BY AMIR KHOUZAM “Passports,” barked the soldier. He seemed small, smaller than the gun he held in front of him like a shield, with the muzzle pointing at the floor so he could move down the aisle of the bus.…
Neelab Yousafzai: A Journey of 6780 Miles
BY JUANA WAI SUM LEE Neelab Yousafzai, a Master’s student in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University, was raised during a particularly violent period of Afghan history. “I witnessed abductions, I saw people getting hung in front of my eyes,…
Syria’s Civil War Forces its Bravest and Brightest to Flee
BY SHRUTI MARIAN In 2011, in a square outside the Grand Mosque in Douma, WS saw a man die in front of her for the first time. The man was a protester and was shot by government security forces. His…
The Crossing
BY S’HA SIDDIQI Ajaz Khan ran, his little sister cradled in his arms as he raced through the high grass in the smoke-clogged night. His heart pounded as he barreled towards the tree line, the sound of gunshots thundering in…
The Voice of Military Humor in a Post-9/11 World
BY DOMINICK TAO Like many of the 3-million U.S. military veterans of the Global War on Terrorism, Paul Szoldra left the Marine Corps with no clue what he wanted to do. It was 2010. Szoldra was 26. The war had…
We Should Have Left Before it was Too Late
BY DOMINICK TAO Even decades after the Cambodian Civil war and the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge, Tek Hout Tao could never escape the guilt of following a friend’s decision to stay instead of run. The war crept toward…
How To Make Trolls and Intimidate People
BY SHRUTI MANIAN Part 1: The Gatekeepers Campus security and police officers swarmed the University of Hyderabad campus as students staged a protest calling for the University Vice Chancellor’s arrest. University officials barred activists and journalists from entering the public…
Legacy
BY S’HA SIDDIQI My grandparents’ story isn’t particularly novel. It is the shared experience of millions of Pakistanis and Indians who have yet to come to terms with the full extent of injury – both physical and emotional – that…
Unresolved Conflict: Political Entrenchment in Kosovo and Serbia
BY JILLIAN TIMKO In Belgrade, the party line that Kosovo is a secessionist region, rather than a sovereign nation, is clear from the moment you arrive. A banner spanning the entire block in front of the Serbian National Assembly honors…
Determined Optimism in Protracted Conflict
BY JILLIAN TIMKO I first met Liran Braude during orientation week at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He grinned, shook my hand, and then kindly demonstrated the correct pronunciation of his name, “Lee-run,” by pumping his arms up…
“We’ve got one in the sweep”
Published in the The Appeal. By Olivia Heffernan Three Bronx friends recount their 2012 arrests in the NYPD‘s ‘Operation Crew Cut,’ experiences with the court system, incarceration and lives seven years later. At approximately 4 a.m. on Dec. 5, 2012,…
Sectarian War in East Ramapo Schools
BY SARIKA BANSAL Steve Forman, one of Ramapo High School’s assistant principals, was stunned to find on a recent morning that his town’s sectarian feud had spilled into his school. On the blackboard in an empty classroom, someone had scribbled:…
Ashoka in Monrovia
One of the first things you might notice about Monrovia is the barbed wire. It grows like vines from the top of the salt-scarred concrete battlements that ring anything of official value or importance, showing up everywhere in an endless…
Crop to Cup
BY STEPHEN SCHABER On 14th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues in Union Square, across from Jason’s Jewelry & Diamonds and next door to a Western Union, you will find Bourbon Coffee, a large café with a larger mission. This…
Tommy’s Team
BY ASHOKA MUKPO On a drizzly day in mid-April, about seven teenagers sit in a cluttered Washington Heights high school classroom, waiting to hear the recruitment pitch for a local football team. Slumping in their seats, they look distractedly out…
Refugees in a Refugee Nation
BY NICOLE SCHILIT The 100 men packed tightly in the barren room suffered from different degrees of malnourishment, a visible marker that distinguished how long each had spent in the prison. The worst off had been jailed up to four…
Marching to Competency
BY MICHAEL LARSON Staff Sergeant Joseph Pratt arrived at Forward Operating Base Tiger in the middle of August 2005 for an inglorious assignment but one on which America’s exit strategy from Afghanistan hinged: for two weeks, he would train Afghan…
Risks for Afghan Journalists Grow
BY ANNA KORDUNSKY Sangar Rahimi, an Afghan reporter who works for The New York Times in Kabul, likes to be the first to arrive on the scene. In early October 2001, long before he even became a journalist, he and…
Amateur Aid Causes Trouble in Haiti
By REBECCA WEXLER The small American church group that arrived at the Port au Prince airport just days after the devastating 7.0 magnitude January earthquake had nothing but the best intentions—literally. Armed with the healing power of God and the…
Vets at Columbia, Then and Now
BY LAUREN SCHULZ In 1968, the Vietnam War was raging and so was Columbia University. Anti-war students ransacked the ROTC barracks and a year later, the program was banned from campus. Fights broke out on campus over the war. Students…
Mexicans Speak Up — on Twitter — About Drug War
BY MONICA ADAME Denise, a powerful television anchorwoman, heard her smart phone beeped. It was April 10. “HELP, the town of Uruachi in Chihuahua is under siege by 150 hit men,” read the tweet. She quickly retweeted the information and…
Srinagar Spring
BY ASHOKA MUKPO In the exquisite Kashmiri city of Srinagar, Himalayan snow peaks tower over glacial lakes, and at night the Islamic call to prayer drifts lazily through luxurious gardens cultivated by Mughal emperors. It is not hyperbole to suggest…
Riding MSR Tampa
BY ASHOKA MUKPO In the summer of 2006, Army Sergeant Devin F. Muir departed from his base near Al-Hillah for a patrol in the sweltering heat of central Iraq. A year earlier, being involved in the war had not been…
Hard Opportunities
BY MIMI WELLS Ayesha was thirteen years old when her parents gave her to a forty-year old man to settle a blood debt between their families in accordance with a Pashtun custom known as “baad.” The man…
One at a Time
BY MIMI WELLS Specialist Mathew “Doc” Kenney sat in the backseat of the third heavily armored MRAP, near the window. It was around midnight on Easter Sunday, 2009, and the four-car convoy was returning home from escorting a group of…