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To respond to the challenging times we are living through, physician, humanitarian and social justice advocate Dr. Paul Zeitz has identified “Revolutionary Optimism” as a new cure for hopelessness, despair, and cynicism. Revolutionary Optimism is itself an infectious, contagious, self-created way of living and connecting with others on the path of love. Once you commit yourself as a Revolutionary Optimist, you can bravely unleash your personal power, #unify with others, and accelerate action for our collective repair, justice, and peace, always keeping love at the center.
Voiceover - 00:00:03:
Welcome to Revolutionary Optimism. Living at this time in history, we're challenged with a convergence of crises that is affecting our daily lives. Issues like economic hardship, a teetering democracy, and the worsening climate emergency have left many Americans feeling more despair than ever. To respond to the challenging times we are living through, physician, humanitarian, and social justice advocate Dr. Paul Zeitz has identified Revolutionary Optimism as a new cure for hopelessness, despair, and cynicism. Once you commit yourself as a revolutionary optimist, you can bravely unleash your personal power, hashtag unify with others, and accelerate action for our collective repair, justice, and peace. On this podcast, Dr. Paul Zeitz is working to provide you with perspectives from leaders fighting for equity, justice, and peace on their strategies, insights, and tools for overcoming adversity and driving forward revolutionary transformation with unbridled optimism and real-world pragmatism. In this episode, Dr. Paul Zeitz is talking with Ellen Goldstein. Ellen Goldstein is a former World Bank director with over three decades of experience in international development, who managed large multi-billion dollar portfolios in countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe. She has played key roles in advancing policies for global economic growth and social progress, serving as country director for Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos PDR, Laos PDR PDR, and the Western Balkans. Her commitment to aid effectiveness and policy dialogue is evident in her management of substantial portfolios and collaborative efforts in countries like Bangladesh and Nepal. In addition to her impactful career, Goldstein is the author of Damned If You Do, Foreign Aid and My Struggle to Do Right in Myanmar, a thought-provoking exploration of the challenges faced by development practitioners and diplomats. The book delves into the universal struggle with foreign aid and advocates for transformative changes in international development, showcasing Goldstein's commitment to fostering positive change and equitable solutions. Here's your host, Dr. Paul Zeitz.
Paul - 00:02:30:
It's great to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining the podcast. How are you today?
Ellen - 00:02:36:
I'm great, Paul. How are you doing?
Paul - 00:02:38:
You have a world of experience, a high-level experience working for the World Bank and being a country director. You've worked in Asia, Europe, and Africa, so you have a global perspective. This is the first time we've had someone with that global view on our podcast. We've been mostly focusing on U.S. Domestic issues and challenges. So I'm really excited to talk to you and explore your global experience. So I just wanted to give you a chance to introduce yourself. Like, who are you? What are you about? Then we can bridge into learning about your book.
Ellen - 00:03:16:
Okay, great. Well, thanks a lot, Paul. And it's wonderful that you invited me here because I do think that what I've experienced in many countries, especially fragile countries, has a lot of relevance for what's happening today in the United States. In terms of who I am, uh... I guess. We can describe it as I had a long career as an international bureaucrat. And so I rose up through the ranks, mostly at the World Bank. And I was a leader on the ground in, as you mentioned, Africa, Asia, Europe, basically working with governments on questions of reducing poverty, economic reform. Basically how to move their countries forward from an economic standpoint so that they would have prosperous societies.
Paul - 00:04:14:
Excellent. So you are a do-gooder, as they say.
Ellen - 00:04:17:
I am definitely a do-gooder. You know, I grew up with a Reform Jewish background, and I think a lot of my desire to do good in the world really stems from that heritage in two senses. One is the concept of tikkun olam, which is kind of repair the world, that it is our obligation, our moral duty to repair the world. And so, you know, I... Didn't want to become a doctor or a lawyer, as is typical and stereotypical. But when I realized that I could literally go out in the world and try to do good. That really fit with that sense. And the other, I think, very striking... Experience of my childhood was all of the Holocaust lessons that I got. I mean, every one of us did every Sunday in Sunday school every year, you know. Our parents, our teachers, our rabbis, our friends, their parents, etc. We all saw over and over again those horrific films, the... You know, the testimony, et cetera. Which showed us what society can be brought to. How easy it is to go there and how we have to take action and respond, otherwise there is a danger that it could happen again. To anybody.
