well. And it's, you know, the most important largest Arab country. You know, not only embraces CC by saying, you know, that he's doing a great job, he's my favorite dictator hosting him in the, in the oval office, which just speaks volumes about, about the lack of, of priority that this administration assigns to democracy and human rights. Patty Vest: Let's take you to a different part of the world. You have written about the effect of this information, that, and the effect that it could have on us diplomacy specifically, you were pointing to the involvement of Russia and the 2016 presidential election. What can we expect in the future in particular this year and our upcoming election? Mietek Boduszynski: Yeah. So I'm, I'm, you know, there's lots of people who are better qualified to talk about this. But I think from, you know, from what I understand that rush has changed its playbook a little bit to to you know, maybe cover up rather than starting its own. For instance, just put it in very simple terms. It's on, you know Facebook side, you know, using, using kind of proxies promoting from voices. But, you know, at the end of the day, we also have to remember, and this is true for, for Europe that Russia exploits, preexisting divisions, right? And, and, and in a way, the kind of deep polarization we have in this country and, and the fact that we have multiple truths or at the very least circulating already that that just gives it, I mean, it has a very strong foundation on which to work. Mietek Boduszynski: So I think we also have to be careful about over overstating, the role of Russia whether it's, you know, meddling in the election here or, or, or supporting populists in Europe, it certainly does that. And it likes to see when the West is divided against itself, it serves blueprints interests. But I think maybe some people also assign too much power to Russia for getting our own, our own failings, our own divisions. And of course our own institutional failings, which, which have become painfully clear through this pandemic. I'm probably going to ask you again, to go into an area where you, you don't feel that you're, you're the expert with your, your Polish background. Do you still have connections with Poland and what do you think about what's going on with illiberal democracies in, in so much of Europe? Mietek Boduszynski: Yeah, very much so. I mean, I go, I go to Poland usually, at least, at least once a year. I at a certain point in my life when I was an undergraduate student at UCLA, I went to study in Poland for a year, which gave me an opportunity to reestablish those, those ties with family that I had left behind. I couldn't see for all those years that we had you know the poem that we were dissidence and, and refugees and exiles, whatever. And so we, so, so eventually I was able to, to go back and kind of independently you know, establish those ties and all that. I haven't really included that much in my academic work since I was an undergraduate. It's something that, that really you know, plays an important role in my, in my personal life. You know, ties with my, with my cousins and aunts and uncles there, but also, you know, kind of following what's what's happening in Poland. Mietek Boduszynski: When I went there as an undergraduate student, 95, 96, it was just five years into the transition. In many ways. It was kind of like what I described for, for the post Arab spring Libya, Egypt, and so on. It was a time of great hope, certainly a time of some chaos and economic pain as, as you know, the entire economy you know, the former communists, the Congress was entirely owned by the state collapsed. But to observe that up close and to see a presidential election that happened then, and to understand the battle over the past, over, you know, what it meant, how would divided society to be, you know, somebody who was affiliated or collaborator with the communist regime versus somebody who has thought that, you know, really divided society you know, and understanding how seeing those divisions, Dan helped me understand what, what what's happening now. Mietek Boduszynski: One of the things I'd also explored in my, in my ties with Poland that I brought to Poland to, to Pomona and the college is a bit through an activity we did last year at through the EU center is, is the history of Polish, Jewish relations. Something that I had to kind of also educate myself on. If you allow me to say just a couple of words about this, cause it kind of relates to what you're asking about the Polish government today. So, so Poland, you know, before the war had been a home to the largest Jewish population in the world you know, 99% of whom died in the war, of course, many Catholic poles, my family's Catholic died in the war and I, because my parents were educated in the communist system, they learned the certain version of history, which was that poles and Jews suffered together at the hands of the Nazis. Mietek Boduszynski: There was very little mention that, you know, at home of, of, of Polish antisemitism or Polish complicity or so on. And it was only after I finished my Catholic education. I went to a big public university, UCLA that I started having more Jewish friends. And, and I was for the first time made aware and shocked of how much animosity towards Poland, there was among many American Jews. And for me, that was, you know, I remember going home and saying to my parents why I thought, you know, my, my grandma, my paternal grandfather, my mother's father died in