WEBVTT

00:00:00.836 --> 00:00:04.598
I'm going to speak to you
about the global refugee crisis,

00:00:04.598 --> 00:00:08.475
and my aim is to show you that this crisis

00:00:08.475 --> 00:00:11.633
is manageable, not unsolvable,

00:00:11.633 --> 00:00:17.291
but also show you that this is as much
about us and who we are

00:00:17.291 --> 00:00:20.807
as it is a trial of the refugees
on the front line.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:21.513 --> 00:00:24.419
For me, this is not just
a professional obligation,

00:00:24.419 --> 00:00:29.325
because I run an NGO supporting refugees
and displaced people around the world.

00:00:29.325 --> 00:00:31.063
It's personal.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:31.063 --> 00:00:34.073
I love this picture.

00:00:34.073 --> 00:00:36.263
That really handsome guy on the right,

00:00:36.263 --> 00:00:37.940
that's not me.

00:00:37.940 --> 00:00:41.607
That's my dad, Ralph, in London, in 1940

00:00:41.607 --> 00:00:44.156
with his father Samuel.

00:00:44.156 --> 00:00:46.739
They were Jewish refugees from Belgium.

00:00:46.739 --> 00:00:50.651
They fled the day the Nazis invaded.

00:00:50.651 --> 00:00:52.773
And I love this picture too.

00:00:52.773 --> 00:00:55.435
It's a group of refugee children

00:00:55.435 --> 00:00:58.970
arriving in England in 1946 from Poland.

00:00:58.970 --> 00:01:02.933
And in the middle is my mother, Mariam.

00:01:02.933 --> 00:01:05.647
She was sent to start a new life

00:01:05.647 --> 00:01:07.359
in a new country

00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:08.616
on her own

00:01:08.616 --> 00:01:11.171
at the age of 12.

00:01:11.171 --> 00:01:12.799
I know this:

00:01:12.799 --> 00:01:15.759
if Britain had not admitted refugees

00:01:15.759 --> 00:01:18.020
in the 1940s,

00:01:18.020 --> 00:01:22.412
I certainly would not be here today.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:22.412 --> 00:01:27.105
Yet 70 years on, the wheel
has come full circle.

00:01:27.105 --> 00:01:30.099
The sound is of walls being built,

00:01:30.099 --> 00:01:32.639
vengeful political rhetoric,

00:01:32.639 --> 00:01:36.871
humanitarian values and principles on fire

00:01:36.871 --> 00:01:40.734
in the very countries that
70 years ago said never again

00:01:40.734 --> 00:01:43.316
to statelessness and hopelessness

00:01:43.316 --> 00:01:46.095
for the victims of war.

00:01:46.888 --> 00:01:50.303
Last year, every minute,

00:01:50.303 --> 00:01:53.922
24 more people were displaced
from their homes

00:01:53.922 --> 00:01:55.730
by conflict, violence, and persecution:

00:01:55.730 --> 00:02:00.153
another chemical weapon attack in Syria,

00:02:00.153 --> 00:02:03.558
the Taliban on the rampage in Afghanistan,

00:02:03.558 --> 00:02:09.986
girls driven from their school
in northeast Nigeria by Boko Haram.

00:02:09.986 --> 00:02:12.746
These are not people moving
to another country

00:02:12.746 --> 00:02:15.443
to get a better life.

00:02:15.443 --> 00:02:17.264
They're fleeing for their lives.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:18.846 --> 00:02:21.047
It's a real tragedy

00:02:21.047 --> 00:02:27.549
that the world's most famous refugee
can't come to speak to you here today.

00:02:27.549 --> 00:02:30.086
Many of you will know this picture.

00:02:30.086 --> 00:02:32.409
It shows the lifeless body

00:02:32.409 --> 00:02:34.878
of five-year old Alan Kurdi,

00:02:34.878 --> 00:02:39.347
a Syrian refugee who died
in the Mediterranean in 2015.

00:02:39.347 --> 00:02:44.691
He died alongside 3,700 others
trying to get to Europe.

00:02:44.691 --> 00:02:46.697
The next year, 2016,

00:02:46.697 --> 00:02:50.200
5,000 people died.