Paul - 00:05:48:
Yeah. Extraordinary journey that you are on. You're not done, I know, but you've led, you've worked for decades now on international development. And I do want to just acknowledge your journey because you have been able to, you climbed the ladder to the top ranks of the World Bank. And that is not easy for anyone, yet alone a woman during the decades where women were not, were marginalized in institutions like the World Bank and many other institutions. So. Can you share any kind of experience that you had during your decades of experience where you felt like. You had to overcome internal oppression within the institution that allowed you to rise to that high-level leadership role.
Ellen - 00:06:35:
Yeah, well, you're absolutely right that when I began at the World Bank, there were very few women in positions of leadership. I was among the first generation of women who went out as the head of... You know, offices out in the field. And then I, you know, I rose up, as you say, to being a director. And I think a lot of the. Issues that I faced are very familiar to every woman who tries to climb a professional ladder in the sense that especially with my sort of American cultural background, I mean, we're known for being. Very straight talking and assertive anyway. I got a lot of those A adjectives thrown at me initially about being abrasive or too assertive or being, you know, acerbic or lots of A words about. You know, being a strong personality. I was a small person and that worked against me. And at the same time, I was a strong personality and that worked against me. But over the years, I also learned how to more effectively lose my power and more effectively step into my power in a way that was not threatening or seemingly
abrasive to others, but rather, you know, really could help bring people along with humor and with just, you know, strong leadership, strong and dedicated leadership.
Paul - 00:08:12:
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. And thank you for cracking the ceiling, if you will, for the next generation and all future generations. We know that women have been oppressed by institutions like the bank and others. And so it's great to know that people like you can break through and many others now are breaking through. And it's really important for our future and for our listeners to know, don't let oppression stop you is the bottom line. It's a good segue to your book, Damned If You Do, which is a deep dive memoir into a certain phase of your life. You were already an experienced leader and you had already been the head of country programs in other parts of the world. And then. Circumstances arose where you ended up being the country director at Myanmar at a very auspicious time. So can you just take us to that moment? Tell us how you felt. What was it like on your journey after all the things that you've done? I mean, you're a world traveler. But somehow there was a spark of magic that happened for you that I learned about in your book. In Myanmar, and I want to understand that,
Ellen - 00:09:28:
Well, you're absolutely right that by the time I got there, I had already really risen up through the ranks of the World Bank. And I, you know, saw this initially as, you know, OK, it's just another assignment like so many others. I would be covering three countries, et cetera. However, I got to Myanmar and I was sent to Myanmar actually as the first director level position there in order to symbolize that Myanmar was reentering the international community after five decades of a very repressive military regime that had essentially isolated the country. I mean, think kind of North Korea like levels of isolation and deprivation. And so from 2011 onward, the country started this very slow and managed transition toward having a more open society and having a more democratic state. So in 2015, before I got there, late 2015, they had an election and Aung San Suu Kyi, who was. And is a Nobel Prize winning democracy activist. Was elected to serve as the head of the government there. And the international community saw this both symbolically and really. As Myanmar was our next big democracy and Myanmar was going to rejoin the international community. And everyone rushed in to provide as much support as we possibly could in terms of technical support and advisory services, but also just sheer money. I mean, foreign aid, the foreign aid just came pouring in. So when I got sent there, it was on this tremendous wave of optimism. And I was very excited about it too. You know, to be there at that historic moment and to help the country become the true democracy and the prosperous nation that we wanted it to become.
Paul - 00:11:34:
President Obama visited Myanmar several years before you arrived. Can you share that experience?
Ellen - 00:11:41:
Well, I went, I visited Myanmar back in 2013 as a tourist. And this was right after President Obama had come on this historic visit. They eliminated sanctions against the country that had been in place for decades. And again, that lifting of the sanctions and Obama coming to visit was a sign that this country was really being accepted back into the community of countries internationally. So I came as a tourist thinking I was never going to work there. And of course, I bought the five dollar Obama T-shirt to symbolize this wonderful, you know, historic moment. So by the time I got to Myanmar two years later in 2017, the civilian government had taken power and. Aid, foreign aid money was just pouring on in under the assumption that we were going to, you know, work with this government to enact the kinds of reforms that we had always hoped for to bring this country out of really dire poverty. I mean, one thing that I should say is that when Burma, which is now called Myanmar, when Myanmar was first independent in 1947, it was one of the richest countries in Asia. And by the time I got there, or even a few years earlier when the transition, the military transition began. Myanmar was by far one of the poorest countries in Asia, with less than a third of the population having access to electricity and two-thirds of the children being malnourished. I mean, it was really, really heartbreakingly poor.
