WEBVTT

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In August of 2012, I was in a tent

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very near the North-South
border between Sudans.

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It was the first time
that I'd been in a refugee camp.

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It was a bit past midnight,

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and sitting just to the left
of my computer screen

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This was the photograph
that I had been sent here to take.

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I'd climbed up onto a pole
in order to get to a vantage point

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where you could see the queue of people
extending toward the horizon.

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Thousands of faces waiting
to take up mosquito nets,

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peanut butter supplements, dried lentils.

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was a half-consumed bottle
of very warm vodka,

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and on the screen in front of me
was this photograph.

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And looking at that photograph,

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I began to feel nauseous.

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I thought I might throw up into my screen,
and maybe it was the vodka.

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But I think it was actually
this vast gulf, this huge disconnect

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between everything that I had seen
and experienced over that past week

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and that picture
that was staring back at me.

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There's a very specific kind of photograph
that is a "refugee photo."

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You'll know it if you've seen one,

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and you'll know as a photographer
that you've succeeded in taking one

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if it looks exactly like every iconic
refugee photograph that came before.

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These pictures are quite clear.

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You can usually tell one
by the presence of either dust or rain.

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There are usually tired people
carrying bundles.

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Sometimes there are leaky boats,

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and there's usually fences
or coils of barbed wire.

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Now these photographs
aren't necessarily bad,

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in fact, they can be quite powerful.

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Problem is that these
photographs are one sided.

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There is a reason that they exist.

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These photographs can and do posses
the power to shock us into attention,

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to illuminate crises that might otherwise
continue to be ignored.

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But what they did not do

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is challenge our beliefs
and our preconceptions.

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If I were to look at these photographs,
these photographs that I've taken,

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what I'd be able to tell you
about refugees

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is that they are generally
hungry and tired.

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And I don't know if I can tell you
much more than that.

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I don't know if I would have any idea
that refugees also get married,

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that refugees attend birthday parties

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and refugees, yes,
refugees have Facebook accounts.

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Now, the Western narrative of refugees,

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which has become the dominant,
the only narrative of refugees,

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has the effect of reducing
people into victims

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and reducing stories into mere tales
of one dimensional pity and sorrow.

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We're spoon-fed repetitious images
that match the stereotypes,

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and as the Nigerian novelist
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says:

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"The problem with stereotypes
is not that they are untrue,

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but that they are incomplete."

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The United Nations, various NGO's,
and the media also love statistics.

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Statistics exist for a reason.

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They're meant to give weight and gravity
to crisis, to help us to understand.

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But how often do we use statistics

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in order to describe the things
or the people that we love?

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Now let's say we were in this horrible,
horrible parallel universe,

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a universe in which you
had no idea what a puppy is,

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and I were to explain to you
what a puppy is through statistics.

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So you should know that a puppy
has 17 vertebrae in its tail,

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its shoulder height is roughly 28 cm,

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and the circumference
of its paws is 34.32 mm.

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Do you now know what a puppy is?

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Now compare that to just playing
with a dog for 30 seconds,

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or reading the account of a little girl

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who took her puppy to the park
for the very first time, or to the snow.

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My point is this:

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that we learn not so much
from data or statistics

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as we do from stories and experiences.

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And yes, in case you're wondering,
that's my new puppy.

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(Laughter)

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Her name's Cabbage. She's great.

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The other thing that you
should know about statistics

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is that while they're intended
to quantify humanity,

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they usually dehumanize

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the people that they are
entrusted with and accounting for.

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They already tell you

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that 2.1 million people
over the past year

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have fled from South Sudan
across the border into Uganda -

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2.1 million.

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Now, maybe your brain is bigger than mine
and you can really conceive those numbers,

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but for me, that number gets lost.

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Unless I can attach it to an actual
flesh and blood human being,

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it really doesn't have any meaning.

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That's because there's a big difference
between knowledge and information.

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And I think that what we need

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in order to understand
something of this scale,

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things like the refugee crisis,

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are not statistics; they're not numbers,

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but they're stories,
stories of individual people.

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So let's go back to that tent.

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It's two o'clock in the morning,

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the vodka bottle is down
to about a third now.

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I'm sitting there plugging in captions
to the really dramatic photograph

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that I've just captured.

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I'm saying there are 234,000 people
that have crossed that border.

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And while that number is completely
factual, it's completely true,

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there's something that rings
within me as dishonest

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about what it is that I am doing.

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I think it is because when I was there,

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the thing that was not so impressive
was the scale of the number of refugees.

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It wasn't how many there were,

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it wasn't how much they were suffering.

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It was the fact that as I walked around
photographing day in and day out,

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I was followed by laughter and smiles -

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in this place which I had no ability
to believe that would happen -

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that there were children playing
everywhere I went,

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just like anywhere else.

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The kids were finding little bits
of sandal and picking up sticks

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in order to make cars

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that they were driving
around in the camps,

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or collecting discarded bits of netting 
in order to make soccer balls and play.

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And the emotion that welled up within me
as I interacted with these people,

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it wasn't pity.

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It wasn't even sympathy.


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It was respect.

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I was amazed

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to find that this was not just
a one-dimensional horror show

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and that these people
were not just mere victims,

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that they were actually
dignified individuals.

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I'd only been told one story
about refugee camps beforehand,

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and that was one of horror.

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And it wasn't true, wasn't entirely true.

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The greater thing is that in this place
where people had lost so much -

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people who had lost their children,
lost their homes, lost their flocks,

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lost their fields, and were now living
in tents in a foreign country

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surrounded by strangers -

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that not only did they
maintain their dignity,

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the human heart is so big

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that these people have maintained
the ability to love.

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And at this point, I was
quite ashamed with myself.

