It was early June, 1996 when I stopped my car to shout across a Harvard Kennedy School courtyard to a friend en route to Bosnia that night: “be careful!” but the words were gratuitous because Jean-Sélim WAS careful, not just worldwise, but full of care. He was careful to remain true to his convictions, to realize his commitment to positive change, to maintain his connections to those less fortunate than himself. For these reasons, Jean-Sélim lives through death, as eternal inspiration. Crass, devilish and likeable, Jean leveraged intellect to present, generally, only the antithesis of self and, as such, goaded all who truly knew him into philosophical considerations of complexity. The posthumous Legion d'honneur recipient was indeed insulated by the myriad layers one would expect from a humanitarian who worked in war. But at their core, beneath the pessimism which sheltered it from the trauma of experience, was something undeniably and infectiously good.
When we met - at 24, Jean-Sélim was already an “old soul”, wise beyond his years, matured by precocious perspectives of reality. Ours was a love/hate familiarity characterized by stereotypical jabs and confrontations such as that in January 1996, when I arrived in front of my well-heeled international peers at Logan, and Jean-Sélim directed everyone's attention and broke out loudly into hysterics at the sight of my naively overpacked bag. But then it was he who quietly lugged it around Europe simply because he was stronger (true to our friendship, I can't admit he was much stonger, mind you ... maybe a little more so when I broke my ankle). But that was Jean-Sélim, metaphorically – evidencing an unparalleled strength through benevolence, just as he did through his choice of vocation.
In Europe, Jean-Sélim broke me of my americanism – those undetected vestiges of ethnocentric intellectual complacency I unwittingly maintained. His was an arsenal of intelligence, humor, and conviction camouflaged behind a smile of such megawattage that it once literally brought him from the backstreets of Paris straight to the big screen. But unbeknownst in two dimensions, Jean-Sélim had as profound an effect on my orientation to the world as he did upon the legions of others he changed for the better. In large measure, he is the reason I am affiliated with an intercultural exchange program today.
Although Jean was lost in the senseless bombing of the Baghdad UN, for me and so many others, he'll remain inspiration, personified. He represented the best of us and we were incredibly fortunate to have had him amongst us. The loss extends far further than his realm of association. My condolences are to his extended family of relations and associations... and to the world, writ as large as he did it.
Joelle Anne Schmitz, MPP 1995 Fulbright Scholar 2003-2004 Added 10/02/2003