What happens on the shores of Lesvos, Chios, Kos, Samos, and other islands in Greece remains mostly a policy discussion. For a few who have had the complicated position of seeing it, feeling it, and standing alongside people risking life and forsaking home—even for a short while— the danger of relegating issues this big, this crucial, to policymakers who have not seen with their own eyes highlights the gravity of the situation and raises questions far beyond the realm of policy. Immigration and migration—often a footnote in election cycles—is raising questions of what it means to empathize, what it means to be part of both a nation state and the human race. How do we define “us” and “them”? How do we control fear of the unknown and unknowable, and not be controlled by it? How does the language we use to define “crises” affect our response to them? This discussion, cover issue both practical and abstract, microcosmic and meta—in an attempt to trace how and why the “migrant” crisis has become a daunting threat to the European project and the global order. Tracing the issue from its impetuses in the Middle East, and moving deeper to questions of history, empathy, and human morality, they don’t provide any answers in the discussion, but frankly and honestly present the issue for digestion.

This is a conversation recorded at the Tällberg Workshop on Lesvos, March 17-19 in Greece, on the underlying cause and potential long-term consequences of Europe’s refugee crisis, Clash of Civilizations?

A conversation with:
-Maria del Mar Logrono Narbono, Programs Advisor, Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD)-Legal Aid, Jordan
-Michael Niconchuk, MSc Candidate, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, US-UK Fulbright Award Recipient, UK.

The conversation is moderated by Nora Bateson, Filmmaker, writer, educator. lecturer President of the International Bateson Institute, and Board Member, Tällberg Foundation, Sweden & USA