The risky politics of progress
-
0:01 - 0:04The conventional wisdom
about our world today -
0:04 - 0:07is that this is a time
of terrible decline. -
0:08 - 0:12And that's not surprising,
given the bad news all around us, -
0:12 - 0:14from ISIS to inequality,
-
0:14 - 0:16political dysfunction, climate change,
-
0:16 - 0:18Brexit, and on and on.
-
0:20 - 0:23But here's the thing,
and this may sound a little weird. -
0:24 - 0:26I actually don't buy
this gloomy narrative, -
0:27 - 0:29and I don't think you should either.
-
0:29 - 0:31Look, it's not that
I don't see the problems. -
0:31 - 0:33I read the same headlines that you do.
-
0:34 - 0:38What I dispute is the conclusion
that so many people draw from them, -
0:38 - 0:40namely that we're all screwed
-
0:40 - 0:43because the problems are unsolvable
-
0:43 - 0:45and our governments are useless.
-
0:45 - 0:47Now, why do I say this?
-
0:47 - 0:50It's not like I'm particularly
optimistic by nature. -
0:50 - 0:54But something about the media's
constant doom-mongering -
0:54 - 0:58with its fixation on problems
and not on answers -
0:58 - 1:00has always really bugged me.
-
1:00 - 1:02So a few years ago I decided,
-
1:02 - 1:04well, I'm a journalist,
-
1:04 - 1:06I should see if I can do any better
-
1:06 - 1:10by going around the world
and actually asking folks -
1:10 - 1:11if and how they've tackled
-
1:11 - 1:13their big economic
and political challenges. -
1:15 - 1:17And what I found astonished me.
-
1:17 - 1:21It turns out that there are remarkable
signs of progress out there, -
1:22 - 1:25often in the most unexpected places,
-
1:25 - 1:28and they've convinced me
that our great global challenges -
1:28 - 1:31may not be so unsolvable after all.
-
1:31 - 1:34Not only are there theoretical fixes;
-
1:34 - 1:36those fixes have been tried.
-
1:36 - 1:38They've worked.
-
1:38 - 1:40And they offer hope for the rest of us.
-
1:40 - 1:42I'm going to show you what I mean
-
1:42 - 1:45by telling you about
how three of the countries I visited -- -
1:45 - 1:47Canada, Indonesia and Mexico --
-
1:47 - 1:50overcame three supposedly
impossible problems. -
1:51 - 1:55Their stories matter because they contain
tools the rest of us can use, -
1:55 - 1:58and not just for those
particular problems, -
1:58 - 1:59but for many others, too.
-
2:01 - 2:05When most people think
about my homeland, Canada, today, -
2:05 - 2:07if they think about Canada at all,
-
2:07 - 2:11they think cold, they think boring,
they think polite. -
2:11 - 2:14They think we say "sorry" too much
in our funny accents. -
2:15 - 2:16And that's all true.
-
2:16 - 2:18(Laughter)
-
2:18 - 2:19Sorry.
-
2:19 - 2:20(Laughter)
-
2:20 - 2:22But Canada's also important
-
2:23 - 2:25because of its triumph over a problem
-
2:25 - 2:28currently tearing
many other countries apart: -
2:28 - 2:29immigration.
-
2:29 - 2:33Consider, Canada today is among
the world's most welcoming nations, -
2:34 - 2:37even compared to other
immigration-friendly countries. -
2:37 - 2:42Its per capita immigration rate
is four times higher than France's, -
2:42 - 2:44and its percentage
of foreign-born residents -
2:44 - 2:46is double that of Sweden.
-
2:46 - 2:48Meanwhile, Canada admitted
-
2:48 - 2:5210 times more Syrian refugees
in the last year -
2:52 - 2:53than did the United States.
-
2:53 - 2:56(Applause)
-
3:00 - 3:03And now Canada is taking even more.
