the biggest problems in the world affect
tens if not hundreds of millions of
people the numbers are so vast it’s
almost unthinkable intractable problems
like the six million people that are
directly affected by terrorism war and
civil strife 170 million people there
are 60 million refugees 220 million
people are impacted by natural disasters
783 million people lack clean water 836
million people are living in extreme
poverty but what if I were to tell you
that there’s a problem that affects a
greater number of people than each of
these in fact more people than all of
these problems combined four billion
people are living under authoritarian
rule it is the largest problem affecting
humanity today those are people who are
living under military hunters absolute
monarchies dictatorships or competitive
authoritarian States when I say
authoritarianism I mean both Syria which
is a fully fledged dictatorship in a
country were by and large you don’t
really have individual rights but
occasionally they’ll have elections as a
fig leaf like Russia or Venezuela
unfortunately while there is an
ecosystem that seeks to address issues
like the refugee crisis there are
government departments Charities events
and even conferences to address them
there’s no such effort that seeks to
address the issue of tyrannical
government in the world one way of
really communicating the suffering and
the cost of dictatorship I like to use
this satellite image on the lower side
to the right you’ll see the satellite
image was going to cover electricity and
power generation
it shows you what seems like an island
of activity
that island of activity is the place
where Samsung and LG and Hyundai exist
that’s South Korea North Korea is living
in absolute darkness the fact is the
social cost of dictatorship is such that
the advances in technology medicine
education economics occur in free and
open societies not in a tyranny in a
tyranny there are a few dots with a
dictator and his henchmen live if you
want to think about the opportunity cost
of dictatorship think about half of the
world’s population their talent
asphyxiated unable to realize their
potential sometimes I hear people saying
that some people simply can’t live in
freedom because it’s not their way and
it’s silly or too racist or it’s a
cultural ease ridiculous argument people
say this about the Chinese as if Taiwan
didn’t exist one of the most democratic
places on earth and we’ve seen the
difference between South Korea and North
Korea people say this about Russia and
yet it’s the reason why vitomir Putin is
so focused on the Ukraine because in
Ukraine about 18% of the population is
ethnic Russian and if there are 9
million people who can live in a Western
democracy and the Ukraine succeeds then
that means that also the Russians inside
Russia can enjoy the same what we’re
talking about of course is freedom of
expression the right to choose your
leaders and have them not stay
perennially in power freedom of the
press the right to freely associate and
redress your grievances through protest
if necessary and of course property
rights so that no one can come along and
simply take your stuff because they feel
like it so what do these 4 billion
people where can they turn to for help
well
another question is why is it that we do
not see the problem of tyranny the way
it’s being described here unfortunately
people think go to the United States
government except you see sadly our
government chooses to address this issue
based on short-term objectives economic
or national security concerns which is
why the United States can be counted on
to talk about human rights violations in
Iran but not in the same vein in Saudi
Arabia now Europe of course is no better
and anyone from Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan
or Belarus can tell you that their
expectations were not met when it came
to Europe applying those standards to
those tyrannies can we turn perhaps to
the United Nations an organization set
up to address freedom prosperity and
peace in the world but there you see
unfortunately the United Nations is
essentially a playground for
dictatorships which is why the UN Human
Rights Council includes such members as
Saudi Arabia China Qatar Egypt Cuba well
perhaps we can turn to the philanthropic
sector but then you see there’s a
problem there as well the places that
are supposed to and in fact advertise
that they are the places where you can
go to solve the world’s problems like in
fact the World Economic Forum in Davos
is unfortunately financed in part by
dictatorship so the burden falls on
human rights organizations and there
again there’s a slight problem because
the main human rights organizations the
big ones focus their approach on
criticism of democracy if you analyze it
statistically much more so than focusing
on tyranny so ultimately the burden
falls on activists who are either
operating in exile or inside these
countries in a state of siege two key
outcomes are necessary to address the
issue of tyranny in the world the first
of course is to bring the issue of
authoritarianism to the top of the world
agenda
so that people can be conversant on this
issue so that we can bring about a
cultural shift that will bring about a
policy shift and governments will
actually do what they’re supposed to on
this subject the second of course the
second key outcome is to help these
people directly people in the
Philippines or in Bolivia there are
still institutions there they have a
competitive authoritarian system but you
