October 16, 2019 - 10:36am
I sat down with author and Deputy Director of the Gates Foundation Hassan Damluji to discuss his new book, The Responsible Globalist.
His central idea is that globalists need to learn from nationalists about the importance of ideas of belonging and identity. The only way they will succeed, he argues, is by replicating those same feelings at a global level.
What I really like about Hassan’s book is that he takes seriously the complaints of populist voters over the past few years – for example, he thinks individual countries must be able to control their own pace of immigration. He doesn’t demonise them as dark regressive forces that need to be put back in their box.
But where I am less convinced is that feelings of identity can be successfully fostered by campaigns or schemes like these; even if they could, aren’t identities fundamentally defined in opposition to other identities, which makes a strong global identity impossible? We had an enjoyable and robust discussion – have a watch.
Freddie Sayers is the Editor-in-Chief & CEO of UnHerd. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of YouGov, and founder of PoliticsHome.
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