March 17, 2022 • 42 mins
Over the last three weeks, people around the world have watched in horror as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has claimed hundreds of innocent lives and put millions more in grave danger. The invasion has been a tragic reminder of the human costs of war, and why what happens to people anywhere should matter to all of us, everywhere.
In this episode, President Clinton is joined by French philosopher, filmmaker, and author Bernard-Henri Lévy to discuss his latest project, a documentary and accompanying book titled “The Will to See,” which shines a light on the suffering created by conflicts in places including Ukraine, Bosnia, Somalia, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan; explain how NGOs can play in critical role in rebuilding societies after “forgotten wars”; and share stories from his own extraordinary life. While this conversation was taped before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the insights Lévy shares about the bravery of the Ukrainian people and the importance of their struggle for freedom and against oppression rings even truer today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Over the last twenty years since I started my foundation work,
(00:04):
I spent a long time in Africa. I've learned a
lot about how different tribes in different regions live and
work and relate to each other. One of the most
impressive examples of that is how people in the Central
Highlands of Africa greet each other when they pass each other.
(00:26):
Instead of saying good morning, hello, how are you and
replying I'm fine, the reply translated into English is I
see you. Just think about what that means for a minute.
What they're really saying is I acknowledge your presence, your humanity,
(00:47):
you matter to me. It's a very moving, empowering practice.
So why am I telling you this Because in today's episode,
I'm joined by someone who's dedicated his life to forcing
people to see other people, to grapple with the fact
that all our lives are interconnected, and then what happens
(01:08):
to one person anywhere affects all of us everywhere. Bernard
and Reid Levi is a French philosopher, filmmaker, activists and
author of more than forty five books. His latest project,
the documentary and accompanying book titled The Will to See,
highlights the human suffering created by conflicts in places like Nigeria, Somalia, Bangladesh, Libya,
(01:30):
and Afghanistan. The most relevant today, he spent time on
the front lines of eastern Ukraine, where people have been
dealing with the Russian occupation since well. This conversation was
taped before the unjustified and totally unprovoked, full scalal invasion
of Ukraine by Russia. The insights he shares about the
bravery of the Ukrainian people and the importance of their
(01:51):
struggle for freedom and against oppression rings even truer today.
I hope you will find this talk as eliminating as
I did. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks to you,
Mr President, so great honor for me to join. Well,
I've been a fan of your work for a long time.
But for those listening who may not know you, can
(02:12):
you take just a couple of minutes to tell us
about yourself and how did you get in to this
work going all over the world to see the unseen?
You know, Mr President, I was I was trained and
shaped as a philosopher, and I decided to practice a
(02:32):
philosophy opening the windows, opening the doors, and going and
stepping out as much as possible outside. But at the
beginning there is philosophy. And when I was a young man,
there was a great German philosopher who was very influential.
(02:55):
He was dead, of course, called Edmund Husel. Edmond herself
had a piece of work composed of two big blocks.
One block was pure philosophy, nearly mathematical logic, and the
(03:15):
other world the other piece. The other block was what
he called phenomenology, which means going to the real things,
going to fight with the things, going to confront the
the anger of the world. So on one side, pure philosophy,
(03:37):
on the other side the anger of the world. All
my life, since I was a teenager, I decided to
combine the two, to have a real academic, solid, consistent
body of philosophy on one side, and to apply this
(03:59):
body of philosophy fee to make it work, to plug
it in the world, and to try to intervene in
the world. In one sentence, I am these very strange
animal which exists a lot in France, a little less
(04:20):
in America, which is a committed intellectual, a public intellectual.
I try to do both. Did you always know you
wanted to do this? You speak very eloquently in the
world to see about the influence of your father's life.
Talk a little bit about that, because I think in
(04:41):
the modern world, people spend so much time on the
internet with their devices. They have more information than ever before,
but I sometimes think they understand it less. Talk a
little about your example of your father and what he
did in the resistance and for the cause of freedom
against Strico and the Spanish Civil War. My father was
(05:04):
my my hero, and I think he was a true
hero beyond what I think myself. You are right, Mr. President.
When he was not quite eighteen years old, he engaged
himself in the International Brigade in Spain, serving the Republican
(05:27):
government against the fascism. He was one of those not
men boys seventeen years old. Eighteen years old, You are
a boy. You are a teenager who thought that fascism
was a danger for the world. He felt that immediately
(05:47):
that there was a very dark cloud in the sky
of the whole Europe, that this cloud was going to burst,
and that it had to be fought. So he did
that very young international Brigade in Spain. Then a few
years after he was one of the heroes of the
(06:11):
Free French Army. It started with the Army of Africa.
He was in the Battle of Tunisia, Libya, Italy. This
for me was crucial because my father gave me, transplitted
me the idea that it is better to take the
(06:34):
risk of dying, standing that living on the knees, it's
better to have a great life than to have a
coward life. In your new film and book, The World
to See, you highlight some specific forgotten wars. How did
you choose them? And what are the common threads you
(06:56):
notice that length the situations and all these different countries.
The principle of the choice was very simple forgotten forgotten wars.
I remember, by the way, twenty years ago, before The
Will to See, I made the first series of reportage
of the same sort. I did that for Lamonde, the
(07:20):
French daily newspaper Mode, and I remember the team of
Lament coming to me and offering me to hire me
as a reporter. I said, come on, I'm a philosopher,
I'm a writer. Why should I be a reporter? No?
Except except, I said, if you send me to places
(07:43):
where you never send anybody. Except if you send me
to places which are forgotten. The people of Lamonde, like
New York Times Lament. You know it is the arrist
the cream of the cream. They told me, Mr Levy,
this does not take east. Every war is covered by us.
(08:04):
There is no forgotten wars. Everything is on the map.
I said, okay, let's check. Give me two days and
I will come back with a series of wars which
number one last since at least ten years. Number two
count tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dead in
(08:29):
a short time. And number three to which you never
devoted a big article. Don deal. Two days after I
came with this list of forgotten wars, which I covered
for the moment for this book, The Will to See,
I did the same. I went to a series of
magazines and newspaper and I said, I want to go
(08:53):
two places to which you did not devote and the
reporters since tenures example Morgat issue in Somalia, example, the
trenches in Ukraine, the front line between the Russians today
and the Ukenyan army talk a little about Ukraine. Where
(09:15):
are we know? What do you think is gonna happen?
