Religion

FASKIANOS: Thank you and welcome everybody. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach at the Council on Foreign Relations. As a reminder, today's session is on the record. I am delighted to be moderating today's conversation on the rise of global migration and to introduce a wonderful panel.   Nazanin Ash is vice president for public policy and advocacy at the International Rescue Committee and a visiting policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. Previously, she served as deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, and as a principal advisor and chief of staff to the first director of U.S. foreign assistance and administrator at USAID.   Elizabeth Ferris is a research professor at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration and a nonresident senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. She spent twenty years working in the field of international humanitarian response, most recently in Geneva, Switzerland, and at the World Council of Churches.   And Krish O'Mara Vignarajah is president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. She previously served in the Obama White House as policy director for First Lady Michelle Obama. She's also served as senior advisor under Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry at the State Department where she coordinated development and implementation of programs including those concerning refugees and migration and engagement with religious communities.   So thank you all very much for being with us. I thought we would first go to Nazanin to set the table and to provide an overview of global migration trends, where people are migrating from, where they're migrating to, and why are they fleeing?   ASH: Thanks so much, Irina. Thanks so much for your introduction. Thanks so much for hosting us today. I'm so pleased and excited to be here with you and with my distinguished colleagues. It's going to be a great and necessary discussion. You get to convene this discussion at a moment of unprecedented global migration. There are over eighty million people displaced worldwide today. That's the highest number ever recorded. Thirty million of those are refugees, and importantly, that number is double what it was just a decade ago. So if you consider many decades, that it took to get tothe forty-one million globally displaced just a decade ago, and then the doubling in the last decade, the right question to ask is, “Why?”   You know, why these ever-increasing numbers of those who are displaced. And while there are a number of factors that contribute to that displacement, including climate change, conflict remains the number one driver of displacement today accounting for 80 percent of those displaced. If you assess that same figure a little over a decade ago, you would have found that 80 percent were displaced as a function of natural disasters. But today, it's really conflict that's driving displacement. That tracks really  closely with trends in conflict. The number of conflicts globally is 60 percent higher today than it was a decade ago. And civilian deaths account for 75 to 95 percent of all conflict-related deaths. So when we ask the question about “why” this global displacement, I think it's critically important to center on the fact that these are civilians fleeing violence and oppression, rising violence and oppression.   Almost 70 percent of all refugees come from just five countries—Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Myanmar. These are all countries that we know well for long-standing and deepening conflict, and for social and political oppression. So again, it’s critical to remember the reasons why the numbers are rising as they are. People are fleeing for their lives and they're fleeing for safety. The other trend that's really different in the context of global displacement today is its protracted nature. And again, that tracks closely with conflict as the driving trend.   Today's conflicts are most often civil wars with multiple actors; they're very difficult to resolve. Conflicts on average today last thirty-seven years, and they're well beyond the reach of some of our typical tools for addressing conflict. So unsurprisingly, displacement is increasingly protracted. And in a context where just 1 percent of refugees globally have the opportunity to resettle permanently to a third country and less than 3 percent on average over the last decade are able to go home, you have almost 90 percent of the world's refugees hosted in low- and middle-income countries, neighboring countries in conflict, and struggling to respond to the development needs of their citizens and also hosting large populations of displaced people in great need of safety and protection for long periods of time.   FASKIANOS: Thank you very much for that. I'm going to go next to you, Beth, to talk about the Biden administration's immigration policies. We've seen that this has been already just, well, a bit over a hundred days in, this has become a flashpoint for the administration on the border. But it's much broader than that. So if you can talk about what you see and how it compares to prior administrations that would be great.   FERRIS: Great, thanks a lot. And thanks for an opportunity to talk about this issue. Maybe to draw the link with your title, I mean, faith-based communities have really been in the league for advocating for changes in U.S. policy for immigration, both refugees and immigrants, and had very high hopes when Biden was elected that he would reverse some of Trump's anti-immigrant policies in a range of areas. And indeed, on his very first day in office, he introduced legislation on a comprehensive immigration reform bill, which right now people don't think has a great chance of being passed, but certainly indicating his commitment.   He's issued a number of executive orders according to the Migration Policy Institute as of a couple of weeks ago. He's done ninety-four executive actions on immigration, over half of which have been to overturn some of the policies that were enacted under the previous administration. And the focus seems to be primarily on the border where I'm sure you've all seen that, in March of this year, the highest number of apprehensions on the border and nineteen thousand unaccompanied children. The crisis on the border is a humanitarian crisis—how to meet the needs of all of these people.   The Biden administration has overturned some of the worst aspects of Trump's policy, particularly the Migration Protection Protocol so that people are no longer being sent back to Mexico to wait to ask for asylum. And indeed, some of those who've been waiting for a couple of years are being allowed to enter the United States and ask for legal protection. But at the same time, some policies remain, this so-called Title 42, which essentially closes the border because of COVID and health concerns to all but essential travel. Most countries in the world have closed their border to most travelers. And yet, certainly in Europe, there's an exception made for people who are fleeing persecution to be able to ask for asylum. That hasn't happened yet on Biden's watch.   Another major area is that of refugee resettlement. The numbers of refugees resettled in the U.S. plummeted under the Trump administration. And Biden campaigned on pledge to increase those numbers from a paltry fifteen thousand to one hundred twenty-five thousand. Refugee advocates were really disappointed when, for a couple of months, there was no action. This is what Biden said he was going to do, but he didn't sign the presidential determination until two months later. And at that time, he kept with the Trump number of fifteen thousand, largely due to concerted action by advocates, members of Congress, members of local communities who recognized that refugees are a benefit to our country.   That was reversed, and we now have a ceiling of sixty-two thousand five hundred by the end of October. But as of right now, less than twenty-five hundred have arrived, partly because of COVID. People can't travel as easily to do the interviews or prepare people and partly because of the effects of the Trump administration in terms of our domestic capacity to have offices with interpreters, for example, to welcome newcomers. It's going to be a while before that program has been built up. So a lot of attention is focusing on those two issues. They're two very different programs. But in the public's mind, they're linked. They're all refugees. And I think that one of the challenges for faith-based communities and others is to educate the public in terms of the differences between some of these categories and processes.   And I'll just add, I could talk on and on about this, but there also have been a number of other actions that haven't received as much attention but, an effort on the DACA, seven hundred thousand people, young people, mostly young people now in the United States. Biden has offered temporary protected status to Venezuelans, which is great, and to people from Myanmar, which is great, and really, really cutting down on enforcement action. So people are being deported now for their threat to national security or public safety, really trying not to separate families so much.   A change in terminology—the Biden administration said they will no longer use the term “illegal alien,” and will talk about undocumented non-citizens. That's a rhetorical change. But I think in the eyes of many, it represents something far more. So there have been a lot of changes that have occurred, but expectations are very high. Under the Biden administration, the United States will affirm its identity as a nation of immigrants and come up with ways so welcome people more effectively.   FASKIANOS: And just to follow up, do you think that changing the name will help reduce the political debate about—it becomes less, it might make it a little bit less partisan if—   FERRIS: That's, you know, you change the terminology. But habits die hard. I heard this morning from people on the border that many of our border patrol are still using the term “illegal alien,”  so it has to be more than symbolic but somehow to, again, to affirm that immigrants are bringing many talents and resources. They're not just by any means rapists and murderers and drug dealers, but they're honest, for the most part, decent, hard-working people who are fleeing violence, persecution. This country has a rich tradition of welcoming people that nobody else wants. Our country is better for it, so I think we need to reaffirm those values and not be shy about it.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. And I'm going to go next to Krish to talk about faith-based immigration interventions and how faith communities can mobilize to assist refugees and immigrants, what you're doing with your organization and the agency that you have.   VIGNARAJAH: Wonderful. Well, thanks so much for having me. It's really delightful to speak, especially alongside Elizabeth and Nazanin. Having been a CFR term member, it feels wonderful to convene. Once again, obviously, I have especially fond memories of being able to sit around those large circular tables, but for the moment I suppose this will do. So I am the president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and we are the largest faith-based nonprofit dedicated to refugees and immigrants. And I will tell you that it is not just the Lutherans that have a particular focus on working with refugees.   The vast majority of the nine refugee resettlement agencies are faith-based. And I think that for so many faiths welcoming the stranger is literally a part of scripture. So I think that I can certainly speak on behalf of myself and some of the faith-based organizations where for so many faith organization congregations it is essential, and they have been central to the broader process of resettling families into new homes and cities and towns across the country. Communities of faith have been critical to our organization, whether it's sharing information, advocating on behalf of refugees, and conducting programs to support our clients.   And so I'll try to kind of briefly summarize some of the incredible and substantive ways in which faith communities assist refugees and immigrants. So, first in terms of advocacy, we have certainly seen that faith communities can uniquely navigate the intensified politicization of refugee and immigration issues. Obviously, it was just kind of talked about some of the politics that play into this. And I know, Irina, you just asked the question about how do changes in terminology even affect policy, and they can be significant.   We'd like to believe that moving away from the dehumanization of immigrants by using terminology like “aliens” can recognize that tenant of human dignity, which is that whether we're talking about unaccompanied children or families, that what we are talking about are people and family units, that I'd like to believe that as a core American value treating a child with dignity and respect is something that whatever side of the aisle you sit on that you can agree that kids don't belong in cages.   So what we have found is that faith leaders are key participants in our work of advocacy to try to move this issue area out of the political arena. So in fact, we have an upcoming World Refugee Day that a number of organizations are a part of. We're doing it virtually, not surprisingly, this year on June 22, and faith leaders will be a key part of that advocacy. We also do action alerts with our congregations and other faith communities in order to kind of pinpoint specific pieces of legislation and to engage them.   In terms of programming, volunteering is such a critical part of our work that relies on those of faith communities. Much of our work is very time intensive so volunteers can provide transportation for refugee and immigrant families. They can serve as teachers of English for those who English is a second language. They can help us set up apartments for refugee families as they're first arriving at the airport and we're, identifying a modest apartment for them to move into. I can tell you even from my personal experience, I wasn't technically a refugee when my family came to this country, but we fled Sri Lanka when it was on the brink of civil war.   Coming from a tropical island and, you know, I was nine months old at that time, but my parents recall how they'd never seen a winter. And so having churches and temples who literally equipped us with winter coats, it was those faith communities that really stood up and stood by us as we were foreigners on American soil. We find that our faith communities are actively engaged in programs where we rate immigrants in detention to let them know that they're not alone or even to open up their homes and hearts and serve as foster care parents. We run programs, including transitional foster care, for unaccompanied children so as we're trying to reunite them with their sponsor, it's incredibly important for us rather than warehousing these children in large facilities that we can provide them a safe, small, family centric home. And so faith communities are very actively involved in that.   And then I think the final piece I'll end with is just talking about some of our annual programs are really focused knowing that this is an incredibly engaged community. So just to give you a couple programs, we have one program called Stand Up, Speak Up!, which is an interfaith vigil. We have a program called Gather, which equips congregations and communities to learn about a region or country. As Nazanin mentioned, we do see concentrations of refugees and other immigrants coming from specific countries. So explaining who these families are, why they're fleeing the desperate circumstances and seeking refugee protection in the United States, it's been important for us to launch programs like this, or EMMAUS, which is a three-part congregational discernment program, to allow congregations to work alongside refugees.   And then the final program, just because it is one of my favorites, I'll note, is Hope for the Holidays. This is a program and we find our faith communities incredibly excited each year. It's how we send cards to families in detention. So we have found that even during the pandemic we were able to send gifts to children who found themselves in detention during the Christmas holiday. We sent more than sixteen thousand cards to families and individuals, and many thanks to faith-based communities as well.   FASKIANOS: And just to follow up, Krish, how have you pivoted during the past year of the pandemic and lockdown? I mean, how has that changed your work and has the Zoom format enabled you to do more or less?   VIGNARAJAH: Yes, it's a great question because it has actually been incredibly inspiring to see the creativity and the flexibility with which our staff and our affiliates all across the country have mobilized. So rather than doing in-person check-ins in a living room, those who transition to porch check-ins, I think that there's actually some real room to grow and adapt, frankly, by being forced into more of a virtual environment. I think there's ways in which some of our mentoring—when I mentioned kind of English as a second language, that training—I believe that we could actually engage individuals all across the country who may not be in an urban center or close to one of our offices who, thanks to a computer and this kind of format, could engage.   So I think that is where it's been really exciting to see the options opened up by these possibilities. We've also mobilized knowing that so many of the clients that we serve have been on the frontlines. They've served as essential workers. They've been in our fields literally providing food on our tables. They've been at grocery stores.I think one of the things that we've also seen unfortunately is our workforce development programs overnight have become unemployment offices.   