Reflections on Improving the State of the World

I couldn't help taking a childish delight in witnessing people, from all over the world, coming together to talk about how they can improve the state of the world. Here's Moshe and Mohammed, Enrique and Navanethem, Cho Yoon-Sun and Olafur, sharing platforms with Elif, Shirin and Aliko, engaging in debate and exchanging ideas. 

This is my second World Economic Forum meeting in Davos and I am energised and inspired by the discussions which I have been fortunate to attend. It's not perfect - only 15% of the speakers are women and 'global' discussion is dominated by the US and Europe. But today I listened to Al Gore talking about global change, Lewis Pugh sharing insights about extreme swimming, and the new Iranian president's vision for his country. Writers and artists debated identity and cultural heritage and Young Global Leaders (under the age of 40) discussed creative solutions to rebuilding nations. 

Imagine that we could sit together like this in our country and listen to each other and share our experiences. After 20 years of democracy, I am deeply saddened by the level of debate in our country. It seems that we are so quick to draw lines to divide and polarise our society. It's always 'us' or 'them' and if you are not with 'us', you must be with 'them'.

Charter for Compassion shared this quote, by Martin Luther King Jnr earlier this week:

“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”

The only way we are going to heal the rifts in our historically divided society, is to start communicating with each other. Let's take time to listen to each other's stories. We have a wealth of experience which, collectively, can build a strong and stable nation.