can still assist them by and large
openly in places like North Korea or
China in those cases there are people
who are willing to lay their lives put
them on the line in order to bring about
an end a peaceful yet passionate end to
the dictatorship in those countries what
I’m asking is for you to consider
adopting a particular approach to this
you may think that this is not for you
but this is for government some of you
choose to travel in business class as
opposed to coach you want to pay two or
three times more for a wet towel and a
cocktail some of you don’t drink from
the minibar in the hotel some of you
choose a 401 K over an IRA you have an
economic policy you also have a cultural
policy some of you prefer the movies
some concerts some of the theater some
going to a national park what I’m
proposing is that you consider having
your own foreign policy if you think
that people in government know what
they’re doing on the subject you read
the biographies of people in history and
the people who are close to power when
certain of these decisions big foreign
policy decisions were made and you find
that they really didn’t know what they
were doing half the time there was a
recent recent presidential election in
this country
a country that has those and that’s
something that a lot of people take for
granted which is why we need to use our
freedom to help other people achieve
theirs during this presidential election
in this country there was um there was a
moment at the height of the problems in
Syria where hundreds of thousands of
civilians innocent civilians were being
murdered by the dictator of Syria and
the subject was on television and a
presidential candidate spoke three words
that really gives you a sense of why we
should each have our own foreign policy
and those three words were what is
Aleppo at the human rights foundation
we’ve chosen to adopt foreign policy
with regard to a number of different
countries and one of them is North Korea
we work with defectors from North Korea
people who have escaped the tyranny of
North Korea and want to help the people
they left behind want to help their
friends and their families and what we
do is try and break the monopoly of
information that the North Korean
dictatorship has over their own people
you see North Korea is the Hermit
Kingdom they have no internet no access
to the mail system no ability to make
phone calls outside of the country they
truly are living in absolute darkness
especially educational the only thing
they can consume is the propaganda that
the government gives them so what we do
is we smuggle information in we smuggle
DVDs and flash drives and all sorts of
material this material goes into these
bags that have a timer on them and they
go into these balloons because even
though the government may control the
airwaves they don’t have control over
the winds and so the balloons go up into
the sky and travel into North Korea and
eventually they drop their payload the
North Koreans know what’s in these bags
and the North Koreans are willing to
live their lives and in some cases risk
execution or concentration camp in order
to obtain this material they’re starving
for this information
and there are these small devices called
no tells they’ve come from China and
they cost around ten to twenty dollars
and they’re battery-powered and on these
no tells they can watch this material
they can explore the outside world and
it’s one citizen at a time when enough
of them have the aha moment they will
have had enough of the tyranny the
government of North Korea at first was
telling us this was futile that in fact
this is not going to work but we kind of
know we had struck a nerve when they
informed the South Korean government
that they were going to bomb the place
where we were doing these balloon
flights from they were planned to kill
us so we stopped doing them during the
day and we started doing them at night
since then we’ve been using helicopter
drones and our activities with regard to
this have continued to the point that we
started a program called flash drives
for freedom and we have in the past year
accumulated 150,000 hard drives the idea
is that if people can donate just a
flash drive that’s the beginning of a
foreign policy push that’s them actually
participating because ultimately it’s
artists with artists engineers with
engineers veterans with veterans nurses
with nurses what we’re trying to do is
link people throughout the world to know
that they can have and make a difference
it duh it’s only when we choose to do
this and put ourselves from empathy into
compassion that we will actually be able
to move the powers-that-be to do
something similar just a few days ago at
the UN Security Council a UN Security
Council that has been talking about the
issue of North Korea for decade after
decade and doing little or nothing about
it there was yet another hearing and at
this hearing a young woman came she was
there to talk about her experiences in
concentration camp before she escaped
she was in reeducation camp
and
she read a poem that she carried out of
the concentration camp in her heart and
I was in touch with her last week and
she actually encouraged me to read it to
you I am scared is anyone there
I’m here in hell is anyone there I
scream and yell but no one opens the
door
is anyone there please listen to our
cries and listen to our pain is anyone
there people are dying
my friend is dying I call out again and
again but why don’t you answer is anyone
there
thank you
[Applause]