00:02:50.200 --> 00:02:53.521
It's too late for them,

00:02:53.521 --> 00:02:56.284
but it's not too late
for millions of others.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:56.284 --> 00:02:58.949
It's not too late
for people like Frederick.

00:02:58.949 --> 00:03:02.471
I met him in in the Nyarugusu
Refugee Camp in Tanzania.

00:03:02.471 --> 00:03:03.963
He's from Burundi.

00:03:03.963 --> 00:03:06.609
He wanted to know where
could he complete his studies.

00:03:06.609 --> 00:03:09.734
He'd done 11 years of schooling.
He wanted a 12th year.

00:03:09.734 --> 00:03:14.316
He said to me, "I pray
that my days do not end here

00:03:14.316 --> 00:03:16.252
in this refugee camp."

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:16.252 --> 00:03:19.557
And it's not too late for Halud.

00:03:19.557 --> 00:03:22.410
Her parents were Palestinian refugees

00:03:22.410 --> 00:03:25.808
living in the Yarmouk Refugee Camp
outside Damascus.

00:03:25.808 --> 00:03:30.809
She was born to refugee parents, and
now she's a refugee herself in Lebanon.

00:03:30.809 --> 00:03:35.122
She's working for the International
Rescue Committee to help other refugees,

00:03:35.122 --> 00:03:37.867
but she has no certainty at all

00:03:37.867 --> 00:03:39.901
about her future,

00:03:40.537 --> 00:03:42.619
where it is or what it holds.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:42.619 --> 00:03:46.582
This talk is about Frederick, about Halud,

00:03:46.582 --> 00:03:48.580
and about millions like them,

00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:50.512
why they're displaced,

00:03:50.512 --> 00:03:55.841
how they survive, what help they need,
and what our responsibilities are.

00:03:55.841 --> 00:03:58.240
I truly believe this,

00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:01.539
that the biggest question
in the 21st century

00:04:01.539 --> 00:04:05.606
concerns our duty to strangers.

00:04:05.606 --> 00:04:08.334
The future you is about your duties

00:04:08.334 --> 00:04:10.652
to strangers.

00:04:10.652 --> 00:04:13.777
You know better than anyone,
the world is more connected

00:04:13.777 --> 00:04:16.268
than ever before,

00:04:16.268 --> 00:04:18.397
yet the great danger

00:04:18.397 --> 00:04:22.173
is that we're consumed by our divisions.

00:04:22.173 --> 00:04:24.497
And there is no better test of that

00:04:24.497 --> 00:04:27.114
than how we treat refugees.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:27.114 --> 00:04:31.024
Here are the facts: 65 million people
displaced from their homes

00:04:31.024 --> 00:04:33.339
by violence and persecution last year.

00:04:33.339 --> 00:04:35.004
If it was a country,

00:04:35.004 --> 00:04:38.964
that would be the 21st
largest country in the world.

00:04:38.964 --> 00:04:44.032
Most of those people, about 40 million,
stay within their own home country,

00:04:44.032 --> 00:04:45.690
but 25 million are refugees.

00:04:45.690 --> 00:04:49.278
That means they cross a border
into a neighboring state.

00:04:49.278 --> 00:04:53.398
Most of them are living in poor countries,

00:04:53.398 --> 00:04:56.490
relatively poor or lower-middle
income countries, like Lebanon,

00:04:56.490 --> 00:04:59.130
where Halud is living.

00:04:59.130 --> 00:05:03.733
In Lebanon, one
in four people is a refugee,

00:05:03.733 --> 00:05:07.101
a quarter of the whole population.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:07.101 --> 00:05:09.092
And refugees stay for a long time.

00:05:09.092 --> 00:05:11.320
The average length of displacement

00:05:11.320 --> 00:05:13.546
is 10 years.

00:05:13.546 --> 00:05:18.087
I went to what was the world's
largest refugee camp, in eastern Kenya.

00:05:18.087 --> 00:05:19.625
It's called Dadaab.

00:05:19.625 --> 00:05:21.547
It was built in 1991-92

00:05:21.547 --> 00:05:26.098
as a "temporary camp" for Somalis
fleeing the civil war.

00:05:26.098 --> 00:05:30.539
I met Silo, and naïvely I said to Silo,

00:05:30.539 --> 00:05:33.353
"Do you think you'll ever
go home to Somalia?"

