Seeking Safe Passage
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
10/24/24
•39m
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Two hundred and fifty years ago the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." He obviously wasn't talking about the tragedy of modern mass migration, but he could have been. Today thousands, indeed, millions of people are being driven from their homes by war, natural disasters, climate change, pestilence, poverty, or sometimes just a search for better opportunities. What could be more human? And what could be more inhuman than overcrowded camps, drownings, forced returns, desert dumps and other indignities that too often meet them?
It seems that much more effort goes into trying to stop or reverse the migrations than in either creating legal pathways to safe movement or addressing the root causes that compel people to flee in the first place. In light of the politics around migration in Europe and the United States, but also in important destination countries in the Global South, it is easy to imagine that the challenges facing would-be migrants will inevitably worsen. The resulting tragedies are becoming so commonplace that they seem to go mostly unnoticed.
Mostly is the keyword. There are legions of people who not only notice but are also looking for solutions. Today’s guest on New Thinking for a New World, Sasha Chanoff, founded RefugePoint, an organization dedicated to creating solutions for refugees in extreme danger. Listen as he explains some of his ideas that could change the future for migrants everywhere.
Previous Episode
America’s Unhappy Choice
September 26, 2024
•37m
Once again, Americans are getting ready for a presidential election that is widely described as the most important in their lifetimes. That may or may not be true, but two things are certain: the two candidates, former President Trump and current Vice President Harris, are about as different as different could be, and many Americans wish they had other choices.
But they don’t; either Trump or Harris will be elected in November. With a little more than five weeks left to campaign (although early voting has already started in some states) both candidates are desperately trying to break what the pollsters insist is more or less a tie, both in the national polls and in the so-called swing states whose Electoral College votes will in effect select the winner.
How are the candidates trying to persuade voters who haven’t already made up their minds? How do they ensure that their core voters actually cast ballots, in a country where the highest turnout since 1990 saw 1/3 of registered voters decline to vote in the equally tight 2020 Biden/Trump contest? What do voters see in the candidates that attract or repel them?
Scott Miller, an accomplished political and corporate consultant based in the swing state of Georgia, has some answers or at least some well-informed intuitions. Scott, with a long history of advising successful (as well as the other kind) both Republican and Democrat candidates in national and state elections, continues to be a close observer of American politics; he is one of the “go-to” gurus of U.S. elections.
What do you think? Who would you vote for and why?
Next Episode
Welcome to Dante’s Inferno
October 31, 2024
•33m
Over the last several years Palestinians felt abandoned and ignored by Arabs, Americans, and Europeans. The people in Gaza and the West Bank seemed to have become almost invisible to everyone except themselves and the Israelis with whom they engaged in a low-intensity, but deadly conflict.
The attacks on October 7th and the continuing brutal Israeli response changed that, perhaps forever. Now it's hard to imagine ever returning to the status quo ante as unpleasant and unstable as that was. But all wars end, and this one will as well. The people who survive, especially the almost 50% of Gazans under the age of 18, will surely be marked for life.
So what?
That’s a harsh question, and it demands honest answers. Could the tragedy of war somehow lead to better lives and even a sovereign state for millions of Palestinians? Are Palestinians condemned to remain stuck in whatever circle of Dante's hell they now inhabit? Or might they give up and leave, even if the rest of the world doesn’t seem to want them?
Our guest on New Thinking for a New World brings the sort of experience and insight that can at least give us a window into possibilities. Francesca Borri is an Italian journalist and war reporter who has lived in the West Bank since 2007. Her work and integrity are respected by Arabs as well as Israelis. Proof point: she was the first Western journalist to interview Yahya Sinwar in 2018 and that interview led to direct negotiations between Hamas and Israel.
Can you imagine a positive ending to the tragedy in Gaza? Please tell us what you think here.
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