tens if not hundreds of millions of
people the numbers are so vast it’s
almost unthinkable intractable problems
like the six million people that are
directly affected by terrorism war and
civil strife 170 million people there
are 60 million refugees 220 million
people are impacted by natural disasters
783 million people lack clean water 836
million people are living in extreme
poverty but what if I were to tell you
that there’s a problem that affects a
greater number of people than each of
these in fact more people than all of
these problems combined four billion
people are living under authoritarian
rule it is the largest problem affecting
humanity today those are people who are
living under military hunters absolute
monarchies dictatorships or competitive
authoritarian States when I say
authoritarianism I mean both Syria which
is a fully fledged dictatorship in a
country were by and large you don’t
really have individual rights but
occasionally they’ll have elections as a
fig leaf like Russia or Venezuela
unfortunately while there is an
ecosystem that seeks to address issues
like the refugee crisis there are
government departments Charities events
and even conferences to address them
there’s no such effort that seeks to
address the issue of tyrannical
government in the world one way of
really communicating the suffering and
the cost of dictatorship I like to use
this satellite image on the lower side
to the right you’ll see the satellite
image was going to cover electricity and
power generation
it shows you what seems like an island
of activity
that island of activity is the place
where Samsung and LG and Hyundai exist
that’s South Korea North Korea is living
in absolute darkness the fact is the
social cost of dictatorship is such that
the advances in technology medicine
education economics occur in free and
open societies not in a tyranny in a
tyranny there are a few dots with a
dictator and his henchmen live if you
want to think about the opportunity cost
of dictatorship think about half of the
world’s population their talent
asphyxiated unable to realize their
potential sometimes I hear people saying
that some people simply can’t live in
freedom because it’s not their way and
it’s silly or too racist or it’s a
cultural ease ridiculous argument people
say this about the Chinese as if Taiwan
didn’t exist one of the most democratic
places on earth and we’ve seen the
difference between South Korea and North
Korea people say this about Russia and
yet it’s the reason why vitomir Putin is
so focused on the Ukraine because in
Ukraine about 18% of the population is
ethnic Russian and if there are 9
million people who can live in a Western
democracy and the Ukraine succeeds then
that means that also the Russians inside
Russia can enjoy the same what we’re
talking about of course is freedom of
expression the right to choose your
leaders and have them not stay
perennially in power freedom of the
press the right to freely associate and
redress your grievances through protest
if necessary and of course property
rights so that no one can come along and
simply take your stuff because they feel
like it so what do these 4 billion
people where can they turn to for help
well
another question is why is it that we do
not see the problem of tyranny the way
it’s being described here unfortunately
people think go to the United States
government except you see sadly our
government chooses to address this issue
based on short-term objectives economic
or national security concerns which is
why the United States can be counted on
to talk about human rights violations in
Iran but not in the same vein in Saudi
Arabia now Europe of course is no better
and anyone from Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan
or Belarus can tell you that their
expectations were not met when it came
to Europe applying those standards to
those tyrannies can we turn perhaps to
the United Nations an organization set
up to address freedom prosperity and
peace in the world but there you see
unfortunately the United Nations is
essentially a playground for
dictatorships which is why the UN Human
Rights Council includes such members as
Saudi Arabia China Qatar Egypt Cuba well
perhaps we can turn to the philanthropic
sector but then you see there’s a
problem there as well the places that
are supposed to and in fact advertise
that they are the places where you can
go to solve the world’s problems like in
fact the World Economic Forum in Davos
is unfortunately financed in part by
dictatorship so the burden falls on
human rights organizations and there
again there’s a slight problem because
the main human rights organizations the
big ones focus their approach on
criticism of democracy if you analyze it
statistically much more so than focusing
on tyranny so ultimately the burden
falls on activists who are either
operating in exile or inside these
countries in a state of siege two key
outcomes are necessary to address the
issue of tyranny in the world the first
of course is to bring the issue of
authoritarianism to the top of the world
agenda
so that people can be conversant on this
issue so that we can bring about a
cultural shift that will bring about a
policy shift and governments will
actually do what they’re supposed to on
this subject the second of course the
second key outcome is to help these
people directly people in the
Philippines or in Bolivia there are
still institutions there they have a
competitive authoritarian system but you
can still assist them by and large