-
3:03 - 3:05And yet, if you ask Canadians
-
3:05 - 3:07what makes them proudest of their country,
-
3:08 - 3:10they rank "multiculturalism,"
-
3:10 - 3:12a dirty word in most places,
-
3:12 - 3:13second,
-
3:13 - 3:15ahead of hockey.
-
3:16 - 3:17Hockey.
-
3:17 - 3:19(Laughter)
-
3:20 - 3:22In other words,
at a time when other countries -
3:22 - 3:25are now frantically building
new barriers to keep foreigners out, -
3:25 - 3:28Canadians want even more of them in.
-
3:29 - 3:31Now, here's the really interesting part.
-
3:32 - 3:34Canada wasn't always like this.
-
3:34 - 3:39Until the mid-1960s, Canada followed
an explicitly racist immigration policy. -
3:40 - 3:43They called it "White Canada,"
-
3:43 - 3:46and as you can see, they were not
just talking about the snow. -
3:47 - 3:52So how did that Canada
become today's Canada? -
3:53 - 3:56Well, despite what my mom
in Ontario will tell you, -
3:56 - 3:58the answer had nothing to do with virtue.
-
3:58 - 4:01Canadians are not inherently
better than anyone else. -
4:01 - 4:06The real explanation involves the man
who became Canada's leader in 1968, -
4:06 - 4:09Pierre Trudeau, who is also
the father of the current prime minister. -
4:09 - 4:12(Applause)
-
4:13 - 4:15The thing to know about that first Trudeau
-
4:15 - 4:18is that he was very different
from Canada's previous leaders. -
4:18 - 4:22He was a French speaker in a country
long-dominated by its English elite. -
4:22 - 4:24He was an intellectual.
-
4:24 - 4:27He was even kind of groovy.
-
4:27 - 4:30I mean, seriously, the guy did yoga.
-
4:30 - 4:31He hung out with the Beatles.
-
4:31 - 4:32(Laughter)
-
4:32 - 4:35And like all hipsters,
he could be infuriating at times. -
4:37 - 4:38But he nevertheless pulled off
-
4:38 - 4:43one of the most progressive
transformations any country has ever seen. -
4:44 - 4:47His formula, I've learned,
involved two parts. -
4:47 - 4:51First, Canada threw out
its old race-based immigration rules, -
4:51 - 4:54and it replaced them
with new color-blind ones -
4:54 - 4:59that emphasized education,
experience and language skills instead. -
4:59 - 5:01And what that did
was greatly increase the odds -
5:01 - 5:04that newcomers would
contribute to the economy. -
5:05 - 5:08Then part two, Trudeau
created the world's first policy -
5:08 - 5:12of official multiculturalism
to promote integration -
5:12 - 5:17and the idea that diversity
was the key to Canada's identity. -
5:18 - 5:21Now, in the years that followed,
Ottawa kept pushing this message, -
5:21 - 5:24but at the same time, ordinary Canadians
-
5:24 - 5:28soon started to see the economic,
the material benefits of multiculturalism -
5:28 - 5:30all around them.
-
5:30 - 5:32And these two influences soon combined
-
5:32 - 5:36to create the passionately
open-minded Canada of today. -
5:38 - 5:41Let's now turn to another country
and an even tougher problem, -
5:41 - 5:42Islamic extremism.
-
5:43 - 5:47In 1998, the people of Indonesia
took to the streets -
5:47 - 5:50and overthrew
their longtime dictator, Suharto. -
5:50 - 5:53It was an amazing moment,
-
5:53 - 5:54but it was also a scary one.
-
5:54 - 5:56With 250 million people,
-
5:56 - 6:00Indonesia is the largest
Muslim-majority country on Earth. -
6:00 - 6:03It's also hot, huge and unruly,
-
6:03 - 6:06made up of 17,000 islands,
-
6:06 - 6:08where people speak
close to a thousand languages. -
6:09 - 6:11Now, Suharto had been a dictator,
-
6:11 - 6:13and a nasty one.