My feeling, but it's a bet I might be wrong tonight.
My feeling that President put In would do a huge mistake.
If he decided to invade Ukraine, it will be a
(09:38):
huge mistake for too reasons. I know the spots. I
spent some time there. I had the honor to be
embedded among the special units of the Uknyan Army. Number
one they are good. Number two they are patriots, they
(09:58):
are ready to defend their land. And number three detail,
but which is not just in detail. I'm not sure
that the Russian soldiers, the basic Russian soldiers, will shoot
so easily their cousins, that the the family cousins of Ukraine.
(10:25):
It would be a real mess. If the General in
chief of the Putin's Army give the order to shoot.
It will not be like Chicken. Yah, it will not,
which was a big crime. It will be a difficult story.
What do you think he wants? Does he want a
puppet government in Ukraine? Does he? I agree with the
(10:48):
Ukrainians are tough and strong, and they're proud of their country,
and I don't want to give it up. But he
has had more or less favorable governments there is that
what he wants. He wants that first, Yes, a poppet
government as much as he can as he had with Yanukovic,
(11:09):
before Porshenko, and he wants to create a mess among us,
the biggest, the mess the best for him, divisions between
Germany and France, divisions between America and Europe, mess between
(11:32):
Baltic countries who are very hawkish and Hungary, who is
very sweet because Mr Abad has a good personal relationship
with Mr Putin, because he shares some parts of his ideology. Whatever.
But the aim for me, the target of Puttin is
(11:56):
to inflict us what he thinks we inflicted him at
the time of the collapse of Soviet Union. Mr Americans,
Mr French, Mr Europeans, you inflicted me a humiliation by
destroying my empire in I will inflict you the reverse
(12:23):
by destroying as much as I can your dear free world,
European continent. And so what this is the target? Revenge?
Revenge about don't forget you know that better than any one,
Mr President that for him, the collapse of Soviet Union
(12:46):
in the biggest catastrophe of the twentieth century, and he
really wants to make a spay for that. This is
the target. According to me, of course, the truth is
quite a and that basically it brought it from the
inside out to Soviet Union and the rest of the
(13:06):
world just stayed strong and preferred freedom to domination. But
I remember when I became president, Russia was in terrible
trouble and they couldn't even afford to bring their troops
on from the Baltics. They had no place to house them,
they had no food to feed them, they had nothing.
And the first thing that I did as president was
(13:27):
to meet with President Elson in Canada and organize a
twenty four billion dollar relief operation for them, which was
real money back then. That was, you know, twenty nine
years ago, and they were able to bring their soldiers
home and to treat them with dignity. And I did
everything I could to help Yelson succeed, and even in
(13:50):
Bosnia we let them be part of the peacekeeping mission,
even though it was a difficult thing politically. They Yelson
trusted me and we worked together and he worked it out.
And I think what Putin thought was that because of
his energy resources, when he got rich again, he could
exercise more muscle, and that I always thought that the
(14:11):
great decision Russia had to make after the collapse of
the Soviet Union was not how to get revenge, but
how to define greatness in the twenty first century, and
Putin has chosen, in effect, a nineteenth century Czarist model
of greatness. He can pray on the fact that his
country was invaded by Napoleon and Hitler, and there's still
(14:36):
a sense of distrust of the outsiders, and he can
use all these new levels the unconventional warfare, if you will,
their enormous talents and cyber technology and their ability to
so mischief all the way to the American election. And
that's how he defines greatness. He could have made a
very different decision. He could have decided to become the
(15:00):
in effect second Silicon Valley, the Internet capital of half
the world, and he decided not to. He decided the
ironed hand was better. But I think it was a mistake.
You are right, and here comes what we could call
the human factor. Putting is Putting. He's not a cynical man.
(15:23):
He believes. He has some beliefs. He has a doctrine.
For example, he believes in Eurasia Eurasia Razi. He believes
in an alternative pattern of society against democracy. He believes
in illiberal regimes. He hates what America or Europe embodies.
(15:51):
He has a real doctrine. I don't know if we
should qualify it a new fascism. I don't know if
it the revival of just offer Zarius to Russia. Maybe
it is that plus a bit of Stalinism plus a bit.
I don't know. But there is a doctrine, and this
(16:15):
doctrine is really opposite to ours. It is a real
opposition of visions of the world. And this makes so
crucial that we we stand by our worlds with the West,
stand by our values, defend them with wisdom, of course,
(16:40):
without aggressivity, without being hawkish. But if we don't stand
by our own values, we will be strongly defeated. Because
he has a double force of an army and of
a doctrine. That brings me to bay. Let's talk about
little bit. As you know well, Bosnia was the first
(17:03):
place where NATO approved out of area operations. The Germans
voted for it even before it was legal for them
to send any forces outside Germany, and um I was
trying from to get our allies involved because I didn't
think America could do this alone, because Bosnia had to
(17:24):
be a part of Europe. And what broke largely because
of France. I might add what broke the European paralysis
was Srebinitza. The slaughter and Strebitza led the French to
believe that their faith that they could somehow reason with
or do business with Milossovich and the Serbians was misplaced.
(17:44):
And so we were able and only with you know,
a few days, maybe four or five days of bombing,
to start the peace talks, and we were able to
stop the slaughter and to preserve a kind of rough
order which has existed to the present day. But we
did not have at the time of what we did,
and they know how the ability to fashion an agreement
(18:08):
which would prevent to Serve from vetoing the national government
of Bosnia from doing anything to make it a real
nation and to put it on the path to prosperity.
So the good news is we stopped the killing. The
bad news is, as long as the Republic of Serbsca,
which is part of Bosnia, is governed by someone who
(18:29):
in effect is an anti unity which pleases Putin and
no one else, we're stuck. What what should happen in Bosnia?
What's your take on this? I remember the night you
decided to launch the bombing on the Hills which were
bombing Sarajevo. I was with Ambassador Harrimana, General Wellesley Clark,
(18:56):
and Ambassador Old Brook. The three of them, me plus
the President is a bigovich in the dining room of
Ambassador Harriman. It was more than a relief. It was
a full joy. It was a blessing. I remember having
(19:17):
blessed you for having taking after two years this decision.
This day you made a lot for the Bostian people,
for the cause, the cause of the Boston people, and
for the cause of values and truth. It is a
(19:39):
date for my generation. This night is a real date.