So we launched a fund called Neighbors in Need, which was an emergency fund, in order to help so many of our clients who worked in hospitality,  the service sector, tourism, who lost their jobs. It's been incredibly exciting to see how many people who may have been also financially affected. They got the $1,000 stimulus check, and they said, “You know what, I could use this but honestly these families could use it more,” and sent that donation to us. So it's actually been really an incredible time to see how Americans have continued to show that we are a welcoming nation.   FASKIANOS: That's very inspiring. Nazanin, I want to go back to you to talk about what you see as the responsibilities of wealthy nations to help resettle refugees. What are the trends? And what do you think wealthy nations—what is their moral obligation?   ASH: It's a really important question, Irina. I think we have to understand the obligations of wealthy nations in the context of global responsibility for refugees and displacement. The global rules and norms, the Refugee Convention, was really born out of both a humanitarian and a strategic necessity at the end of World War II and a recognition that unmanaged displacement, unmanaged migration of desperate people, poses extraordinary dangers for those individuals and dangers for the stability of receiving nations, again, many of which are poor and middle-income countries.   There are just ten countries representing two and a half percent of global GDP that hosts the vast majority, not the vast majority, over 50 percent of today's refugees. And so while conventional wisdom and watching media in U.S. and European outlets would really lead you to believe that wealthy nations are hosting the vast majority of refugees and asylum seekers, the truth is very different and 90 percent of them are hosted in those neighboring countries.   The obligations of wealthy nations are multifold. One in addressing the root causes and really putting shoulder to the wheel and resolving the conflicts that are at the root of the displacement and mobilizing international tools to do so. But also in sharing responsibility for refugees through humanitarian aid, which has, up until this last year, surprisingly leveled off and even declined in the face of rising need. There's now an over 50 percent gap between humanitarian need and the provision of humanitarian assistance. So wealthy nations have not kept pace with humanitarian needs as they've grown.   And then another important role is in having generous refugee resettlement and asylum policies that at least match the generosity of those neighboring countries taking so many refugees. I often note that Bangladesh, over the course of three weeks, took in more Rohingya refugees fleeing incredible genocidal violence in Myanmar. They took in more refugees over the course of three weeks than Europe took across the central Mediterranean in all of 2016. And that's a country with barely 1 percent of Europe's GDP. So wealthy nations are quite far behind the generosity of low- and middle-income countries neighboring conflict.   And the Trump administration led a global race to the bottom. And that's really, getting back to Beth’s point, the opportunity of the Biden administration. I think it's clear that where the U.S. leads others follow, whether that's a global race to the bottom or whether it's a global race to the top. Under the Trump administration, global resettlement slots dropped by over 50 percent. The number of countries committed to resettling refugees dropped by almost a third.   At the end of the Obama administration, anchored by commitments of the Obama administration to raise refugee resettlement and increase humanitarian aid, they achieved a doubling in the first year and a tripling in the second year of commitments to resettlement by wealthy nations, a 30 percent increase in humanitarian aid, and importantly, recognizing trends and protracted displacement commitments from many low- and middle-income countries, who are and always will be hosting the vast majority of refugees, to allow access for refugees to work and to send their kids to school and to be able to rebuild their lives and thrive alongside their new host communities. That's a demonstration of what the leadership of wealthy nations can help drive globally in matching the generosity of those neighboring states to conflict.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Beth, I think given this group it would be wonderful if you could really talk about the role of faith communities working with refugees and migrants in other countries to build on what Nazanin has spoken about.   FERRIS: So to follow up on Nazanin's point that most of the world's refugees are not hosted in developed countries but rather in neighboring countries, which [inaudible] they turn to houses of faith, whether its temples, or mosques, or local churches, you know, knocking on the door when you're desperate. At least there's a chance of getting some assistance. As an academic, as a scholar, I'm often struck by how little we've studied these phenomena of faith-based organizations globally. There are lots of good books on the UN and on NGOs, nongovernmental organizations, on government policies. But I suspect if we looked very, very deeply into it, we find that faith-based organizations are in the forefront, that their contributions are rarely counted.   I mean, the contributions of a local mosque or church is oftentimes not figured into official aid statistics anywhere. The very first humanitarian crisis I worked on was the Ethiopian famine in the mid-1980s. And I remember standing in Addis Ababa and watching the Canadians deliver hundreds and thousands, I don't know, lots and lots of metric tons of grain, as far as you could see there were trucks piled high with grain. And I said to the guy next to me, I said, “Wow, that's really impressive.” And the guy next to me happened to be an Ethiopian Orthodox priest and he said, “And does anybody mention that there are forty thousand Ethiopian Orthodox congregations that are going to distribute that food? And it's going to be mainly women in our churches who are cooking up the food to serve to needy people.”   Yes, the Canadian grain is wonderful and needed, but also those contributions of people working because of their faith are rarely counted in these statistics. And while UN agencies and a lot of international NGOs will come into a community and do wonderful things when there's an emergency,  it's the local communities that will be there afterwards. They were there before the crisis, during the crisis, and after the crisis. So I think that giving more power, more resources to local communities to working on issues of accountability and capacity and being able to fill the hundreds of pages of reports that are required by donors are not easy tasks for anyone but for local communities, not so much.   But anyway, people have faith and whether it's individual houses of worship or big, huge multimillion dollar organizations like World Vision or the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, these are major organizations that deserve much more attention and to look at the ways that they work together often in responding to emergencies.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Before we go to questions to the group, I want to get in one more question. President Biden has made climate one of the central areas of his focus. And we talk a lot about the violence that is driving immigration. But climate is definitely increasing and is going to be part of this global migration trend. So Krish, can you talk about the effect of climate on migration patterns, climate-induced migration? What is it? What are understood as the domestic international consequences and challenges, and how is that relating to U.S. refugee resettlement?   VIGNARAJAH: Yes, thank you for the question because I do think it is a trend that we're already seeing, and it's going to be a trend that will continue to grow exponentially. So right now, we know the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, has said that about an average of 22.5 million have been displaced by climate each year between 2000 and 2018. That number is going to continue to rise. The International Organization for Migration has indicated that by 2050, there will be two hundred million climate-displaced persons.   The global displacement obviously is a record high today, and while the need to migrate due to political instability, persecution, and economic reasons has always been present, and as Nazanin noted, it is still the majority of why people are migrating. We're seeing more and more people on the move due to extreme weather events. So, at present, about one-third of those displaced worldwide are forced to flee by sudden onset weather events. And by 2050, twenty-five million to one billion people are expected to be displaced by climate-related events. So this is a stark reality that we face today, and we need to act with urgency knowing the reality is that no country in the world has recognized a separate legal pathway to accept climate-displaced persons.   In our own hemisphere when we talk about the northern migration coming from Central America, it's really important to recognize that 42 percent of El Salvadorans currently lack a reliable source of food in large part due to climate-exacerbated drought and crop failures. The region has equally been battered by consecutive climate-fueled hurricanes that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. And the reality is that there is an interplay between the traditional factors that are recognized like war, violence, and persecution.   And it's something that we are experiencing here at home, whether it's Western wildfires, hurricanes or other natural disasters, we're starting to see climate-induced migration here in the U.S. Historic wildfires on the West Coast, tropical storms, hurricanes in the Southeast are the kinds of extreme weather events that have forced Americans to truly consider in a personal way what displacement and relocation looks like here at home.   And just to kind of contextualize this, because I do actually think that this might foster empathy, maybe we don't know what it means when a country is engulfed by civil war in a way that you literally must flee your home. But more than 1.2 million Americans were displaced in 2019 because of climate and weather-related events. And thirteen million could be displaced by 2100 due to sea-level rise and other natural disasters. So this is an issue that we are facing here at home and across the globe, and one that we need to address. It is heartening to know that the administration, through an executive order, recognized that this is an issue that not just needs to be studied but needs to see action.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. So I just want to give an opportunity to either Nazanin or Beth to comment on the climate issue before we turn it over to the group for their questions.   FERRIS: I can jump in. I certainly agree with Krish that the projected numbers of people displaced by climate are going to be far higher than we've seen in the past. But it's a complicated issue. We had hurricanes before human-induced climate change, separating out who's been displaced by climate versus normal. Environmental variation is a tricky thing.   And then there are kind of ethical issues: Should people who are displaced by sea-level rise or hurricanes be given preferential access to a country compared to those who suffer a volcanic eruption or an earthquake? So these aren't easy issues, but I think we've got to begin to address them and ask these questions. And I'm encouraged that the Biden administration has asked for a report on climate migration in one of his very first executive orders. So lots of people are working on this.   FASKIANOS: Nazanin?   ASH: Nothing to add on the climate front. I did want to come in on Beth's earlier comments on the role of faith communities, but I'm also happy to give the floor to questions and come back to it later.   FASKIANOS: Why don't you just—it would be great to also—since this group is very diverse, I would love to hear your views on the interplay of faith.   ASH: Sure, well, I just wanted to emphasize what both Beth and Krish have said and give an example from our own experience here in the United States. I mean, we're living in a period of, as Krish said, extraordinary politicization of refugee policy and asylum policy. But it really is inconsistent with what's been a long bipartisan history and a welcoming tradition in the United States for refugees,  certainly, since the 1980s. And, as there's been such a politicized debate at the federal level and an appropriate amount of attention on the real destruction of the Trump administration to refugee resettlement, asylum and then immigration policy, I think what's been missed is the sea change of support that's happened at the state and local level driven by faith and community organizations.   And so the International Rescue Committee operates on the ground in twenty-five cities across the United States—they're red, and they're blue, and they're purple in their politics—but they're all very much defined by their welcome. And we have refugee resettlement sites where in the last few years of the Trump administration, volunteers outpaced the number of refugees by two to one. And those faith communities, the private sector, and state and local elected officials have collectively in their advocacy turned back over a hundred state-led anti-refugee policies and implemented a total reversal such that last year the number of pro-refugee proposals at the state and local level outpaced negative ones by seven to one.   So states are really leading the way in policies of welcome, in policies of integration and support, and creating pathways for refugees and other immigrant populations to access education more quickly, to access the job market, fill crucial gaps in health and in hospitality and in our global food supply chains. So states are really leading the way supported by their faith communities. And it's really different than what we hear at the federal level.   And, just a final point on that front, support for refugees and for the U.S. as a place of welcome is higher in many ways than it's been in years. So a solid majority, 73 percent of Americans, believe the U.S. should be a place of refuge. And that's driven by an 18 percentage-point increase among Republicans over the last two years. And again, that's very much rooted in the advocacy of faith communities across the United States.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Wonderful way to end our discussion. We are going to go now to all of you for your questions. So Grace, if you could give us the instructions, that would be wonderful.   OPERATOR: [Gives queuing instructions] We will take the first written question from Homi Gandhi of the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, who asks, “Where do you place the major responsibility for creating this displacement? Is there a penalty for those responsible for creating the situation? Who should enforce that penalty?”   FASKIANOS: Beth, go ahead.   FERRIS: I can go ahead on this one. It's usually oppressive governments that violate the rights of their citizens or warring parties in the conflict, at least those displaced by conflict. Right now, our system doesn't do a good job of holding governments responsible when they displace people. The first case to go to the International Court of Justice was filed last year, and really charging Myanmar, for example, for its responsibility for displacing close to a million Rohingya into Bangladesh. That's going to be a really important case.   It’s supposed to get some preliminary decision this summer. But, so far, governments have been able to displace people in their countries with virtual impunity. When it comes to climate change and disasters, responsibilities are more diffused. Certainly those who emit large amounts of gas are responsible for global warming, but usually don't feel a corresponding responsibility to accept those displaced by the consequences of their actions. So in terms of responsibility for displacement, we have a very, very weak international system.   FASKIANOS: All right, we'll go next question.   OPERATOR: Our next live question will come from Simran Jeet Singh of YSC Consulting and Union Theological Seminary.   SINGH: Thank you for your expertise and for sharing your insights. It's been a great conversation. My question—I submitted it as a written question as well— we were talking a bit about specific countries where a majority of the refugees are coming from some of the worst violators of human rights. And so in some of these places a lot of these communities are targeted for their faith. And so the question here is what would it look like for the Biden administration to prioritize refugees fleeing religious persecution in particular? And I'm asking this because today because in addition to our conversation around the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, I'm thinking about Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan who are left vulnerable as the U.S. pulls out of that region. Thank you.   VIGNARAJAH: I can start—oh, no, no, Nazanin, go ahead.   ASH: Go ahead, Krish.   VIGNARAJAH: I'll just quickly answer and then hand it over to my very learned colleague, Nazanin. It is a great question because I do think that there are certain areas of refugee resettlement that have especially strong bipartisan support. And I'd like to believe that this is one of those areas. Thankfully, the Biden administration did remove some of the restrictive eligibility categories that the Trump administration had imposed where, you know, that there is a virtue to having regional allocations as opposed to specific categories.   But I also realized that there is a benefit to signaling the importance of religiously persecuted refugees because I do think that they garner strong support. I think that this is an area where we could use this to expand the number of refugees accepted under the presidential determination. But our view is that the regional allocation giving Asia and regions that, for a variety of reasons, do have a significant number of refugees does afford us an opportunity to respond. I also believe and I know that there's been a few questions on this issue of Afghanistan.   