How the West can save itself from selfdestruction
um
i am english so i will speak in english
i’m in zurich on a visit even though i
live in ireland and the uk
i’m on a visit for a number of reasons
to do with
dealing with the pandemic and public
policy following the pandemic
but also i’ve taken the opportunity to
visit
the site in this city where my
countrymen winston churchill
gave a very memorable and famous speech
in 1946 on the 19th of september 1946
74 years ago almost exactly
calling for a united states of europe
what he was addressing is something
similar to what we need to address today
in our own democracies he was addressing
the natural competitiveness of nations
the way in which that nationalism that
competitiveness had led to two world
wars during the 20th century
and to terrible extremes of politics and
of poverty
in many countries and he was calling for
a new approach an approach of
international collaboration
an approach at a global level that would
be led by the united nations
that he had had an important part in
designing along with his collaborators
franklin delano roosevelt
and later harry s truman in the united
states
but also at a european level through the
creation of
a european community
churchill was an old-fashioned british
imperialist
the british empire still existed we
hadn’t yet dismantled it
so he didn’t actually propose that
britain should be part of this united
states of europe
but it was directly implicit
in his speech that we should work
alongside it
that we should be one of the
interlocking circles of international
collaboration
setting up institutions setting up
treaties
and rules of conduct so that competition
would happen
between nations in a peaceful manner a
constructive manner
rather than a destructive manner
later when the british empire was
dismantled of course britain did join
the european union now very sadly from
my point of view
we’ve decided to leave it we are part of
the challenge to
the very memory the very legacy that
winston churchill
started the creation of in that speech
in 1946
but more broadly what we’re facing now
and the subject really of our discussion
uh
for tedx graceto is a destruction
a potential self-destruction of
democracy
of the west of the network of nations
that churchill was so instrumental in
helping
to create after the second world war in
1946
by the west i mean the liberal democracy
that has spread around the world not
just in the countries of western europe
or north america but also in japan in
taiwan in south korea
in chile and mexico in all sorts of
countries
all over the world but also
the connection between those liberal
democracies
sense that we share not just common
values but a set of common interests
that have made us interested in uh the
building up of international
institutions of international law
and of treaties that dictate the way in
which
uh competition between our countries um
is conducted particularly the world
trade organization the united nations
and its various institutions the world
health organization
and of course the bilateral security
treaties and multilateral ones
that the united states was instrumental
in setting up in the 1940s and 1950s
nato in europe the u.s japan security
treaty
in east asia the u.s south korea
security treaty in east asia
the intelligence sharing network between
america britain australia new zealand
and canada
we call the five eyes network
these are the fabric of the west
1946 when churchill was speaking here in
zurich
we’d seen the threat of destruction
played out through fascism through
war both in asia and in europe and
we were very conscious of what this had
wrought
today we are seeing a self-destruction
from within
a self-destruction of liberal democracy
an undermining of some of the
fundamentals of liberal democracy
but also a destruction of fragmentation
of the network of the west that we have
depended upon
this is happening in my view for three
big reasons
the first are the twin crises that we’ve
been
facing in the last decade 2008 global
financial crisis
this year between the pandemic the
coronavirus pandemic
neither of which our governments of the
west have responded to
very well by and large some better than
others but many of them
have left their own citizens
disillusioned
alienated in how well they’ve operated
but also crises that have led to a
fragmentation
of our collaboration with one another a
diminishing
of the perceived value of international
collaboration
relative to simply going it alone
related to that is the second big threat
a loss of confidence
and leadership from the most fundamental
country of the west the united states
itself under donald trump
reinforcing and accelerating
pre-existing trend but nevertheless
taking it to
absolutely new points
america has shown an enormous doubt
in the value of international
collaboration and shown a new view
that essentially not just trade
but also military alliances themselves
should be seen as essentially
transactional essentially uh
trade-offs which one country pays and
the other provides
one country considers itself a winner
and the other perhaps considers itself a
loser
and donald trump during his time in
office has considered allies
the european union japan south korea
as being equivalent to enemies
he has also considered china and russia
to be enemies in certain respects but
what’s been shocking has been his
treatment of allies
so that loss of confidence and
leadership in the united states has been
absolutely
critical the third factor is the rise of
china
the rise of china and other big emerging
economies to a new prominence in
economic and political affairs
to positions close to technological
leadership
do mean that the international
arrangements on which we depend
have to be reset and rethought to
accommodate
those new countries but also to deal
with any challenges that they
specifically make to
the rules and to the arrangements
that we’ve come to take for granted so
those three threats
have led to a fragmentation of the west
our failure to respond well to 2008 and
now to 2020
has led to a polarization in many of our
own societies
a loss of much of that sense of equality
of citizenship
that democracy is so good at building up
but that if it disappears undermines
faith in democracy
and a great loss in a belief in
international institutions and the value
of global collaboration
something of a shift back towards a
sense of a world in which
dog eats dog it’s a battle of all
against all
a sense of trying to triumph or perhaps
trying to isolate yourself
and become wholly independent in the
spirit
of american isolationism from the past
and perhaps arguably in a spirit of
a former nostalgic british imperial way
of thinking
that lies behind some of brexit the
self-destruction of the west
is in front of us but it is not
inevitable
we can i believe reverse this trend
we can i believe restore and resurrect
a sense of belief not just in the west
but also in the international
institutions that are so valuable to us
how do we do that i think first and
foremost
we have to work within our societies our
liberal democracies need
a new sense of investment in the years
after the pandemic
an investment in the sense of equality
of citizenship
through education through the
distribution of income
through equal treatment and justice
that equality of sense of citizenship of
opportunity of
regard is fundamental to the acceptance
by citizens
of the very democracy on which
they depend on which the stability of
our countries depend and we have
neglected that
equality over particularly the last 15
years
and let too much inequality rise
and start to rot away at the heart of
our societies
second we need a new investment in
international collaboration
we need new winston churchill’s to stand
up
and give great speeches at universities
on social media on television
wherever it can be done making the case
for international collaboration the case
that the pandemic really should have
reinforced because this is
absolutely quintessentially a crisis
where in which we
live together or fall together but which
has tragically
been a crisis in which while scientists
have collaborated
governments have essentially competed
and governments have moved further apart
from one another rather than closer
together
we need statesmen egged on by their
citizens by you
and by me to
renew again their belief in the fact
that
if we don’t collaborate we’ll be weaker
if we don’t collaborate
we will harm ourselves if we don’t
collaborate we will not solve
our problems the united states of europe
was
winston churchill’s call in 1946
not saying that we need a united states
of the world but what we do need
is a reset of international cooperation
a reset of international institutions
that bind us together
and particularly a reset of the
obligation
felt by country upon country to talk
first
and compete second rather than the other
way around
thank you very much for listening ladies
and gentlemen and i wish
tedx crossetto a great success
you