Number one, number two. What is what is true is
that the data and agreements we're not good. He hesitated
till the last minute to sign or not. He was
(20:00):
he has a prospect. It was a visionary He knew
that disagreement will postpone the problems instead of solving them. Really,
and this is what we see today, the ditch, the
chief of the Republican subscript is again playing with fire.
(20:23):
What I believe, I told that to my President recently.
We are still in a quiet situation. The fire is
not yet there. We should intervene now, we should deal
a step ahead in the future entry of Bossia in
(20:47):
Europe in exchange of a remolding of the institution of
the two entities Croats and Muslim on one side, Orthodox
on the Serbian on the other one. We should not
let it as it is. I hope that your success
Hals in America in France will take this problem now
(21:11):
before it is too late, and before we have to
extinguish a real fire. It has to be done. If not,
the war could resume, could come back. I agree with that,
and and I was back there. I went back to
the twentieth anniversary of Svensen and it was very moving,
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and the then president of Serbia came, and he was young,
like the then mayor of the community who was the
only survivor of the massacre, and ReBs in his family
and in his class, only male survivor in his high
school class twenty years earlier. And these two young men
(21:59):
offered us promise, but they took a totally different direction.
And I remember walking through the crowd that day. All
the older people were really glad to see me, and
they were grateful that I'd stopped to slaughter. All the
younger people were angry because they took it for granted
that they weren't going to be shot, but they had
no hope because nothing good was happening. And then the
(22:23):
Serbs went back to their hard line direction, and we're
paying for it now. It's something that has to be
watched and the United States should be supportive, but the
Europeans are gonna have to take a lot of initiative.
You're because they're part of Europe. If anybody had told
me when we did all this more than twenty years
(22:44):
ago that by the in now that Kosovo would have
a more enduring government and greater prospects at the future
than Bosnia, I wouldn't have believed it then too. And
they're in a precarious position geographically, of course, but it's
(23:05):
worth remembering that the aftermath of conflict will determine whether
we lead the seeds of another one or give people
a chance to live a normal future. And I'm very
worried about it. And the further away you get from
the scene of a place like that, the more the
politicians can turn away from it. And you just hear
(23:27):
the barking dogs. And if you're an American politician today,
all the barking dogs are at home. I don't think
they're thinking about it very much, but it's a real problem.
We'll be right back. I sense from your reading that
(23:50):
you have a great affinity for the non governmental organizations
that try to keep humanity alive and all these difficult circumstances.
And the first person who exposed me to the potential
power of NGOs in the United States and around the
world was Hillary because her first job out of law
(24:10):
school was working for what became the Children's Defense Fund,
and she began to and when she was in the
White House and she would take trips from me. She
would every time she went to a country, she would
meet with the main NGO leaders along with the government officials.
And she got me to do the same thing, which
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often upset the leaders you know who saw NGOs as
a threat. But they're a threat by and large only
because they highlight forgotten people and the real condition of
human beings instead of the stated superficial positions of politicians.
So what you're feeling now about the NGO movement, I'm
(24:54):
very worried about Afghanistan, as I'm sure you are. I'm
gonna stud you all right. The it is heartbreaking and
it is a shame the situation. It is heartbreaking because
in reality, in Afghanistan we did succeed. We did not fail.
(25:16):
We did succeed in which sense, under the umbrella of
American forces, women got liberated, dared to go in the
streets with a with a naked face. Under the umbrella
(25:37):
of American forces, a free press began to take birth,
and so many Geo Afghan ev and geos civil society
began to take shape also, So it is false to
say that we failed. You know, this is the motto
(25:57):
we no, we did not fail. Those who maintain, who
keep the candle lightened, are the angels, the humanitarian movements,
who at big risk, risk of their lives, working in
so dangerous situations, are keeping the hope alive. Thanks God,
(26:24):
we still have a few angels in Afghanistan trying to
do their work. Generally speaking, I share absolutely your point
of view. I am an old traveler now, like Hillary,
I went in so many places in my life. I
will tell you I understood very early that the true
(26:49):
ambassadors of France, maybe of America often not always, because
we have also some great ambassadors, but often the true
ambassadors were the angels. They are the ones who have
the best contact with population. They are the ones who
(27:10):
are the most closely embedded in the in the real
concrete situation. They have a lot of information about the situation.
When you want to know something today, when you arrive
in a in Burundi, or even in Mogadisho or in Afghanistan,
(27:33):
you have to go to the angel. They waive the
flag of America and of Europe. They have the datas
and they help. They are our true ambassadors, and they
are brave. They are exactly like the journalists. The reporters
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there risk a lot by doing their job. So it
is the wealth of the angels. Maybe after the war
in Biafra in the sixties might be one of the
real progresses, one of the great inventions of the modern times.
(28:16):
One of the things that bothered me about the whole
thing is we never really explained to the American people
what was going on in Afghanistan. And there were many people,
including many who were upset about to withdrawal, who wanted
to end the conflict in I thought, we cannot make
(28:37):
over the whole country. And I think what we did
was good because, as you pointed out, we hadn't been
at war in Afghanistan in nearly a decade. So what
would you do now? What do you think should be
done now in Afghanistan? I think we should prevent the
(28:57):
ordinary people from dying by hunger. So help should be
provided through angels, through you and energy. Certainly not one
dollar directly in the pocket of Taliban's because they are
corrupted and they would steal it. Number one, we should
(29:21):
help people not to die. Number two, we should help
the women, the movements of women in Counda Heart, in
Mazari Sharief, in other cities who refuse the iron rule
of Taliban's. We have a lot of ways to help them,
(29:41):
concrete and moral. We knew how to do that. We
Americans and Europeans in the time of the Cold War,
at the time of the Soviet Union. We knew without
inflaming the whole world, how to encourage, how to help,
how to do underground support. This is what we have
(30:05):
to do with the people, especially the brave ladies who
are opening the rule of Taliban's a. Number three, there
is a man. I know him well. I knew the
father well, and I know the son ratherwell. I know
him since he's a little boy. Now he's a grown
(30:28):
up man Ahmad Massoud Ahmad Masud, who is the leader
of the resistance in Panshir, which is the only province
who refused to submit to Taliban's I saw him among
his commanders in Panshir. I filled him in a moving
(30:52):
gathering where we had the old commanders of the Father Amachamasud,
the legendary father, and the young commanders of the Sun together,
you know, sort of amalgam mixing of the old commanders
and the young. And I saw young Basswood addressing this
(31:14):
bunch of commanders. He was great, he was charismatic, He
was respected by those proud horseman cavalier. As Joseph Kessel said,
so this man has to be supported by many means.
