first person
Keeping peacemaker
legacies alive
by Steve Simon
W
e were sitting in
a cold lecture hall
in Warsaw as a
business professor
droned on about the geopolitics of
Poland and the attendant intricacies
of doing business in such a newly
democratized state. Around me sat
classmates from every corner of the
globe. We were participating in a
uniquely international Masters in
Business Administration program of-
fered by a French institution. We had
completed our first trimester in Paris
and were on a seminar tour of Poland,
Russia, and Hungary before continu-
ing our second trimester in New York
and ultimately finishing with a third
trimester in Tokyo and additional
seminars in six cities throughout Asia.
Having previously worked as a
4 IMAGINE l FALL 2018
mechanical engineer in Germany and
management consultant in the United
States and Brazil, I had developed an
interest in international business. In
the wake of the communist collapse,
economists, politicians, and multi-na-
tional companies in developed coun-
tries had succeeded in proliferating
the acceptance of “globalization.” To be
riding the academic crest of this wave
was to my adventuresome mind very
exciting. Furthermore, globalization
had attractively become vouchsafed
in the cause of international peace
vis-à-vis economic interdependence.
“Economic partners do not wage war
against each other,” went the mantra.
As we sat in our Warsaw
seminar, a man entered the hall and
politely but abruptly interrupted the
presenter. With a pensive look, he
paused momentarily and announced,
“The World Trade Center has been
bombed!” That day was February 27,
1993, the day terrorists detonated a
powerful car bomb in the basement
of the North Tower. While this was
indeed international news, the inter-
ruption was for us particularly war-
ranted. In less than three weeks we
were to travel to New York to begin
our second trimester. Our classrooms
were on the 101 st floor of the North
Tower. A collective chill ran through
the already frigid room.
The next few weeks we contin-
ued our seminars in Moscow and
Budapest. It had only been four years
since the Berlin Wall had come down
and Eastern Europe convulsed with
change. There was a great deal of
confusion, speculation, and insecurity
created by these tectonic shifts. Most
of us felt similarly about the prospect
of studying in the World Trade Center.
Fortunately, the trimester in New
York passed without further terrorist
attacks. It was clear, however, major
forces were beginning to array them-
selves in ways that would profoundly
impact our world and the hope for
real peace. The growing fervor of