Michael J. Jordan is a Lesotho-based foreign correspondent who has reported from two dozen countries over the past 17 years. He is a long-time correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor -- serving as the Monitor's correspondent in Budapest, at the United Nations, and Bratislava -- and also writes for Foreign Policy, Harvard's Nieman Reports, and many others. In addition to reporting, Michael is a three-time Visiting Scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University in its International Journalism program. He has also taught at the University of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia; and Masaryk University in Brno, the Czech Republic, and trained Romani reporters in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic. Until June 2006, Michael was the George Polk Journalist-in-Residence at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught and advised the student newspaper. He also blogs about journalism, teaching, minorities and many other topics at http://jordanink.wordpress.com.
Michael's Blog
Twenty Years ... and Counting
A Polish dissident once told me, “If it took 40 years to create this mentality, why shouldn’t it take 40 years to undo it?” Indeed, though we’ve now surpassed 20 years since the Berlin Wall was torn down, Central and Eastern Europe remain a work in progress. Everything that happens within these young democracies must be seen through the prism of what happened here during four decades of Communism, and how far the region has evolved since. Here, then, is a look at twenty years... and counting.