00:05:33.353 --> 00:05:36.370
And she said, "What do you mean, go home?

00:05:36.370 --> 00:05:38.824
I was born here."

00:05:38.824 --> 00:05:40.883
And then when I asked
the camp management

00:05:40.883 --> 00:05:45.221
how many of the 330,000 people
in that camp were born there,

00:05:45.221 --> 00:05:47.277
they gave me the answer:

00:05:47.277 --> 00:05:50.098
100,000.

00:05:50.098 --> 00:05:53.756
That's what long-term displacement means.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:53.756 --> 00:05:56.249
Now the causes of this are deep:

00:05:56.249 --> 00:05:59.035
weak states that can't
support their own people,

00:05:59.035 --> 00:06:01.136
an international political system

00:06:01.136 --> 00:06:04.490
weaker than at any time since 1945,

00:06:04.490 --> 00:06:08.612
and differences over theology, governance,
engagement with the outside world

00:06:08.612 --> 00:06:11.927
in significant parts of the Muslim world.

00:06:11.927 --> 00:06:16.199
Now those are long-term,
generational challenges.

00:06:16.199 --> 00:06:20.595
That's why I say that this refugee crisis
is a trend and not a blip.

00:06:20.595 --> 00:06:25.210
And it's complex, and when you have
big, large, long-term, complex problems,

00:06:25.210 --> 00:06:28.394
people think nothing can be done.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:28.394 --> 00:06:30.965
When Pope Francis went to Lampedusa,

00:06:30.965 --> 00:06:35.127
off the coast of Italy, in 2014,
he accused all of us

00:06:35.127 --> 00:06:37.526
and the global population
of what he called

00:06:37.526 --> 00:06:41.011
"the globalization of indifference."

00:06:41.011 --> 00:06:46.701
It's a haunting phrase. It means
that our hearts have turned to stone.

00:06:46.701 --> 00:06:48.624
Now, I don't know, you tell me.

00:06:48.624 --> 00:06:53.146
Are you allowed to argue with the Pope,
even at a TED Conference?

00:06:53.146 --> 00:06:54.592
But I think it's not right.

00:06:54.592 --> 00:06:56.632
I think people do want
to make a difference,

00:06:56.632 --> 00:07:00.277
but they just don't know whether
there are any solutions to this crisis.

00:07:00.277 --> 00:07:02.059
And what I want to tell you today

00:07:02.059 --> 00:07:05.989
is that though the problems are real,
the solutions are real too.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:05.989 --> 00:07:07.445
Solution one:

00:07:07.445 --> 00:07:09.364
these refugees need to get into work
in the countries where they're living,

00:07:09.364 --> 00:07:13.764
and the countries where they're living
need massive economic support.

00:07:13.764 --> 00:07:16.496
In Uganda in 2014, they did a study:

00:07:16.496 --> 00:07:19.902
80 percent of refugees
in the capital city Kampala

00:07:19.902 --> 00:07:22.661
needed no humanitarian aid
because they were working.

00:07:22.661 --> 00:07:24.715
They were supported into work.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:24.715 --> 00:07:26.288
Solution number two:

00:07:26.288 --> 00:07:30.504
education for kids
is a lifeline, not a luxury,

00:07:30.504 --> 00:07:32.987
when you're displaced for so long.

00:07:32.987 --> 00:07:37.740
Kids can bounce back when they're given
the proper social, emotional support

00:07:37.740 --> 00:07:39.646
alongside literacy and numeracy.

00:07:39.646 --> 00:07:41.986
I've seen it for myself.

00:07:41.986 --> 00:07:46.289
But half of the world's refugee children
of primary school age

00:07:46.289 --> 00:07:48.298
get no education at all,

00:07:48.298 --> 00:07:51.775
and three quarters of secondary school age
get no education at all.

00:07:51.775 --> 00:07:54.044
That's crazy.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:54.044 --> 00:07:56.582
Solution number three:

00:07:56.582 --> 00:07:59.987
most refugees are in urban areas,
in cities, not in camps.

00:07:59.987 --> 00:08:02.615
What would you or I want
if we were a refugee in a city?

00:08:02.615 --> 00:08:06.610
We would want money
to pay rent or buy clothes.