(31:35):
I cannot enter in details. I'm not an expert, but
he has to be supported. He is at this moment,
that's my opinion, the only asset which not only the West,
which the free people of Afghanistan have on the ground,
(31:57):
The free people of Afghanistan, the women who want to
remain free, the journalists who want to continue to do
their job, they have one asset. I'm admussment. We still
can in spite of our retreat. We still can try
to repair which is reparable by helping this man. His
(32:18):
father's death was a tragedy. I know, I know, I know.
I knew him well. He came in Paris. I made him.
I organized his visit in Paris in May two thousand one,
a few weeks before his death, and a few weeks
before September eleven. He was so melancholic, he was so sad.
(32:43):
He had with him some informations which he wanted to
give to French government. He was not properly received, He
was not properly hosted by the authorities of my country.
Because there was a black male of the Talibans in
Kabul saying, if you receive Massoud, there will be retaliation
(33:08):
on the ground against the angel. I think again it
was the bluff. But let's forget. So I have so
sad souvenirs of the of the sadness, of the melancholy
of Massoud. The last time I saw him in in
(33:29):
in Paris, it was in April. He was a great man. Yeah,
he was a great fighter. He was a poet. He
was an intellectual. He loved books. He had his personal
library following him from battlefield to battlefield. He was one
(33:49):
of those men who wage war without liking it. More
after this, before we close, let's uh, I think our
(34:12):
listeners would be interested to know about your very first
endeavor in this area. So tell us how you wound
up as a young man going to Bangladesh, which at
the time was East Pakistan, and how did it become
Bangladesh and what was your roller. My role was very small,
(34:33):
but my and divor and my enthusiasm was great. There
was a slaughter in Bangladesh, mass crimes. Even today we
don't know if the Pakistania Army killed five one million,
two million, maybe three, maybe four, We don't even know.
(34:53):
And Andre Malra made a call on French Raggio. He
was very old, he was very nervous. He was a
real old man, and he said, I make an appeal.
I make a call to the constitution of an international brigade,
(35:14):
as I did in Spain. He did that in Spain
in nine six. He was at the head. He was
the commander, the coronel of a fleet of planes and
listed in the International Brigades, doing a real good job
in Spain. So at this moment he's seventy, but seventy
(35:34):
of this time, not like us. It was a real seventy.
He was really tired, and he launched his appeal. I
heard that. I thought that it was so moving, so
beautiful and so true. That's what did I do. I
took my phone. I called the secretary of the assistant
(35:58):
of I said, I am in, please take me. So
my name was in the least I was at all
the and I went the Reality International Brigade never is
Andrew was so tired that he did not come, Thanks God,
(36:20):
he came after the war. But I was there. So
being there, what can I do? I embedded myself in
a group of freedom fighters Mukti Bahini. I entered into
Da Car and I stayed there for a few months
at the side of the first President of Bangladesh Check Mujiba.
But this is important because it is the first time
(36:42):
I was twenty one or twenty two, I understood for
the first time that the real affair of our generation,
the real the real tragedy, the real fight will be
the opposition of the radical Islam and the enlightened Islam.
(37:03):
Radical Islam was embodied by the Pakistani army. You know, Pakistan,
the country of the pure and Mujibu Ahman President of
Bangladesh was an enlightened Muslim. He was Muslim, pious, worshiping
and so on. But Democrats, friend to human rights, friend
(37:26):
to the Western world, deciding to support the women who
had been raped during the war and to name them Birangona,
which meant he ruins of the nation. He was a
very open minded man. I was twenty. I understood that
this radical Islam versus unlighted Islam might be the great
(37:50):
affair of my life and of our generation. And he
turned out to be right. And Uh, we can end
on an upbeat note a little bit. Arguably the two
most successful NGOs in the developing world took birth in Bangladesh.
Father Lavin, who sadly died just a couple of years ago.
(38:11):
It was a good friend of mine founded Brack and
Muhammad Yunis founded the Grameen Bank, and Uh when he
got the Nobel Prize for Economics. I think it's important
to know that even though Bangladesh still has deeply divided politics,
there were three years in the early part of this
(38:33):
century when they in effect had no government. It was
totally paralyzed, and the economy still grew with no government
at six percent a year because of the micro credit
work of Brack and Gramen and others. So this work
is worth doing. And I'm so glad that you've pointed
(38:54):
out that you if you go in this direction that
you've lived your life, you can't keep score by whether
you win a hundred percent of the time and whether
everything you live and dream can be realized more or
less immediately. Well, first of all, I want to thank
(39:14):
you for your life and thank you for being a
public intellectual, which is another way of saying someone who
is an active citizen. We didn't get into the number
of times when you could have been killed yourself. You
were repeatedly in danger because you went to where people
were hurting. And I think the whole world owes you
(39:37):
are dead of gratitude, and I hope that someday. I
know you said you didn't want it, but I would
like it if France would acknowledge what you have done
as a Frenchman to make the world a better place.
And I'm glad you've got your energy and I hope
you never lose it. I remember somebody asked me once
(39:57):
why I went to law school, and I said, I
don't want to practice law, but I don't ever want
to be forced to retire. I want to die with
my boots on. I think that you have lived and
I hope we'll live decades more with your boots on.
And we're all very grateful to you. Thank you, same
(40:18):
for you and Mr President boots On, boots on VC
the good and boots on for you and for me,
bless you, Thank you. Why am I telling you? This
is a production of our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation
and at Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craig Menascian
and Will Monadi. Our production team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton,
(40:41):
Sara Horowitz, and Jake Young, with production support from Liz
Raftree and Josh Farnham. Original music by What White. Special
thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson on hell Orina, Corey Ganstley,
Kevin Thuram, Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated staff and
partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, I'm Dr Mike Kimpill,
(41:07):
Director of the Presidential Leadership scholars Program, a one of
a kind partnership between the presidential centers of Bill Clinton,
George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.
President Clinton often says that the key to great leadership
is in finding our common humanity, something that's needed now
more than ever. That's why each year we bring together
(41:29):
a dramatically diverse group of leaders, from doctors to teachers,
elected officials to scientists, active military and veterans, all of
whom have a passion for making the world a better place.
