At Saturday morning's first panel in Cabot Auditorium for the Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) Symposium, the panelists focused on their various regions of specialty, from Nigeria to Venezuela to the Middle East. Each provided different perspectives on the incendiary natural resource.
As one of five panelists who offered their thoughts in the panel "Oil: Blessing or Curse?" Universidad Central de Venezuela professor Carlos Blanco said oil has been "a powerful tool for industrialization" and has solidified stabile democracy in Venezuela.
Blanco also said, however, that oil has led to an oversized, weak state and widespread corruption. He said what many other panelists did as well, oil is not a blessing or a curse - it is both.
Hossein Askari, a former Special Adviser to the Saudi Arabian Minister of Finance, said that in the 1970s, everyone thought "the Middle East would own every stock in every stock exchange in the world in 10 years," but today a different path has befallen the region.
Askari blamed corruption, a lack of growth in the private sector, and the ever-permanent conflicts and instabilities of the region for the lack of economic growth.
Following Askari's presentation, Obiageli Ezekwesili, The Special Assistant for Budget to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, was presented with the 2005 Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award.
Ezekwesili followed with a speech focused on the troubles facing the Nigerian oil industry. Nigeria's biggest barrier to benefiting from their oil reserves came from rampant corruption.
Ezekwesili also passionately condemned the bureaucrats in Western nations who pass judgment over Nigerian corruption while simultaneously allowing its continuance with the use of their own banks and funds.
According to Ezekwesili, Nigeria has already taken a step away from corruption with the formation of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC).
Darren Kew, EPIIC alumnus and Assistant Professor in the Dispute Resolution Program at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, also discussed Nigerian oil issues. Kew said that one of the most important reforms that the Obasanjo government has been promising to make is to privatize Nigeria's oil industry.
Election reform will also be crucial, according to Kew. As an observer to the 2003 elections in oil-producing regions, he said that "they were stuffing ballots right in front of our faces."
Andrew Hess, former executive for the Arabian American Oil Company and professor of Diplomacy at the Fletcher School, said that it is important to remember the differences in developmental history between the West and the East when analyzing conditions in the Middle East.
In the 1970s, Hess said, much of Saudi Arabia was still a "nomadic, oasis society." There is still a gap in science and technology, which must be changed by "put[ting] into motion an education system that is going to move them forward for the future."