00:08:06.610 --> 00:08:08.996
That is the future
of the humanitarian system,

00:08:08.996 --> 00:08:10.239
or a significant part of it:

00:08:10.239 --> 00:08:12.416
give people cash so that you boost
the power of refugees

00:08:12.416 --> 00:08:15.148
and you help the local economy.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:15.148 --> 00:08:17.152
And there's a fourth solution, too,

00:08:17.152 --> 00:08:19.816
that's controversial but needs
to be talked about.

00:08:19.816 --> 00:08:23.239
The most vulnerable refugees
need to be given a new start

00:08:23.239 --> 00:08:25.702
and a new life in a new country,

00:08:25.702 --> 00:08:28.228
including in the West.

00:08:28.228 --> 00:08:32.487
The numbers are relatively small,
hundreds of thousands, not millions,

00:08:32.487 --> 00:08:36.142
but the symbolism is huge.

00:08:36.142 --> 00:08:38.837
Now is not the time to be
banning refugees,

00:08:38.837 --> 00:08:40.566
as the Trump Administration proposes.

00:08:40.566 --> 00:08:44.446
It's a time to be embracing people
who are victims of terror.

00:08:44.446 --> 00:08:49.824
And remember -- (Applause) --

00:08:52.667 --> 00:08:56.524
remember, anyone who asks you,
"Are they properly vetted?"

00:08:56.524 --> 00:09:00.506
that's a really sensible
and good question to ask.

00:09:00.506 --> 00:09:04.707
The truth is, refugees
arriving for resettlement

00:09:04.707 --> 00:09:08.367
are more vetted than any other population
arriving in our countries.

00:09:08.367 --> 00:09:10.207
So while it's reasonable
to ask the question,

00:09:10.207 --> 00:09:15.091
it's not reasonable to say that refugee
is another word for terrorist.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:15.091 --> 00:09:16.594
Now, what happens --

00:09:16.594 --> 00:09:20.060
(Applause) --

00:09:20.060 --> 00:09:22.884
what happens when refugees can't get work,

00:09:22.884 --> 00:09:25.417
they can't get their kids into school,
they can't get cash,

00:09:25.417 --> 00:09:28.163
they can't get a legal route to home?

00:09:28.163 --> 00:09:30.762
What happens is they take risky journeys.

00:09:30.762 --> 00:09:34.824
I went to Lesbos, this beautiful
Greek island, two years ago.

00:09:34.824 --> 00:09:37.370
It's a home to 90,000 people.

00:09:37.370 --> 00:09:41.247
In one year, 500,000 refugees
went across the island.

00:09:41.247 --> 00:09:43.281
And I want to show you what I saw

00:09:43.281 --> 00:09:46.743
when I drove across
to the north of the island:

00:09:46.743 --> 00:09:50.606
a pile of life jackets of those
who had made it to shore.

00:09:50.606 --> 00:09:52.710
And when I looked closer,

00:09:52.710 --> 00:09:55.178
there were small
life jackets for children,

00:09:55.178 --> 00:09:56.607
yellow ones.

00:09:56.607 --> 00:09:58.746
And I took this picture.

00:09:58.746 --> 00:10:01.461
You probably can't see the writing,
but I want to read it for you.

00:10:01.461 --> 00:10:04.881
"Warning: will not
protect against drowning."

00:10:06.079 --> 00:10:08.151
So in the 21st century,

00:10:08.151 --> 00:10:10.630
children are being given life jackets

00:10:10.630 --> 00:10:12.840
to reach safety in Europe

00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:16.325
even though those jackets
will not save their lives

00:10:16.325 --> 00:10:20.515
if they fall out of the boat
that is taking them there.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:20.515 --> 00:10:25.119
This is not just a crisis, it's a test.

00:10:25.119 --> 00:10:29.857
It's a test that civilizations
have faced down the ages.

00:10:29.857 --> 00:10:32.223
It's a test of our humanity.

00:10:32.223 --> 00:10:34.602
It's a test of us in the Western world

00:10:34.602 --> 00:10:37.631
of who we are and what we stand for.

00:10:37.631 --> 00:10:43.224
It's a test of our character,
not just our policies.

00:10:43.224 --> 00:10:45.361
And refugees are a hard case.