-
6:13 - 6:16But he'd also been
a pretty effective tyrant, -
6:16 - 6:19and he'd always been careful
to keep religion out of politics. -
6:19 - 6:23So experts feared that without
him keeping a lid on things, -
6:23 - 6:25the country would explode,
-
6:25 - 6:27or religious extremists would take over
-
6:27 - 6:30and turn Indonesia
into a tropical version of Iran. -
6:32 - 6:34And that's just what seemed
to happen at first. -
6:34 - 6:37In the country's
first free elections, in 1999, -
6:37 - 6:41Islamist parties scored
36 percent of the vote, -
6:41 - 6:43and the islands burned
-
6:43 - 6:45as riots and terror attacks
killed thousands. -
6:47 - 6:51Since then, however,
Indonesia has taken a surprising turn. -
6:52 - 6:55While ordinary folks have grown
more pious on a personal level -- -
6:56 - 6:58I saw a lot more headscarves
on a recent visit -
6:58 - 7:00than I would have a decade ago --
-
7:00 - 7:03the country's politics
have moved in the opposite direction. -
7:04 - 7:06Indonesia is now
a pretty decent democracy. -
7:08 - 7:11And yet, its Islamist parties
have steadily lost support, -
7:11 - 7:15from a high of about 38 percent in 2004
-
7:15 - 7:18down to 25 percent in 2014.
-
7:19 - 7:22As for terrorism, it's now extremely rare.
-
7:22 - 7:25And while a few Indonesians
have recently joined ISIS, -
7:25 - 7:27their number is tiny,
-
7:28 - 7:31far fewer in per capita terms
-
7:31 - 7:33than the number of Belgians.
-
7:34 - 7:37Try to think of one other
Muslim-majority country -
7:37 - 7:39that can say all those same things.
-
7:39 - 7:42In 2014, I went to Indonesia
to ask its current president, -
7:42 - 7:46a soft-spoken technocrat
named Joko Widodo, -
7:46 - 7:50"Why is Indonesia thriving when
so many other Muslim states are dying?" -
7:51 - 7:53"Well, what we realized," he told me,
-
7:53 - 7:58"is that to deal with extremism,
we needed to deal with inequality first." -
7:58 - 8:01See, Indonesia's religious parties,
like similar parties elsewhere, -
8:01 - 8:05had tended to focus on things like
reducing poverty and cutting corruption. -
8:06 - 8:09So that's what Joko
and his predecessors did too, -
8:09 - 8:11thereby stealing the Islamists' thunder.
-
8:11 - 8:14They also cracked down hard on terrorism,
-
8:14 - 8:17but Indonesia's democrats
have learned a key lesson -
8:17 - 8:19from the dark years of dictatorship,
-
8:19 - 8:23namely that repression
only creates more extremism. -
8:24 - 8:28So they waged their war
with extraordinary delicacy. -
8:28 - 8:30They used the police instead of the army.
-
8:30 - 8:33They only detained suspects
if they had enough evidence. -
8:33 - 8:35They held public trials.
-
8:35 - 8:37They even sent
liberal imams into the jails -
8:37 - 8:40to persuade the jihadists
that terror is un-Islamic. -
8:41 - 8:44And all of this paid off
in spectacular fashion, -
8:44 - 8:47creating the kind of country
that was unimaginable 20 years ago. -
8:49 - 8:52So at this point,
my optimism should, I hope, -
8:52 - 8:54be starting to make a bit more sense.
-
8:54 - 8:58Neither immigration nor Islamic extremism
are impossible to deal with. -
8:58 - 9:00Join me now on one last trip,
-
9:01 - 9:02this time to Mexico.
-
9:03 - 9:06Now, of our three stories,
this one probably surprised me the most, -
9:06 - 9:08since as you all know,
-
9:08 - 9:11the country is still struggling
with so many problems. -
9:11 - 9:13And yet, a few years ago,
Mexico did something -
9:13 - 9:19that many other countries
from France to India to the United States -
9:19 - 9:20can still only dream of.