This is going to be a central focus, certainly for us, and I think of some of our colleagues in advance of September 11 because we know that we can't wait until September 10 in order to sufficiently address the need. We have to recognize that those who advocated for democracy, who advocated for religious open-mindedness, frankly, who even advocated for gender equality are going to be targeted because of Western values. So I think that this is an area where there needs to be strong advocacy and real focus because I do think that there is a lot of support. And I think that there's a dire need of individuals who are really going to be targeted between now and then.   FASKIANOS: Nazanin, do you want to pick up?   ASH: I can add to that, and Beth, I know you will have deep scholarship to add to this, too. I mean, just to say that prioritizing those fleeing religious persecution and those who have been targeted on the basis of their religion or their politics is built into the refugee definition. It has been a central driving force, especially in U.S. refugee policy. So I'm thinking about specific legislation that has created programs like the Lautenberg Program that assists refugees who've been religiously persecuted or priority categories that have been created for some religiously persecuted populations to access the Refugee Resettlement Program. A number of those priority categories are under consideration in the Biden administration's executive orders examining ways to expand the pathways to protection for precisely the populations you're identifying.   And then as Krish talked about there is special focus right now on planning for and creating pathways to protection for those in Afghanistan persecuted on the basis of their religion or their politics in the run up to the anticipated troop withdrawal. And I'd also add to what Krish said to note that some of those policy proposals are looking at even more immediate channels than what's available through the Refugee Resettlement Program where you can often wait months and even years for background checks and security vetting procedures or where even embassy referrals and priority categories can take a long time to process. But the advocacy from our community has been around the urgent need for an emergency response recognizing the imminent danger for some populations.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let's go to the next question.   OPERATOR: Our next written question is from Elaine Howard Ecklund from Rice University, who asks, “How can faith communities advocate for the rights of refugees and immigrants more broadly, especially in the midst of the pandemic?”   VIGNARAJAH: So I can start there. The reality is that 99 percent of us trace our ancestry to another nation, right, and I think that, as I mentioned earlier, so many faiths in different ways believe that welcoming the stranger is a matter of faith or religion. I do think it's really important for these communities to be particularly vocal, especially because we have seen some evangelical communities that have taken a strong stance in opposition to immigration. And so my view is that if we can invoke scripture, if we can try to find some commonality and try to use that as a starting point, it could help. We've got work ahead of our ourselves, and we realize that public support does impact the policies. By some accounts, immigration is more popular today than it's ever been if you look at the Gallup poll that shows that nearly 8 in 10 Americans believe that immigration is a good thing for our country. But if you look at other polling it suggests that the executive order that the president signed on refugees was his least popular executive order, that there was actually more opposition to it than support.   And this is where I think that faith communities, hopefully, will continue to be strong ambassadors in their communities for why this issue is important to them as a matter of religion. I think this is also why the previous question on religious persecution is an important hook. Because there are clear communities like the Chin Christians that I've spoken to members of Congress on both sides of the aisle where they do believe that it is important for us to engage.   In terms of the pandemic, I think that the two areas that I would highlight are one, I think all of us have spoken on the presidential determination. It took some effort to get to that figure right now of sixty-two thousand five hundred. It will also take some effort for us to get to the figure of one hundred twenty-five thousand, which is what President Biden pledged to as a candidate. So we need to continue to be vocal and show to the White House that this is an issue of importance to us.   And then the other piece is Title 42, which is still being used. It's basically an emergency order indicating that because of the pandemic, individuals seeking to exercise their legal right at the southern border can be turned away. As we as a nation get to a better spot we need to look closely at that policy, and it needs to be lifted. So I think that faith communities can play an active role here as well.   FASKIANOS: Beth, you have anything?   FERRIS: I'll just kind of build on that. I think what we've seen both with refugee resettlement and immigrants in the U.S, it can be a great interfaith endeavor. I mean, a lot of times religious groups that don't have a lot in common with each other theologically can come together to furnish an apartment or to help a family or to make sure that something concrete is done. I think in those tangible efforts of working together we’re really moving toward more interfaith action, which is good for lots of reasons in this country, not least to overcome some of the terrible anti-Muslim and other religious sentiment that we've seen in recent years.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let's go in next question, Grace.   OPERATOR: We will take the next live question from Frances Flannery at Bio Earth, LLC.   FLANNERY: Oh, thank you so much for discussing climate displacement and the two hundred million to one billion anticipated climate-displaced persons by 2050. But even if this is a current priority in the Biden administration, how can we face this enormous problem over so many coming decades in the U.S. considering that the political parties in the White House will alternate, especially since the U.S. plays an outsized role in influencing the actions of host countries? And what I'm wondering is can faith communities play that role of adding more stability to the response between now and 2050 so that we can be proactive with what we know is coming? Thank you so much.   FASKIANOS: Go ahead, Krish.   VIGNARAJAH: Sure. Yes, I certainly think that faith communities can play a critical role here of highlighting that, again, this is a nonpartisan issue. This is not an issue that should feel foreign to Americans because whether it is the Indigenous population living off the coast of Louisiana, on Isle de Jean Charles, which are literally getting federal taxpayer dollars today as they prepared to resettle due to sea-level rise, or the Indigenous population in Shishmaref, Alaska. This is an issue that is coming home and is felt by, I think, all Americans. The fact that climate denial is slowly decreasing as people are literally feeling the impacts in their own backyards is unfortunate. But it is an opportunity.   My hope is that America can actually lead the charge by creating two pathways for climate-displaced persons. One would be a permanent solution, which, candidly, as you highlight the politics, that is going to be a heavier lift. And that would actually be to create an allocation for those who literally lose their home. When New Zealand tried this and they tried to create a humanitarian visa, it's important to recognize that it ultimately failed because there was a recognition that for these individuals affected, this was the issue, it was the option of last resort.   No one wants to flee the only home that they've known. And so part of the solution needs to be in creating a pathway for those who no longer have a home. Another needs to be creating a temporary protected status for those who are affected by a sudden onset disaster. And I think that this is where faith communities can highlight kind of their support for finding solutions.   FERRIS: A lot of people are moving away from talking about climate change displacement to focusing on disasters because it's less politicized. People may not agree with climate change, but they can agree that the flooding is getting worse every year. So talking about flooding somehow is easier to deal with than big climate change and questions of who's responsible and so on. I think we also need to recognize that migration is adaptation to climate change. It's a way of people surviving. If your land is no longer habitable, you move. There's nothing new about this. We've had people move for environmental reasons from the Maya, from the Romans.   I mean, for thousands of years people have moved in response to drought and famine. And yes, it's getting worse and likely to get worse because of climate change, but I think that trying not to make it this huge, insurmountable crisis, we can deal with this. We know what's coming. We have the tools. We have the will. This isn't some huge threat hanging over our head. Sometimes I think that advocates that are working on climate change really do a disservice by overhyping the threat of migration.   I remember Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who's a great human rights champion, saying something to the effect of, “If you rich countries don't stop your global emissions, you're going to have millions of people turning up on your border.” Let's stay away from that language of migration as a threat. I mean, migration is normal displacement. When people are forced to leave their homes it’s bad, and we should try to prevent it. But not everybody who moves because of the effects of climate changes is a threat.   FASKIANOS: Next question, please.   OPERATOR: We'll take the next written question from Bruce Compton from the Catholic Health Association, who asks, “It is my understanding that most migrants and refugees do not desire to leave but economic and social factors force them to seek refuge. While being welcoming under those circumstances is imperative, how do we best address the root causes? How are your organizations involved in this work?”   ASH: I can start on that answer because I think it's a really, really important question not just for our organizations in their work we're doing but, as I referenced at some point in this discussion, for the global community. The International Rescue Committee does an annual watch list of countries. It’s the twenty countries most at risk of descending into further crisis with greater humanitarian consequence. The twenty countries on our watch list this year account for just 10 percent of the world's population, but they account for 85 percent of all humanitarian need and 84 percent of refugees.   So it just gives you a sense that as vast as the challenge can seem flipped on its head, it's about bringing new approaches and all of our international tools and resources to bear on resetting the conflict in twenty countries, putting those conflicts on different and sounder footing, and getting to a place where the humanitarian needs of those populations are met. That's, as Beth and Krish talked about, is what people on the move are seeking. They're seeking safety. They're seeking survival. They're seeking the basic things that they need to be able to create security and achieve the human potential of themselves and of their children, and so providing the social and economic and political underpinnings for responsive government and inclusive government that meets the needs of all their people.   Providing it is a weird statement to make because it can't be provided from the outside but creating the incentives, organizing international assets and diplomatic interventions to achieve that outcome, including for addressing challenges like climate change, right, adapting and addressing the needs of your population and the challenges that they're addressing is a responsibility of states to their citizens. And so where we have fragile, oppressive, belligerent, unaccountable governments, you see the proliferation of conflict and displacement. And so that's a critical part of addressing the root causes.   And to say one more thing about that, I mean, the challenge we have now, as Beth alluded to earlier and as what's prompted by the first question from participants today, is very little accountability for oppression and non-responsiveness to the needs of your citizens. Many of our international tools think about the UN Security Council and our other conflict resolution tools were built to resolve conflicts between states, again, that post-World War II context of resolving conflicts between states when the vast majority of conflicts today are within states.   There are civil wars with sometimes as many as forty-plus internal actors and parties to conflict and violence. And it's incredibly difficult for sort of our traditional global tools and norms to reach into those conflicts and hold nonstate actors or belligerent states who hide behind the assumed protection of sovereignty to help resolve some of those conflicts and insist on accountability for the protection of their citizens. But it's increasingly what the international community needs to do.   FASKIANOS: Okay, we'll go next question.   OPERATOR: We'll take the next live question from Tom Getman of the Getman Group, the World Vision director, and Senate and UN staffer. .   GETMAN: Hello, friends. Could I segue on my colleague Beth's earlier comment and could you please give us some sense of how the COVID crisis has added to or taken from the Good Neighbor programs like here on Capitol Hill that facilitate LSS and LRS resettlement of Afghans and El Salvadorian refugees? These special visas of former endangered employees of the U.S. military or State Department still have needed urgent attention even during the Trump era. And it increased Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and even Mormon cooperation here on the Hill—remarkably, more money, more involvement, more setting up of apartments. Is this common across the country? It's certainly has increased prep for soon increases of regular arrivals. Thanks a lot.   VIGNARAJAH: Sure, so I'm happy to jump in there. Tom, it's a great question because it is one of the blessings of my job. Even in 2019 I had the chance of going to the southern border. And while it felt at that time like a war on immigration and immigrants, I got a chance to see the interfaith effort there where you would see a Lutheran working alongside a Catholic working alongside a Jew working alongside an Episcopalian.   And to me the idea of some immigrants who may have been fleeing religious persecution, to see and be welcomed into a nation where so many people of faith work alongside in this critical work of welcome, to me that's inspiring and to me that is American. So it is not unique in terms of what you're describing. And in fact, we have a program called Circle of Welcome. The idea is that it's critically important for us to engage non-faith communities that are the community-based anchors, pillars of their community, knowing that this work is not done in a few months’ time or even a few years’ time.   I just want to touch on the SIV issue because I know that it also came up, I think, in a couple other questions. This is an area of critical importance. I know that Nazanin also mentioned this because it is going to be something we need to work on and really ramp up our advocacy and highlight that faith communities feel very strongly alongside national security officials and allies because we have more than seventeen thousand Afghans, who, for those of you who don't know, SIVs, or special immigrant visas, they are given to individuals who served as an interpreter, a driver, alongside our military as we have troops deployed, particularly in Afghanistan and in Iraq.   And we know that when we talk about this population, looking at Afghanistan specifically, we have the seventeen thousand that I've identified, but also their family members who also become targets. That total is estimated at about fifty-three thousand.   So we're talking about a population that is narrowly defined at least seventy thousand individuals. And so one of the things that is critically important for us to put the pressure on the administration to think through now, as Nazanin mentioned, this is a years-long process. And so what policy solutions can organizations like CFR be a leader working alongside immigration organizations like IRC and LRS to advocate?   We strongly believe and we've actually sent a letter to the White House indicating that just as we've done in the past these individuals should be evacuated to American toward territory like Guam where they can be processed and ultimately resettled to the United States. But this is an area where I do believe, to your comment, there are a number of faith communities who strongly believe that this is a priority area. And then hopefully, we can see some results not just in the next few months’ time, but really in the next few weeks' time.   FASKIANOS: And I'm going to go to—oh, go ahead, Beth.   FERRIS: In Biden's executive there was a lot of emphasis placed on moving people who have been waiting for far too long for these special immigrant visas. I think many of us are deeply worried about Afghanistan and what's going to happen when U.S. troops withdraw. Will there be increased persecution of those who've worked with Americans? Will there be new refugee outflows? This is one of those cases where the early warning signs are all there. I mean, we should be thinking and preparing and in case the worst happens we need to take early action when we see these dangerous signs.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Next question.   