00:10:45.361 --> 00:10:48.421
They do come from faraway
parts of the world.

00:10:48.421 --> 00:10:50.310
They have been through trauma.

00:10:50.310 --> 00:10:52.431
They're often of a different religion.

00:10:52.431 --> 00:10:55.586
Those are precisely the reasons
we should be helping refugees,

00:10:55.586 --> 00:10:57.369
not a reason not to help them.

00:10:57.369 --> 00:11:01.708
And it's a reason to help them
because of what it says about us.

00:11:01.708 --> 00:11:05.290
It's revealing of our values.

00:11:05.290 --> 00:11:11.275
Empathy and altruism are two
of the foundations of civilization.

00:11:11.275 --> 00:11:13.987
Turn that empathy and altruism into action

00:11:13.987 --> 00:11:17.193
and we live out a basic moral credo.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:17.193 --> 00:11:19.496
And in the modern world,
we have no excuse.

00:11:19.496 --> 00:11:23.665
We can't say we don't know
what's happening in Juba, South Sudan,

00:11:23.665 --> 00:11:25.267
or Aleppo, Syria.

00:11:25.267 --> 00:11:27.668
It's there in our smartphone

00:11:27.668 --> 00:11:29.493
in our hand.

00:11:29.493 --> 00:11:32.141
Ignorance is no excuse at all.

00:11:32.141 --> 00:11:37.271
Fail to help, and we show
we have no moral compass at all.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:37.271 --> 00:11:41.004
It's also revealing about whether
we know our own history.

00:11:41.004 --> 00:11:43.568
The reason that refugees
have rights around the world

00:11:43.568 --> 00:11:46.479
is because of extraordinary
Western leadership

00:11:46.479 --> 00:11:49.047
by statesmen and women
after the Second World War

00:11:49.047 --> 00:11:51.610
that became universal rights.

00:11:51.610 --> 00:11:56.246
Trash the protections of refugees,
and we trash our own history.

00:11:56.246 --> 00:11:59.766
This is -- (Applause) --

00:11:59.766 --> 00:12:03.546
This is also revealing
about the power of democracy

00:12:03.546 --> 00:12:05.930
as a refuge from dictatorship.

00:12:05.930 --> 00:12:08.084
How many politicians have you heard say,

00:12:08.084 --> 00:12:13.969
"We believe in the power of our example,
not the example of our power."

00:12:13.969 --> 00:12:18.523
What they mean is what we stand for
is more important than the bombs we drop.

00:12:18.523 --> 00:12:21.057
Refugees seeking sanctuary

00:12:21.057 --> 00:12:26.236
have seen the West as a source
of hope and a place of haven.

00:12:26.236 --> 00:12:29.064
Russians, Iranians,

00:12:29.064 --> 00:12:32.074
Chinese, Eritreans, Cubans,

00:12:32.074 --> 00:12:35.460
they've come to the West for safety.

00:12:35.460 --> 00:12:38.372
We throw that away at our peril.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:38.372 --> 00:12:40.164
And there's one other thing
it reveals about us,

00:12:40.164 --> 00:12:43.633
whether we have any humility
for our own mistakes.

00:12:43.633 --> 00:12:45.456
I'm not one of these people

00:12:45.456 --> 00:12:48.566
who believes that all the problems
in the world are caused by the West.

00:12:48.566 --> 00:12:49.962
They're not.

00:12:49.962 --> 00:12:53.104
But when we make mistakes,
we should recognize it.

00:12:53.104 --> 00:12:55.224
It's not an accident that the country
which has taken

00:12:55.224 --> 00:12:57.923
more refugees than any other,
the United States,

00:12:57.923 --> 00:13:02.280
has taken more refugees from Vietnam
than any other country.

00:13:02.280 --> 00:13:04.473
It speaks to the history.

00:13:04.473 --> 00:13:07.600
But there's more recent history,
in Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:11.282
You can't make up
for foreign policy errors

00:13:11.282 --> 00:13:13.220
by humanitarian action,

00:13:13.220 --> 00:13:17.106
but when you break something,
you have a duty to try to help repair it,

00:13:17.106 --> 00:13:20.992
and that's our duty now.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:20.992 --> 00:13:23.554
Do you remember
at the beginning of the talk,

00:13:23.554 --> 00:13:26.435
I said I wanted to explain
that the refugee crisis

00:13:26.435 --> 00:13:29.318
was manageable, not insoluble?