We create a culture of collaboration that transcends partisan divides
and ideological differences in service of a greater good. Today,
(41:50):
presidential Leadership scholars across the country are working together and
actively applying the lessons learned in our program to help
tackle today's most pressing challenges. You can learn more about
this work and see how you can get involved by
visiting www dot Clinton Foundation dot org. Slash podcast
Over the last twenty years since I started my foundation work,
(00:04):
I spent a long time in Africa. I've learned a
lot about how different tribes in different regions live and
work and relate to each other. One of the most
impressive examples of that is how people in the Central
Highlands of Africa greet each other when they pass each other.
(00:26):
Instead of saying good morning, hello, how are you and
replying I'm fine, the reply translated into English is I
see you. Just think about what that means for a minute.
What they're really saying is I acknowledge your presence, your humanity,
(00:47):
you matter to me. It's a very moving, empowering practice.
So why am I telling you this Because in today's episode,
I'm joined by someone who's dedicated his life to forcing
people to see other people, to grapple with the fact
that all our lives are interconnected, and then what happens
(01:08):
to one person anywhere affects all of us everywhere. Bernard
and Reid Levi is a French philosopher, filmmaker, activists and
author of more than forty five books. His latest project,
the documentary and accompanying book titled The Will to See,
highlights the human suffering created by conflicts in places like Nigeria, Somalia, Bangladesh, Libya,
(01:30):
and Afghanistan. The most relevant today, he spent time on
the front lines of eastern Ukraine, where people have been
dealing with the Russian occupation since well. This conversation was
taped before the unjustified and totally unprovoked, full scalal invasion
of Ukraine by Russia. The insights he shares about the
bravery of the Ukrainian people and the importance of their
(01:51):
struggle for freedom and against oppression rings even truer today.
I hope you will find this talk as eliminating as
I did. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks to you,
Mr President, so great honor for me to join. Well,
I've been a fan of your work for a long time.
But for those listening who may not know you, can
(02:12):
you take just a couple of minutes to tell us
about yourself and how did you get in to this
work going all over the world to see the unseen?
You know, Mr President, I was I was trained and
shaped as a philosopher, and I decided to practice a
(02:32):
philosophy opening the windows, opening the doors, and going and
stepping out as much as possible outside. But at the
beginning there is philosophy. And when I was a young man,
there was a great German philosopher who was very influential.
(02:55):
He was dead, of course, called Edmund Husel. Edmond herself
had a piece of work composed of two big blocks.
One block was pure philosophy, nearly mathematical logic, and the
(03:15):
other world the other piece. The other block was what
he called phenomenology, which means going to the real things,
going to fight with the things, going to confront the
the anger of the world. So on one side, pure philosophy,
(03:37):
on the other side the anger of the world. All
my life, since I was a teenager, I decided to
combine the two, to have a real academic, solid, consistent
body of philosophy on one side, and to apply this
(03:59):
body of philosophy fee to make it work, to plug
it in the world, and to try to intervene in
the world. In one sentence, I am these very strange
animal which exists a lot in France, a little less
(04:20):
in America, which is a committed intellectual, a public intellectual.
I try to do both. Did you always know you
wanted to do this? You speak very eloquently in the
world to see about the influence of your father's life.
Talk a little bit about that, because I think in
(04:41):
the modern world, people spend so much time on the
internet with their devices. They have more information than ever before,
but I sometimes think they understand it less. Talk a
little about your example of your father and what he
did in the resistance and for the cause of freedom
against Strico and the Spanish Civil War. My father was
(05:04):
my my hero, and I think he was a true
hero beyond what I think myself. You are right, Mr. President.
When he was not quite eighteen years old, he engaged
himself in the International Brigade in Spain, serving the Republican
(05:27):
government against the fascism. He was one of those not
men boys seventeen years old. Eighteen years old, You are
a boy. You are a teenager who thought that fascism
was a danger for the world. He felt that immediately
(05:47):
that there was a very dark cloud in the sky
of the whole Europe, that this cloud was going to burst,
and that it had to be fought. So he did
that very young international Brigade in Spain. Then a few
years after he was one of the heroes of the
(06:11):
Free French Army. It started with the Army of Africa.
He was in the Battle of Tunisia, Libya, Italy. This
for me was crucial because my father gave me, transplitted
me the idea that it is better to take the
(06:34):
risk of dying, standing that living on the knees, it's
better to have a great life than to have a
coward life. In your new film and book, The World
to See, you highlight some specific forgotten wars. How did
you choose them? And what are the common threads you
(06:56):
notice that length the situations and all these different countries.
The principle of the choice was very simple forgotten forgotten wars.
I remember, by the way, twenty years ago, before The
Will to See, I made the first series of reportage
of the same sort. I did that for Lamonde, the
(07:20):
French daily newspaper Mode, and I remember the team of
Lament coming to me and offering me to hire me
as a reporter. I said, come on, I'm a philosopher,
I'm a writer. Why should I be a reporter? No?
Except except, I said, if you send me to places
(07:43):
where you never send anybody. Except if you send me
to places which are forgotten. The people of Lamonde, like
New York Times Lament. You know it is the arrist
the cream of the cream. They told me, Mr Levy,
this does not take east. Every war is covered by us.
(08:04):
There is no forgotten wars. Everything is on the map.
I said, okay, let's check. Give me two days and
I will come back with a series of wars which
number one last since at least ten years. Number two
count tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dead in
(08:29):
a short time. And number three to which you never
devoted a big article. Don deal. Two days after I
came with this list of forgotten wars, which I covered
for the moment for this book, The Will to See,
I did the same. I went to a series of
magazines and newspaper and I said, I want to go
(08:53):
two places to which you did not devote and the
reporters since tenures example Morgat issue in Somalia, example, the
trenches in Ukraine, the front line between the Russians today
and the Ukenyan army talk a little about Ukraine. Where
(09:15):
are we know? What do you think is gonna happen?
My feeling, but it's a bet I might be wrong tonight.
My feeling that President put In would do a huge mistake.
If he decided to invade Ukraine, it will be a
(09:38):
huge mistake for too reasons. I know the spots. I
spent some time there. I had the honor to be
embedded among the special units of the Uknyan Army. Number
one they are good. Number two they are patriots, they
(09:58):
are ready to defend their land. And number three detail,
but which is not just in detail. I'm not sure
that the Russian soldiers, the basic Russian soldiers, will shoot
so easily their cousins, that the the family cousins of Ukraine.
