WEBVTT

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I'm going to speak to you
about the global refugee crisis

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and my aim is to show you that this crisis

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is manageable, not unsolvable,

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but also show you that this is
as much about us and who we are

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as it is a trial of the refugees
on the front line.

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For me, this is not
just a professional obligation,

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because I run an NGO supporting refugees
and displaced people around the world.

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It's personal.

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I love this picture.

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That really handsome guy on the right,

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that's not me.

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That's my dad, Ralph, in London, in 1940

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with his father Samuel.

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They were Jewish refugees from Belgium.

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They fled the day the Nazis invaded.

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And I love this picture, too.

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It's a group of refugee children

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arriving in England in 1946 from Poland.

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And in the middle is my mother, Marion.

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She was sent to start a new life

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in a new country

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on her own

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at the age of 12.

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I know this:

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if Britain had not admitted refugees

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in the 1940s,

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I certainly would not be here today.

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Yet 70 years on,
the wheel has come full circle.

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The sound is of walls being built,

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vengeful political rhetoric,

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humanitarian values and principles on fire

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in the very countries
that 70 years ago said never again

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to statelessness and hopelessness
for the victims of war.

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Last year, every minute,

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24 more people were displaced
from their homes

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by conflict, violence and persecution:

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another chemical weapon attack in Syria,

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the Taliban on the rampage in Afghanistan,

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girls driven from their school
in northeast Nigeria by Boko Haram.

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These are not people
moving to another country

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to get a better life.

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They're fleeing for their lives.

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It's a real tragedy

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that the world's most famous refugee
can't come to speak to you here today.

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Many of you will know this picture.

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It shows the lifeless body

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of five-year-old Alan Kurdi,

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a Syrian refugee who died
in the Mediterranean in 2015.

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He died alongside 3,700 others
trying to get to Europe.

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The next year, 2016,

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5,000 people died.

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It's too late for them,

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but it's not too late
for millions of others.

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It's not too late
for people like Frederick.

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I met him in the Nyarugusu
refugee camp in Tanzania.

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He's from Burundi.

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He wanted to know
where could he complete his studies.

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He'd done 11 years of schooling.
He wanted a 12th year.

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He said to me, "I pray
that my days do not end here

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in this refugee camp."

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And it's not too late for Halud.

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Her parents were Palestinian refugees

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living in the Yarmouk refugee camp
outside Damascus.

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She was born to refugee parents,

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and now she's a refugee
herself in Lebanon.

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She's working for the International
Rescue Committee to help other refugees,

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but she has no certainty at all

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about her future,

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where it is or what it holds.

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This talk is about Frederick, about Halud

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and about millions like them:

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why they're displaced,

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how they survive, what help they need
and what our responsibilities are.

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I truly believe this,

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that the biggest question
in the 21st century

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concerns our duty to strangers.

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The future "you" is about your duties

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to strangers.

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You know better than anyone,

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the world is more connected
than ever before,

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yet the great danger

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is that we're consumed by our divisions.

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And there is no better test of that

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than how we treat refugees.

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Here are the facts: 65 million people

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displaced from their homes
by violence and persecution last year.

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If it was a country,

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that would be the 21st
largest country in the world.

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Most of those people, about 40 million,
stay within their own home country,

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but 25 million are refugees.

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That means they cross a border
into a neighboring state.

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Most of them are living in poor countries,

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relatively poor or lower-middle-income
countries, like Lebanon,

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where Halud is living.

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In Lebanon, one
in four people is a refugee,

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a quarter of the whole population.

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And refugees stay for a long time.

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The average length of displacement

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is 10 years.

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I went to what was the world's
largest refugee camp, in eastern Kenya.

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It's called Dadaab.

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It was built in 1991-92

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as a "temporary camp"
for Somalis fleeing the civil war.

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I met Silo.

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And naïvely I said to Silo,

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"Do you think you'll ever
go home to Somalia?"

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And she said, "What do you mean, go home?

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I was born here."

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And then when I asked the camp management

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how many of the 330,000 people
in that camp were born there,

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they gave me the answer:

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100,000.

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That's what long-term displacement means.

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Now, the causes of this are deep:

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weak states that can't
support their own people,

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an international political system

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weaker than at any time since 1945

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and differences over theology, governance,
engagement with the outside world

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in significant parts of the Muslim world.

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Now, those are long-term,
generational challenges.

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That's why I say that this refugee crisis
is a trend and not a blip.

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And it's complex, and when you have
big, large, long-term, complex problems,

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people think nothing can be done.