00:13:29.318 --> 00:13:32.984
That's true. I want you
to think in a new way,

00:13:32.984 --> 00:13:35.910
but I also want you to do things.

00:13:35.910 --> 00:13:40.481
If you're an employer, hire refugees.

00:13:40.481 --> 00:13:44.664
If you're persuaded by the arguments,
take on the myths

00:13:44.664 --> 00:13:48.272
when family or friends
or workmates repeat them.

00:13:48.272 --> 00:13:50.956
If you've got money, give it to charities

00:13:50.956 --> 00:13:53.684
that make a difference
for refugees around the world.

00:13:53.684 --> 00:13:56.186
If you're a citizen,

00:13:56.186 --> 00:13:58.683
vote for politicians

00:13:58.683 --> 00:14:02.242
who will put into practice
the solutions that I've talked about.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:02.242 --> 00:14:06.625
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:06.625 --> 00:14:08.778
The duty to strangers

00:14:08.778 --> 00:14:10.735
shows itself

00:14:10.735 --> 00:14:13.338
in small ways and big,

00:14:13.338 --> 00:14:16.046
prosaic and heroic.

00:14:16.046 --> 00:14:18.811
In 1942,

00:14:18.811 --> 00:14:21.384
my aunt and my grandmother
were living in Brussels

00:14:21.384 --> 00:14:23.671
under German occupation.

00:14:23.671 --> 00:14:26.124
They received a summons

00:14:26.124 --> 00:14:32.554
from the Nazi authorities
to go to Brussels Railway Station.

00:14:32.554 --> 00:14:37.028
My grandmother immediately thought
something was amiss.

00:14:37.028 --> 00:14:39.472
She pleaded with her relatives

00:14:39.472 --> 00:14:42.499
not to go to Brussels Railway Station.

00:14:42.499 --> 00:14:44.765
Her relatives said to her,

00:14:44.765 --> 00:14:48.487
"If we don't go, if we don't
do what we're told,

00:14:48.487 --> 00:14:51.070
then we're going to be in trouble."

00:14:51.070 --> 00:14:53.890
You can guess what happened
to the relatives who went

00:14:53.890 --> 00:14:56.101
to Brussels Railway Station.

00:14:56.101 --> 00:14:58.321
They were never seen again.

00:14:58.321 --> 00:15:00.365
But my grandmother and my aunt,

00:15:00.365 --> 00:15:03.017
they went to a small village

00:15:03.017 --> 00:15:06.032
south of Brussels

00:15:06.032 --> 00:15:09.602
where they'd been on holiday
in the decade before,

00:15:09.602 --> 00:15:12.062
and they presented themselves
at the house of the local farmer,

00:15:12.062 --> 00:15:15.847
a Catholic farmer called Mr. Maurice,

00:15:15.847 --> 00:15:19.173
and they asked him to take them in.

00:15:19.173 --> 00:15:20.792
And he did,

00:15:20.792 --> 00:15:23.145
and by the end of the war,

00:15:23.145 --> 00:15:26.727
17 Jews I was told,
were living in that village.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:28.674 --> 00:15:30.526
And when I was teenager, I asked my aunt,

00:15:30.526 --> 00:15:33.700
"Can you take me to meet Mr. Maurice?"

00:15:33.700 --> 00:15:36.618
And she said, "Yeah, I can.
He's still alive. Let's go and see him."

00:15:36.618 --> 00:15:39.131
And so, it must have been '83, '84,

00:15:39.131 --> 00:15:40.955
we went to see him,

00:15:40.955 --> 00:15:43.555
and I suppose, like only a teenager could,

00:15:43.555 --> 00:15:44.838
when I met him,

00:15:44.838 --> 00:15:48.454
he was this white-haired gentleman,

00:15:48.454 --> 00:15:50.385
I said to him,

00:15:50.385 --> 00:15:53.585
"Why did you do it?

00:15:53.585 --> 00:15:56.161
Why did you take that risk?"

00:15:57.505 --> 00:15:59.060
And he looked at me and he shrugged,

00:15:59.060 --> 00:16:01.466
and he said, in French,

00:16:01.466 --> 00:16:04.565
"On doit." "One must."