OPERATOR: We'll take the next written question from Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons from the Center for American Progress, who asks, “What religious arguments do you hear against welcoming refugees? And how do you challenge those arguments?”   VIGNARAJAH: One of the most insidious arguments that I have heard is actually one that Attorney General Jeff Sessions used in justifying the family separation policy. It was essentially invoking scripture to say that God requires us to follow the rule of law. And so if you don't, apparently anything goes. And first, I think, it's important to recognize that those families that are seeking asylum are obviously seeking legal relief. It is legal to present at the southern border. And second, in no circumstance is family separation justified in my mind as a policy. So I think that that is one of the worst ways in which I've seen religion used by anti-immigration advocates.   FASKIANOS: Okay, next question.   OPERATOR: We'll take another written question from Reverend Canon Peg Chemberlin, founder of Justice Connections Consultants, who asks, “Could you comment on the level of anti-refugee movements in other countries as compared to the U.S.?”   FERRIS: I'll take a stab at that. I mean, it varies a lot from country to country and from time to time. Even in the United States if you look back over the past two hundred years, you see periods of apparent welcome but also always a little bit of anti-immigrant sentiment whether it was the Know Nothing Party in an earlier time. But, it's never been pure welcome nor has it ever been pureanti-immigrant, everybody-stay-out sort of mentality. So you see different things in the United States.   And similarly in Europe you have the rise of these right-wing populist parties, spurred in part by the 2015 arrival of over a million refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in Europe, really fueling these questions around identity and culture often mixed in with religion not wanting Muslims to come to “our” country because we consider ourselves to be a Christian country, even if, in fact, they're actually a pretty secular country.   So, I mean, there have been these kinds of reactions. You also see it in countries hosting large numbers of refugees, whether it's Lebanon or Jordan or Turkey where you see attitudes after a while become less welcoming even when initially the population was supportive of the refugees coming. It just kind of natural. People overstay their welcome. It's what Nazanin named talked about in the beginning about these protracted situations.   I remember one time in Lebanon in the Beqaa Valley talking to this older woman of a very modest background who had a little tiny shop who said, “Two years ago, I saw a Syrian couple and a toddler walking in front of my house. And because of my faith, my Muslim faith, I knew I had to welcome them, but there was no room. So I said, you can stay in this shanty out back of my house because it's better than sleeping on the road.”   And then she said, “That was two years ago. Now there are twenty-two people back there. There's no running water. There's no toilet. I want them to leave, but I can't tell them to go back to Syria.” And so you see that this natural solidarity and hospitality when time goes on, it's natural, it wears out. And so that's where I think the international community really has to step up in these protracted situations.   ASH: I got two things to what Beth noted. One, how much political leadership matters. So if you think about the differences across Europe and you consider the comparison of Angela Merkel versus Viktor Orban, or where you look at our own politics here in the United States and where in a very limited amount of time, I mean, over the course of a year you had a single leader who really politicized refugees and disrupted a forty-year bipartisan political consensus on the U.S. as a place of refuge for those fleeing violence and persecution.   So I think that political leadership matters a lot. I also think policies matter a lot to managing the reactions of populations as Beth has noted. I think, in the U.S. when you look across polling what's really fascinating is, as I noted earlier, by wide majorities, Americans believe the U.S. should be a place of refuge, but they also want to know that the process is orderly. They want to know that it's secure. And so, support for refugees rises with the knowledge of what the process is, how refugees are vetted, how they're supported to integrate when they arrive, and how they're economic contributors.   The same is true, as Beth is talking about, in countries all over the world where they face the same domestic political challenges in hosting large numbers of refugees but where the actions of leaders can help frame the narrative in important ways and where policy is domestic and with the support of the international community can help ease the impacts on host communities and ensure that we create the conditions where, again, communities can thrive together, old and new.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let's take the next question. It'll be the last question.   OPERATOR: We'll take a live question from Katherine Marshall of Georgetown University.   FASKIANOS: Katherine, you need to—yes, there you go.   MARSHALL: Looking at the sort of foreign policy aspects of this and maybe looking at a specific case, what can religious communities collectively and individually do to address some of the long-standing issues in Central America that are such a such a cause of the migration crisis at this point?   FASKIANOS: Why don't I let each of you take a pass at that since this is the last question and it allow you to leave us with your answer to the question and leave us with one final word. So should we go—Beth?   FERRIS: I can jump in. Yes, I mean, I think that churches and other faith communities in Central America have an important role to play in terms of addressing problems of governance, in terms of corruption, in terms of education, in terms of addressing poverty. This is a tall order. I think that the situation, these causes are complex, and they require more than local communities can provide. So I hope to see a very robust response by the Biden administration to addressing the causes. And my final comment would be that, yes, it's really important to have welcoming policies to immigrants and refugees, but also important to address those causes that force way too many people to flee their communities.   FASKIANOS: Krish?   VIGNARAJAH: Sure, we know that when it comes to refugees even under the most kind of generous and welcoming conception of a functioning refugee resettlement infrastructure, only 1 percent of refugees will be resettled. So to the extent that as a matter of foreign policy and as a matter of faith, America exercises its global humanitarian leadership when it has a robust refugee resettlement and immigration system. I think that's critically important for faith communities to be actively engaged in highlighting that obviously this is not just the right thing to do, but it's also the smart thing to do.   And appreciate with an audience like here at CFR highlighting that when we talk about population decline and what we can learn from Japan and the stagnation there that the census numbers have shown us that immigration is a part of our foreign policy solution. When we're talking about what some may describe as a cold war with China, being welcoming of dissidents who may be actively expressing their frustrations in Hong Kong is a tool of our foreign policy. But I think as Beth has mentioned, I think each of us has highlighted we know that the root causes have to be addressed because that is the bulk of the way by which we respond and help those who, frankly, aren't as lucky and don't hit the jackpot and come here to the United States. That is where I think that the active communities, particularly in our own hemisphere, of the sister churches in Central America, are certainly a way in which we can actively engage to the extent that there's dysfunction in some of the governmental structures. We know that the churches and other faith institutions are critical pillars of their community. And my hope is that there are nongovernmental ways in which we can exercise support to stabilize these regions as well.   ASH: Yes, maybe I'll just add—we're over time so let me know, Irina, even if you'd like to pause?   FASKIANOS: No, I would like you to conclude.   ASH: Going from the global to the local, I mean, the foreign policy imperative for responding here is so clear. When countries are not supported and equipped to receive refugees and asylum seekers fleeing immediate violence and persecution, it results in additional humanitarian and political crises. Of the fifteen largest returns that have happened since the 1990s, a third of them have resulted in the resumption of conflict. So if we just consider how much worse the Syrian crisis would have been if Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon turned back five and a half million Syrians?   How much worse the crisis in Myanmar would have been if Bangladesh refused the nearly one million Rohingya who crossed their borders in an extraordinary short amount of time? If Colombia returned the over one million Venezuelans to a very unstable Venezuela? If Kenya returned three hundred thousand Somalis to an unstable Somalia? Pakistan, two million Afghans to an unstable Afghanistan? You see the foreign policy imperative in responding to displacement and refugee crises. It's about stabilization as much as it is about humanitarian response.   At the local level, again, as Krish and Beth have said, it's been faith communities and local organizations that have seen the writing on the wall that have taken in their neighbors and that have provided that first round of welcome and support. But if that's not supported and sustained with the resources of wealthy nations in the international community, we see these protracted contacts, we see welcome wearing thin, and we see populations moving on.   What I think is so interesting about the Central American context is that it's indeed churches and faith groups that have provided that essential safety, security, food, shelter, water along migration routes, but it's been about the conversion of your church to provide for some temporary assistance to migrants as they're passing through.   If those efforts were sustained and expanded such that Central Americans moving to that safe community were supported there and given opportunity there and given a leg up there and able to go to school and begin work anew in those communities, the work of those faith leaders could be extended from something that's been a temporary safe home on your route to something that is about expanding the ability of local communities to provide refuge and to help integrate those who are internally displaced.   FASKIANOS: Thank you all. I apologize for going a bit over, but I wanted to give each of you a chance to sum up. This has been a very rich discussion. Thank you for your devotion to these issues and your work over the years. It is really heartwarming to know that that so many people are working on this issue and it's so important. So thank you all, I really appreciate it. Nazanin Ash, Elizabeth Ferris, and Krish O'Mara Vignarajah—we appreciate it.

CFR's annual Religion and Foreign Policy Workshop brings together high-level congregational and lay leaders, scholars of religion, and representatives of faith-based organizations from across the country for conversations on pressing global concerns with policymakers, CFR fellows, and other experts.  The full agenda is available here.

TIPPETT: Well, it is my pleasure to convene this gathering with a few announcements. First of all, welcome, everyone, to this opening session of the CFR Religion and Foreign Policy Workshop. I am Krista Tippett of On Being Project and the On Being radio show and podcast, and very happy to be moderating today’s conversation with CFR President Richard Haass. As a reminder, this virtual meeting is on the record and it is made possible in part through the generosity of the Ford Foundation. In 2006, CFR President Richard Haass launched the Religion and Foreign Policy program for clergy, scholars of religion, and leaders of faith-based organizations, in recognition of the importance of including the religious dimension in discussions of international affairs. Since 2007, the program has held this annual workshop, which I attended in the very, very early days—I think Irina and I guessed it might have been the first one—with the purpose of convening a diverse group of religious leaders to examine pressing concerns at the intersection of religion and foreign policy. And this year’s workshop brings together over 320 participants representing 41 faith traditions. I’m pleased to introduce Richard Haass. Richard Haass is a veteran diplomat, a prominent voice on American foreign policy. He is now in his eighteenth year as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, which is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, publisher, and educational institution dedicated to being a resource to help people better understand the world, and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. And Dr. Haass has extensive government experience. He’s worked for the State Department, multiple White House administrations, and also as a staffer in the United States Senate. He’s also the author or editor of fourteen books on American foreign policy, one book on management. And his most recent book is The World: A Brief Introduction—a small topic, Richard. So we are going to speak for a few minutes up here, about half an hour, kind of traversing some of the big picture questions and observations around this moment. And then we’re going to very importantly turn to the room, the Zoom room, for your questions. I will make that shift in about half an hour. And when we get there, we’ll explain again how you can submit your questions. So let’s just dive in. I will say that Richard and I very briefly crossed paths a long time ago in a vanished world, in divided Berlin back in the Cold War world. It was literally another century, another world in every way. And I was the chief aide to our ambassador to West Germany in Berlin at that time. And you were already kind of in your foreign policy groove heading towards this august post that you have now. And, Richard, I just want to start by saying it’s been so on my mind that when that wall came down in 1989, which I think would agree, no one predicted would happen when it did, how it did. I never imagined that in my lifetime there would be another event, another turning that felt so much like the world, globally, that you could think about the time before and the time after. But it has been astonishing to live through this past year and feel that we have had again such a pivot. And I’d just love to draw you out on that, and on how it feels to you. And I also wonder if you have a name for this time we’ve entered now. (Laughs.) HAASS: Well, first of all, thank you, Krista. Thank you for doing this, and for all else you do. And welcome, everyone. It’s great to have you back, virtually. I hope and expect next year we’ll have you back physically. Maybe even we’ll do some version of a hybrid, seems to be the word of the moment. But again, it’s good to be with you all, if only through the wonders of Zoom. I actually think the end of the Cold War was a more consequential development, in the sense that it totally transformed the structure of the world. For forty years, for four decades, the world was essentially divided into two principal camps, two rival camps. There was the third of the,then so-called “nonaligned,” but essentially it was a great-power rivalry and heavy, with these two large concentrations of power. Now, when that world ended, and we’re still in the post-Cold War era, something very different took its place. So a much broader distribution of power, much greater capacity and autonomy, and many more hands. And also, coincidentally, became a year where global challenges moved to the forefront, alongside traditional geopolitics. The pandemic is one such global challenge. A disease that broke out in a city of ten million or so of China has, over the last, what, sixteen, seventeen months claimed millions of lives worldwide. My sense is probably on the order of ten million lives. The undercounting, I believe, is quite significant. And it’s disrupted lives, careers, societies, economies. That said, I really don’t think it will be a transformational event. Already we’re seeing in certain countries, including this one, the resumption of fairly robust economic activity. The countries of Asia, for the most part, have weathered this in extraordinary fashion, the Asia-Pacific. Other countries are in very difficult state: India, Brazil, Russia, some others. But I think it’s a question of when and not if, through some combination on vaccines, therapeutic drugs, masks, distancing, what have you, you have significant recovery in the physical sense, as well as in the economic sense. And the world after the pandemic will in many ways resemble the world geopolitically and geoeconomically before it. So I think this is a powerful experience. I think it’s a reminder of the power of globalization, borders in many cases are not respected. But I don’t think, say, the world of 2022 or 2023 will be fundamentally changed from the world that existed before it. TIPPETT: I guess I’m thinking, I’m certainly thinking of the pandemic when I speak about the before and the after, but I also think about the racial reckoning that I think happened within the pandemic. We could have a whole conversation about that but in some ways if I think about something that—(laughs)— the whole end of history idea, back in that olden day, was not seeing how the Cold War had kind of kept the lid on tight of the reckoning with colonialism. And in some ways I think that is now coming full circle. Certainly, it’s happening internally, domestically, but it’s absolutely, I mean, it is a global reckoning in a sense. And I imagine it having foreign policy ripple effects. I agree with you, maybe we won’t see it by 2022 or 2023. But I just wonder if you, it