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When Pope Francis went to Lampedusa,

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off the coast of Italy, in 2014,

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he accused all of us
and the global population

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of what he called
"the globalization of indifference."

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It's a haunting phrase.

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It means that our hearts
have turned to stone.

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Now, I don't know, you tell me.

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Are you allowed to argue with the Pope,
even at a TED conference?

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But I think it's not right.

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I think people do want
to make a difference,

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but they just don't know whether
there are any solutions to this crisis.

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And what I want to tell you today

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is that though the problems are real,
the solutions are real, too.

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Solution one:

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these refugees need to get into work
in the countries where they're living,

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and the countries where they're living
need massive economic support.

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In Uganda in 2014, they did a study:

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80 percent of refugees
in the capital city Kampala

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needed no humanitarian aid
because they were working.

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They were supported into work.

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Solution number two:

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education for kids
is a lifeline, not a luxury,

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when you're displaced for so long.

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Kids can bounce back when they're given
the proper social, emotional support

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alongside literacy and numeracy.

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I've seen it for myself.

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But half of the world's refugee children
of primary school age

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get no education at all,

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and three-quarters of secondary school age
get no education at all.

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That's crazy.

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Solution number three:

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most refugees are in urban areas,
in cities, not in camps.

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What would you or I want
if we were a refugee in a city?

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We would want money
to pay rent or buy clothes.

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That is the future
of the humanitarian system,

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or a significant part of it:

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give people cash so that
you boost the power of refugees

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and you'll help the local economy.

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And there's a fourth solution, too,

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that's controversial
but needs to be talked about.

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The most vulnerable refugees
need to be given a new start

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and a new life in a new country,

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including in the West.

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The numbers are relatively small,
hundreds of thousands, not millions,

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but the symbolism is huge.

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Now is not the time
to be banning refugees,

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as the Trump administration proposes.

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It's a time to be embracing people
who are victims of terror.

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And remember --

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(Applause)

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Remember, anyone who asks you,
"Are they properly vetted?"

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that's a really sensible
and good question to ask.

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The truth is, refugees
arriving for resettlement

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are more vetted than any other population
arriving in our countries.

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So while it's reasonable
to ask the question,

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it's not reasonable to say that refugee
is another word for terrorist.

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Now, what happens --

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(Applause)

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What happens when refugees can't get work,

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they can't get their kids into school,

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they can't get cash,
they can't get a legal route to hope?

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What happens is they take risky journeys.

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I went to Lesbos, this beautiful
Greek island, two years ago.

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It's a home to 90,000 people.

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In one year, 500,000 refugees
went across the island.

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And I want to show you what I saw

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when I drove across
to the north of the island:

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a pile of life jackets
of those who had made it to shore.

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And when I looked closer,

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there were small
life jackets for children,

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yellow ones.

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And I took this picture.

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You probably can't see the writing,
but I want to read it for you.

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"Warning: will not
protect against drowning."

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So in the 21st century,

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children are being given life jackets

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to reach safety in Europe

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even though those jackets
will not save their lives

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if they fall out of the boat
that is taking them there.

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This is not just a crisis, it's a test.

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It's a test that civilizations
have faced down the ages.

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It's a test of our humanity.

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It's a test of us in the Western world

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of who we are and what we stand for.

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It's a test of our character,
not just our policies.

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And refugees are a hard case.

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They do come from faraway
parts of the world.

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They have been through trauma.

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They're often of a different religion.

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Those are precisely the reasons
we should be helping refugees,

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not a reason not to help them.

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And it's a reason to help them
because of what it says about us.

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It's revealing of our values.

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Empathy and altruism are two
of the foundations of civilization.

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Turn that empathy and altruism into action

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and we live out a basic moral credo.

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And in the modern world,
we have no excuse.

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We can't say we don't know
what's happening in Juba, South Sudan,

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or Aleppo, Syria.

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It's there, in our smartphone

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in our hand.

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Ignorance is no excuse at all.

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Fail to help, and we show
we have no moral compass at all.

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It's also revealing about
whether we know our own history.

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The reason that refugees
have rights around the world

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is because of extraordinary
Western leadership

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by statesmen and women
after the Second World War

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that became universal rights.

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Trash the protections of refugees,
and we trash our own history.

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This is --

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(Applause)

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This is also revealing
about the power of democracy

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as a refuge from dictatorship.

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How many politicians have you heard say,

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"We believe in the power of our example,
not the example of our power."

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What they mean is what we stand for
is more important than the bombs we drop.

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Refugees seeking sanctuary

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have seen the West as a source
of hope and a place of haven.