(10:25):
It would be a real mess. If the General in
chief of the Putin's Army give the order to shoot.
It will not be like Chicken. Yah, it will not,
which was a big crime. It will be a difficult story.
What do you think he wants? Does he want a
puppet government in Ukraine? Does he? I agree with the
(10:48):
Ukrainians are tough and strong, and they're proud of their country,
and I don't want to give it up. But he
has had more or less favorable governments there is that
what he wants. He wants that first, Yes, a poppet
government as much as he can as he had with Yanukovic,
(11:09):
before Porshenko, and he wants to create a mess among us,
the biggest, the mess the best for him, divisions between
Germany and France, divisions between America and Europe, mess between
(11:32):
Baltic countries who are very hawkish and Hungary, who is
very sweet because Mr Abad has a good personal relationship
with Mr Putin, because he shares some parts of his ideology. Whatever.
But the aim for me, the target of Puttin is
(11:56):
to inflict us what he thinks we inflicted him at
the time of the collapse of Soviet Union. Mr Americans,
Mr French, Mr Europeans, you inflicted me a humiliation by
destroying my empire in I will inflict you the reverse
(12:23):
by destroying as much as I can your dear free world,
European continent. And so what this is the target? Revenge?
Revenge about don't forget you know that better than any one,
Mr President that for him, the collapse of Soviet Union
(12:46):
in the biggest catastrophe of the twentieth century, and he
really wants to make a spay for that. This is
the target. According to me, of course, the truth is
quite a and that basically it brought it from the
inside out to Soviet Union and the rest of the
(13:06):
world just stayed strong and preferred freedom to domination. But
I remember when I became president, Russia was in terrible
trouble and they couldn't even afford to bring their troops
on from the Baltics. They had no place to house them,
they had no food to feed them, they had nothing.
And the first thing that I did as president was
(13:27):
to meet with President Elson in Canada and organize a
twenty four billion dollar relief operation for them, which was
real money back then. That was, you know, twenty nine
years ago, and they were able to bring their soldiers
home and to treat them with dignity. And I did
everything I could to help Yelson succeed, and even in
(13:50):
Bosnia we let them be part of the peacekeeping mission,
even though it was a difficult thing politically. They Yelson
trusted me and we worked together and he worked it out.
And I think what Putin thought was that because of
his energy resources, when he got rich again, he could
exercise more muscle, and that I always thought that the
(14:11):
great decision Russia had to make after the collapse of
the Soviet Union was not how to get revenge, but
how to define greatness in the twenty first century, and
Putin has chosen, in effect, a nineteenth century Czarist model
of greatness. He can pray on the fact that his
country was invaded by Napoleon and Hitler, and there's still
(14:36):
a sense of distrust of the outsiders, and he can
use all these new levels the unconventional warfare, if you will,
their enormous talents and cyber technology and their ability to
so mischief all the way to the American election. And
that's how he defines greatness. He could have made a
very different decision. He could have decided to become the
(15:00):
in effect second Silicon Valley, the Internet capital of half
the world, and he decided not to. He decided the
ironed hand was better. But I think it was a mistake.
You are right, and here comes what we could call
the human factor. Putting is Putting. He's not a cynical man.
(15:23):
He believes. He has some beliefs. He has a doctrine.
For example, he believes in Eurasia Eurasia Razi. He believes
in an alternative pattern of society against democracy. He believes
in illiberal regimes. He hates what America or Europe embodies.
(15:51):
He has a real doctrine. I don't know if we
should qualify it a new fascism. I don't know if
it the revival of just offer Zarius to Russia. Maybe
it is that plus a bit of Stalinism plus a bit.
I don't know. But there is a doctrine, and this
(16:15):
doctrine is really opposite to ours. It is a real
opposition of visions of the world. And this makes so
crucial that we we stand by our worlds with the West,
stand by our values, defend them with wisdom, of course,
(16:40):
without aggressivity, without being hawkish. But if we don't stand
by our own values, we will be strongly defeated. Because
he has a double force of an army and of
a doctrine. That brings me to bay. Let's talk about
little bit. As you know well, Bosnia was the first
(17:03):
place where NATO approved out of area operations. The Germans
voted for it even before it was legal for them
to send any forces outside Germany, and um I was
trying from to get our allies involved because I didn't
think America could do this alone, because Bosnia had to
(17:24):
be a part of Europe. And what broke largely because
of France. I might add what broke the European paralysis
was Srebinitza. The slaughter and Strebitza led the French to
believe that their faith that they could somehow reason with
or do business with Milossovich and the Serbians was misplaced.
(17:44):
And so we were able and only with you know,
a few days, maybe four or five days of bombing,
to start the peace talks, and we were able to
stop the slaughter and to preserve a kind of rough
order which has existed to the present day. But we
did not have at the time of what we did,
and they know how the ability to fashion an agreement
(18:08):
which would prevent to Serve from vetoing the national government
of Bosnia from doing anything to make it a real
nation and to put it on the path to prosperity.
So the good news is we stopped the killing. The
bad news is, as long as the Republic of Serbsca,
which is part of Bosnia, is governed by someone who
(18:29):
in effect is an anti unity which pleases Putin and
no one else, we're stuck. What what should happen in Bosnia?
What's your take on this? I remember the night you
decided to launch the bombing on the Hills which were
bombing Sarajevo. I was with Ambassador Harrimana, General Wellesley Clark,
(18:56):
and Ambassador Old Brook. The three of them, me plus
the President is a bigovich in the dining room of
Ambassador Harriman. It was more than a relief. It was
a full joy. It was a blessing. I remember having
(19:17):
blessed you for having taking after two years this decision.
This day you made a lot for the Bostian people,
for the cause, the cause of the Boston people, and
for the cause of values and truth. It is a
(19:39):
date for my generation. This night is a real date.
Number one, number two. What is what is true is
that the data and agreements we're not good. He hesitated
till the last minute to sign or not. He was
(20:00):
he has a prospect. It was a visionary He knew
that disagreement will postpone the problems instead of solving them. Really,
and this is what we see today, the ditch, the
chief of the Republican subscript is again playing with fire.
(20:23):
What I believe, I told that to my President recently.
