Rory Stewart

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Rory Stewart in March 2008.

Rory Stewart, OBE (born 1973), is the Ryan Family Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and the Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Formerly a British soldier and diplomat, Stewart, whose family hail from Crieff in Perthshire, was born in Hong Kong, raised in Malaysia, and Scotland, and educated at the Dragon School, Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied modern history, philosophy and politics. While a student at Oxford, he was a summer tutor to Prince William and Prince Harry.

After a brief period as an officer in the British Army (the Black Watch), Stewart joined the Foreign Office. He served in the British Embassy in Indonesia from 1997 to 1999, as the British Representative to Montenegro in the wake of the Kosovo campaign. From 2000 to 2002 he walked across Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India and Nepal, a journey of 6000 miles, during which time he stayed in five hundred different village houses. [1]. After the coalition invasion of Iraq, he was appointed Coalition Deputy Governor of Maysan and Senior Advisor in Dhi Qar, two provinces in southern Iraq. His responsibilities included holding elections, resolving tribal disputes and implementing development projects. He faced an incipient civil war and growing civil unrest from his base in CIMIC house in Al Amara and in May 2004, was in command of his compound in Nasiriyah when it was besieged by Sadrist militia. He was awarded an OBE by the British government (when he was 31) for his service in Iraq. That year, he also became a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University and completed his second book. In 2005, he founded an NGO in Afghanistan and moved to Kabul. He has traveled extensively, most prominently throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.

His first book, The Places in Between was an account of his solo walk across Afghanistan in the winter of 2001-2002. It was a New York Times bestseller, was named one of the New York Times' 10 notable books in 2006 and was hailed by the Times as a 'flat-out masterpiece'. It won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, a Scottish Arts Council prize, the Spirit of Scotland award and the Premio de Literatura de Viaje Caminos del Cid. It was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize The book was adapted into a radio play by Benjamin Yeoh and was broadcast in 2007 on BBC Radio 4. Stewart's second book, Occupational Hazards (UK title) or The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq (US title), describes his experiences governing in Iraq [2]. It too was critically acclaimed with the New York Times (again!) saying 'Stewart seems to be living one of the most remarkable lives on record). His books have been translated into French, Spanish, German, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Lithuanian and Croatian. Stage versions, TV documentaries and film scripts have been optioned.

Until 2009, when he took up his position at Harvard, Stewart resided in Kabul, where he established and then served as as Chief Executive of The Turquoise Mountain Foundation. Turquoise Mountain is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation whose mission it is to regenerate Afghanistan's traditional crafts and historic areas, creating jobs, skills, and a renewed sense of national identity. Its focus is the regeneration of Murad Khane, a district of Kabul’s old city and support to its community. The Foundation's projects stretch from water supply and building repair to elementary schools and clinics. Its center is an Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture in Kabul, which provides education for both men and women in traditional artisan skills, such as woodwork, calligraphy, ceramics and jewellery. It has a business development program which is working to revive Afghanistan’s traditional craft economy and bring income to sustain Murad Khane and an active cultural department which launched Afghanistan's first contemporary art prize and curated a very successful pavilion of IRanian, Afghan and Paksitani art at the Venice Biennale. Turquoise Mountain has received financial support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), The Prince's Charities Foundation and a number of other private foundations and individuals, from the Middle East, Europe, the United States, China and Canada. He has been the subject of hundreds of newspaper articles and TV and radio interviews. Some of this has focused on his government service in Iraq, some on his trek across Afghanistan, some on his books and some on his non-profit work. [Esquire 75 most influential people of the 21st century'].

Many of Stewart's articles, (which have appeared in newspapers and magazines from the New York Times and the Guardian to the London and New York Review of Books), like his interviews on CNN, Al Jazeera, the BBC and Channel 4 has cautioned against over-ambitious foreign interventions, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. His 2008 cover article in Time Magazine, where he debated against Presidential candidates Obama and McCain, arguing against a troop surge in Afghanistan has been shortlisted for an American Journalism Association Award.

In July 2008 he was appointed Ryan Professor of Human Rights at Harvard University and the Director of the Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He has frequently been called on to provide advice on Afghanistan and Iraq to policy-makers, particularly in the US, UK and Canada. Having acceded to the position on January 1st, 2009, he combines the role with his charitable work in Afghanistan and with service on a number of boards including the International Development Research Council of Canada. He has recruited into the his Harvard center authorities on Afghanistan such as Paul Fishtstein and Michael Sempel and authorities on international intervention such as ESI director Gerald Knaus.

Stewart has some acquaintance with French, Persian, Indonesian, Serbo-Croat, Dari, Urdu, Nepali (He also studied when at school Chinese, Russian, classical Latin and Greek).

Contents

[edit] Miscellaneous

- On 25 January 2008 Stewart was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, and chose the dubplate Gunman as one of his selected discs.

- In August 2008, the UK media widely reported that Studio Canal and Brad Pitt's production company Plan B had bought the rights to a biopic of Stewart's life. The actor Orlando Bloom will apparently play Stewart. [3]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/photography/afghanistan/rory-stewart.html
  2. ^ http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7188; http://www.rorystewartbooks.com/rory_stewart.htm
  3. ^ http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,1283,orlando-bloom-to-make-a-star-of-rory,40629

[edit] Books

[edit] External links

Official

Articles

Profiles

Lectures etc

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