Auschwitz. You know, we had people who are non Jewish who also died, you know, accepted this narrative. And it was only through a long process of self discovery of going back to Poland, you know, talking to my relatives, doing a lot of reading and talking to various experts in United States that I understood that the story, you know, unfortunately was not so romantic. Mietek Boduszynski: And that's so simple that, you know, there was a large degree of, of Polish antisemitism too. And there was also cases of Polish collaboration with the Nazis and sort of, you know, coming to terms with that has been one of my own personal, personal journeys has led some very difficult conversations with some of my relatives in Poland who believe that, you know, think is very nationalistic view that any, you know, that Poland was a victim in any kind of effort to re-examine that, or to look at it from different perspectives as is akin to, you know, kind of a treason almost, and that, you know, bringing it up to your question, Mark has been heightened by, you know, this government that's in power, who I think has played dangerous politics with this issue, this historical issue among others. So they tried to pass a law a couple of years ago that they eventually pulled back from under pressure from the U S Israel and others whereby you know, mentioning polo polo, criminalizing the, even, even the dimension of Polish complicity in the, in the Holocaust. Mietek Boduszynski: Right. And this comes from putting, you know, we have to understand this in a context, but Paul's absolutely hate. And I think understandably hate is when, when, when, you know, Western or international officials give speeches where they mentioned Polish concentration camps, president Obama made that mistake one time, by the way, which, you know, kind of cost him, his, his, his, his reputation in Poland later, he'll apologize if they weren't Polish, there were German concentration camps set up of component. Right. But you know, out of that, and then sort of this, you know, research and nationalism comes this effort to like, you know, we're not even going to, we're not even going to open the discussion of the past. Right. so I needed some very difficult conversations with my, with some of my cousins, you know about these issues who think that, you know, won't change their line of, you know, polls were just, just Catholic polls were just victims. Mietek Boduszynski: So, you know, I've done a little bit of, of sort of, you know, kind of personal research on this. And we had a session at like I mentioned, that it was held at Pitzer last year with based on a documentary film about efforts, you know, Polish, Jewish, reconciliation over these issues. So I want to show I followed. But it's, it's been very difficult with my Polish family on my father's side home closer to I've had to really stop political conversations just to preserve relationships. You know, they, they've always been more conservative than I have, especially in kind of, you know, pretty Catholic and so on. But I think it's, it's Terrick is taken a hard turn, you know, as, as it has this kind of populous narrative has, has spread around the world. You know, they'll say things like, you know, Beshara Lausanne is a benevolent dictator, which is just shocking from my uncle who was a, you know, anti-communist solidarity,udissident the fighter, you know, that sat in jail who was beaten by the police, how could he, how could he lavish praise on a dictator in the middle East? Mietek Boduszynski: Well, because, you know, there's this belief that spread through the populous kind of channels, the, this, you know, this nationalist press that's also supported by Russia and that Bashar Asad who's an ally of Russia, you know, surprise, surprise is, is, you know is defending Christians right then. So there's this kind of Christian thing that's built into it. And so this weird kind of, you know, the world view of everything has been turned on its head, you know, and, and my cousins who, for instance, before I would say, well, you know, I don't believe in gay marriage, but, but but you know, they should, you know, people, LGBTQ people should live, should the right to live as they want. Now, if it's taking this hard edge, you know, where it's like, you know, more and more hatred, right. And, you know, there's a bit of antisemitism mixed in into that. Mietek Boduszynski: So, so all of it is hard because there's a lot of family members who I respect and love dearly who have been very good to me in pulling into, I kept in touch with, but who've now seemed to have taken on, you know, partly because of the very polarized media that they read, some very hard hardline views. It's hard to reconcile that in my head. And in some ways that parallels, I'm sure, you know, people in this country who maybe have family members or friends, you know, her one side of the political divide or the other. Right. And it's hard to understand that. So, so, yeah, so I have been following closely and it's, you know, sometimes it's very painful actually, because it is close to home. Patty Vest: That's tough to navigate. We've brought the lots of Dem diplomats are living the state department in your opinion, what, what is the state of American diplomacy today? Mietek Boduszynski: It's interesting you ask, because one reason that that I asked you to move this up and and I appreciate it very much is because I was invited belatedly to join kind of working grew up on the future of American diplomacy. That's