Ben Rhee was studying environmental science at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, and planning to become a park ranger or Antarctic expeditioner, when his entire life was jolted onto a different trajectory by an extraordinary event and an extraordinary place.
“I’d gone to India to spend 10 months walking around the Himalayas,” he said.
“It was my first trip overseas; I was 20 years old. It was 2001. The 9/11 terror attacks happened while I was over there.
“I’d been seeing all these aspects of Indian society – abject poverty beside extraordinary wealth, border issues in Kashmir, the political situation there – it all shook me out of that path I was on.
“And then I had that moment, on the day of those terror attacks, in a Pushkar camel market in the desert, waking up and seeing everyone reading the newspaper in the street with this visible sense of an imminent third world war starting; it changed me.”
A year and a half into his environmental science degree, Rhee eventually returned home to Tasmania and switched to a Bachelor of Arts instead.
He majored in International Relations and Asian Studies, working towards a career in diplomacy, as a way to make a real difference in world conflicts, security and peace efforts.
He studied the final year of his degree in Sweden as an exchange student and remained there to study his Master of Eurasian Studies at the University of Uppsala.
He went on to work with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) as a junior diplomat in Fiji, and Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the latter Middle East posting seeing him play a role in the Israel-Palestine peace process from 2013–2016.
Following that, he returned to Sweden for a few years to work for the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), eventually ending up as head of FBA’s Dialogue and Peace Mediation Unit.
“It was amazing, I learned so much being part of a team of specialists working in places from Myanmar to Iraq.
“We were plugged into all these conflicts, trying to support peace-building through dialogue and mediation efforts.
“You could say we helped provide the scaffolding to create a bridge between two sides that, in violent conflicts, will usually have a gulf between them filled with a history of grievances and trauma.”
Now back in Australia, Rhee lives in Canberra, where he works as an advisor at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, International Division (Europe and Latin America).
“After working on operational programs on the ground with the peace and security sector in Sweden, now I’m more on the policy side of things.
“It’s more about the bigger picture now, looking at the geopolitical environment and helping the Prime Minister and Cabinet make policy decisions.”
Rhee said his time working on both ends of the international relations spectrum gave him a unique perspective that made him more effective in his current role. And he said the ability to think critically and consider multiple perspectives was the most vital skill his Bachelor of Arts taught him at the University of Tasmania.
“I studied things like Asian studies and foreign affairs that have been very relevant to my career but the BA, for me, was never about the courses, it was more about changing the way you think.
“The best and most memorable lecturers were the ones that really aligned their teaching to make you think in a way that was useful and practical.
“It taught me critical thinking skills that were very aligned with what I do now and that help me with crafting sharp, clear, practical messages for the Prime Minister.”
Written by Tim Martain for Alumni Magazine Issue 55, 2024.
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Top of page: Ben Rhee in Canberra | Photo: Oi Studios