Power Lines, by Jason Carter: on Foreign Policy

Jason Carter: 1997: Monitored Liberian elections with Carter Center

I left for Liberia in July 1997. In my three weeks there, in addition to the work, I was going to decide if I wanted to spend more time in Africa.

After the election, won in a landslide by Charles Taylor, my grandfather asked my uncle Chip and me to stay for another three weeks to represent him at Taylor's inauguration. My uncle and I spent a lot of that time traveling, trying to find out what was going on outside the compounds where most diplomats and international bureaucrats lived.

Jason Carter: Africa is the story of self-respect in the face of hardship

He sat down and we started talking. "Let me buy you a beer," he said. "No," I said, "We'll take care of it. Here are $3. We'll each get one." The soldier grabbed my hand. "You are rich and white and from US," he said. "And I know that I'm poor and black and from Africa. But I can buy you a beer. Do not disrespect me. Allow me to pay for it because I want to. Because I want to sit here as equals and share our beer."

He spoke with a thick Nigerian accent, and we had to listen closely to make out exactly what he was saying. But in the end his message could not have been more clear. Africa is not only a story of war and famine and disease. It is also a story of triumph and self-respect in the face of those hardships.

Jason Carter: American culture causes Third World cultural destruction

A Dutch woman said, "Americans are so insensitive that they do not see anything that is happening outside their borders, and still their culture presses in everywhere. Even you, you come here to teach people how to be American." I said, "I'm not trying to westernize anyone."

She said, "it happens anyway. In Kenya, the Masai have stopped putting lip plates in their mouths because tourists thought it was disgusting. That is sad. They have done this for years, and now they stop because white people come to town with money."

Deep down, I agreed with her. The cultural stampede was now moving right along, and something had to be done to preserve indigenous culture.

Jimmy Carter: Gap between rich & poor is widening globally

We discussed what we might say onstage. I knew that he was going to speak about the widening global gap between the rich and poor, how stingy America is in giving foreign aid, and how Africa in general receives too little attention. I would talk about being young, a member of my generation. I tried to explain why we often don't vote or seem to care about world issues. I told him we were alienated from the world's debate over "major issues" because we did not see how those issues affected us. We could not muster the energy to march for small changes in the tax laws on international capital mobility. We needed some new rallying cries, something to latch onto as a cause.