Episode 1: The Challenges of Our Time
Robert David Cohen is an award-winning poet, journalist, children’s rights expert and communications strategist. He is the director and co-founder of Rain Barrel Communications, a global consulting firm based in NYC. Rain Barrel gives strategic and tactical communications support and counsel to UN agencies and other international organizations, NGOs, governments, businesses and universities. Prior to founding Rain Barrel, Robert was a communication specialist for UNICEF. He worked in dozens of countries to facilitate dialogue, create partnerships, foster trust and find common ground among diverse stakeholders for a broad array of advocacy causes, many of them centered on the rights and well-being of children. He served as chief speechwriter to two successive Executive Directors, helping to articulate the mission of the organization on issues ranging from preventable child and maternal deaths and hunger to HIV/AIDS and child soldiers. He joins us from New York City, USA.
Robert speaks to us about:
working as a journalist and editor in Latin America
working as a speech writer for Jim Grant
the power of language
the negotiations that took place behind the ratification of the Convention of the Rights of the Child
communication for development and unintentional harm
the existential challenge that is climate change
unjust economic and political models
multilateralism
new models of cooperation
the COVID-19 pandemic - and much more.
Editors Note: The transcript has been slightly edited for clarity and coherence.
Transcript
Intro: I am optimistic of the good in most people, and we are social animals — evolution shaped us to cooperate in order to survive, and I believe we will find ways to save the planet. Mother Nature will help us in that because of the great resilience she has, that nature has. But we’ve got to act decisively, and it’s gonna require absolute shifts in social systems, economics and the structures and dynamics of international cooperation.
Safa: Welcome back to the Rethinking Development Podcast. My name is Safa and I will be your host as we speak with and learn from practitioners of all backgrounds and affiliations around the world. In our conversations, we aim to rethink ethical behaviour and best practices through the lived experiences and personal reflections of different practitioners. Our guest today is Mr Robert David Cohen. Mr. Robert David Cohen is an award winning poet, journalist, children’s rights expert and communications strategist. He is the director and co founder of Rain Barrel Communications, a global consulting firm based in New York City. Rain Barrel gives strategic and tactical communications support and counsel to UN agencies and other international organizations, NGOs, governments, businesses and universities. Robert’s focus as part of the Rain Barrel management team, is on C4D, children and media and the development of communication strategies. Prior to founding Rain Barrel, Robert was a communication specialist with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). He worked in dozens of countries to facilitate dialogue, create partnerships, foster trust and find common ground among diverse stakeholders for a broad array of advocacy causes, many of them centered on the rights and well being of children. He served as a Chief Speechwriter to two successive Executive Directors, helping them to articulate the mission of the organization on issues ranging from preventable child and maternal deaths and hunger to HIV and AIDS and child soldiers. Robert, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
Robert: Thank you. Safa. It’s a pleasure and an honour to be here.
Safa: Thank you. Maybe we can begin by you telling us a bit about your upbringing and the interest or experiences and motivations you had at that earlier stage that led you to working in storytelling and in communications.
Robert: Well, I am a New Yorker. I was born and grew up in the Bronx, New York, lower middle class family. I grew up in the 1950’s when it seemed, at least from the comfortable safe environment of my neighbourhood and my family, that the world was going to be progressing with science and technology and the needs and rights of everyone could be addressed. I grew up feeling that a better world was possible. And then in the 1960’s, when I sort of came of age, I was very influenced by the realization that there were huge injustices and challenges that needed to be confronted. And I became an activist. During my college years, I participated in the movement to end the war in Vietnam, civil rights struggles, became a poet, and was very impacted by the cultural as well as the political upheavals of the 60’s. I had a sense of — shared the idealism of my generation. And I carried that through the rest of my life, mainly from the aspect of culture and writing in communication.
Safa: Fantastic. You know, you were a poet, you still are a poet. What would you say are the values or the practices of being a poet that you’ve carried on in your life in terms of your work also in social justice and with UNICEF?