also very much points at how the language that I read about what CFR is about and this conference is about, the intersection between religion and all that religion grapples with, and foreign policy, is really the connotations, what is contained in that phrase is so transformed, although that transformation has been coming for a while. HAASS: You know, lots I could say. TIPPETT: Yeah. HAASS: I do think the Cold War kept a lid on a lot of things. It was, in its own way, quite disciplined. Countries in many cases lacked a degree of autonomy. And what we saw with the dissolution both of the internal Soviet empire, the Soviet Union was an empire in and of itself, and then there was the external empire in Eastern Europe and so forth. When empires tend to unravel, there’s often quite a lot of violence and nationalism that emerge. We saw it profoundly in places like the former Yugoslavia. So  we’ve seen that. And I think more broadly, again, this is a world in which power is much more distributed, autonomy is, for lots of reasons. One is the end of the discipline of the Cold War. Indeed, when you think about it, Krista, the first great event of the post-Cold War period happened less than a year after the taking down of the Berlin Wall, and that was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. And that was something that arguably never could or would have happened during the Cold War because, among other things, the Soviet Union had considerable influence over the behavior of Iraq, and my guess is would not have permitted Saddam Hussein to do such a thing, to provide that kind of a strategic opening for the United States to increase its presence and role in a critical theater of the world. So I think it’s true that some things have come out because of the end of the Cold War. You’ve seen the rise of certain countries, which has liberated them to do things—China, just to give you one example. I mean, you mentioned the racial reckoning, and that to me is attributable to all sorts of things. I think technology’s made a big difference. It’s given voice to, in some ways, the opposite of what Mr. Orwell predicted. Rather than concentrating voice, it’s distributed voices, thanks to social media. But yes, so in many ways it’s, to me, a far more complicated world. I’m an historian by training. And you asked me before and I never answered it: What do we call this period? Well, the answer is we don’t yet have a name for it because it’s still forming itself. And in some ways, until there’s a dominant feature of this period I think we’ll continue to call it the post-Cold War period or we’ll just avoid any terminology. If the United States and China end up in a cold war, we’ll probably call this the inter-Cold War period just like the ’20s and ’30s were often referred to as the inter-war period between the two world wars. But it could be because of some global challenge. For example, we’re living with the pandemic. Thank God we’ve got it under relative control. Imagine vaccines hadn’t come around. Then that could have been a defining event for mankind. Climate change still has the capacity to do that. Again, so I feel we’re at a moment in history where we’re living in it, but it’s yet in some ways to define itself. TIPPETT: So I’m curious, you started this initiative, is that right, this Religion and Foreign Policy initiative? So that was in 2006, and I’d like to hear what you were seeing in 2006 that made you feel that this gathering and this kind of conversation was necessary and was missing. HAASS: It’s fifteen years ago, if my math is right, and it was one of several initiatives we started at the Council on Foreign Relations. The whole idea was to open the aperture of people’s involvement in international issues and foreign policy issues. What struck me at the time was how important objectively the world was and how little, increasingly, people, particularly in this country, knew about it. Lots of reasons why. Schools don’t teach it, or if they teach it they don’t require students study it. Media covered it a lot less. You mentioned the end of the Cold War. A lot of people said “OK, well, therefore, we don’t need to worry about the world a whole lot, we can take a break, put our feet up.” You mentioned the “end of history” idea, that somehow a lot of the dynamics of history had been set aside. My own view was just the opposite, that the world is becoming more important. I was struck by the gap between the inherent importance of the world and people’s appreciation of it. And then one day I came across a statistic about how many Americans once a week entered a house of worship. And you add up the number of Americans that go to churches of every conceivable denomination, and mosques, and synagogues, and what have you, it’s well over a hundred million people. I’ve seen numbers, a hundred fifty million people or more. I will leave our three hundred religious and congregational leaders to make a judgment as to how rapt their attention is, but I put that aside. That I leave to them. But my view was, wow, I couldn’t think of another experience that so many people in this country had on a regular basis. And so what made this so interesting to me was not just what you said at the beginning, to get a better appreciation of the role of religion as a dynamic in international affairs. It means a lot to me because I was originally a religion major at Oberlin College. I got my first degree in Middle Eastern studies, very interested in comparative religion and all that, flirted with becoming a rabbi, and for better or for worse chose another path, which I’m happy to return to. But my view was that religious leaders, congregational leaders had a connection with people that was unparalleled. And so my view was if I could somehow, if we at the Council on Foreign Relations, could establish a relationship with them, if we could become a resource for them, also, what an opportunity to expand awareness, understanding of critical issues in the country and the world if we could, if those who were giving the sermons, if those who were teaching classes inside churches and synagogues and mosques and the like were essentially a better position to educate their congregations? So it was, in a sense, a two-way relationship. I wanted us to learn more from them about the role of religion in the world, but I also wanted to be a resource for them in terms of just what the content of what it was, whether it was in sermons or whether it was in classrooms associated with religious institutions, I wanted to increase conversation about critical subjects that I thought was simply not happening in other places. TIPPETT: That world in which you and I were young people interested in foreign policy was also a world in which—I always liked this thing that Peter Berger said, great sociologist of religion, that in the late twentieth century—what did he say—in polite circles, polite society, religion was something done in private between consenting adults. And it’s just telling that even though you studied, you did religious studies in college, this looking at the religious world and taking it seriously from the perspective of being a foreign policy expert, came to you in the twenty-first century. And I’m curious, also, about what you now would say you didn’t yet see about all the layers that there are to, again, that phrase, the intersection between religion and foreign policy. What have you learned? HAASS: Any student of history would go back and would look at the role of religion and conflict, whether it was the Thirty Years’ War which ended with the Treaty of Westphalia, which is really the rise of the modern state system, so that kind of stuff was pretty well-known. But it wasn’t until I really studied the Middle East that I got a much better appreciation for I guess the word that comes to mind is fusion or integration. Because, or another way to put it is universities have departments; the world doesn’t. So you have the religion department, the sociology department, the economics department, the politics department. The world doesn’t have one, and these things all mix together. And it’s true of individuals. That’s why I’m very careful about ever ascribing motives to people because it’s always many things at work. But same thing with societies. And I was involved heavily in everything from the Gulf War to the Iraq War to Afghanistan. I was the U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland; the U.S. envoy to Cyprus, the peace talks. And in every one of these positions, how could you be involved in these things and not understand the interplay? In some cases this was obvious at the surface, say in Northern Ireland or in the Middle East. Other places it was more suffused, when I was involved in India and Pakistan and so forth, involved in diplomacy between them. So I actually think any diplomat who ventures out and doesn’t have some understanding or feel for this set of topics that forms the core of this group, this workshop, I think is actually underequipped. I guess I would put it that way, is underequipped for the task. TIPPETT: And has it been your experience in these years that a wider swath of policymakers see the importance of understanding religious people, communities, leaders? HAASS: Not enough. TIPPETT: No? HAASS: I got really frustrated at times in government when I thought that people didn’t understand that enough. And it’s religion, it’s culture, it’s hard to say where one ends and the other begins. But when I look at the biggest mistakes the United States has made in the world—and I would say, two of the three biggest mistakes were Vietnam and the Iraq War—the lesson I take from that is we get in real trouble when we don’t understand local realities. And anytime we try to see the world through a lens of geopolitical abstraction rather than getting immersed in local realities, we get in real trouble. And we got in real trouble in Vietnam and in Iraq because, I would argue, we did not come close to understanding the nature of these societies we were intervening in, the nature of these societies we sought to transform. So one of the lessons I took away is, yeah, hey, I’m always described as a globalist, but I always tell people you’ve got to know local. At times you’ve got to think local even if you’re acting on a global stage. TIPPETT: Yeah, and the major traditions are the original global institutions, right? I mean— HAASS: Absolutely. TIPPETT: The Catholic Church—(laughs)—for example, was there before American foreign policy. HAASS: For example. It’s still there, last I checked. TIPPETT: Yes. (Laughs.) HAASS: I think, again, one way or another these are powerful forces. And it’s just part of the tapestry or mosaic, whatever phrase you want to use about what motivates people or explains societies. And again, unless you have a feel for the range of what explains a society, I don’t think you can be, you’re not nearly as effective as a diplomat or an analyst or anything else if you lack that. TIPPETT: What would you like the people in this room, our virtual room, to be attentive to? How would you advise them to strengthen their voice and their presence and the agency they have in these important intersections? HAASS: It’s a big question. I will probably be, and please forgive me, characteristically immodest in my answer. (Laughs.) But I’ll try to be sensitive. Let me start out with the fact that I am genuinely worried. I am worried about the future of this country. Our democracy is nearly two-and-a-half centuries old, and for the first time in my life I don’t take its future for granted. I’m worried about the future of international relations, given certain dynamics and certain capacities that have spread. And I’m also worried about the future of the world, the planet itself, in many cases because of the gap between these challenges and the collective responses. So let me just choose three issues, three of many, that I would hope that people in this virtual room would give voice to. One is what I just alluded to, is climate change. We are stewards of this Earth. And one of the things we have learned is depending upon how we collectively, the eight billion of us, live our lives, how we use and consume fuel and the rest, we are changing this planet, and in the process, changing its ability to support life as we know it. God created the heavens and the Earth. We’re custodians. And I believe that responsibility towards the planet and climate change is one that we all share, that we need to leave it in better shape than we found it. Now, the actual policies that are adopted, that’s a different subject. But the importance of responsibility, of collective responsibility for the planet, that is one thing that I would argue needs to be—voice needs to be given to. Secondly, and even more immediately, is to save life, which is the most precious thing of all. If I’m right and COVID’s killed around ten million people, we have got to act faster to save lives, and that means expanding the production and availability of vaccines. The United States just announced yesterday we’re going to make twenty million doses of vaccine available by the end of June. That’s probably enough for one day in the world. We’ve got eight billion people we’ve got to get vaccinated. Many of them are going to be two-dose vaccines. That’s sixteen billion doses. That’s a lot of doses. So we’ve got to dramatically ramp up collective efforts to make vaccines available, and it’s got to be done simultaneously not just for the human part but for ourselves. You know that line in the airplane when you all get, I mean, in the old days when you and I used to get on airplanes, and there you stood, some voice used to come on and say, in the event of loss of cabin pressure oxygen masks will drop down; put yours on first, and only then help your neighbor. No. That kind of sequentialism is not the right metaphor. It’s got to be simultaneous. We’ve got to help our neighbor and help ourselves simultaneously with COVID. Who better to argue for life on humanitarian or any other grounds or self-interested grounds than the people in this room? And then, thirdly, something, again, I never thought I’d have to talk about, is American democracy. And I’m not saying that people in the clergy should preach you should be for or against this issue. That’s not the point. But there’s got to be something about nonviolence, something about civility towards those we disagree with, something about respecting laws, respecting norms, to talk about the importance of norms, the unwritten rules that are the glue to a society, to civilization. Again, I think, without getting into controversial matters of policy, which is beyond what arguably those in the clergy should be talking about, but how we go about our politics, that seems to me to be exactly in their wheelhouse. So in those three areas, the planet, saving life, how we conduct our politics, I would think that the people in this room have tremendous opportunity, and I would say with opportunity goes responsibility, to be a clear and consistent voice. TIPPETT: I think one more question and then let’s open it up because I think that would be a great conversation to have with this group. Just curious, is there an issue or an area where you’ve seen what you would consider to be good modeling of what this kind of, it’s not really, “collaboration” is too small a word. You’re talking about  kind of walking alongside each, I mean, really, some of what you just pointed at is moral imagination and kind of where, and also action, and so where those things are joined effectively and generatively with other kinds of civil and political and foreign policy efforts. What comes to mind? HAASS: One image that comes to mind, I’m not sure it gets at what you raised, and if it doesn’t do justice to it come back at me, it was during the protests you mentioned, the racial protests we’ve had over the last year, and it was a policeman with a protester and doing it together. And to me, it was so powerful that, because we think of  many of the marchers against the police, and the idea that they essentially joined in a demonstration of mutual respect and acceptance, just to me it just stuck in my mind as just a very powerful, it was a bit of a We Shall Overcome kind of moment. And I’ve seen it, I mentioned before, I was the U.S. envoy in Northern Ireland. When the various mothers got involved, and wives, in marching for peace. And they were from cross denominational lines, Catholic and Protestants alike, how powerful was that? And it actually, it made a difference. And it makes a difference. It’s a little bit of humanity coming before policy. But that’s, in and of itself, a powerful political statement. So, yeah, it’s when individuals showed not just the morale. It takes enormous courage, enormous courage. I’m writing a book on citizenship now, which is not what you would expect a foreign policy guy to do in his spare time. And the reason I’m writing it is that I’ve decided the greatest threat to the future of this country is not anything external, like China, or Iran, or North Korea, or terrorism, or what have you, but it’s us. It’s our own ability to come together. And I reread a book I hadn’t read, I’m reading all the things I haven’t read in forty or fifty years, from The Federalist Papers to de Tocqueville. And I reread Profiles in Courage. It was a book, of all things, I had gotten for my bar mitzvah four hundred years ago. And it’s just a reminder about— TIPPETT: By John F. Kennedy. HAASS: Yes. How normal— TIPPETT: You need to remind—everybody here hasn’t heard of that book. HAASS: Oh, yeah, like I said, four hundred years ago. John F. Kennedy wrote about, I think it was, eight or so senators who he called them profiles in courage, did truly courageous things often at the cost of their own ambition and careers, and put principle or country before ambition and self. And I actually think we’ve had some demonstrations of it recently. And it just shows me how—sorry to go on so long—but I’ve been lucky enough to work for four presidents. There’s so little that’s inevitable in history. So little is baked into the cake. But human agency matters tremendously, for better and for worse. And what Profiles in Courage