being headed up by four former re senior ambassadors. And based at Harvard Kennedy school, I think burns Nancy, Michael Downey, Marcy Reis and for the masters was to get escapes my mind now right after this actually another zoom meeting. So I think a lot of people are, are, are thinking about, you know you know, the fate of the state department, especially if, if, you know, if, if the Trump administration were to win another four years, but even if it doesn't right, even if, if Biden or somebody else wins you know, I think that the decline of diplomacy is a longer, longer term kind of phenomenon that transcends just the Trump administration, but it's been accelerated under the Trump administration in many ways. Mietek Boduszynski: So you know, this has a lot to do with the post. This is coming straight from my foreign policy class, you know, at Pomona has a lot to do with with the post nine 11 Wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, you know, the militarization of diplomacy, the empowerment of the intelligence community, often at the expense of diplomats and so on. But then, you know, it goes even further back than that, because after the cold war, we also took resources out of the state department thinking that we had one, right. And so we don't need diplomacy anymore. I think there's a, there's a lot of people fighting the good fight and some very prominent former, you know diplomats career diplomats, like bill burns, who is now the president of the Carnegie endowment had been doing a lot of work to promote diplomacy. Mietek Boduszynski: Unfortunately this administration with little effect. So I think, you know, we don't have hard numbers on how many people are, are are leaving. Although anecdotally, I think there's quite a few especially, you know, especially some people who are already maybe at kind of close to retirement, decided that, you know, it's not worth their while. And so we lost a lot of senior amazing people. I'm working also as a, as a volunteer in the foreign policy working groups of the, of the Biden campaign. And there, I see some, you know, farmer diplomats like myself some young people who left earlier, you know, it's a very diverse, interesting group. And, and so I see some of the farmers there, and finally, there's a Facebook group that's been made public in the press called former and transitioning FSOs. That's gone from like 300 people, I think a couple of years ago to like 3000 people today. Mietek Boduszynski: So these are people who are either had left recently or are transitioning and doing career networks, networking and so on. So yeah, but, but at the same time, you know, a lot of people have families and, and you know, that you get that full pension after 20 years that I lost cause they left earlier. There's a lot of benefits, including lifetime healthcare, just like the military. So there's, it's, it's easy to say, but hard to do for many people because they have families to support and so on. So some people I think are just hiding out in embassies overseas, keeping their heads down, you know, many countries, the attention is not on them, so they continue doing the work. And of course we want the people to be doing that work, but I think I all, by all accounts that I've heard morale is is, is low, especially in Washington, maybe a little bit better overseas. But yeah, regardless of what side you're on, you know, it's been hard to do a diplomacy under this administration if, for no other reason than, you know, the, the tweets, the kind of, you know, whiplash, inducing, you know, policy shifts you know, the attacks on our allies and all that has been really, really difficult. Mark Wood: Just personally, why did you decide to leave the foreign service and go into academia academia? Mietek Boduszynski: My, my PhD and I, at that point was the first time when I faced that decision I had had was finishing at Berkeley. And it was an adjunct at a, at a Catholic school called the university of San Diego there for the last couple of years, just teaching our time and finishing my dissertation. And I went on the job market, just like everybody. Again, I had very little, almost no connection to Washington. So I went, you know, applied for some jobs and, and as I knew, the academic job market, all those a bit better than, than it is now, you know, academic jobs applied for a for a CIA analyst, I applied for the foreign service, took the exam. And in the end I had almost at the same time I had an offer at the university college London, which is a, you know, good research university in the UK, but at a horrible salary, to be honest, I would have lived like a, like a popper, you know, eating beans, post dodgy, I'm using Chinese British expressions on the neighborhood. Mietek Boduszynski: And and I had the analyst offer at the CIA. And, and I found out that I had, you know, passed the foreign service oral assessment, which is the second. So I was lucky that I had these options. It was also slightly better job market for academics. So and I actually took the London job for a week and then reverse myself. You know, I think I felt a lot of pressure at a place like Berkeley, which is very academic where I finished my PhD, you know, to, to be an academic it's sort of like a calling like a priesthood and leave. It's kind of like a thing to be trying the priesthood, you know, I mean, it was serious, serious pressure. And then I I you know, reversed myself and decided that, you know, I want to try something else. I don't know if the research