Robert: Sometimes those worlds seem very far apart. I would like to think that I bring a little bit of that poetic sensibility into my work and like to find it in others. I believe that, as Shelley said, that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Poetry seems not to change the world, but I believe that through songs, through celebration, through language, through going beneath the surface and connecting the dots between deep individual experience and the collective consciousness, we can make a difference. And although I’m not writing as much poetry as I did years ago, I still read it and appreciate new generations of poets who are making an impact and I do believe that we need to value poetry, whether it’s the formal poetry of poets or the informal poetry that you hear in everyday life and people expressing their hearts. I think we need to acknowledge it, value it, and share it.
Safa: Absolutely. In the earlier part of your career, you moved to Mexico first and Cuba and you worked as an editor and a journalist, could you speak to us about that time? And what that work taught you in terms of the power that language can have, the power that stories can have, the impact that they can have but also the political side of journalism and working in countries where there’s more authoritarian governments?
Robert: It’s a long story. I was in graduate school at the writing program, graduate writing program of Columbia University, and I received a fellowship, I think it was $3,000 from the Book of the Month Club for a book of my poetry, and I decided that it was going to be the University of the Streets, not Columbia University where I was going to learn about poetry and life. And I took the $3,000, which was a huge amount of money at the time, and I went to Mexico. Frankly, I had the romantic notion that I would follow the footsteps of Che Guevara, who had just been assassinated by the CIA in Bolivia, and Mexico was the first step on what would be a Latin American journey. Take the activism of the antiwar activism, the civil rights activism into a more committed phase. And it was by chance that that turned into a career in journalism. In Mexico, I partnered with an American poet who was living in exile there and her family and became a father. We became a family and started working in journalism, basically to make a living. But it turned out to be a committed journalism of the left, not propaganda, but journalism to pursue the truth, to cut through a lot of the propaganda influenced by governments and corporations. And I started to work for a news agency in Mexico. This was in ’68 when there were student upheavals in Mexico and around the world. And we got caught up in the government crackdown because we were supporting the student movement and we were forced into hiding with the family for five months. Finally, when it seemed that there was no way to normalize our situation there safely, we moved to Cuba, where my partner, Margaret Randall , had been invited to work for the Book Institute, and I then began to work for Radio Havana Cuba as a journalist. And that was six years of learning to be a radio journalist, announcer, anchor, translator. And it was an extremely interesting time, not all perfect, living in Cuba, but certainly it was eye opening and uplifting in many ways to see the country taking control of its own destiny. My kids grew up and went to school there, and it was a very interesting time, meeting revolutionaries from all over the world. My own thinking developed, I was not as unconditionally accepting of everything I saw and lived, but still became an admirer of the revolution but wanted greater practices of human rights. And I eventually moved back to the United States, where I became the Bureau Chief in 1982 in the United Nations and in Washington for the new Nicaraguan News Agency that the new Sandinista Revolution created and I began to report on UN and US politics related to Central America between 1982 and 1990.
Safa: What a very interesting trajectory and personal lived experiences, whether it was the process of being in hiding or moving from one country to another. What would you say throughout that time, working in storytelling, in journalism, what would you say you learned about the impact or the power of telling stories in a time where storytellers or journalists are being prosecuted. And what did that, you know, reinforce in you in terms of your beliefs or what you think is the way to go in terms of being committed to work even though you’re being prosecuted for it basically?