-
9:20 - 9:24It shattered the political paralysis
that had gripped it for years. -
9:25 - 9:28To understand how,
we need to rewind to the year 2000, -
9:28 - 9:31when Mexico finally became a democracy.
-
9:31 - 9:35Rather than use their new freedoms
to fight for reform, -
9:35 - 9:38Mexico's politicians used them
to fight one another. -
9:38 - 9:41Congress deadlocked,
and the country's problems -- -
9:41 - 9:44drugs, poverty, crime, corruption --
-
9:44 - 9:46spun out of control.
-
9:46 - 9:49Things got so bad that in 2008,
-
9:49 - 9:52the Pentagon warned
that Mexico risked collapse. -
9:53 - 9:57Then in 2012, this guy
named Enrique Peña Nieto -
9:57 - 9:59somehow got himself elected president.
-
10:00 - 10:04Now, this Peña hardly inspired
much confidence at first. -
10:05 - 10:06Sure, he was handsome,
-
10:07 - 10:11but he came from Mexico's
corrupt old ruling party, the PRI, -
10:11 - 10:14and he was a notorious womanizer.
-
10:15 - 10:18In fact, he seemed
like such a pretty boy lightweight -
10:18 - 10:20that women called him "bombón," sweetie,
-
10:20 - 10:22at campaign rallies.
-
10:23 - 10:27And yet this same bombón
soon surprised everyone -
10:27 - 10:28by hammering out a truce
-
10:28 - 10:31between the country's
three warring political parties. -
10:31 - 10:34And over the next 18 months,
they together passed -
10:34 - 10:37an incredibly comprehensive
set of reforms. -
10:37 - 10:40They busted open Mexico's
smothering monopolies. -
10:40 - 10:43They liberalized
its rusting energy sector. -
10:43 - 10:46They restructured
its failing schools, and much more. -
10:46 - 10:49To appreciate the scale
of this accomplishment, -
10:49 - 10:53try to imagine the US Congress
passing immigration reform, -
10:53 - 10:56campaign finance reform
and banking reform. -
10:56 - 10:59Now, try to imagine Congress
doing it all at the same time. -
11:00 - 11:01That's what Mexico did.
-
11:02 - 11:06Not long ago, I met with Peña
and asked how he managed it all. -
11:06 - 11:09The President flashed me
his famous twinkly smile -- -
11:09 - 11:11(Laughter)
-
11:13 - 11:18and told me that the short answer
was "compromiso," compromise. -
11:18 - 11:19Of course, I pushed him for details,
-
11:19 - 11:22and the long answer
that came out was essentially -
11:22 - 11:25"compromise, compromise
and more compromise." -
11:25 - 11:28See, Peña knew that he needed
to build trust early, -
11:28 - 11:32so he started talking to the opposition
just days after his election. -
11:32 - 11:34To ward off pressure
from special interests, -
11:34 - 11:37he kept their meetings small and secret,
-
11:37 - 11:41and many of the participants
later told me that it was this intimacy, -
11:41 - 11:43plus a lot of shared tequila,
-
11:43 - 11:45that helped build confidence.
-
11:46 - 11:48So did the fact that all decisions
had to be unanimous, -
11:48 - 11:53and that Peña even agreed to pass
some of the other party's priorities -
11:53 - 11:54before his own.
-
11:55 - 11:58As Santiago Creel,
an opposition senator, put it to me, -
11:58 - 12:03"Look, I'm not saying that I'm special
or that anyone is special, -
12:03 - 12:05but that group, that was special."
-
12:06 - 12:07The proof?
-
12:07 - 12:11When Peña was sworn in, the pact held,
-
12:11 - 12:14and Mexico moved forward
for the first time in years. -
12:16 - 12:17Bueno.
