British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet delivered the annual Faculty of Public Affairs “Currents” lecture on Sept. 1, where she spoke on various issues at the forefront of today’s foreign affairs.
Doucet, a long-time journalist, was stationed in Cairo on assignment before visiting Carleton to conduct her speech. She spoke about power on the international stage over the course of the lecture and used the Syrian refugee crisis as a prime example throughout the talk.
Doucet called the Syrian situation “a crisis of unprecedented proportions” and added that it is a product of our times.
“This crisis is but a symptom, but a symbol of a much wider, much deeper crisis of our time. A political crisis, a security crisis, financial and global too,” she said.
Doucet said every humanitarian crisis requires a political solution.
“Solving this crisis is not just about cash or even compassion—it’s politics,” she said. “As David Miliband, Britain’s former foreign secretary who now heads the international rescue committee, put it, humanitarian aid can staunch the dying, but only politics can stop the killing.”
Doucet compared the wars in Syria and Afghanistan. In Syria, she said, the world didn’t want to intervene, while in Afghanistan, many countries sent in troops and millions of dollars in financial aid.
“There are lessons to be learned from both of them,” she said. “How to intervene and when and how not to intervene.”
Doucet said that despite the world being the most advanced and connected it’s ever been, this has not made the global crises any tamer.
“Never have we lived in a time where we are so wealthy, so educated, so well connected. Never have we known so much about who we are, no matter where we are, no matter where we live. Yet we live in a time where never has there been so many people displaced by crisis and conflict and war,” Doucet said.
A large cross-section of the Ottawa community came out to hear Doucet speak, including journalists, civil servants, and even the British High Commissioner.
Katherine Peer, a third-year public affairs and policy management student in attendance, said it was cool to see the Arthur Kroeger College having such an impact with the British ambassador and some MPs she recognized in attendance.
Peer, who grew up listening to Doucet, called her a human resource that any intelligence agency would be lucky to have at their fingertips.
“She’s incredibly powerful and incredibly intelligent and it’s really great to see someone standing up and setting that example,” she said.
“It’s also really cool to be able to connect what we’re studying to the outside world and connect it to the broader issues and to meet and see people who are working in the fields we want to work in.”
Following the lecture was a question and answer period where old colleagues of Doucet and people whose families have been affected by the crisis came forward. The event concluded with a reception in the River Building atrium.
“I’m not an expert on public policy,” Doucet said. “I’m not a politician. I’m a journalist. Just a journalist. But a journalist who is privileged enough to have travelled the world over, to witness, to write about some of the most compelling stories of our time.”
