What Actually Mattered This Week: A Message for Those Graduating in Toxic Times
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WHAT MATTERED THIS WEEK
You might be wondering … what’s it like to be the graduation speaker on an American college campus these days? On Monday evening, I got the chance to find out.
Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, a school where I teach a class on applied geopolitics, invited me to deliver this year’s commencement speech. It was a privilege – and a challenge – that I took very seriously.
Yes, there were protesters – of course there were. But not a single student walked out. Not one turned their back. At no time did anyone try to disrupt the event or to shout me down – or anyone else.
The protesters were visible, creative, constructive, and respectful of the importance of the event for the graduates. They made themselves seen and heard, but they allowed everyone else to be seen and heard too.
It was a beautiful thing, and I was proud to see it, particularly for the reasons I laid out in my speech.
A politically motivated assassination attempt on Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico rocked the country this week. At the time of writing, the longtime leader is in serious – but stable – condition.
Who was behind the attack? A 71 year old named Juraj Cintula.
He published collections of poetry and a novel and runs a literary club in a small town where he also works as a security guard at a shopping mall.
A decade ago it appears he was gathering signatures to start a political party called—wait for it—“movement against violence.” Go figure.
The United Nations clarified this week that the overall death toll in Gaza has not changed and is roughly 35,000 (despite what some people are saying).
What’s changed is that nearly 25,000 bodies have been “fully identified,” and more than half are women and children.
In other words, approximately 10,000 bodies are unidentified. and thousands of people, many of them women and children, are still missing under the rubble.
$18 billion in new Chinese tariffs announced by the Biden Administration this week on a few key sectors, mostly on electric vehicles.
These were all communicated with Beijing in advance.
So let’s keep an eye out to see how an economically stressed China—not looking for conflict right now—responds.
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TRUTHS, DAMNED TRUTHS, AND STATISTICS
Americans’ worries about inflation now at an all-time polling high:
- Gallup
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THE GZERO WORLD WE’RE JUST LIVING IN
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THE GRAPHIC TRUTH
YOUR GZERO WORLD
Something is happening here—on college campuses, that is. But what do we make of protests that turn violent, like what we saw at UCLA or even some of the Columbia conflicts? In a wide-ranging interview with me on GZERO World,?Eboo Patel, founder of the nonprofit Interfaith America, talks about his work on hundreds of college campuses to find common ground. His core message is simple: "Cooperation is better than division."
Patel advocates for a shift in focus from confrontation to cooperation on campuses, suggesting that universities should foster environments of civil discourse. He proposes initiatives like teach-ins and dialogues to explore constructive solutions to complex issues. "I think the problem here, the thing that universities could control, which I think that they have gotten wrong in many cases over the past five years, is the default mode has been set to confrontation, not cooperation."
Finding common ground can indeed be easier said than done when tensions are high. But as Patel points out, the majority of college campuses have been able to debate the Israel-Gaza war without the kind of chaos or violence we've seen on certain campuses. "The media, for good reasons, covers planes that crash and not planes that land," Patel explains.
For a longer, wider-ranging version of my interview check out the GZERO World podcast.
WORLD IN 60
Does Putin's upcoming visit with Xi Jinping signal a continuing “no limits” partnership between China and Russia?
Why is Europe alarmed with Georgia's “foreign agents” law?
How will Biden respond if Israel continues to push into Rafah?
Find out in this week’s World in 60 Seconds!
Do you like what you’ve seen??Sign up for GZERO Daily by Ian Bremmer
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BECAUSE THE INTERNET
Super excited about the upcoming presidential debates…
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WHAT TO READ THIS WEEK
From Troy to Hiroshima, wars ending in utter decimation are an all-too-common byproduct of human conflict. In?The End of Everything,?Victor Davis Hanson couples a review of the different horrors of war with a dissection of the?common thread among all the destruction: the pitfalls of human nature.
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DEEP THOUGHTS
“A bright future beckons. The onus is on us, through hard work, honesty, and integrity, to reach for the stars.” — Nelson Mandela
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Thanks for reading!?Please subscribe to GZERO Daily for coverage of global politics. And make sure to read my latest book?The Power of Crisis?for a roadmap of this decade's great crises and how they might help us build a better world.?
Financial Professional/ Nurse Advisor
9 个月What is your Future Dream? Continuing being an employee or an entrepreneur? Watch the Dream Start Here Video to get your answer. https://agents.worldfinancialgroup.com/Joy-Odetola-C3G7G
Connecting hard facts with soft skills
9 个月Mr Eboo Patel′s point of view: "Cooperation is better than division" is likely to be useful in peaceful discussion at students seminars. It is definitely not useful at aggressive, violent, racist and pro-terrorist propaganda activities on University′s campuses. And it is not (only) naive to talk about anti-semitism like: ?"The media, for good reasons, covers planes that crash and not planes that land,"?- it is awful and best practice in relativizing hate speech, intolerance and violence against peaceful other students, namely Jewish. Those comments are effective in playing down fascist propaganda and behavior. And that aggression had been fascistic. One thing the world should have learned from the 20th century is to know what fascism is and what it produces. Therefor there cannot be any tolerance to racism, anti-semitism and violence against peaceful people. Government and University's administration as well have to stop those terror-propaganda and activities with all legal power, because of: There must be no tolerance for intolerance!
Principal - Artifex Engineering, Inc.
9 个月Ian Bremmer your speech was very good, espcially the four points you mentioned: 1. Change as the World around us changes 2. Listen to the other side (presumably people who’re not wacky). 3. Work in politics is about improving people lives. 4. Take work seriously, not ones self. It would’ve been fantastic to say something about students protests at Columbia: The latter must respect freedom of expression and the former must respect the laws. As for why the Israeli genocide has stirred such a reaction compared to say Russia-Ukraine war: People, officals and media agree (except for trumplicans) that Russia is wrong and side with Ukraine. On Israel, People agree Israel is wrong, yet, U.S. politicians and the media support Israel. This is what’s driving people’s outrage.
7mo vocal partido bloquista
9 个月Good insight!