Paul - 00:13:26:
Yeah, so you arrived as the first ever World Bank country director, and you were riding a wave of optimism about the prospects for democratic transitions to get rooted there. And then there was some really major challenges. There was findings of a United Nations report, for example, that there were ongoing abuses in Rakhine State, Rakhine state. Can you explain how you dealt with that as a World Bank official?
Ellen - 00:14:00:
Well, yes, within about a month or so of getting there, it wasn't a report. It was actual military response to a terrorist attack. From Rakhine State, as you said, by Rohingya. Activists. And the military response was so out of control and so horrific. And that it really, it shocked the international community, but it also started me on a learning journey. I mean, I had been aware that the Rohingya minority, this Muslim minority in what is largely a Buddhist country, that this minority had been discriminated against for years. But I had not. Really understood the level of atrocities carried out by the military against not only the Rohingya, but against many of the ethnic minorities in the country. And those minorities were, you know, are up to 30 or 40 percent of the population. So we're not talking about a very small group. We're talking about, you know, military engaging in excessive force, gross human rights abuses, killing, extrajudicial killing, rape, torture, arson, forced displacement, you know, a litany of crimes against humanity. And this is what they were doing to the Rohingya in Rakhine State. And so... Initially, the international community assumed or felt certain that the civilian government under Aung San Suu Kyi would... Respond by doing all the right things. You know, that it would try to get control of this horrific military response. And I think that was when the international community started to learn. The limits of the power of the civilian government. In fact, You know, the military allowed the civilian government. To take power over certain parts of the country, particularly trying to revive a dead economy. But other than that, the military remained firmly in charge and was unaccountable to the civilian government. So we then spent the next couple, you know, three years. As an international community, as a foreign aid community, trying to to support and incentivize and persuade the civilian government. To do the right things, the right things being, you know, restore basic security. Help the remaining Rohingya, allow humanitarian aid. Prepare for a dignified and voluntary return of the refugees. All of this and We were not successful. And ultimately, you know, three years in. The military feeling insecure, decided to take back power in a military coup in February of 2021. So at that point, all of our discussions, all of the debates, all of the tremendous controversy over the question of, do we stay engaged in Myanmar? Or do we not stay engaged in Myanmar? And if we do stay engaged, how do we stay engaged? All of that controversy that I lived through, and in fact, I lost my job. Four. All of that became moot.
Paul - 00:17:41:
At the point, yes, when the military reasserted power. Let's go back a little bit, though, before we get to that. I want to spend a little more time while you were still running the show for the World Bank. And this event happened early in your tenure. And then you actually mobilized a new strategy for the World Bank, focusing on social inclusion and conflict resolution. Can you explain how that was received both by the World Bank, but more importantly, by local communities in Rakhine State and other parts of the Myanmar society?
Ellen - 00:18:18:
Sure, sure. Yeah, I think that is at the heart of the book in the sense that I... Felt that if we keep in mind what is best for the people of Myanmar, and I don't say citizens because many of the people who live in Myanmar are not full citizens. You know, if we keep in mind what is right for the people. Than disengaging from Myanmar at a time when they had a civilian government, etc. Was not the right thing to do, but the way in which the World Bank engaged needed to change. You know, I had learned about this long history of military repression and use of propaganda to engage in the kind of othering that we've seen by so many authoritarian regimes. You know, in this case, the military had used incredible propaganda. To really convince generations of people. In Myanmar that the Rohingya were subhuman. That they were totally you know, secondary, not even human and not deserving of any of the rights of a citizen in Myanmar. And that, in fact, You know, they don't belong at all in this country. And when I looked further, you know, I learned that the... 30 to 40% of the population that lived in these mountainous border areas who were all ethnic minorities. Right. They faced... Systemic discrimination. They faced severe and multiple deprivations. And The strategy of the World Bank Initially, had been to work, as the World Bank is mandated to do, to reduce poverty by promoting economic growth. And we did that, and we did a lot of very good things. What we did not do is to focus specifically on those who were excluded. From society. In other words, we were in a position where we could have reduced poverty for a good 10 years or more. Without ever reaching the minority populations on the borders, the ones who were in the most severe poverty, the most deprived, the most excluded and discriminated against. And so I felt we had an obligation. In both in moral terms and in terms. Of broad-based and sustained economic growth. That we actually try to reach out to those border areas. So that was the change in strategy that I... Felt was important. And the response was very interesting.