00:16:04.565 --> 00:16:08.684
It was innate in him. It was natural.

00:16:08.684 --> 00:16:12.941
And my point to you is it should be
natural and innate in us too.

00:16:12.941 --> 00:16:14.713
Tell yourself,

00:16:14.713 --> 00:16:17.817
this refugee is manageable,

00:16:17.817 --> 00:16:19.513
not unsolvable,

00:16:19.513 --> 00:16:21.347
and each one of us

00:16:21.347 --> 00:16:25.238
has a personal responsibility
to help make it so,

00:16:25.238 --> 00:16:29.724
because this is about the rescue
of us and our values

00:16:29.724 --> 00:16:32.586
as well as the rescue
of refugees and their lives.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:32.586 --> 00:16:34.512
Thank you very much indeed.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:34.512 --> 00:16:39.619
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:45.103 --> 00:16:47.352
Bruno Giussani: David, thank you.
David Miliband: Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:47.352 --> 00:16:49.704
BG: Those are strong suggestions,

00:16:49.704 --> 00:16:50.643
and your call
for individual responsibility

00:16:50.643 --> 00:16:52.185
is very strong as well, but I'm troubled
by one thought, and it's this:

00:16:52.185 --> 00:16:56.971
you mentioned, and these are your words,

00:16:56.971 --> 00:16:59.289
"extraordinary Western leadership"

00:16:59.289 --> 00:17:03.088
which led 60-something years ago to
the whole discussion about human rights,

00:17:03.088 --> 00:17:06.476
to the conventions on refugees, etc. etc.

00:17:06.476 --> 00:17:08.579
That leadership happened
after a big trauma

00:17:08.579 --> 00:17:13.925
and happened in
a consensual political space,

00:17:13.925 --> 00:17:15.996
and now we are in
a divisive political space.

00:17:15.996 --> 00:17:18.176
Actually, refugees have become
one of the divisive issues.

00:17:18.176 --> 00:17:21.099
So where will leadership come from today?

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:21.099 --> 00:17:23.787
DM: Well, I think that you're right to say

00:17:23.787 --> 00:17:26.726
that the leadership forged in war

00:17:26.726 --> 00:17:29.290
has a different temper
and a different tempo

00:17:29.290 --> 00:17:30.596
and a different outlook

00:17:30.596 --> 00:17:33.868
than leadership forged in peace.

00:17:33.868 --> 00:17:37.633
And so my answer would be
the leadership has got to come from below,

00:17:37.633 --> 00:17:39.082
not from above.

00:17:39.082 --> 00:17:42.173
I mean, a recurring theme
of the conference this week

00:17:42.173 --> 00:17:43.488
has been about

00:17:43.488 --> 00:17:46.314
the democratization of power.

00:17:46.314 --> 00:17:48.354
And we've got to preserve
our own democracies,

00:17:48.354 --> 00:17:50.855
but we've got to also activate
our own democracies.

00:17:50.855 --> 00:17:52.744
And when people say to me,

00:17:52.744 --> 00:17:54.619
"There's a backlash against refugees,"

00:17:54.619 --> 00:17:55.962
what I say to them is,

00:17:55.962 --> 00:17:58.073
"No, there's a polarization,

00:17:58.073 --> 00:17:59.045
and at the moment,

00:17:59.045 --> 00:18:01.288
those who are fearful
are making more noise

00:18:01.288 --> 00:18:02.814
than those who are proud."

00:18:02.814 --> 00:18:06.795
And so my answer to your question is
that we will sponsor and encourage

00:18:06.795 --> 00:18:08.679
and give confidence to leadership

00:18:08.679 --> 00:18:10.521
when we mobilize ourselves.

00:18:10.521 --> 00:18:13.806
And I think that when you are in
a position of looking for leadership,

00:18:13.806 --> 00:18:15.126
you have to look inside

00:18:15.126 --> 00:18:18.397
and mobilize in your own community
to try to create conditions

00:18:18.397 --> 00:18:20.188
for a different kind of settlement.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:20.188 --> 00:18:22.508
BG: Thank you David.
Thanks for coming to TED.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:22.508 --> 00:18:25.503
(Applause)