university was the right place for me, nobody would appreciate it, just the pressure to publish, publish, publish. And so I I took him and the CA thing, you know, I would have been in a cubicle in Langley all the time. Just didn't seem like the right, the right choice for a lot of rejects Mark Wood: So the Jack Ryan show. Isn't it, isn't what happens with with CIA analysts. Really? No, Mietek Boduszynski: I mean, I visited there, I saw those cubicles and I was like, I don't know. And also, you know, it's very kind of secretive, maybe not as secretive as the climate inside the still, so, you know, the foreign servicing seem exciting. I had, when I had been a Fullbrighter during my PhD research, I had come into contact with some FSOs. So I had, you know, some, some sense, at least. So I decided to go for that. And then quite a few years later when I was in Libya during this horrible tragedy, Bengazi you know, it was a hard time. I decided to look at the academic job market again and and, you know, saw Pomona on there, my younger sister and her husband and and her husband's sister had all gone to Pomona. So I didn't know it by that point, my sister's quite a bit younger than me. Mietek Boduszynski: She's in 2004, I graduate international relations. When I got up here up here and Gilbert was her advisor. So I have some family ties. I knew it was a great place. You know, I applied on a whim only place I applied and got a nice note back from PR saying you know, that they're interested. So but by that point, because the promoter process dragged on a bit, I had been offered my next posting in the foreign service which was, which was to be the, the American console and the Gaia Japan, which was in many ways, you know, like the dream posting for a lot of people. Cause you're like a little ambassador, you know, you have your own, your own post. I would have had like a car with the little flags or something, trappings of power. And, and so I so it wasn't an easy decision because I, cause you know, it was fear and I wasn't maybe the, you know, star star foreign service officer, but I certainly was gonna be okay. Mietek Boduszynski: And I, and I you know, I was taking a pay cut obviously, and was also giving up that fabulous retirement package, which by that point would've been only, you know, another decade or so when it goes quite fast when you're rotating around the world. But I also knew that Pomona was a fabulous place. I knew that, you know, I still kind of harbored you know, this desire to teach and to, and to have the freedom of being an academic. I knew that probably a chance like this might not come along again in the future. My family was in California at that point. I was single, but my, my, my parents brother and sister and parents were, you know, aging. So it was a whole bunch of things that came together. But, but to be perfectly Frank, it wasn't an easy decision because the foreign service is a fabulous career. And I, I felt like I, I was this was still under the Obama administration and I felt like I was making a difference and, you know, I love the languages. I love the cultures. And I you know, so, like Obama said about his intervention in Libya, it was a 51 49 decision, but I'm very happy. I, I made it Patty Vest: Tell us a little bit about the classes you teach at Pomona. Mietek Boduszynski: So the one I taught every semester is the foreign policy class, which I alluded to just a few moments ago. And that's been fun to teach every semester because, because I can keep it fresh with with the latest happenings in the world. And certainly doesn't have content, a lot of content on foreign policy and, you know, hopefully I've gotten a little bit better at edit over over time. The students keep it, keep it alive because many students that take it obviously interested. So they, they follow things. And I try to mix it up with a little bit of theory and a little bit of, of, of how foreign policy really works, which has a lot to do for instance, with individual personalities and doing the research for that book that Mark kindly mentioned, you know, he kept hearing that over and over again, you know, the policy changed because the person changed now, Hillary Clinton went out and John Kerry came in and John Kerry's approach to the Arab world was very different than Hillary Clinton. Mietek Boduszynski: And that ends up making a huge difference, right? That's something that, that theories don't always capture very well. So I try to capture a little bit of bad in the students. Always do an exercise on an understanding the personalities of top foreign policy leaders. I've done some classes on the middle East. The last three iterations have been with, with my colleague at scripts, Samantha Pasqua. And I think we're a good team. She brings a certain expertise that makes certain expertise in different approaches to the, to the contemporary middle East. I've done a class on human rights, democracy and us foreign policy, which has been a driving interest in my research. A couple of other classes here and, and democratization. So, yeah. Mark Wood: So on that note, we're very reluctantly going to have been talking more about American diplomacy with politics professor me tech. Thanks. Thank you so much. Thanks to all of you. Thank you. That was great. Okay. Patty Vest: And to all who stuck with us as far, thanks for listening to this and to all who have stuck with us this far. Thanks for listening to Sage cast, the podcast up I'm on a college, stay safe, and until next time.