A Nobel cause in the Arab world
Tawakkol Karman didn’t make history in the Arab Spring by being shy about her demands. At Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), the Nobel Prize–winning activist and journalist — who led the protests that ultimately ousted Yemen’s autocratic president, Ali Abudullah Saleh — called on the United States and other powerful nations to take up the democratic cause that she and others across the Middle East and North Africa have championed. “Western support for the Arab revolutions until today is still insufficient and less than anticipated or expected,” Karman told a packed room at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on June 7, in the keynote address of the Center for Public Leadership’s conference “Culture, Identity, and Change in the Middle East: Insights for Conflict and Negotiation.” “Humanitarian intervention that is righteous and necessary,” she said through a translator. “This support begins by severing the relationships with tyrannical and corrupt regimes, while simultaneously acknowledging and accepting...