Robert: One thing I learned was that the safe and protective cocoon of my childhood and growing years was not the environment of Latin America in that period. And as conflicts broke out around the world and ideological divides were being accentuated, I saw that committed journalism and committed cultural work involved taking risks. And it was inspiring to meet so many committed writers and journalists and cultural workers, fighting for justice. Fighting to tell the truth and risking their lives and many were actually killed or jailed for taking their positions, especially over the years that dictatorships held sway in so many countries in Latin America. Returning to the United States, I wanted to continue to make that contribution. And I remember that when I was in the UN, I started to receive death threats over the phone that turned out to be the Nicaraguan Contras, supported by the United States government, because of my writing about the debates in the Security Council about the mining of Nicaragua’s harbours, my stories about secret financing of the Contras through what became known as the Iran Contra Scandal, touched a nerve and they wanted to scare me. I went to the FBI, went to the authorities at the UN and received a lot of support and solidarity to be able to continue my work. But I did get a sense of the power of journalism. The power of the written word, the power of truth — and war and conflict and struggle takes place with the pen, is furthered with the pen. It is also obfuscated through lies and propaganda. I saw propaganda often from the left as well and have not wanted to participate in that. And I’ve grown as a writer and journalist, trying to be less ideological and more of a storyteller from the human perspective.
Safa: Wow, what a trying experience. You know, you mentioned that eventually you moved back and you started reporting on the work of the UN and then you joined UNICEF. Could you tell us about that transition and perhaps what the differences were and what the new motivations you had in terms of the type of work you started to do at UNICEF?
Robert: That transition was an interesting one. Being a journalist at the UN and in Washington for Nicaragua, a besieged and not rich country, not rich government, meant that I was paid very little and irregularly over those years, and I often would work nights driving a limousine in New York, and my day job was at the UN. And when the Sandinista government, the first Sandinista government was voted out of office in 1990, I was without a job and because I had been so many years at the UN, I got to know friends and colleagues working for UN agencies and a friend working for UNICEF knew that I was beginning to look for consultancies and jobs. After all, I had a family to support and had to get busy taking care of that, she called me and told me that there was need for some support, some writing, and it was on a kind of emergency basis that I was asked if I could draft three speeches for the Executive Director of UNICEF, whose speechwriter had gotten pneumonia and they needed a hand. And it had to be very quick. I had never written a speech in my life. I knew very little about children’s situation around the world, but I said, Okay, I’ll give it a shot and I drafted the three speeches, pretty sure they had to be worked on by others. But that began what eventually became a job and a career for five years working for a giant — James P. Grant, the Executive Director of UNICEF and I drafted his speeches — an extraordinary man whose vision and charisma and eloquence, real brilliance shaped my world view and my work down to this day and the career continued working for a year or so for his successor, Carol Bellamy, after Jim Grant died, and then a succession of field and regional advisor posts in communication and that was 20 years.
Safa: Wow, what an interesting start. So you kind of just were thrown into it. You jumped in and and away it went like that. Could you tell us about the process of speech writing and collaborating with with Jim Grant on the ideas and the messaging? What was that like?
Robert: Jim Grant, as I said, was a giant, a visionary. Frankly, a lot of my work was almost the work of a scribe. He was an extremely busy man and it was hard to catch up to him. There would be deadlines for 2,3,4 speeches over a week or several weeks, and they were all urgent and he did not do very short speeches. So I was always running and trying to catch up. And when I was able to have meetings with him at 6,7,8,10 o’clock at night after a million meetings being canceled during the day because of his other urgent — his schedule, he would sit back, sometimes close his eyes and lean back in his chair. And sometimes I’d wonder if he had fallen asleep — long silence and then he would lean forward and out of his mouth, fully formed really, would be sentences and paragraphs about all kinds of situations. Economic situations, the impact of structural adjustment, and World Bank policies on nutrition, on women’s health, on the impact of wars on children. And it would be a stream of brilliant, brilliant statistics and I would just take notes. Or he would say, talk to so and so, an expert in Ethiopia or a colleague in the nutrition department. And so, so much came from him, from his experience and his brilliant, brilliant analysis. But a great deal, especially, and more and more as time went on, I became, you know, I was able to draft more on my own, and as he became ill, I really had to rely on my own research. I didn’t see the position of speech writer as a power center or working as a loan, you know, solo. I really wanted to give as many people around the organization, around the world really in UNICEF offices, all kinds of experts, a role in shaping the messages of the Executive Director. And so, I kind of turned the speechwriting process into a participatory exercise, sharing information and culling information and finding best practice to tell stories of what works, not just problems, but to inspire audiences through the sense that the world can change. that in the era of the 20th century and 21st century, with great advances in science and all of the wealth of the world, the needs of all kids, the rights of all kids could be met and those challenges could be faced. And so I came into UNICEF at the time of the World Summit for Children in 1990 and that set off a chain of top level summits on a number of issues and to the international community, setting actual goals for children and women and the environment and development goals. And it was a very heady time. It was also the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War when it seemed possible that some of these goals, many of these goals, could be set collectively and and actually met through international cooperation. We’re now in the era of the Sustainable Development Goals , with greater cooperation than ever, but also huge, huge challenges from climate change, to authoritarianism, to sharper inequality due to unjust economic and political models, and to the rise of authoritarianism, perhaps best exemplified by the president of my country, Donald Trump. And this has created greater challenges for development and multilateralism then perhaps we’ve ever faced since the Second World War. So I see my work in the context of trying to perhaps find new models, to join movements for new models of social change, sustainability, in an era when there’s an existential threat hanging over the planet, which is climate change.