-
12:17 - 12:19So now we've seen
how these three countries -
12:19 - 12:22overcame three of their great challenges.
-
12:22 - 12:23And that's very nice for them, right?
-
12:23 - 12:26But what good does it do the rest of us?
-
12:27 - 12:31Well, in the course of studying these
and a bunch of other success stories, -
12:31 - 12:35like the way Rwanda pulled itself
back together after civil war -
12:35 - 12:37or Brazil has reduced inequality,
-
12:38 - 12:41or South Korea has kept its economy
growing faster and for longer -
12:41 - 12:43than any other country on Earth,
-
12:43 - 12:46I've noticed a few common threads.
-
12:46 - 12:49Now, before describing them,
I need to add a caveat. -
12:49 - 12:51I realize, of course,
that all countries are unique. -
12:51 - 12:54So you can't simply
take what worked in one, -
12:54 - 12:57port it to another
and expect it to work there too. -
12:57 - 12:59Nor do specific solutions work forever.
-
12:59 - 13:02You've got to adapt them
as circumstances change. -
13:03 - 13:06That said, by stripping
these stories to their essence, -
13:07 - 13:11you absolutely can distill
a few common tools for problem-solving -
13:11 - 13:14that will work in other countries
-
13:14 - 13:15and in boardrooms
-
13:15 - 13:18and in all sorts of other contexts, too.
-
13:19 - 13:22Number one, embrace the extreme.
-
13:22 - 13:24In all the stories we've just looked at,
-
13:24 - 13:27salvation came at a moment
of existential peril. -
13:28 - 13:30And that was no coincidence.
-
13:30 - 13:34Take Canada: when Trudeau took office,
he faced two looming dangers. -
13:35 - 13:37First, though his vast,
underpopulated country -
13:37 - 13:39badly needed more bodies,
-
13:39 - 13:42its preferred source
for white workers, Europe, -
13:42 - 13:46had just stopped exporting them
as it finally recovered from World War II. -
13:46 - 13:48The other problem was
that Canada's long cold war -
13:48 - 13:51between its French
and its English communities -
13:51 - 13:53had just become a hot one.
-
13:53 - 13:55Quebec was threatening to secede,
-
13:55 - 13:59and Canadians were actually
killing other Canadians over politics. -
13:59 - 14:03Now, countries face
crises all the time. Right? -
14:03 - 14:04That's nothing special.
-
14:05 - 14:09But Trudeau's genius
was to realize that Canada's crisis -
14:09 - 14:12had swept away all the hurdles
that usually block reform. -
14:13 - 14:16Canada had to open up. It had no choice.
-
14:17 - 14:19And it had to rethink its identity.
-
14:19 - 14:21Again, it had no choice.
-
14:21 - 14:24And that gave Trudeau
a once-in-a-generation opportunity -
14:24 - 14:27to break the old rules and write new ones.
-
14:27 - 14:31And like all our other heroes,
he was smart enough to seize it. -
14:32 - 14:35Number two, there's power
in promiscuous thinking. -
14:36 - 14:39Another striking similarity
among good problem-solvers -
14:39 - 14:41is that they're all pragmatists.
-
14:41 - 14:44They'll steal the best answers
from wherever they find them, -
14:44 - 14:46and they don't let details
-
14:46 - 14:51like party or ideology
or sentimentality get in their way. -
14:51 - 14:54As I mentioned earlier,
Indonesia's democrats were clever enough -
14:54 - 14:59to steal many of the Islamists'
best campaign promises for themselves. -
14:59 - 15:03They even invited some of the radicals
into their governing coalition. -
15:03 - 15:07Now, that horrified
a lot of secular Indonesians. -
15:08 - 15:13But by forcing the radicals
to actually help govern, -
15:13 - 15:17it quickly exposed the fact
that they weren't any good at the job, -
15:17 - 15:20and it got them mixed up
in all of the grubby compromises -
15:20 - 15:23and petty humiliations
that are part of everyday politics. -
15:23 - 15:26And that hurt their image so badly
that they've never recovered. -
15:27 - 15:29Number three,
-
15:29 - 15:31please all of the people some of the time.