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Russians, Iranians,

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Chinese, Eritreans, Cubans,

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they've come to the West for safety.

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We throw that away at our peril.

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And there's one other thing
it reveals about us:

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whether we have any humility
for our own mistakes.

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I'm not one of these people

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who believes that all the problems
in the world are caused by the West.

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They're not.

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But when we make mistakes,
we should recognize it.

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It's not an accident
that the country which has taken

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more refugees than any other,
the United States,

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has taken more refugees from Vietnam
than any other country.

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It speaks to the history.

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But there's more recent history,
in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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You can't make up
for foreign policy errors

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by humanitarian action,

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but when you break something,
you have a duty to try to help repair it,

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and that's our duty now.

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Do you remember
at the beginning of the talk,

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I said I wanted to explain
that the refugee crisis

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was manageable, not insoluble?

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That's true. I want you
to think in a new way,

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but I also want you to do things.

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If you're an employer,

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hire refugees.

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If you're persuaded by the arguments,

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take on the myths

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when family or friends
or workmates repeat them.

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If you've got money, give it to charities

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that make a difference
for refugees around the world.

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If you're a citizen,

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vote for politicians

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who will put into practice
the solutions that I've talked about.

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(Applause)

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The duty to strangers

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shows itself

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in small ways and big,

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prosaic and heroic.

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In 1942,

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my aunt and my grandmother
were living in Brussels

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under German occupation.

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They received a summons

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from the Nazi authorities
to go to Brussels Railway Station.

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My grandmother immediately thought
something was amiss.

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She pleaded with her relatives

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not to go to Brussels Railway Station.

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Her relatives said to her,

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"If we don't go,
if we don't do what we're told,

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then we're going to be in trouble."

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You can guess what happened

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to the relatives who went
to Brussels Railway Station.

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They were never seen again.

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But my grandmother and my aunt,

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they went to a small village

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south of Brussels

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where they'd been on holiday
in the decade before,

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and they presented themselves
at the house of the local farmer,

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a Catholic farmer called Monsieur Maurice,

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and they asked him to take them in.

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And he did,

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and by the end of the war,

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17 Jews, I was told,
were living in that village.

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And when I was teenager, I asked my aunt,

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"Can you take me to meet
Monsieur Maurice?"

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And she said, "Yeah, I can.
He's still alive. Let's go and see him."

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And so, it must have been '83, '84,

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we went to see him.

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And I suppose, like only a teenager could,

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when I met him,

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he was this white-haired gentleman,

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I said to him,

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"Why did you do it?

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Why did you take that risk?"

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And he looked at me and he shrugged,

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and he said, in French,

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"On doit."

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"One must."

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It was innate in him.

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It was natural.

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And my point to you is it should be
natural and innate in us, too.

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Tell yourself,

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this refugee crisis is manageable,

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not unsolvable,

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and each one of us

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has a personal responsibility
to help make it so.

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Because this is about the rescue
of us and our values

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as well as the rescue
of refugees and their lives.

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Thank you very much indeed.

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(Applause)

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Bruno Giussani: David, thank you.
David Miliband: Thank you.

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BG: Those are strong suggestions

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and your call for individual
responsibility is very strong as well,

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but I'm troubled
by one thought, and it's this:

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you mentioned, and these are your words,
"extraordinary Western leadership"

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which led 60-something years ago

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to the whole discussion
about human rights,

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to the conventions on refugees, etc. etc.

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That leadership
happened after a big trauma

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and happened in
a consensual political space,

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and now we are
in a divisive political space.

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Actually, refugees have become
one of the divisive issues.

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So where will leadership come from today?

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DM: Well, I think that you're right to say

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that the leadership forged in war

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has a different temper
and a different tempo

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and a different outlook

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than leadership forged in peace.

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And so my answer would be
the leadership has got to come from below,

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not from above.

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I mean, a recurring theme
of the conference this week

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has been about
the democratization of power.

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And we've got to preserve
our own democracies,

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but we've got to also activate
our own democracies.

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And when people say to me,

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"There's a backlash against refugees,"

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what I say to them is,

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"No, there's a polarization,

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and at the moment,

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those who are fearful
are making more noise

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than those who are proud."

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And so my answer to your question
is that we will sponsor and encourage

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and give confidence to leadership

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when we mobilize ourselves.

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And I think that when you are
in a position of looking for leadership,

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you have to look inside

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and mobilize in your own community

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to try to create conditions
for a different kind of settlement.

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BG: Thank you, David.
Thanks for coming to TED.

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(Applause)