In Myanmar itself, the government and the dominant culture there, were somewhat open to working in these areas because peace, you know, creating peace was very important, particularly to Aung San Suu Kyi and, you know, and her government ministers. At the same time, there was this feeling of, well, why are you helping the minorities when there's so many poor people who are in the dominant Bamar group? So there was, you know. We needed to carefully balance it so that there was a feeling that we were helping. All those who are poor, and indeed we were. We were, but we also had to point out and use our data to really demonstrate that the greatest severity was among these border populations, these minority populations. So mixed reaction, maybe in the country. At the World Bank, um, We had, you know, the president of the World Bank flirted or more than flirted with the idea that the World Bank should just roll up the carpets, you know, pull out of Myanmar. And that became a point of great contention inside the World Bank, within management of the World Bank. Again, with me being the one to argue that we could have gotten maybe a good New York Times headline if we pulled out. I mean, that would be front page news. But 15 minutes later, we would have no influence whatsoever over the situation in Myanmar. So it didn't align with the goals. Of the people in Myanmar, and it didn't help the country in the long run. So I argued. In favor of staying engaged, but changing the way we do business. And I will say that the shareholders of the World Bank, because the World Bank is owned by all the countries that belong to the World Bank, and that includes the United States, but it also includes all the other countries of the world, including Myanmar itself. They all own a little, you know, bits and pieces of the World Bank. So the shareholders of the World Bank were all of the view that we needed to stay engaged. And that ran the gamut from the United States to Western Europe to Asian nations, China, Japan, Australia. They all agreed on staying engaged with obviously some. Thoughts about how to engage.
Paul - 00:24:07:
Right. Yeah, thank you for that. So now take us into the complexity of the role that you were playing as the director of the World Bank. And these shifting policy currents. You know, the intention of doing good, staying engaged, trying to optimize the emerging democracy, a new democracy as much as possible. But then you got caught up in some kind of crossfire. Can you just give us a taste of that and how you coped with that personally?
Ellen - 00:24:38:
Yeah, it was a really difficult time for me. I was, because there was so much debate about what was the right thing to do. I mean, from the outside and at a very superficial level. You saw that the... Regime of repression against the Rohingya was persisting, that very little progress. Um, maybe one step forward, often two steps back, occasionally two steps forward, one step back. But I mean, minimal progress was happening to do the right things with respect to the Rohingya. So there was a lot of frustration coming from all of our... If I can call them, authorizing environments. I mean, in my case, from the board of the World Bank, but for every aid donor, whether it was a bilateral or multilateral, you know, the governments, you know, of countries like Australia or the UK were all saying, you know, what is wrong with you? You people on the ground, right? There was a tendency to think that if only, you know, I had been a better World Bank country director or if so-and-so had been a better ambassador. That we surely should have been able to convince Aung San Suu Kyi to take more action. To do the right things for the Rohingya. And the reality was
twofold.
Number one was that we did not have that kind of clout. I mean, this is, again, this hubris, this tendency among Western aid donors to overestimate their financial influence and their political influence at a time when we're in a much more multipolar environment where the impact of China has become so dominant, especially in Southeast Asia. So we did get caught in the crosshairs. And I say we because it wasn't just me. It was the head of every aid agency and every embassy, every ambassador. Felt this pressure like, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you able to solve this problem? Why aren't you able to talk? Just go talk to Aung San Suu Kyi. And we were often caught between headquarters wanting us to make very bold statements about the complete unacceptability of what was going on. And indeed, it was gross violations of human rights. And on the other hand, wanting us to have a relationship with the government and have access to government and be able to get a meeting at the drop of a hat with government so that we could always get our message across. And that puts those of us who are put out there, I mean, we're basically put out there to have a relationship with the government, no matter how frustrating or problematic that government is, our job is to have a relationship. So ultimately, you know, there was a feeling that I was somehow not fit for the job. And at that point, there began a bit of a kind of whispering campaign to... You know, undermine me back at headquarters of the World Bank. Of course, and that made me feel terrible because here I was under this huge pressure. In the country and working literally around the clock and flying back and forth from Myanmar, which is about a 30-hour flight each way. You know, I was flying back and forth like once a month to try and talk to Congress, you know, and and ambassadors and shareholders and all of it. And that effort seemingly was not appreciated at all. And, um... In my view, rather than allow... A whispering campaign to tear down what I felt was a very strong and positive reputation, I chose to jump before I was pushed out of my job. So it was tough, but what was even tougher... Was realizing how ineffective we were in trying to help the Rohingya in particular, the remaining Rohingya. There were about a half a million remaining Rohingya. We weren't very successful in trying to help them, nor were we very successful regionally in trying to create any conditions for the safe and dignified return of the Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar. From Bangladesh.