Safa: Absolutely. I mean, you mentioned so many different times and shifts that we have all gone through in different ways. Speaking of the intention to create inspiring speeches or create inspiring messages, what have been your experiences with balancing that desire to create a — to have an inspiring impact through language versus also speaking about the challenges that exist versus also addressing the process’ that haven’t been working or the things that do need to change?
Robert: You have asked a key question. There’s no question that we need a scientific approach. We’ve learned a lot. The world has learned a lot about what works, what doesn’t work, how to support progressive social change. And there is a titanic battle going on now between those who see the solution in strengthened multilateralism and a globalization with greater equality, taming the impact of corporate greed, strengthening the mechanisms of collaboration. This is very evident in the corona virus pandemic that we’re living through now, that the kind of systems we have, both in most nations and internationally are not set up to deal with these kinds of global threats. And so I see my my work and the work of my little, our little consulting company, Rain Barrel Communications, in using lessons learned and best practices to promote social and behavior change. In UNICEF we called it C4D — communication for development, now it’s called more frequently social and behavior change communication. And that is not just pushing out messages with desired information, accurate scientific information, it is also engaging, doing research into what are the complex socioeconomic and cultural factors, what are the social norms that drive people’s behaviors, that are barriers to progress. What is it in communities that perpetuate violence and inequality, discrimination against women, disabled people, racial and ethnic discrimination? And this approach to communication, then takes that research, engages with communities in participatory approaches and translates that into strategies and campaigns and movements to improve everything from protection, combating violence, combating child marriage, strengthening water and sanitation systems, health, nutrition. And our approach has been the approach that tries to focus on solutions, on amplifying the voices of communities, especially children and adolescents and women and go to them, relate to them as the experts. Perhaps we’re the facilitators, sharers of tools and certain techniques, but really it is those communities that have the ultimate expertise and the greatest stake in change. It’s not a simple process, it’s complicated, and in our field and in the work of the UN, there are so many vestiges of a kind of neocolonial, top down, Western approach that really doesn’t work, and more and more we see a need for transfer of power, a kind of humbling of what we do, horizontal meeting of minds in a mutual learning and creation process through communication.
Safa: You know that transfer of power or the relating to communities as the experts of a process or, you know, aiming to be community led or participatory — how would you say that’s happening at a more systemic, maybe UN agency level? What would you say have been the changes that have happened or haven’t happened? Would you say that it’s happening more and more frequently?