is, are vignettes of human agency that mattered for better. So I believe in that. That’s the reason I’m not a pessimist. Throughout history you see examples when people step up and do the right thing, despite the cost, despite the risk, despite the pressure. And one just hopes that those become less the exception and more the rule. TIPPETT: I’m so curious at that formulation of humanity over policy. Was it something that would have occurred to you in the early part of your career, back in that Cold War world? Or is this something that has evolved within you? HAASS: It’s evolved because, again, I’ve been so fortunate in many ways. But one of them is I’ve been involved in things at high levels in this country and other countries. And I’ve seen what people do. And I’ve seen people evolve and grow. The favorite, I’ve interacted with a lot of remarkable people in my life. Again, I’ve been really lucky. But if I had to choose one person, and I’m often asked that, who’s made the biggest impression on me, it was Yitzhak Rabin, who, when we first met it was even before he was defense minister. Then he became defense minister. Ultimately, he became prime minister. And we had many, many, many conversations. And what I loved about him, and he talked about it a little bit in public on the lawn of the White House at the signing ceremony when he was up there with Yasser Arafat, after Oslo. And he basically said: This is not easy for me, what he was being asked to do. And how can you not be impressed by that? And what makes people great is that. And I have tremendous respect for George Bush forty-one, the forty-first president, the father. You know, when we worked together, it just showed me close up the power and the impact of individual choice. And again, I’ve seen, I won’t go into the areas where I’ve been disappointed, because I’ve also been tremendously disappointed. Where I thought people had within their grasp potentially wonderful things and they let it slip through their fingers for whatever set of calculations or emotions. So for better and for worse, close up, I’ve seen people step up to history and people step away from it. But it made me realize how personal it is. It’s funny—one last thing. For a long time there was a fashion in history that so-called great man or woman idea or history was incorrect, and that underneath what really mattered were these great societal, cultural, larger forces. And those forces matter. We’ve been talking about them, you and I. But also, it’s those people, I don’t know what the metaphor is, but who kind of surf or ride on top of them and who steer them a little bit or resist them if need be. So again, there’s so little that is inevitable. And when I talk to young people I always talk about the power of what individuals can do. And it ought to be a great—people say how can I make a difference? And one of the arguments I use for reading history and studying history, is history is in many ways the record of people who have made a difference. TIPPETT: OK. Well, Rivka, I think you can guide us into opening this conversation up to everybody. OPERATOR: Great. The first written question will come from Marie Anne Sliwinski at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, who asks: The more global empathy toward the Palestinians shows how the pandemic has changed people. Would you agree? HAASS: I don’t think I would agree. I don’t see how the pandemic has changed thinking about Palestinians. I think there was and is sympathy for their plight. Less sympathy for those, such as the leaders of Hamas, who use violence to advance their goals. But I think, unless I misunderstood the question, I don’t see a particular connection between the pandemic and Palestinians. Although, Palestinians have had it particularly hard because, particularly in places like Gaza, you have such dense population. You’ve got two million people in an extraordinarily small piece of land. You’ve had inadequate access to vaccines and medical help. But by and large, I think the Palestinian problem, situation, however one wants to characterize it, had a dynamic that long predated the pandemic, will have one that will, is now trans-pandemic, and will be there post-pandemic. And I think the factors that drive that issue, many factors that drive that issue, all of which are in the press today, are essentially largely apart from the pandemic. And I don’t see that, for example, affecting the coverage or the reaction to events of the last week. TIPPETT: Another question. OPERATOR: We will take the next live question from Pastor Mark Burns. He is from the NOW Television Network. BURNS: Great. Thank you so much. My question is a piggyback question in regards to the Israeli-Palestine conflict that is currently taking place. Christians in general, especially Evangelical Christians in general, support Israel. What is your opinion on the latest conflict? Is Israel at fault, or is there a justification for the Palestinians’ attack? HAASS: Well, we could use the rest of the time to go into that. And I think what we’ve seen in the last ten days are all sorts of things. We saw the protests in Jerusalem over legal issues dealing with title to land. We saw the use of force inside Islamic holy places, that I was critical of. Even before that you had the postponement of the, by the Palestinian Authority, of elections, which again was unfortunate. Then you had the use of, the firing of rockets by Hamas from Gaza into Israel population centers. That was wrong by any and every measure. Israel had the right to retaliate in the name of self-defense. I think that was appropriate. The question is whether there’s been sufficient retaliation. And I’ve been arguing for the last several days that we, the United States, ought to be pressing harder for a ceasefire. That too many innocents on both sides are losing their lives. I also think for Israel there’s other risks, like continuing a loss of support in some quarters. I think it strengthens, potentially, the political hand of Hamas and weakens the political role of the Palestinian Authority. I also think there’s a potential here to radicalize the two million or so Israeli Arabs, which would be a threat to the fabric of Israeli society. But more than anything else, I don’t see the purpose or justification for continued attacks. I think what we need now is a mutual stand down, a de facto or more formal ceasefire. It’s happened in the past after previous rounds of fighting. It will happen again now. I think the question is when, not if. And I would simply say the sooner the better. And just to be clear, if and when we get to that point it will not have dealt with any of the basics, any of the underlying causes of this conflict. But it will stop the destruction and the loss of life. And then the question is, is there enough for diplomats and politicians to work with to address the more fundamentals of the crisis. I’m not a real optimist. I don’t see an end when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinians’ feud anytime soon. But at least it would stop the destruction and death that we’re seeing now on both sides. TIPPETT: Another question. OPERATOR: Our next question is a written submission from P. Adem Carroll at the Burma Task Force USA, who asks: The harsh and sometimes genocidal persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, notably in China, India, and Myanmar, has resulted in a mixed response from the West and silence from many other nations. At the same time, many corporations prefer to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses. For example, Disney in Xinjiang, or Chevron in Myanmar. Speaking of corporate responsibility, what is the future of Corporate Social Responsibility in a world where Responsibility to Protect struggles to survive? HAASS: It’s a really thoughtful question. So thank you. Look, let me make one or two general points, and then I’ll come to the question of corporate responsibility. I think for governments this question of speaking out on behalf of religious freedom, human rights, and so forth, I think it’s important to do so, but I think one has to at times also look at the question, as what is, well, what influence do you have? Countries have the ability to push back not just big and strong countries like China, but even weak, relatively weak countries like Myanmar. And also from a policy point of view, there are tradeoffs sometimes. And we have to ask ourselves if we, are we willing to mortgage, or jeopardize, or place hostage, whatever phrase you want to use, an entire relationship to concerns over human rights or religion? Take an example of Russia. We, obviously, fundamentally disagree with what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Obviously, fundamentally disagree with the mass incarceration of political protesters, the attempted killing of Mr. Navalny. On the other hand, the United States recently signed a multiyear extension of a nuclear arms control agreement with Russia. And the question is, how do we look after certain interests at the same time we try to show a decent respect, and a necessary respect for religious freedom and human rights? And that’s a serious conversation that’s ongoing. But I think there’s no necessary right or wrong, it’s just that’s a foreign policy challenge to figure that out, understanding, one, the limits to influence sometimes and, two, that we have multiple interests, and we have to work the tradeoffs. On the question of corporate social responsibility, I think this is a growing issue. We’ve come a long way since the days that corporations and CEOs were just responsible to shareholders and shareholder return. We see it in a pronounced way with environmental, and climate, and energy issues. We see it with, and we’re going to see it more and more with human rights and labor issues. Trafficking is another issue, the tens of millions of people around the world trafficked. And I would argue that corporations have a responsibility to make sure that their supply chains, the goods and services that are going into the products they produce, that people are not, that there’s no slave labor involved in those supply chains, or forced labor, and so forth. So the answer is, yes. I think this has got to be a consideration. Shareholders and other investors should raise it. And I believe that CEOs have, and Larry Fink, who’s a member of our board here at the Council of Foreign Relations, the head of BlackRock, one of the largest asset managers in the world, has basically made a powerful argument for an expansion of the responsibilities of a CEO. And a CEO has to, yes, worry about shareholder return, investor return. But also has to be sensitive to his employees. He has to be sensitive, he or she, to customers and clients, but also to principles. And that’s, again, a balance act. But I think they ought to be confronted with it. I think that shareholders and the public more broadly have every right to press corporations to take these other factors into account. And then the corporation, it seems to me, has to make a decision on how to respond, and then just to justify that decision. Has to justify that decision in the marketplace. And if people aren’t pleased with their decision or how they’ve justified it, I expect in some cases they will pay an economic penalty. People won’t want to own a stock, won’t want to buy a product or a service. So there’s lots of ways to influence these decisions. So there’ll be tradeoffs, shall we say, there, just like governments will have to make tradeoffs. So too will corporate leaders. TIPPETT: Let’s have another question. OPERATOR: Our next question will be live from Tereska Lynam from the University of Oxford. Please accept the “unmute now” button. LYNAM: Can you hear me OK? TIPPETT: Yes. LYNAM: OK, great. Thank you. This is also a written question. How do we confront and move beyond the real divisions in our information sources, which are filtering our way into our news, obviously, but also our spiritual communities? And so much reporting, even what seems to be benevolent and benign, has a partisan stance. And kind of on that, we just had Shavuot. How do we love our neighbors as ourselves when in many cases we are taught that so many of our neighbors are actually our enemies? Thank you for your consideration. HAASS: No, thank you for your question. My honest answer is I don’t have a great answer. It’s something I’m struggling with. It’s extraordinarily difficult for a democracy to have a conversation or a debate about an issue if the foundation is not fact. You know, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was the Harvard academic who then became the senator from New York, his famous line was that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion just not to his or her own facts. And one can be, one could either, and by that, I think that’s important two ways. One is, one could just grab onto falsehoods. But there’s also the inaccuracy of grabbing onto 5 percent of something and ignoring the other 95 percent. And I think part of the obligation of schools is to do a better job of helping people understand what facts are, what are judgements, what are opinions, where to go. The idea also of multiple sources. I was, in the old days before the pandemic, when I used to go to a gym, one of the things I used to do is when I worked out on the elliptical, if I had a half-hour workout, I’d spend ten minutes on three different networks, and just get a different sense of it. And I try to do it now with podcasts and others. Or I’ll read multiple newspapers. But we live in an era of narrowcasting rather than broadcasting. And that’s dangerous. So part of it is to encourage people to move out of their comfort zones. And by the way, I don’t think universities do a great service in encouraging this notion of safety and safe spaces. I think people need to learn to be a little bit uncomfortable, to be exposed to things that challenge their own beliefs, what they had accepted as orthodoxy. So I think we ought to encourage people to go—I mean, there’s two things. One is to encourage people to go to multiple sites, sources. And some are better than others. And but also how to practice the art of disagreement in a civil way. I think we need—we don’t want to stop arguing. We don’t want a ceasefire in the conversation. But we want to have, if you will, the equivalent of the laws of war. We want to have the Geneva Convention about how to have conversations in the public marketplace about what is legitimate and what is not, and how to disagree without turning people into enemies. There’s a lot of experimentation going on. I’ve seen it with groups where you bring people together and you do polling at the beginning of the group. I think it’s called deliberative polling; I may have the wrong phrase. And then the idea is that people talk, and they get to know one another. And then you do polling later on in the process. And in my experience, when people are exposed in a civil, relaxed way to different points of view there’s often a bit of, not transformation, but a bit of movement. And so I think, again, religious institutions potentially provide a great vehicle for doing that, for bringing in speakers who represent different points of view within the congregations. For getting people to have conversations on certain issues. To bring in experts who can provide an educational background to help people reach more informed opinions. And again, as I said before about democracy, to talk about the civility of disagreement, about how it is we, what democracy requires in the way of norms. I actually think norms are incredibly important. Norms aren’t laws. They’re not things you have to obey, but they’re things you ought to. They’re the ought-tos and the shoulds of societal existence. They’re the lubricants that make societies work. We can’t just be a society of law. Law is too narrow. Potentially it’s too black or white, or too brittle. Norms become the conventions that allow us to find ways to disagree and coexist. And again, I think religious institutions can become places to exercise that and to even train that. TIPPETT: Another question. OPERATOR: Our next written question is from Simran Jeet Singh of YSC Consulting. He asks: As you express your concerns about the state of our world can you speak about the state of religious freedom and how it’s been manipulated and politicized? From your vantage point, what would an appropriate and meaningful vision of religious freedom look like? HAASS: By definition religious freedom is, for me, the ability of any individual on the planet to worship or not worship as he or she pleases. It’s about, in the phrase, “religious freedom,” it’s the freedom to practice or not to practice, and practice in whatever direction and whatever manner one would want to. I would say I’m not an expert on the state of religious freedom around the world. I will say though that over the last approximately decade and a half, plus or minus, there—if one were going to—I’ll use a financial metaphor. If there were a share of stock in a market called state of democracy and freedom in the world, it would have lost value over the last decade and a half. In the previous decade and a half after the end of the Cold War, say from 1990 to 2005, there was an expansion of freedom in the world, political and otherwise. And in the last fifteen years, there’s been something of a contraction. And that, to me, is a worrisome development. And what we’re also seeing in many cases is greater intolerance and various justifications used for limiting religious freedom, or, not just religious freedom, but for treating members of religious groups with discrimination, I guess is a—which is what we’re also seeing in more  societies than we did before. And that’s part of the greater illiberalism of this era. Lots of reasons why. We can talk about it. But religion can’t escape a trend of greater illiberalism. It’s one of the reflections or victims of the time. And illiberalism has grown in democracies and non-democracies alike over the last decade and a half. TIPPETT: Next question. OPERATOR: Our next live question comes from Chloe Breyer of the Interfaith Center of New York. BREYER: Yes, hello. Thank you so