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I was ashamed of the photographs
that I was taking,

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that were reducing
these people to stereotypes,

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that were turning them
into the exact same things

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that had only evoked fear and pity in me.

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So what did I do?

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I changed.

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I decided

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that rather than telling the story
of 234,000 nameless, faceless refugees,

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I would simply tell
the story of one person.

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I'd tell it in a way
that audiences around the world,

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regardless of what culture
they might be from,

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what the color of their skin was,

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would be able to empathize
with that person,

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would hopefully be able to put themselves

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into the shoes of a refugee
for just one moment.

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And the idea was very, very simple:

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I just asked refugees
to tell me their story

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and tell me what was the single,
most important object

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that they brought with them
when they fled from their home

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and their country.

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The project that evolved out of this
is called "The most important thing,"

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and I'd like to share

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some of the stories of the people
that I met with you through it.

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This is Dowla.

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I met Dowla in South Sudan.

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She'd fled several weeks before this
from her home in the village of Gabanit

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after her home was bombed.

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Dowla was the mother of six children,

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and the most important thing
that she brought with her

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is the pole you can see draped
across her shoulders

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with those two baskets.

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Sometimes she had to carry
two children in each basket

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as she was walking with another one
dangling from her back

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and then another walking beside her,

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as she made the 10-day journey
by mountain trails.

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This is Leila.

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I met Leila in northern Iraq
just as winter was beginning to come.

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She, her family and three other families

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were living in a roofless
concrete structure.

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And Leila told me

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that the scariest thing in Syria
was the voice of the tanks.

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"It was even more scary
than the sound of the planes

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because I felt like the tanks
were coming specifically for me."

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The most important thing
that Leila brought with her

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are the jeans that she is carrying here.

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She says, "I went shopping
with my parents

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and look for hours without finding
anything that I liked,

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but when I saw these jeans,
I instantly knew they were perfect

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because they have flowers,
and I love flowers."

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She'd only worn them
three times in her life, all in Syria:

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twice at weddings and one time
when her grandfather came to visit.

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She told me that she didn't want
to wear them again

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until she attended another wedding,

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and she hoped that that one too
would be in Syria.

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This is Sebastian.

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Sebastian was seven when his family fled
Angola's War of Independence,

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and they crossed into
the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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That was more than 60 years ago.

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Sebastian told me,
"I remember that it was cold

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and that my father gave me
his jacket to keep me warm.

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I was wearing it as we crossed the border,

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and every time that I see it,
even now as I'm telling you this story,

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I'm reminded of him and Angola.

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The day that we cross back into Angola,
I will have it with me,

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and I will remember my father.

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I will wear it because I'm now
a father myself.

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Two weeks later,
Sebastian went home to Angola.

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But not everyone is so lucky.

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Today there are 65 plus million people

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who have been forced
from their homes by war.

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65 million people.

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That's more than during World War II.

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It's the greatest number
at any point in recorded history.

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Put that in other terms, that's nearly one
out of 100 people on earth.

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And I'd like to share
one more story with you,

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one more story of 65 million people.

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This is the story of my friend Fayiz.

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Fayiz is a person who's not very different
from any of the people in this room today,

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and I think that rather than me
telling you about Fayiz,

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he should do so in his own words
and his own voice.

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[The situation in Syria
was very complicated.]

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[They had killed kids.]

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[So just imagine yourself coming
to your house, finding your kids ...]

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[I couldn't sleep.]

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[I left everything.]

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[My name is Fayiz. 
I'm from a small village in Syria.]

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[I'm an English teacher.]

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[KAWERGOSK REFUGEE CAMP, NORTHERN IRAQ]

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[I didn't choose to be a refugee.]

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[Here in this camp
I feel safe for my children]

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[because I know that no one
will come and kill them.]

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[Before the conflict started in Syria,]

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[we were watching refugees
all around the world -]

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[especially in Africa.]

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[But I never thought
that I will be a refugee.]

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[A refugee is a person.]

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[He's not from here.]

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[His tradition is different from ours.]

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[A refugee, also he is a human being.]

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[He has friends, he has emotions,]

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[has everything that God gives
a human being.]

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[A refugee is just a political name.]

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[We are dreaming every day of our houses
or the friends that we left.]

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[The future is completely destroyed
for me and my wife.]

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[But my kids,]

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[in five years maybe,
we can build a future for them.]

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[And they have time to forget,
to prepare themselves,]

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[to rebuild, to, you know, repair.]

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[So their dreams,]


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[better to take care of their dreams.]

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The stories that you've heard tonight,
this afternoon, have all been ones of war,

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but war isn't the only thing
that drives people out of their homes.

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Many of the refugees around the world
have fled because of who they love,

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have had to leave their homes
and their countries

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because of the color of their skin

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or the ethnic group
into which they were born.

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So now, in this age

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where fear and xenophobia
can very quickly morph into policy,

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it's more important than ever
that we remember

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that it's not only tanks and bombs
that can force us from our homes.

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So the next time
that you see a photograph,

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a dramatic one
of large numbers people

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that are sad and carrying bundles,

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or the next time you hear a story,

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a very simple one
full of shocking statistics

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about a group who you
may not understand very well,

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ask for more.

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Think of Leila and think of Fayiz.

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And remember, this isn't numbers,

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it's people.

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I'd like to leave you with a question:

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If you had 30 seconds
before you had to run,

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carrying whatever you could

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climb out the window
at the back of your house

00:16:46.238 --> 00:16:48.668
and go out into the night,
perhaps never to return,

00:16:48.668 --> 00:16:51.157
what would you bring with you?

00:16:51.362 --> 00:16:53.752
What's your most important thing?

00:16:58.387 --> 00:16:59.577
Thank you.

00:16:59.618 --> 00:17:02.598
(Applause)