We are still in a quiet situation. The fire is
not yet there. We should intervene now, we should deal
a step ahead in the future entry of Bossia in
(20:47):
Europe in exchange of a remolding of the institution of
the two entities Croats and Muslim on one side, Orthodox
on the Serbian on the other one. We should not
let it as it is. I hope that your success
Hals in America in France will take this problem now
(21:11):
before it is too late, and before we have to
extinguish a real fire. It has to be done. If not,
the war could resume, could come back. I agree with that,
and and I was back there. I went back to
the twentieth anniversary of Svensen and it was very moving,
(21:35):
and the then president of Serbia came, and he was young,
like the then mayor of the community who was the
only survivor of the massacre, and ReBs in his family
and in his class, only male survivor in his high
school class twenty years earlier. And these two young men
(21:59):
offered us promise, but they took a totally different direction.
And I remember walking through the crowd that day. All
the older people were really glad to see me, and
they were grateful that I'd stopped to slaughter. All the
younger people were angry because they took it for granted
that they weren't going to be shot, but they had
no hope because nothing good was happening. And then the
(22:23):
Serbs went back to their hard line direction, and we're
paying for it now. It's something that has to be
watched and the United States should be supportive, but the
Europeans are gonna have to take a lot of initiative.
You're because they're part of Europe. If anybody had told
me when we did all this more than twenty years
(22:44):
ago that by the in now that Kosovo would have
a more enduring government and greater prospects at the future
than Bosnia, I wouldn't have believed it then too. And
they're in a precarious position geographically, of course, but it's
(23:05):
worth remembering that the aftermath of conflict will determine whether
we lead the seeds of another one or give people
a chance to live a normal future. And I'm very
worried about it. And the further away you get from
the scene of a place like that, the more the
politicians can turn away from it. And you just hear
(23:27):
the barking dogs. And if you're an American politician today,
all the barking dogs are at home. I don't think
they're thinking about it very much, but it's a real problem.
We'll be right back. I sense from your reading that
(23:50):
you have a great affinity for the non governmental organizations
that try to keep humanity alive and all these difficult circumstances.
And the first person who exposed me to the potential
power of NGOs in the United States and around the
world was Hillary because her first job out of law
(24:10):
school was working for what became the Children's Defense Fund,
and she began to and when she was in the
White House and she would take trips from me. She
would every time she went to a country, she would
meet with the main NGO leaders along with the government officials.
And she got me to do the same thing, which
(24:31):
often upset the leaders you know who saw NGOs as
a threat. But they're a threat by and large only
because they highlight forgotten people and the real condition of
human beings instead of the stated superficial positions of politicians.
So what you're feeling now about the NGO movement, I'm
(24:54):
very worried about Afghanistan, as I'm sure you are. I'm
gonna stud you all right. The it is heartbreaking and
it is a shame the situation. It is heartbreaking because
in reality, in Afghanistan we did succeed. We did not fail.
(25:16):
We did succeed in which sense, under the umbrella of
American forces, women got liberated, dared to go in the
streets with a with a naked face. Under the umbrella
(25:37):
of American forces, a free press began to take birth,
and so many Geo Afghan ev and geos civil society
began to take shape also, So it is false to
say that we failed. You know, this is the motto
(25:57):
we no, we did not fail. Those who maintain, who
keep the candle lightened, are the angels, the humanitarian movements,
who at big risk, risk of their lives, working in
so dangerous situations, are keeping the hope alive. Thanks God,
(26:24):
we still have a few angels in Afghanistan trying to
do their work. Generally speaking, I share absolutely your point
of view. I am an old traveler now, like Hillary,
I went in so many places in my life. I
will tell you I understood very early that the true
(26:49):
ambassadors of France, maybe of America often not always, because
we have also some great ambassadors, but often the true
ambassadors were the angels. They are the ones who have
the best contact with population. They are the ones who
(27:10):
are the most closely embedded in the in the real
concrete situation. They have a lot of information about the situation.
When you want to know something today, when you arrive
in a in Burundi, or even in Mogadisho or in Afghanistan,
(27:33):
you have to go to the angel. They waive the
flag of America and of Europe. They have the datas
and they help. They are our true ambassadors, and they
are brave. They are exactly like the journalists. The reporters
(27:53):
there risk a lot by doing their job. So it
is the wealth of the angels. Maybe after the war
in Biafra in the sixties might be one of the
real progresses, one of the great inventions of the modern times.
(28:16):
One of the things that bothered me about the whole
thing is we never really explained to the American people
what was going on in Afghanistan. And there were many people,
including many who were upset about to withdrawal, who wanted
to end the conflict in I thought, we cannot make
(28:37):
over the whole country. And I think what we did
was good because, as you pointed out, we hadn't been
at war in Afghanistan in nearly a decade. So what
would you do now? What do you think should be
done now in Afghanistan? I think we should prevent the
(28:57):
ordinary people from dying by hunger. So help should be
provided through angels, through you and energy. Certainly not one
dollar directly in the pocket of Taliban's because they are
corrupted and they would steal it. Number one, we should
(29:21):
help people not to die. Number two, we should help
the women, the movements of women in Counda Heart, in
Mazari Sharief, in other cities who refuse the iron rule
of Taliban's. We have a lot of ways to help them,
(29:41):
concrete and moral. We knew how to do that. We
Americans and Europeans in the time of the Cold War,
at the time of the Soviet Union. We knew without
inflaming the whole world, how to encourage, how to help,
how to do underground support. This is what we have
(30:05):
to do with the people, especially the brave ladies who
are opening the rule of Taliban's a. Number three, there
is a man. I know him well. I knew the
father well, and I know the son ratherwell. I know
him since he's a little boy. Now he's a grown
(30:28):
up man Ahmad Massoud Ahmad Masud, who is the leader
of the resistance in Panshir, which is the only province
who refused to submit to Taliban's I saw him among
his commanders in Panshir. I filled him in a moving
(30:52):
gathering where we had the old commanders of the Father Amachamasud,
the legendary father, and the young commanders of the Sun together,
you know, sort of amalgam mixing of the old commanders
and the young. And I saw young Basswood addressing this
(31:14):
bunch of commanders. He was great, he was charismatic, He
was respected by those proud horseman cavalier. As Joseph Kessel said,
so this man has to be supported by many means.
(31:35):
I cannot enter in details. I'm not an expert, but
he has to be supported. He is at this moment,
that's my opinion, the only asset which not only the West,
which the free people of Afghanistan have on the ground,
(31:57):
The free people of Afghanistan, the women who want to
remain free, the journalists who want to continue to do
their job, they have one asset. I'm admussment. We still
can in spite of our retreat. We still can try
to repair which is reparable by helping this man. His
(32:18):
father's death was a tragedy. I know, I know, I know.