Paul - 00:29:36:
Yeah. Yeah, well, you explain all that in great detail in your book. So I do encourage my readers to go out and learn more. And hear the depths of the story. It's really... Filled with wisdom and If you want to know what a professional in international development has to go through, it's a great insight into that. And I do want to touch on something in the book about how this affected you personally. You know, you have worked around the world. You've seen difficult circumstances like what you saw the Rohingya going through. In their own country. How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the realities of the world being so... Difficult, like one group of people oppressing other groups of people. This is not unique to Myanmar. It's kind of cross-humanity. Not kind of. It is across humanity. It takes a toll personally. So I just want to ask you from a heart space, like how does that feel for you when you witness that kind of suffering and that kind of just poverty?
Ellen - 00:30:45:
The Myanmar experience really put it in the sharpest relief that I had seen up until that point. That over here, the World Bank was very successfully helping millions of people have access to electricity, millions of children get vaccinated, helping hundreds of thousands of small businesses develop lots and lots of good things. While at the same time over in Rakhine State, you know, people were getting murdered and being forced out of their homes and being burned to death. Babies were being thrown into the fire. I had to confront this terrible moral dilemma of can you do good? And also do right. Morally. And what is the right thing to do in a case like that? How do you influence? What's happening, the bad things that are happening, how do you best influence that? While at the same time trying to do something good over the long run. So it was very anxiety producing, obviously, hugely anxiety producing. Never being sure if I was doing enough. To kind of live up to the legacy, my own legacy, family legacy of, you know, if you, you know, if you don't say something, if you don't do something, this can happen again. And so I felt a tremendous need to say and do something. Yet at the same time. I knew that if I was too vocal and too much of... A human rights advocate. Then I would not be allowed to work in the country. I would not be allowed. To continue to do the... The things that I felt. Would. Help the country in the long run. And in that respect, I don't. Believe that I made. The wrong choice. Because when we see today... How the uh... Resistance fighters are achieving their goals. In post-coup. Myanmar. I know that the 10 years that we spent opening up that society and creating modern telecommunications and really you know, rebuilding sort of a social fabric. Apart from the military, all of that was worthwhile. If it helps now to crush the military regime.
Paul - 00:33:35:
Yeah, wow. Thank you for sharing that. That's incredible. And I salute you for... Navigating that hard, complex, doing good and doing right in a very difficult situation. So I want to shift gears slightly and ask you to put on your democracy do-gooder hat. This was an example in Myanmar where it was a new democracy, fresh start, optimism, and it's been a rocky road. But you have experience around new democracies or emerging democracies around the world. If you had a magic wand, what do you think the World Bank or other international donors should do to shore up democracies that are new and emerging?
