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In 1987, President Ronald Reagan famously demanded Gorbachev,
the President of the Soviet Union, to tear down that wall.
His speech laid the foundation for this moment for two years later.
Thousands of East Germans camped outside the German
embassy in Hungary demanding access across the border, and
three fundamental things, freedom, safety and reunification.
Now, I wasn't born yet.
Because of that moment, when I grew up in Berlin, there were no more walls,
and another even questioned the right to safety and freedom, until this happens.
Four years ago, thousands of people were stranded at the Hungarian border yet
again, but this time it wasn't German citizens who pleaded for
the world to pay attention, it was Syrian refugees.
This sparked a movement across my country.
Images like this, of people welcoming refugees into Germany,
went around the world.
I was so proud, so I decided to leave my corporate job in the UK and
move back to Berlin to support my government in absorbing
the 1 million refugees that ended up arriving.
That moment changed my life, since then I've met some incredible refugees.
And Wright was some of the most dedicated people I know who try to support them.
Their strengths and resilience has become my source of inspiration and drive.
But at the same time, the public conversation has changed.
The outpouring of support has turned into protest and fear.
Instead of tearing down walls, we are building them.
This scares me, I don't fear that we have lost control of our boarders,
I fear that we have lost control of our fundamental values.
What has happened?
Let’s atart with the basics.
There are 68 million refugees in the world today.
These are people that have been forced to flee from their homes
because of conflict and violence.
Take Syria,
a country that has become synonymous with the world's refugee crisis.
The Syrian war started nine years ago with the Arab Spring.
After a 13-year-old boy was tortured and murdered for
writing a pro-Arab Spring graffiti,
people went out on the streets to protest, peacefully.
But President Bashar Al Assad responded with gunfire.
It sparked one of the deadliest civil wars in our modern times,
leaving 500,000 people dead, and 12 million forcefully displaced.
That is two-thirds of the entire country.
These are people who stood up to demand freedom,
safety, and democracy.
They fight for the values we preach.
And we ignored them until they literally showed up at our borders.
At the height of the crisis,
sometimes thousands of refugees came into just Berlin in a given week.
On one of my first days working for the government there,
I went to visit an old decommissioned airport at the heart of the city.
The local state office had resorted to seizing whatever they could
find as shelters, because there simply wasn't any space.
That included school gyms and the old airport's foyer.
But what I found was this.
1,000 bunk beds cramped into what look like an industrial hall.
2,000 people lived here, people from different cultures,
different families, from all over the worlds.
The echo made the noise level almost unbearable.
There is no peace and quiet, no privacy.
Some of the people who came looking for freedom and
safety had to stay here for almost two years.
They were safe, yes, but free?
Not really.
I remember a social worker who came and pleaded with us to help
a refugee who was severely disabled and suffered from PTSD.
Placing him here was cruel, not just for him, but really for everyone.
Imagine trying to sleep whilst he was enjoying his night terrors.
He needed individual care, but we simply weren't able to provide it.
If there's one thing I learned that day, it is that no one chooses this life,
you're placed in it if you're out of options.
And there's something else I learned.
If you're facing this humanitarian crisis, it forces you to make tradeoffs.
Who gets prioritized for individual care, and who doesn't?
Who gets to stay, and who doesn't?
All of these decisions have a tremendous human cost,
and not just to the refugees, but really to all of us.
Accommodating refugees requires a sacrifice.
And some of it might be small, like getting used to sharing your public
spaces with people who look really different to you.
Or giving up your school gym for two years.
And some as big, like having government resources
diverted away from your local projects.
It really is no wonder that the cycle of history always follows
the same pattern when it comes to refugee movements.
In 1938, 67% of Americans were opposed
to granting refuge to Jewish people fleeing Nazi persecution.
My own grandma came to Germany as a refugee.
She was German, but she grew up in the Sudetenland,
a small strip between Czechoslovakia and Germany.
After World War II,
all the Germans living there had a day to pack their bags and leave.
Even though she shared a nationality and a language with the people
in her new hometown, she was not greeted with kindness.
My point is, this is a vicious cycle of history every generation perpetuates.
And this crisis really is no different.
If we judge previous generations on whether or not they took a stance,
will future generations not do the same to us?
I worry because I know that the sacrifice is painful.
While I was working in government I organized a town hall meeting in
one of the most liberal districts of Berlin,
where you can find welcome refugee posters on every street corner.
We had to ask the residents to give up a tiny piece of their
large neighborhood park for a new refugee shelter.
It turns out the people were furious.
I know that we can't take everyone in.
But that is not what we're debating right now,
instead we're turning a blind eye again.
We're coming out with all the creative arguments for
why we don't have the resources to help.
We are we not the best place to help?
Why, in fact, isolation is the best answer?
We are back at the vicious cycle of history.
I know that we can break it.
But for that, I'm asking you to make a sacrifice.
To stand up for the values I know we all share.
And that might not be today.
I'm asking you to remember this talk when the time comes for you to make a choice.
Do I truly open my arms, even if it costs me, or do I look away?
And that cost might be small, like speaking out publicly,
even if it's risky, or giving up a tiny space in your neighborhood park.
Or it might be big, like going out of your way to create
opportunities for refugees in your future companies.
Every decision, every action counts.
Previous generations might have not gotten it all right, but
our countries share history in literally tearing down walls together.
I don't want to be the generation that builds them back up.
Thank you.
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