openly in places like North Korea or
China in those cases there are people
who are willing to lay their lives put
them on the line in order to bring about
an end a peaceful yet passionate end to
the dictatorship in those countries what
I’m asking is for you to consider
adopting a particular approach to this
you may think that this is not for you
but this is for government some of you
choose to travel in business class as
opposed to coach you want to pay two or
three times more for a wet towel and a
cocktail some of you don’t drink from
the minibar in the hotel some of you
choose a 401 K over an IRA you have an
economic policy you also have a cultural
policy some of you prefer the movies
some concerts some of the theater some
going to a national park what I’m
proposing is that you consider having
your own foreign policy if you think
that people in government know what
they’re doing on the subject you read
the biographies of people in history and
the people who are close to power when
certain of these decisions big foreign
policy decisions were made and you find
that they really didn’t know what they
were doing half the time there was a
recent recent presidential election in
this country
a country that has those and that’s
something that a lot of people take for
granted which is why we need to use our
freedom to help other people achieve
theirs during this presidential election
in this country there was um there was a
moment at the height of the problems in
Syria where hundreds of thousands of
civilians innocent civilians were being
murdered by the dictator of Syria and
the subject was on television and a
presidential candidate spoke three words
that really gives you a sense of why we
should each have our own foreign policy
and those three words were what is
Aleppo at the human rights foundation
we’ve chosen to adopt foreign policy
with regard to a number of different
countries and one of them is North Korea
we work with defectors from North Korea
people who have escaped the tyranny of
North Korea and want to help the people
they left behind want to help their
friends and their families and what we
do is try and break the monopoly of
information that the North Korean
dictatorship has over their own people
you see North Korea is the Hermit
Kingdom they have no internet no access
to the mail system no ability to make
phone calls outside of the country they
truly are living in absolute darkness
especially educational the only thing
they can consume is the propaganda that
the government gives them so what we do
is we smuggle information in we smuggle
DVDs and flash drives and all sorts of
material this material goes into these
bags that have a timer on them and they
go into these balloons because even
though the government may control the
airwaves they don’t have control over
the winds and so the balloons go up into
the sky and travel into North Korea and
eventually they drop their payload the
North Koreans know what’s in these bags
and the North Koreans are willing to
live their lives and in some cases risk
execution or concentration camp in order
to obtain this material they’re starving
for this information
and there are these small devices called
no tells they’ve come from China and
they cost around ten to twenty dollars
and they’re battery-powered and on these
no tells they can watch this material
they can explore the outside world and
it’s one citizen at a time when enough
of them have the aha moment they will
have had enough of the tyranny the
government of North Korea at first was
telling us this was futile that in fact
this is not going to work but we kind of
know we had struck a nerve when they
informed the South Korean government
that they were going to bomb the place
where we were doing these balloon
flights from they were planned to kill
us so we stopped doing them during the
day and we started doing them at night
since then we’ve been using helicopter
drones and our activities with regard to
this have continued to the point that we
started a program called flash drives
for freedom and we have in the past year
accumulated 150,000 hard drives the idea
is that if people can donate just a
flash drive that’s the beginning of a
foreign policy push that’s them actually
participating because ultimately it’s
artists with artists engineers with
engineers veterans with veterans nurses
with nurses what we’re trying to do is
link people throughout the world to know
that they can have and make a difference
it duh it’s only when we choose to do
this and put ourselves from empathy into
compassion that we will actually be able
to move the powers-that-be to do
something similar just a few days ago at
the UN Security Council a UN Security
Council that has been talking about the
issue of North Korea for decade after
decade and doing little or nothing about
it there was yet another hearing and at
this hearing a young woman came she was
there to talk about her experiences in
concentration camp before she escaped
she was in reeducation camp
and
she read a poem that she carried out of
the concentration camp in her heart and
I was in touch with her last week and
she actually encouraged me to read it to
you I am scared is anyone there
I’m here in hell is anyone there I
scream and yell but no one opens the
door
is anyone there please listen to our
cries and listen to our pain is anyone
there people are dying
my friend is dying I call out again and
again but why don’t you answer is anyone
there
thank you
[Applause]
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