Ellen - 00:34:22:
Oh, interesting question. Okay. One of the lessons that comes from our experience of the 10 years in Myanmar. Is that I think all aid donors, including the World Bank. We need to make sure that as we move forward on economic reforms. That there is... Commensurate progress, or at least some progress. On political. Development as well. I mean, this was a case where... Many of the sort of first generation economic reforms that we did, for example, in the transition economies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe when the Berlin Wall fell, you know, it was the same economic prescription to liberalize the economy, open the country up to the rest of the world. And, you know, getting prices right was very, very important. And we saw the benefit of that in that economic growth became, you know, between five and six percent a year, which is really quite good during that 10-year period. So we did a lot of really good things economically, and all the data show that. At the same time, there was kind of an assumption, and this goes back again to this foreign aid paradigm that we tend to operate under, there has long been an assumption since post-World War II, Cold War period, that economic development would sort of reinforce democratic tendencies, rise of the middle class, rising expectations, et cetera, et cetera. And that then democracy would reinforce economic development. So it was this, you know, development, democracy, virtuous cycle, yet we have abundant evidence that that is not actually true or certain. Certainly not always true. And we have models, China being the number one example. Where you can have substantial economic development and massive poverty reduction. Without any significant political liberalization and civil liberties, rule of law, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, that is an important lesson that I take away from Myanmar. And so, you know, as we move forward now in the world, I think, you know, there are a couple of things that we take away from the Myanmar story for new democracies. You know, one is that we do... Enough attention to what the World Bank would call governance. Which is both sort of political governance and economic governance, but that there be forward movement on the things that matter for everyone to participate in democracy. I mean, you know, At its most fundamental, democracy is about participation, it's about transparency, it's about accountability. And Myanmar had significant weaknesses on all three of those fronts.
And it did not change significantly in that 10-year period. Whereas the economy changed into an unrecognizable state. So we need to make sure that those political goals, which I say political, but I really mean, you know, we're talking about civil liberties. We're talking about basic human rights for people, that those things are also being advanced. You know, they're not going to be perfect overnight, but they're at least got to be moving forward. So that's one important lesson. The other important lesson. I think. Is that the entire foreign aid paradigm and the World Bank for sure is built around a country-based model. You know, we... At the World Bank, we lent to national governments, and we tended to work a lot with the national government. And yet, over time, I mean, that may have made a lot of sense in post-World War II and in the Cold War, where the assumption was that we were working on economic growth in relatively stable nation states. Today, The problems that we're facing in the world. Are supranational, meaning global, like climate change, the existential crisis of our time, right? Climate change. But also conflict and refugee flows, et cetera. All of this transcends the country. And at the same time, you know, and it's adding, contributing to factors, creating conflict. And at the same time, that conflict is meaning that in order to be effective, we need to be operating also below the national level, at a sub-national level, and working with a lot of non-state actors. Not just civil society organizations as we tend to think of them, like non-governmental organizations who are also do-gooders. But also non-state actors like in Myanmar, you had all these ethnic resistance groups that had existed for decades and controlled territory. And offered services to their people. And... The mechanisms that we have. To use foreign aid don't go up to the global level and they don't come down to that level either. So we're not really, we don't have the financing mechanisms to really devote to the problems, you know, the core roots of these problems right now. And so I think that's also a big lesson that comes out of the book.
Paul - 00:40:44:
Yeah, that's a major trend going on about decolonizing aid and making sure that we build community and social resilience at the place where people live, at the community level. And our instruments, as you say, are not set up for that and are still lacking in being able to do that. And then, of course, the super crises that we're facing are also limited in how we can respond regionally and globally as well, as you say. So I want to bridge to the last segment here. In your book, you do talk about yourself as an American, of course, and you ride the waves of the political journey we've been on. You talk about... Your sense of devastation when Donald Trump was first elected and you came back and participated in that women's march. Right now, we're in the 2024 election cycle, and there are a lot of experts that believe we're in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the United States government. And I just wonder if you have any insights or perspectives or lessons from your international experience that you would recommend to listeners here in the United States about how do we protect our democracy?
Ellen - 00:41:57:
Yeah, thanks. Great, great, great question. And indeed, the book, I talk a lot about how I became what I call hypervigilant. Over what I saw as a weakening of American democracy, which I still definitely see. For people in America, the international community does have a very rich. Body of knowledge about what happens when countries become, as we call them, fragile and conflict affected, right? And it was funny because I was at a class at Georgetown yesterday that caused me to look at this year's what's called the Fragile States Index, right? You know, the Fragile States Index is this global index that talks about, you know, how fragile and conflict affected different states are. So it's a very kind of a good kind of indicator, warning signal of when countries are in danger of becoming failed states or losing their democracy, etc., etc. And America, by global standards, you know, I don't know, Paul, what would you guess? Like, where do you think we would find America in a global ranking?
Paul - 00:43:19:
The United States, I would say, I think we're probably in the 30s or 40s.
Ellen - 00:43:24:
Okay, well, we're in the bottom half of countries now.