Robert: I do think that top down, Western dominated, male dominated approaches were the rule in the first decades of international development work and the work of the UN and its agencies. But gradually, at least from my experience, more participatory approaches, empowering approaches with community engagement, of supporting movements for change have gained in strength. UN Women and generally work with women through the UN and international cooperation has recognized the extraordinary strength and the need for leadership of feminists and women’s movements around the world. And so you see, you hear women’s voices and increasingly, women are forcing change in models of cooperation. A long way to go, but it is happening. And since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the UN in 1989, and it becoming nearly universally ratified by countries around the world, with the sad and shameful exception of the United States government, you really see a gradual shift, still incipient but important of placing children at the center, the voices of adolescence and children. And you see it today even in UNICEF with an initiative that’s really permeating the work of UNICEF called Generation Unlimited, which is focusing on the role of young people. And it’s a significant shift. I think it still needs to be more meaningful, often participation can be tokenistic. But I think that we are really seeing, I mean, what better example in the climate movement than Greta Thunberg. Greta is a giant, and she and her generation are being listened to because they forced the issue through the Friday strikes, through the women’s marches, through these movements against inequality we are seeing in Chile and in Lebanon and in South Africa, this is a time of effervescence. It’s also a time of retreat, authoritarian and inward looking nationalism. And this is a fantastic time of when the challenges are so great and it’s still unclear how it will all play out. I certainly won’t live to see the end of it if there ever is an end. I would say that I’m a bit like Antonio Gramsci, the great Italian Marxist who said that he was a pessimist of the intellect and an optimist of the heart. And so I am optimistic of the good in most people, and we are social animals, evolution shaped us to cooperate in order to survive, and I believe we will find ways to save the planet. Mother Nature will help us in that because of the great resilience she and nature has. But we’ve got to act decisively, and it will require absolute shifts in social systems, economics and the structures and dynamics of international cooperation. I’d like to think that in our projects we try to introduce some of these values and try to nudge things in that direction in a very small and modest way.
Safa: When it comes to social and behavior change or communication for development work, you’ve also had experiences of working with MTV and Cartoon Network — in terms of corporate collaborations. Could you tell us about that kind of work and how that process mis different, or what it requires that might be unique as compared to, you know, just through an international development agency?
Robert: I can say that since the 1960’s I’ve not been a great fan of multinational corporations, and their pursuit of profit over people, and their greed, not paying the taxes they should and promoting terrible things like tobacco and unhealthy food and beverages and the industrial military machinery. However, there are restraints, there are regulations, and democratic movements are trying to hold corporations accountable. In the United States, there’s been this notion of the only responsibility that corporate boards and leadership has is to the shareholders, and that is beginning to change. And I think, especially climate change, this existential threat is making more and more corporations realize that their bottom line is endangered by climate change and people’s movements are demanding greater accountability. And so you see the rise of corporate social responsibility, which has now morphed into the term more frequently used which is ‘sustainability’. When we founded Rain Barrel — by chance, unexpectedly, we were approached by Cartoon Network Latin America, a Turner Broadcasting children’s entertainment cable TV company that I had worked with briefly in the Caribbean, basically raising awareness and funds for children impacted by a particularly bad season of hurricanes. And so the vice-president for Latin America came to us and asked if we might help build their corporate social responsibility. And that led to six years of working closely with them, helping them to be not only great — well, they were a great entertainment channel for kids reaching 60 million households in the region, but also to be better corporate citizens in a region filled with so many problems affecting children. And so we identified through research with Cartoon Network issues of importance for kids and their well being and identified healthy lifestyles, ending violence, bullying especially, climate change and worked with their wonderful creatives and animators and script writers to craft campaigns and programs to convey important information but also to develop interactive and participatory process with children around the region and so on. Bullying, for example, we worked online and with partners on the ground like UNICEF and Plan International and World Vision against bullying, creating curriculum for schools, getting schools, adults and children to sign a new anti-bullying pledge to apply best practices and whole school approaches to reducing violence and creating a culture of kindness. So this was a wonderful, wonderful experience for us. The having a platform and channel to reach 60 million homes around the region, get over a million pledges from kids to end bullying. I mean this was, this was a heady period, and we learned a lot from it, and we’ve tried to apply this learning in our work ever since. Although we don’t work a lot with corporations, we’re looking for opportunities to help them hold themselves accountable and to play a more positive role and not just making money but helping to make positive change.