I knew him well. He came in Paris. I made him.
I organized his visit in Paris in May two thousand one,
a few weeks before his death, and a few weeks
before September eleven. He was so melancholic, he was so sad.
(32:43):
He had with him some informations which he wanted to
give to French government. He was not properly received, He
was not properly hosted by the authorities of my country.
Because there was a black male of the Talibans in
Kabul saying, if you receive Massoud, there will be retaliation
(33:08):
on the ground against the angel. I think again it
was the bluff. But let's forget. So I have so
sad souvenirs of the of the sadness, of the melancholy
of Massoud. The last time I saw him in in
(33:29):
in Paris, it was in April. He was a great man. Yeah,
he was a great fighter. He was a poet. He
was an intellectual. He loved books. He had his personal
library following him from battlefield to battlefield. He was one
(33:49):
of those men who wage war without liking it. More
after this, before we close, let's uh, I think our
(34:12):
listeners would be interested to know about your very first
endeavor in this area. So tell us how you wound
up as a young man going to Bangladesh, which at
the time was East Pakistan, and how did it become
Bangladesh and what was your roller. My role was very small,
(34:33):
but my and divor and my enthusiasm was great. There
was a slaughter in Bangladesh, mass crimes. Even today we
don't know if the Pakistania Army killed five one million,
two million, maybe three, maybe four, We don't even know.
(34:53):
And Andre Malra made a call on French Raggio. He
was very old, he was very nervous. He was a
real old man, and he said, I make an appeal.
I make a call to the constitution of an international brigade,
(35:14):
as I did in Spain. He did that in Spain
in nine six. He was at the head. He was
the commander, the coronel of a fleet of planes and
listed in the International Brigades, doing a real good job
in Spain. So at this moment he's seventy, but seventy
(35:34):
of this time, not like us. It was a real seventy.
He was really tired, and he launched his appeal. I
heard that. I thought that it was so moving, so
beautiful and so true. That's what did I do. I
took my phone. I called the secretary of the assistant
(35:58):
of I said, I am in, please take me. So
my name was in the least I was at all
the and I went the Reality International Brigade never is
Andrew was so tired that he did not come, Thanks God,
(36:20):
he came after the war. But I was there. So
being there, what can I do? I embedded myself in
a group of freedom fighters Mukti Bahini. I entered into
Da Car and I stayed there for a few months
at the side of the first President of Bangladesh Check Mujiba.
But this is important because it is the first time
(36:42):
I was twenty one or twenty two, I understood for
the first time that the real affair of our generation,
the real the real tragedy, the real fight will be
the opposition of the radical Islam and the enlightened Islam.
(37:03):
Radical Islam was embodied by the Pakistani army. You know, Pakistan,
the country of the pure and Mujibu Ahman President of
Bangladesh was an enlightened Muslim. He was Muslim, pious, worshiping
and so on. But Democrats, friend to human rights, friend
(37:26):
to the Western world, deciding to support the women who
had been raped during the war and to name them Birangona,
which meant he ruins of the nation. He was a
very open minded man. I was twenty. I understood that
this radical Islam versus unlighted Islam might be the great
(37:50):
affair of my life and of our generation. And he
turned out to be right. And Uh, we can end
on an upbeat note a little bit. Arguably the two
most successful NGOs in the developing world took birth in Bangladesh.
Father Lavin, who sadly died just a couple of years ago.
(38:11):
It was a good friend of mine founded Brack and
Muhammad Yunis founded the Grameen Bank, and Uh when he
got the Nobel Prize for Economics. I think it's important
to know that even though Bangladesh still has deeply divided politics,
there were three years in the early part of this
(38:33):
century when they in effect had no government. It was
totally paralyzed, and the economy still grew with no government
at six percent a year because of the micro credit
work of Brack and Gramen and others. So this work
is worth doing. And I'm so glad that you've pointed
(38:54):
out that you if you go in this direction that
you've lived your life, you can't keep score by whether
you win a hundred percent of the time and whether
everything you live and dream can be realized more or
less immediately. Well, first of all, I want to thank
(39:14):
you for your life and thank you for being a
public intellectual, which is another way of saying someone who
is an active citizen. We didn't get into the number
of times when you could have been killed yourself. You
were repeatedly in danger because you went to where people
were hurting. And I think the whole world owes you
(39:37):
are dead of gratitude, and I hope that someday. I
know you said you didn't want it, but I would
like it if France would acknowledge what you have done
as a Frenchman to make the world a better place.
And I'm glad you've got your energy and I hope
you never lose it. I remember somebody asked me once
(39:57):
why I went to law school, and I said, I
don't want to practice law, but I don't ever want
to be forced to retire. I want to die with
my boots on. I think that you have lived and
I hope we'll live decades more with your boots on.
And we're all very grateful to you. Thank you, same
(40:18):
for you and Mr President boots On, boots on VC
the good and boots on for you and for me,
bless you, Thank you. Why am I telling you? This
is a production of our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation
and at Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craig Menascian
and Will Monadi. Our production team includes Jamison Katsufas, Tom Galton,
(40:41):
Sara Horowitz, and Jake Young, with production support from Liz
Raftree and Josh Farnham. Original music by What White. Special
thanks to John Sykes, John Davidson on hell Orina, Corey Ganstley,
Kevin Thuram, Oscar Flores, and all our dedicated staff and
partners at the Clinton Foundation. Hi, I'm Dr Mike Kimpill,
(41:07):
Director of the Presidential Leadership scholars Program, a one of
a kind partnership between the presidential centers of Bill Clinton,
George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.
President Clinton often says that the key to great leadership
is in finding our common humanity, something that's needed now
more than ever. That's why each year we bring together
(41:29):
a dramatically diverse group of leaders, from doctors to teachers,
elected officials to scientists, active military and veterans, all of
whom have a passion for making the world a better place.
We create a culture of collaboration that transcends partisan divides
and ideological differences in service of a greater good. Today,
(41:50):
presidential Leadership scholars across the country are working together and
actively applying the lessons learned in our program to help
tackle today's most pressing challenges. You can learn more about
this work and see how you can get involved by
visiting www dot Clinton Foundation dot org. Slash podcast
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