Paul - 00:43:29:
The bottom half.
Ellen - 00:43:30:
Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Paul - 00:43:32:
Right? So that means, just to make sure my listeners understand, that means that We're at high risk of being. Our society, our government is fragile right now at a very high level. Is that what you mean?
Ellen - 00:43:47:
I mean, it's not, you know, the way this index characterizes things, it goes from high sustainability and up there you have some countries like Norway and Canada. And at the bottom is high alert. And high alert is basically for countries that are at war internally, just a chaotic mess. I mean, Haiti is at high alert right now, right? And we're close to the middle. We're below the middle, but we're close to the middle. But it is not reassuring that we are not even in the upper 50 percent. And, you know, and why are we not in the upper 50 percent? You know, and I think that that's, again, you know, on a global basis, Americans really need to understand how we compare to the rest of the world on these things. Number one has to do with what they consider like the security apparatus. And this is about the availability of weapons. And whether the police and the military behave professionally and use proper force. And you can see that, you know, America has some issues around that, right? Big issues around that. You know, likewise, they talk about factionalized elites, which to just decode that, they're talking about whether you have political polarization, whether there is a government which is widely agreed to be representative of the people. And we have issues around that also. Right. Group grievances is another major aspect of this index. And we have a situation where we have charismatic leaders manipulating the population around group grievances and what we call here in America identity politics. So on a big number. And then another one is around human rights, public services, uneven development. These are all the buzzwords from the index. But they're really getting at, you know, access to basic services. In the country. And, you know, in a country like ours where people are struggling for health care and high quality public education, we're essentially. The social contract has very much broken down. You start to see this unraveling of national cohesion. And so I think all the work that's been done internationally to understand fragile and conflict-affected states and to intervene in conflict prevention and peace building. You know, all of that toolkit. Can and should be applied to America today.
Paul - 00:46:41:
Yeah, thank you. That reaffirms what we've heard from other guests about sometimes Americans live in a little bit of a bubble and they think they're top of the hill. But when you pop that bubble and you actually look at what's going on globally, we're not doing as great as we think. We're actually in the bottom half on fragility, as you say. And there are a lot of lessons learned. We're not the first or last country that's going to experience the risk of an authoritarian takeover, or maybe we're even going to have to go through it. And then how do we cope with that? There are lessons learned from around the world about how to do that. So thank you for raising that point. I really appreciate it. And I want to thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Obviously, we could talk forever. We have so much to share and learn. But I do want to encourage my readers to read Ellen Goldstein's book, Damned If You Do. It's a fantastic memoir. And invite her to your class or your school and have her teach your students and bring her out. And make sure her wisdom is shared widely. That's what I would like to see. Thank you, Ellen Goldstein, for your leadership and for all your service to humanity and for doing good under difficult, the most difficult circumstances.
Ellen - 00:47:52:
Thank you, Paul. I appreciate you helping to get the word out.
Paul - 00:48:02:
Thank you for listening to that excellent episode with Ellen Goldstein Goldstein, a former World Bank official and now author of an amazing book, Damned If You Do. This is a memoir about her years working in Myanmar and the highlight of it being an emerging democracy when a new leader came in and the international community rallied around to try to influence and strengthen democracy. Ellen Goldstein was caught in the crossfires of the politics of a difficult environment where she was able to redirect aid to a minority Rohingya group that was being neglected by the military and attacked and abused by the military. At the same time, she wanted to stay and keep the World Bank present in the country. She has a world of experience of working in Eastern Europe and in Africa and throughout Asia as well. And I would say that Ellen Goldstein is one of those revolutionary optimists that has implanted herself inside of a big bureaucracy. So sometimes we've talked about revolutionary optimism out on the streets or doing advocacy and direct action and movement building. And I want to acknowledge and recognize that there are people like Ellen Goldstein all over the institutions that are trying to do good and are willing to stay the course inside of these huge bureaucracies, which are not easy to navigate and not easy to sustain your optimism and positive attitude in. They can be soul sucking. They can drain your energy and drain your optimism. Kudos to Ellen Goldstein Goldstein for maintaining herself and her positions of moral clarity and moral integrity through a long journey of service over the decades to many, many people around the world. That's the kind of Revolutionary Optimism that we'd like to see happening everywhere. So thanks for listening and have a great week.
Voiceover - 00:50:07:
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