Safa: Wow, that’s fantastic. It seems like a very interesting and fulfilling process and project to be a part of. You know, earlier you mentioned the challenges of our times and the need for overcoming nationalism and the need for multilateralism and working together. What would you say the role of good leaders are in that and what have being your experiences with perhaps bad leadership in organizations or in general, perhaps globally, and what the antidote to that is, or how to overcome that in terms of better, better impact for everybody?
Robert: Since my career has mainly, well, since joining UNICEF, has been mostly with and through the UN, I see a bit of everything. There is a great deal of darkness and there’s a great deal of light. We have to remember that the United Nations is an organization of governments and the governing elites, the political leadership of these governments often don’t do what is best for their populations. And perpetuate violence and injustice and discrimination and basically preside over models of development that leave so many children and women and vulnerable populations behind. And so I’ve seen a bit of everything. As I mentioned when I was working at the UN as a journalist for Nicaragua and other Latin American news agencies, I saw how diplomats — I’m thinking now of diplomats representing the Reagan administration who basically were defending an illegal and immoral policy of violence to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. The illegality that was confirmed in the ruling of the International Court, International Court of Justice in The Hague in the ruling against the mining of the Nicaraguan ports (by the US). And, you know, I saw leadership that was willing to stand up and tell lies. And I was also inspired by the action of the vast majority of countries opposed to that. I mean, it’s no accident that every year the US embargo against Cuba is condemned by the General Assembly with just a few exceptions, the United States and a hand full of allies. And so, yes, I have seen bad leadership, powerful leaders doing harm. But I’ve also been inspired by the fact that most developing countries, non aligned countries, European countries often will oppose the worst of these bullying tactics and policies that I’ve described. I also recall, I could give you an example, when the Convention on the Rights of the Child was being debated and as it was going into effect, I remember the delicate negotiations that went on between different interests. As a fly on the wall I saw the tension, let’s say, between the Vatican and child rights advocates on issues that have to do with basic religious beliefs. And I saw that successfully negotiated. And so the Vatican is a party to the Convention of the Rights of the Child. I saw the difficulty of negotiating the financial contributions of the United States and others to efforts by UNICEF expressed through wanting to earmark funds for certain things and not others. So the donors often carry a weight that has to be counterbalanced and negotiated delicately. And so there’s always a tension in that. I’m not sure if I’m answering your question.
Safa: No, absolutely. It’s very interesting the examples you brought up in terms of the work that has to be done to kind of appease different parties trying to work together.
Robert: Yes, I’ll give you a very, very specific example that during the Kosovo War, I was stationed in Albania, neighbouring Albania for 3 months to help out with the refugee influx and the communication challenges involved in the conflict and a huge, huge refugee influx. I think it was between 250,000 and 300,000 refugees coming over the border from Kosovo during the war and one of the issues that we dealt with was land mines that were planted by opposing sides, say, all along the border area between the two countries. And so we were working on a landmine awareness campaign especially to protect children. One thing I remember was that the US State Department created a brilliant Superman comic book that they did, I believe, with Marvel Comics, precisely showcasing the issue of land mines, the dangers of land mines. And that was distributed and we began to use the comic book along with kind of demonstrations in the refugee camps along the border and we realized the young children- 6,7,8 years old, were taking the wrong message from certain images in the comic book where Superman would swoop down into the minefield or the margins of the minefield to rescue a child who had not realized that that was a mined area. And so Superman’s magical rescue of the child was interpreted by those young children as something that they could do because they wanted to imitate their hero. And they, with magical thinking, endangered themselves and others. And so there was a NATO office there that we had collaborated with as part of the daily communication coordination, and we warned them about this. And it led to real debates in Albania, in the region, in Geneva and New York and Washington about the comic book. And we wanted, or I wanted it to be changed or withdrawn because of the harm that was being done, even though the comic book as a whole was great. But I saw that it was not going to succeed. And in the end the comic book was used and through presentations and other messages they were going to sort of correct the confusion for young children. But again, the politics of these things is always present, and I think that we just need to cooperate and debate in a reasonable way to find solutions and some of our communication research is often helpful to shine light on these hidden issues that might not be evident at first blush.