-
15:32 - 15:37I know I just mentioned how crises
can grant leaders extraordinary freedoms. -
15:37 - 15:41And that's true, but problem-solving
often requires more than just boldness. -
15:41 - 15:44It takes showing restraint, too,
-
15:44 - 15:47just when that's
the last thing you want to do. -
15:47 - 15:49Take Trudeau: when he took office,
-
15:49 - 15:51he could easily have put
his core constituency, -
15:51 - 15:54that is Canada's French community, first.
-
15:54 - 15:57He could have pleased
some of the people all of the time. -
15:58 - 16:01And Peña could have used his power
to keep attacking the opposition, -
16:01 - 16:03as was traditional in Mexico.
-
16:03 - 16:06Yet he chose to embrace
his enemies instead, -
16:06 - 16:09while forcing his own party to compromise.
-
16:09 - 16:13And Trudeau pushed everyone
to stop thinking in tribal terms -
16:13 - 16:18and to see multiculturalism,
not language and not skin color, -
16:18 - 16:20as what made them
quintessentially Canadian. -
16:21 - 16:23Nobody got everything they wanted,
-
16:23 - 16:27but everyone got just enough
that the bargains held. -
16:29 - 16:31So at this point you may be thinking,
-
16:31 - 16:32"OK, Tepperman,
-
16:32 - 16:35if the fixes really are out there
like you keep insisting, -
16:35 - 16:38then why aren't more countries
already using them?" -
16:39 - 16:41It's not like they require
special powers to pull off. -
16:41 - 16:45I mean, none of the leaders
we've just looked at were superheroes. -
16:45 - 16:47They didn't accomplish
anything on their own, -
16:47 - 16:49and they all had plenty of flaws.
-
16:49 - 16:52Take Indonesia's
first democratic president, -
16:52 - 16:53Abdurrahman Wahid.
-
16:53 - 16:57This man was so powerfully uncharismatic
-
16:57 - 16:59that he once fell asleep
-
16:59 - 17:00in the middle of his own speech.
-
17:00 - 17:02(Laughter)
-
17:02 - 17:03True story.
-
17:08 - 17:12So what this tells us
is that the real obstacle is not ability, -
17:12 - 17:13and it's not circumstances.
-
17:14 - 17:16It's something much simpler.
-
17:16 - 17:20Making big changes
involves taking big risks, -
17:20 - 17:22and taking big risks is scary.
-
17:22 - 17:26Overcoming that fear requires guts,
-
17:26 - 17:27and as you all know,
-
17:27 - 17:30gutsy politicians are painfully rare.
-
17:31 - 17:33But that doesn't mean we voters
-
17:33 - 17:36can't demand courage
from our political leaders. -
17:36 - 17:39I mean, that's why we put them
in office in the first place. -
17:40 - 17:43And given the state of the world today,
there's really no other option. -
17:44 - 17:47The answers are out there,
-
17:47 - 17:49but now it's up to us
-
17:49 - 17:52to elect more women and men
-
17:52 - 17:54brave enough to find them,
-
17:54 - 17:55to steal them
-
17:55 - 17:57and to make them work.
-
17:57 - 17:58Thank you.
-
17:58 - 18:04(Applause)
- Title:
- The risky politics of progress
- Speaker:
- Jonathan Tepperman
- Description:
-
Jonathan Tepperman speaks at TEDSummit
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 18:16
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for The risky politics of progress | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for The risky politics of progress | ||
Brian Greene approved English subtitles for The risky politics of progress | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for The risky politics of progress | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for The risky politics of progress | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for The risky politics of progress | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz accepted English subtitles for The risky politics of progress | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for The risky politics of progress |