Former White House Adviser Robert Malley explored the country’s polarized state in his keynote address Wednesday at the University of Idaho’s 70th annual Borah Symposium.
UI President Chuck Staben introduced Malley, and provided an overview of Malley’s expertise on the topic, “A World Gone Mad? Polarization in the age of Globalization.”
Staben said Malley served as the special assistant and senior adviser to former President Barack Obama for the counter-ISIL campaign, as well as the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf Region from 2015 to 2016. He also played a large role in the Iran nuclear deal and the Syrian civil war negotiations.
After taking the stage, Malley provided an insight into his knowledge on the subject, focusing on the role his father played in shaping his “diverse, yet contradictory, political ideology.”
“(My father) moved to the U.S. with much of his family, seeking a place where he could exercise his professional journalism more freely and he became, and rather always was, a fierce critic of American foreign policy and he raised his children in that spirit,” Malley said. “I guess you could say I’m both globalized and polarized.”
Malley said it was hard to speak on such a broad topic, so he narrowed it down to three issues he thought best described the overarching theme — what is unchanged, what is new and what should be done in response to the polarization.
He said many young people look at what is happening in the world with events like Brexit and the rise of ISIS and begin to think this type of polarization is unique to their generation, which Malley said is not the case.
“Globalization is not new, the polarization that results from globalization is not new and it is not a theme that’s new, and nor is the madness we seem to be experiencing today,” Malley said.
Although the world hasn’t changed much, he said the placement of blame has.
Malley said when some goes wrong in countries on the “periphery of the global system,” like Tunisia or Somalia, they are generally held completely liable. But when countries at the “center,” like the U.S., are engulfed in similar crises, the blame is placed on external issues rather than internal, allowing that country to avoid culpability, he said.
He said people once believed, especially after World War II, that it was the duty of the international community to help alleviate or to prevent conflicts within nations of need, but now that empathetic sense has eroded because of a country first mentality, which has led to that distinct feel of polarity.
Malley said he encouraged the audience to take on a new perspective and consider what they can do to change where the U.S. currently stands on its international obligations.
“Put yourself in other people’s shoes and see how those people see you, how they see us, and how they see the United States,” Malley said. “If we don’t, we will continue to live on in our compartmentalized world … and the phenomenon of polarization is only going to get worse.”
Olivia Heersink can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @heersinkolivia