Westminster College welcomed an Oxford University student to campus July 23 to discuss his prize-winning essay that incorporated Sir Winston Churchill.
Adam Ward traveled abroad to talk about his essay on projecting the death of the funeral summit, which earned him the 2015 Mahoney Essay Prize. The award was founded by Richard Mahoney, a member of the National Churchill Museum Board of Governors.
""Funeral summits' is a type of diplomacy that could ad hoc summits and they're different from meticulously planned summits like the G8 (Summit) or big things like that,"Ward said.
Funeral summits are held when a high-profile individual, such as a global leader or major politician, has died and prominent delegates from several countries convene.
"When people come to those summits, they meet and they discuss about politics," Ward said. "And they can make significant gestures to one another and they can improve the diplomatic relations between their countries and in so, doing them."
Ward talked about different examples of funeral summits but focused on the political implications of Sir Winston Churchill's funeral.
He said Churchill's funeral inadvertently provided global leaders with an ideal setting of opportunity for diplomatic signaling. Churchill's stature of affairs meant he was revered my many noteworthy people who attended his funeral.
"When Churchill died and thousands of people came to his funeral, every European leader came," Ward said. "And there were royalty from across the world and it gave a chance for our then Prime Minister Harold Wilson to talk to (Charles) de Gaulle about the European economic community."
Nicolas Lopez, a sophomore transnational studies major at Westminster, attended the lecture because he's interested in Churchill and international relations.
"I'm really interested in this kind of stuff," Lopez said."Transnational issues where leaders gather together and the effect it has - for example, if you don't go to a funeral and you're the president of a country."
Ward discussed how the nature of the death of a country's main leader may be perceived much differently depending on the context.
"The passing of an old statesman creates a solemn environment marking the past time perhaps," Ward said in his presentation.
He added that death in more tragic circumstances, like the assassination of Kennedy, would be more likely to create an atmosphere where leaders conducting official business might be perceived as "slightly tasteless" because of the despondency associated with the unexpected passing.
Ward also talked about how countries may be scrutinized if the presence or absence of their representative at a world leader's funeral seems controversial or sends a mixed message.
"You can easily be attacked if you're not seen to be upholding certain norms," he said.
This is especially the case if the leader who passed away had close diplomatic ties with the nation of the person being mourned. Ward gave an example of three leaders' questionable decision to take a "selfie" at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in 2013.
"There was the selfie between David Cameron, Helle Thorning Schmidt and Barack Obama, which was very controversial," Ward said. "So it shows that certain rules have to be approached and applied when you attend a funeral, but it wasn't a funeral in that case, so in solemn occasions."
He also talked about the delicate nature of funeral summits and how that may cause their potential pitfalls.
"They have to be approached with care," Ward said. "Because with Mandela's (funeral), it was more of a commemoration service than his funeral."
Ward said he attended one of the lessons in leadership lectures on the leadership of Sir Winston Churchill offered at Exeter College, one of the top colleges at the university in February.
"There's a competition of students to write the essay about the lecture and then the winning student gets to come over here and talk about it," he said."I attended a lecture on well planned summits and how Churchill really liked them, and then when someone in the audience asked, "Is the summit dead?' it made me think of how funerals can be used as an event for people to come together and talk about diplomatic goals."