Safa: That’s a fascinating example. It’s so interesting how everyone can take away such different messages from the same kind of content and it really depends on on your perspective and your point of view, and also how, you know, how something that is intended for good can have unintended consequences, that can also cause harm in unintended ways. You mentioned the need for new models, new approaches, to learn from best practices and research and do things in a way that hasn’t been done before. Could you tell us about perhaps, maybe some of the things you have seen or you know of that that you’re inspired by or that you think are the way to go in terms of international cooperation or development work in the in the years to come?
Robert: I’m not sure I or anyone at this moment has the answer. But certainly this inward nationalistic, America first, Brazil first, Philippines first, China first, those approaches, Russia first, need to change. We are living, as the coronavirus tells us, and climate change tells us, we are living together on this fragile planet with limited resources and growing population. The only way, the only way forward is through cooperation and multinational, multilateral, diplomatic, political and economic, greater equality, transparency, etc. , applying the lessons of science. We need, just to give the example of climate change, we need to make the Paris Accords work and give them teeth. We need to return to the nuclear agreement with Iran. It’s going to be diplomacy, not war, not sanctions, not tax on individuals. We need to find a way to combat terrorism that doesn’t further religious discrimination. You see in Syria a microcosm of most of the problems that the world is facing with big powers and regional powers ending up devastating the lives of civilians. And this is, a tragedy. And so I think that the efforts of the UN really need to be strengthened and not undermined. And this corona virus pandemic is a great example of how we need to quickly learn from China and Italy, among others, and apply that in all countries and where I’m sitting right now, there is an emergency in the United States and in New York State, and I feel the absolute inadequacy of preparations in the richest country in the world. And so I would say, use that wealth, use that power to strengthen democracy, narrow inequalities and find peaceful solutions — and communication can help with that. Telling the truth can help with that, social media, fake media, this is a time of great possibility to use those tools. It’s a huge challenge, and I hope that your podcast can contribute perhaps in a modest way to finding solutions to these somewhat intractable problems facing humankind.
Safa: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Robert for your your time and your thoughts.
Robert: I want to basically add one thing.
Safa: Absolutely.
Robert: You know, I’m not a religious person, but I do realize that there are spiritual dimensions that unite all living things, unite all people, that connect us with nature and the stardust, the great mysteries of where we come from and where we go — these are the ever present existential mysteries, and science and technology take us far, but not all the way. And I think that living in uncertainty and in mystery, shining a light with the science and technology is good but we also have to use traditional practices, meditation, mindfulness, caring for one another. Looking at the inner life as well as our social existence, and solidarity is the answer. So I’ve come to understand that we are one big family and we must treat ourselves with kindness and our human family with kindness.
Safa: I think that’s beautifully said and thank you for sharing that. Finally, also, would you like to add where the listeners can maybe read some of your your work, your poems, is there, is there a location you’d like to send them to in terms of a website or blog.
Robert: I do have a blog of poetry from across my lifetime, some of it better than others. But it’s up there if listeners want to look at some of the poems published and unpublished poems, many of them are up there, and it would be, just google Robert David Cohen poetry and you’ll find my blogspot.
Safa: Perfect. Thank you. Thank you so much Robert, it’s been great to speak with you. You have such interesting and such a great range of experiences and important thoughts to share. Thank you for your time today.
Robert: Well, thank you. It’s really been a pleasure.
Safa: Thank you so much. I really appreciate the support. Also thank you to our listeners. To keep up with future episodes you can subscribe on iTunes or follow us on Spotify and Google podcast platforms. And we’re also on instagram where you can join the conversation and find us @rethinkingdevelopment. I look forward to continuing similar conversations with you all in the future weeks to come. Until then, take care.
