Volker Turk
Elif Shafak
Omar El Akkad
Among the voices: ’We can either continue on our current path, a treacherous ‘new normal’and sleepwalk into a dystopian future, or we can wake up and turn things around for the better, for humanity and the planet.'Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. ‘We are living at a time in which art is even more important, literature is even more important, and I think we need stories to connect us at an age when we are constantly being pushed into polarisations and artificial tribes.’ Elif Shafak, Female Poets Society
OMAR EL AKAAD - INTERVIEWED ON CHANNEL 4
Over the last year and a half I’ve become deeply deeply cynical about the load bearing beams of the western world, be they political, cultural, journalistic, whatever. But I’ve had the almost opposite reaction to what people are doing individually. I mean, I have seen immense courage, I have seen immense solidarity, I’ve seen people risk their lives and livelihood and their careers and their reputations to stand up for a group of human beings who can offer them almost nothing in return. I’ve leached courage from all these people.
I have no doubt, that the values system that allows someone to stand in opposition to injustice, is alive and well. I just don’t trust the power centres to be the gatekeepers of that. So, in a sense, the things I turn my back on now, in the western world, are not particularly linked to what I’m seeing individuals do.