much. My question is as follows. It’s a written question as well. A generation of young women and men have grown up in Afghanistan having received an education supported by the United States and international aid groups. What is it the U.S. can do to make sure this progress is not completely lost, particularly in women’s health and education, while drawing down our troops there? HAASS: Thanks, Chloe. In part because of my concern about what you just raised the reason is I oppose the policy to withdraw all Americans, and with it then allied, troops from Afghanistan. Having them stay there was not a guarantee that women and girls would get to continue to benefit from the gains they had made: access to school, health care, and so forth, employment opportunities, but it certainly increased the odds they would. As American and allied troops withdraw over the next few months, there’s really grounds for being worried. Assuming that withdrawal goes ahead, and I see no reason to predict it won’t, it seems to me it makes a case for a large-scale assistance to the Afghan government, military assistance, economic assistance, and so forth. It means in some cases I think, protecting those who worked with us. And if they’re not safe in Afghanistan, I think we have an ethical and moral responsibility to accept in this country those individuals in particular who were widely knowing, including by the Taliban, to work with us, who have worked with us, who will be targeted. And I think they and their families ought to be provided safe haven, asylum in this country. I think we, if things begin to go badly in Afghanistan, I think preparations have to be made for large refugee flows around the—provisions ought to be made for that. So I don’t have a good answer, because, again, I’m extraordinarily worried about the likely increase in violence and the likelihood of Taliban gains. And I see no reason to believe that the Taliban have—what’s the word—have mellowed. I see no evidence of that. And so I think that risk is real. And so I would say we ought to do everything we can to bolster without a physical military presence. Maybe through provision of arms, intelligence, training, through contractors, economic help, diplomatic help, convening a regional security forum. We ought to do everything we can to strengthen Afghan authorities. We ought to—pressure ought to be put on Pakistan to limit the sorts of sanctuary and support that the Pakistani government continues to provide the Taliban in parts of Pakistan. And we ought to prepare. If we still don’t succeed, then we ought to look for ways to help as many people as we can as they flee to areas of safety. I hope I’m painting too negative a picture here, but I fear I might not be. TIPPETT: Another question. OPERATOR: We have a written question from Rob Radtke of Episcopal Relief and Development, who asks: As the U.S. becomes a more secular society, how would you suggest building faith literacy amongst policymakers? HAASS: That’s a really interesting question, since just yesterday I was having a long conversation about how to build greater technology literacy among policymakers. Because people like me, my generation don’t understand technologies enough from robotics to artificial intelligence to quantum computing. But these issues all matter. Thirty or forty years ago, the challenge was how to increase economics literacy among a lot of policymakers, because a lot of policymakers had studied politics or government but hadn’t studied economics. And as I said before, universities have departments, but the world doesn’t. Seventy years ago, the challenge was how to bring together military types and foreign policy types and mathematicians. And out of that was born this discipline called arms control. And it became way for regulating and structuring nuclear weapons to make it much less likely that they were used. And it has proven to be, shall we say, enormously successful. I think the idea of greater faith or religious literacy amongst policymakers is a great idea. Again, began as a comparative religion major, so I kind of tripped into it. I would think a couple of ideas come to mind. One is for some foundations to step up to that. And the foundations would offer things like the funds for a summer institute at this or that, it could either be at a theological school for foreign policy types or it could be at places like the Foreign Service Institute. Or you take the schools of, Johns Hopkins, SAIS, the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, the Kennedy School of Government, other places that are great training grounds for people who go into this field. That either a separate summer institute or executive programs for people who are midcareer. But essentially to make this training available, that this, again, we teach people the arts and crafts of negotiation, or we teach them a little bit about history, or you learn the details of decision-making, or what have you, or budgeting. So why not add this to the curriculum. And that would be the best thing, is that what you’re just describing would become part of the curriculum of, say, these graduate schools of international relations. I would also think, I don’t know what the State Department does now, but you would never send someone to certain parts of the world without, say, a year or two of language training. Why would we send them to a part of the world without a year or two of faith, of training to learn about the cultures, the religions, and other forces that shape the society? So I would think that ought to be part of the curriculum. And just more broadly, the more interdisciplinary, the more things can be, the more exposure individuals can have across these disciplinary lines, the better. But I love the idea of giving people in this field something of a grounding either in religion, per se, or if they’re going to specialize in a certain country or region of the world to make sure they got added exposure to that. I also think corporations, before you send somebody, instead of just sending them to business school, why not have, again, some exposure here if they’re going to be located in Africa, or the Middle East, or Asia? This, I would think, would be part of the outfitting, if you will, of preparing somebody for that experience. TIPPETT: One more question? OPERATOR: We’ll take another written question from Anna Thurston from the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, who asks: In Dr. Haass’s remarks today he mentioned that some step up to history while others step away from it. How does religion influence whether people step up or step away from history? Could you give examples of both cases? HAASS: I’m a little bit reluctant to give examples of those who stepped away from it. Let me put it this way, I think religion, it’s hard to generalize. I’ll speak for myself. Religion to me, among other things, besides the traditions and the practices—and I don’t know if my rabbi is in this virtual room right now so I’m going to be very careful with what I say—but it’s also, there is a code. And I think there’s codes of behavior. And as I said before, not just laws but norms. And one of the things I like in my own tradition, in the Jewish tradition, there’s a, and I’ve talked about this before, there’s things that one is precluded from doing, things that one is encouraged to doing. And one, it forces a kind of awareness or consciousness, and not to act in certain times, not to do things, can be every bit as consequential, and I would argue even wrong, as to act. If one sees an injustice taking place next to you or an act of aggression, to simply stand by or turn away seems, to me, to be wrong when there are opportunities to move towards agreements that would increase protection for people, peace, greater freedom, what have you, not to take advantage of them, not to take some reasonable risks for them seems to be wrong. I would simply say that where we’ve seen success, and I’ll give you certain examples, places like South Africa, when you had both Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, or parts of the Middle East when you had an Anwar Sadat and a Menachem Begin. We’ve seen people on both sides, or multiple sides of an equation, who were both willing and able, two critical measures. Willing and able to take risks for peace, or to compromise. And where we’ve seen failure is that we haven’t seen that kind of parallelism amongst the various parties involved in a negotiation or in a process, where either no one was willing to do it, or only people on one side or another. And essentially some people were not willing to step forward. In places where we haven’t seen progress, that is often the case, where people, I believe, forfeited opportunities, one might say responsibilities, to take some risks for peace. And I think, again, one has to, you’ve got to decide what code you live by. You’ve got to decide how you, what you’re comfortable with in terms of both action and inaction. And I think that’s something for everybody, it’s a personal reckoning. It’s a personal accounting of one’s behavior that I think we all need to take. TIPPETT: OK, we have time for a couple more questions. OPERATOR: Our next written question is from Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons from the Center for American Progress, who asks: You mentioned the mistakes of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. There was significant faith-based opposition to those wars. How can U.S. faith groups help influence U.S. foreign policy and promote peace? HAASS: Well, again, people who are faith-based, they have every right, same rights as every citizen to use their voice, to use their vote, to get involved in political processes, to encourage, to organize. And it seems to me it’s totally legitimate. I think for you all it’s a slightly different question, because there’s one thing in your individual capacity but you’ve also got, many of you, institutional capacities. And—(laughs)—when I got this job eighteen years ago, Tom Friedman said to me: The job you’re going to take, you’re going to run the toughest congregation in New York City. And we’ve got about five thousand members. And there are days I think he had a point. And one of the things I have to reckon with, and I’ll square this circle in a second, is to think about what I can and can’t do, because I’m no longer a totally free individual agent. I’ve got responsibilities to represent an organization. And we’ve got three hundred fifty, four hundred staff, we’ve got five thousand members, and I’ve got to keep that in mind. And I think the same is true for you all. If you lead a congregation, you’ve got to be aware that if you take certain kinds of stances or encourage certain behaviors, if you yourself do certain things, they may have consequences. You may find certain people leaving the congregation, or not contributing as they might have otherwise, and so forth. You’ve just got to weigh that. You’ve got to weigh it. And again, life’s filled with tradeoffs. And there’s matters of conscience. There’s matter of practicality. You might say I’d like to take more of a stand on issue X, but if I do I then won’t be able to speak out on issues A, B, C, and D. So it’s not simple. It’s not black or white. So I’m not going to sit here and, you know, reduce it to some kind of a formula, other than to say, again, in your individual capacity and your leadership capacity, you’ve got the power of example and you’ve got the power of voice. And what you do and what you don’t do, what you say and what you don’t say is all consequential. And I think we’re living in a moment—let me say one other thing, which I think I expect if I could see you nodding your heads I think you would. I see it in the people who work with me at the Council on Foreign Relations. We’re living at a time where, particularly for a lot of younger people, there’s widespread concern about what they see, a certain loss of confidence about the future, and a lack of confidence in secular authority. And I believe there’s something of a vacuum. I would believe that people in this virtual room have the potential to help fill that vacuum. And our politics are in many ways polarized, they’re gridlocked. I’m not naïve. I understand where ambition will win out over principle, where party will sometimes come before country. I get it. And as a result, a lot of people are looking to other institutions. Someone asked before about corporations. There’s the nonprofit world, that I represent. And there’s the world that you all represent. So I believe people who are in positions of authority and responsibility, who lead other types of organizations or congregations, I believe this is an enormously important moment just because, again, so much secular authority in this country and other countries, I believe, has let people down. So I actually think there’s, again, opportunity but also responsibility to probably play a larger role than perhaps you thought you were going to play when you were undergoing your religious training. I think things have changed a bit. TIPPETT: OK. I think we have time, a couple minutes for one last question. OPERATOR: We’re going to just do two quick ones, actually. We’re going to take a live question from Felice Gaer from the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. And then we’ll take one last question after. BLAUSTEIN: Thank you very much. Richard, the number of killings of Christians in Nigeria has been huge. And some people have blamed Boko Haram for much of this and say it’s a religious conflict between Christianity and Islam. Even the U.S. government has named Nigeria a country of particular concern under the IRFA. But others, including experts at the Council itself, say it’s really about other issues of development and that’s all that we’re seeing with ongoing impunity exacerbating the problem. What’s your view? HAASS: Just to be clear, I don’t claim to be an expert. You know, John Campbell, who is one of our experts, was our ambassador there. Boko Haram is obviously responsible for much, but also the weakness of central authority plays an enormous role. I mean, John’s whole argument is that in some ways it’s almost wrong to think of Nigeria as a traditional country with this central government that performs or fulfills the obligations of a sovereign entity. Sovereign governments are meant to provide protection to all those within their borders. Well, the government of Nigeria will not and cannot. So he actually advocates for a U.S. foreign policy not just towards the central government, but towards many other aspects of the country. Because, again, power and capacity are so distributed. And so it means, in a funny sort of way, or, not funny, but diplomats getting out of the capital, not just meeting with foreign ministry types. Essentially, being out there and looking for other ways to provide help, to build capacities locally, and so forth. So I don’t think it’s an either/or. Boko Haram is a menace in all sorts of ways. But there’s so many other fault lines within the society, and so many limits to the capacity of the central government that this is a—there’s too many—how would I call it? There’s too many vacuums of authority there that are getting filled by the wrong forces. So one of the challenges, and it’s not unique to Nigeria, it just happens to be on such a large scale, about what we can do, NGOs can do, what the U.S. government can do, what the EU can do, what the AU can do. And again, there’s not a solution in sight, but whether you can do something to make it less bad. But I think it’s not an either/or. I think it’s an and. TIPPETT: So—oh, sorry, Rivka, are you going? Do you have another question? OPERATOR: Our final question is from Tom Getman of The Getman Group, who asks Krista: Of all your interviewees, who was the most inspiring and helpful in dealing with the needs of the interplay that Richard mentions, now thinking of Israel-Palestine? TIPPETT: Oh, gosh. Can I just say I’m terrible at a question about, when I’m supposed to think of one thing, I can think of nothing. Obviously that question has been on my mind a lot in recent days. We actually did a production trip to Israel-Palestine a few years back. Honestly, you know, I keep thinking of the conversation I had with people who are involved in the Bereaved Families Forum, who take in the pain and the grief and, as Richard said, that human dimension, which also gets manipulated by religious language and religious energy when it’s not necessarily religion that is at play. It’s a very hard time to talk about this. But that’s what’s on my mind. If you don’t know about the Bereaved Families Forum, which are people on both sides of that conflict who have lost loved ones and have said that they do not wish their grief to be cause for another round of violence. But as we’re here today I have a lot of despair about what’s happening there right now. And that’s just— HAASS: By the way, Krista, there’s an equivalent group in Northern Ireland. When I was last involved as an international mediator, there were families that had come together, all of whom had lost loved ones during the Troubles. And some of the most extraordinary meetings were with these people who, what they had in common was that they all had lost, and yet were willing to work through it. And it was quite—it was about as powerful and as emotional as anything I’ve ever encountered as a negotiator, was dealing with these people I thought were remarkable in what they were doing. TIPPETT: And I think religious leaders, and texts, and traditions, and rituals, and communities walking alongside that kind of energy is a whole other way to talk about religion and foreign policy, one of these other layers. I so wish that we were in person and I could now mingle with all of you over coffee. And maybe that fantastic dream will come true one day. What an incredible richness of conversation you have ahead. And thank you, Richard, for this. Thank you for having me. Thank you, all of you, for joining this discussion. And thank you for what you do. HAASS: Thank you, Krista. And again, thank—let me just join you in thanking everyone on this call for—and this meeting for what it is they do. Yes, thank you.

Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition and lead pastor at The Gathering Place church, and Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, discuss the role faith communities play in the COVID-19 vaccine distribution process. Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. FASKIANOS:  Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Religion and Foreign Policy webinar series. I'm Irina Faskianos, Vice President for the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. As a reminder, today's webinar is on the record and the audio, video, and transcript will be available on our website cfr.org and on our iTunes podcast channel, Religion and Foreign Policy. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have Reverend Gabriel Salguero and Rabbi Moshe Hauer with us today to discuss COVID-19 vaccines in the faith community. We've shared their bios with you but I'll give you a few highlights.   Reverend Gabriel Salguero is the founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, which offers an important leadership voice for the close to 8 million Latino Evangelicals in our country. He serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals. He and his wife Reverend Jeanette Salguero are the co-lead pastors of the multicultural Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene in New York City. They conducts worships in three languages: English, Spanish, and Mandarin. He has been named one of the most influential Latino Evangelical leaders by the Huffington Post, CNN Español, and Jorge Ramos’ Al Punto, to name a few. He's a feature writer for On Faith and he's served as an advisor to the White House on issues of immigration and health care and the faith community and also served on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in New Jersey as well as director of the Institute of Faith and Public Life and Hispanic Leadership programs at Princeton Theological Seminary.   Rabbi Moshe Hauer is the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union. Rabbi Hauer was the spiritual leader of congregation Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion in Baltimore for over 26 years. He's active in local, communal, and national leadership in many areas with an emphasis on education and works with social service organizations serving the Jewish community. He serves as a trustee of the Associated Jewish Federation of Baltimore, and is a member of the National Council of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as well as a member of the Rabbinical Council-Vaad HaRabbonim of Baltimore and the Rabbinical Council of America. And he's founding editor of the online journal Klal Perspectives, and leads a leadership training program for rabbis and communal leaders. And I know that Reverend Salguero and Rabbi Hauer have worked together as well. So it's wonderful to have you here today to talk about the role religion leaders are playing in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, what you're doing to work with other leaders on the issue and to manage a lot of the disinformation and misinformation about the pandemic and the vaccines. So I thought we could first begin with you Reverend Salguero to talk about your efforts, and then we'll turn to the rabbi.   SALGUERO:  Thank you so much, and good afternoon for those of you who are on the east coast and good morning for those of you who are on the west coast. And thank you, Miss Faskianos and the team for this opportunity. As you've heard, I'm Reverend Gabriel Salguero. I'm the president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. And an update actually, I'm no longer in New York, I'm in the city of Orlando, Florida, pastoring in Orlando, Florida at the gathering place. Here's how I would take a Latino Evangelical position, not “the” Latino evangelical position, but “a” Latino evangelical position. There's over 10 million Hispanic Evangelicals in the United States, there's 60 million Latinos living in the United States, one out of every four children born in the U.S. are Hispanic, one out of every two is a person of color, and so it's a significant community. When it comes to the vaccine in the Latino evangelical community, which is the community that I serve, there has been some vaccine hesitancy so I want to talk, I want to frame my conversation with you all around three areas. First, taking inventory of the moment we're living. How do Latino evangelicals respond to the vaccines of COVID-19? Number one, we have to take inventory that there is some historical trepidation or what is known as “vaccine hesitancy” because of the history of inequitable healthcare distribution and, of course, although we are disproportionately impacted, Latinos are twice as likely to be victims of COVID-19 either to death or to contagion. And there is because of the history of sterilization that happened within the healthcare among Latinos, there's some vaccine hesitancy. That hesitancy is further compounded because there are entire streams of misinformation or disinformation that are being sent through social media, that are being sent through group chats, a WhatsApp of pastors, maybe 100, 150 pastors, and through the social media platforms that are sadly sometimes repeated in Latino evangelical platforms.   What are some of these myths that we are wrestling with? One, that there's a chip in the vaccines that are having Latinos or people of color attract: a myth, it is not true. Two, and this is much more theological to come from an apocalyptic and eschatological view that's dominant in many Hispanic evangelical communities, that is somehow the mark of the beast or the sign of the times a reference to the book of Revelation in the Christian scripture. Three, that somehow your DNA is being changed when you receive the vaccine. That coupled with the historical distrust of systems, be it government, some of us have traveled from Latin America and other countries where there's historical distrust of government and distrust of the healthcare system, given the history of sterilization and inequitable health care distribution has created a major challenge. What is the Latino evangelical community and what is now like the national Latino Evangelical Coalition doing in response? We have partnered with the Ad Council and we have created a public service announcement in Spanish for faith leaders, talking about the benefits of the vaccines and why they save lives, framed around the theological moral framework of the Good Samaritan; love your neighbor as yourself and taking the vaccine is part of this moral commitment of loving your neighbor and loving your community.   Not only are we doing public service announcements, we've had several national forums in Spanish with the CDC and the Health and Human Services, where we have talked about the realities of the vaccines and we've had epidemiologist answer questions. At one call, we had over 1100 pastors with Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is the Surgeon General, Dr. Nunez-Coba, who's part of the administration's response, Nunez-Smith, who’s part of the COVID-19 response, and two national forums on Facebook and on Zoom with over 500 pastors responding directly to the questions. And so the main thing that we have to do is be distributors of information. The second thing is we need to validate people's questions. It is not helpful in our experience to cast judgments around real and genuine anxiety that does not contribute to trust, that does not contribute to an increase in vaccinations if people feel that they're legitimate questions, and/or anxieties cannot be responded to by medical experts, and by trusted brokers, be they faith leaders or community leaders in the Latino community.   Lastly, many of our congregations are being used as vaccination sites around the country. And we're partnering with local and state outreaches in our communities and we're using our churches as vaccination sites. I think that the reality is that if we're not intentional about responding to questions, if there's not a collaboration between faith leaders and medical experts and researchers. And number three, if we do not take a pastoral using the language of our tradition approach to actually listen to people and addressing their anxieties, this misinformation will continue to expound and continue to reach these communities and we will have a harder and much regrettably, much longer time where we're rushing with the vaccines. The last thing I want to say and this is very important, is that we have to be committed for the long haul. People want to know that we're not just committed to COVID 19 vaccinations, but that we're committed to equitable health care distribution in communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted and that we're committed to bringing factual information, that we're committed to being consistent, and that the people who are speaking, my wife and I were fully vaccinated on April 1 and we took a picture. And so we can't just say we want people vaccinated. We need to share our stories and talk about what are all of the challenges that people face. We are about two weeks away from an interview I had with Brooke Baldwin on CNN. One of the questions she asked us is why should faith leaders be involved in a national information campaign. One of my simple responses is because faith leaders are historically trusted brokers. And if we are able to leverage that influence, to get people to a place of health, we're doing our job to the best ability. Thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to further conversation.   FASKIANOS:  Thank you very much. And Rabbi Hauer over to you to talk about the interfaith work that you're doing to inform the community about the pandemic.   HAUER:  Thank you. Thank you very much, and I want to really, first of all echo everything that Reverend Salguero said. The approach which he has taken is reflected in the approach that we have taken. The elements of making sure that clergy is educated so that they're able to speak with a clear voice, and reassure their communities and encourage their communities. As religious leaders we, certainly in the Orthodox Jewish tradition, we view the preservation of life, both of our own lives and our responsibility towards others, towards ensuring public health to be a religious mandate. And when faith leaders are able to themselves be made comfortable with the science, with the science of the vaccines, and to be able to speak with a clear voice, and yes, walk the walk, as the Reverend said, you know, to themselves be vaccinated and show its importance, show, it's important. So as a matter of personal safety and of communal responsibility, you know, thank God, all of us looking and seeing the trajectory of how it how the vaccine is having really positive effects on the trajectory of illness, and we can see this is something that we can do for our community at large. We have also done work internally, before I address, you know, some of the interfaith effort which we which we did, we did this, you know, similar kind within the Orthodox Jewish congregations, which we had significant work where we brought together, with leaders in the scientific community, some of the important halakhic voices, the voices of Jewish law leaders, you know, rabbinic leaders, to be completely comfortable with the science where it was and so that they could provide the guidance and the reassuring voice and worship reassuring voice to the community.   The interfaith work which you refer to was actually, was with the National Association of Evangelicals. I had the privilege to publish together, Dr. Walter Kim and I, an op-ed which was really a letter calling upon the government to view the religious community as a partner, as a partner in making the vaccination efforts successful. We published this, this goes back already a few months. And it was at the beginning, towards the beginning of the vaccine rollout when we felt, and we continue to feel ,and actually I think the time really has ripens for it to work, that using the vast infrastructure of houses of faith in the in the community as sites for vaccination would be an outstanding opportunity for the government to be able to achieve their goal of being able to make vaccines available for all. There'll be an outstanding opportunity as well for the private industry that was involved, you know, the CVS’s and the Walgreens. You know, our houses of faith are both experienced and well equipped of having hundreds of people come through for different kinds of health initiatives, blood drives, and the like, and probably easier than getting down the aisle of a pharmacy. You know, trying to you know, to do it with safety and social distancing, the social halls that we have in our houses of faith would really be and are becoming, thank God, an important site and for us to speak matters one faith community, but as a joint faith community that we want to be part of the solution to this problem. And we want to be able to help not only the members of our own faith community, but the members of our neighborhoods, all of our communities to be able to access.   I took a family member for vaccination, to a mass vaccination site, which was at stadium. And it was it was magnificent it was well run, you know, the National Guard was there, that was incredibly pleasant. But getting, there getting to the stadium, which was downtown, and you know the distance to walk in the lines and going to the proper level of the stadium to be able to get the vaccination, I was able to do it, thank God, I'm a relatively young person, not everybody is going to be able to do it, being able to go to your neighborhood house of faith, which is both comfortable and accessible. And providing the, you know, the neighborhood with a sense of confidence, this is not going to some strange, unfamiliar location with, you know, as friendly as they would be and as efficient as they would be with strangers. But to being it's being able to do this, with which people face with an understandable degree of uncertainty, to do it in the friendly and inspiring confidence of their house of faith of a neighborhood, of a neighborhood facility, it can really make a difference in fighting this battle. You know, there's the informational battle, trying to combat the disinformation that the Reverend spoke about, which our faith communities, frankly, are especially vulnerable to because they’re networked. I don't know what the percentage of WhatsApp groups there are with religious communities of the whole, but people are networked and they share with each other and sometimes they share with each other things that are not so responsible.   We have to be able to provide not just the counter education, but just actions that speak louder than words. If your house of faith is a place where you can go to get vaccinated, I think that that helps us a lot to get people and to get people over the hump. When Dr. Kim and I published that op-ed, I would hope that there was an eventual effectiveness, I would say unequivocally that at the time, there was very little impact that was able to be seen that the process of the vaccine rollout effort was so early, it was so early in the process, and the government was really finding itself in terms of how to do it. And the private industry, that pharmacy, the great national pharmacies, were just trying to find themselves as to how to get this how to get this done. And it was too early, really, for them to think about actively using us as partners. I think that has shifted, thank God. And I think the consistent voice which has come from so many, way, way beyond beyond the article and the readiness of the administration, the strong outreach of administration to the faith community, is now really starting to see it pick up steam. We're hearing many, many synagogues that now are being given the opportunity, many, many churches, and all kinds of houses of faith, mosques, that are there are being given the opportunity to serve as vaccination sites as supply starts to rise. And I think that we would believe that if we do our job as faith communities, we're going to help the demand rise as well. And together that that will that will, with God's help, help us overcome this, this pandemic that has altered our lives.   FASKIANOS:  Thank you very much. And to your point, I know that last week, President Biden spoke during the weekly White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships call to leaders. And I think, you know, it does seem evident that they are really reaching out to the faith communities, which has that facilitated and help the work that you're doing in your communities to have that boost. at a national level?   HAUER:  I think it definitely has, and really the evidence of it is in the news we get on a regular basis of another house of faithful has been given the opportunity by its local government, by its local health department to be a vaccine site. It's happening. Thank God it's happening. And I think that the more that we play that role, the more accessible and reassuring this, this campaign will be to all of our parishioners.   SALGUERO:  I think I want to echo what Rabbi Hauer has said. Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris was on a national call where they launched the community core of founding members to get the information out, and I was actually on that call with Vice President Harris. I think there were over 145 between religious and community organizations. And so there is a great deal of intentionality. The the question that remains to be answered is, when will we get to the tipping point? Because the truth is we are in a race, right? Different strands are continuing to have outbreaks. And so we need to--and so I think that the public private partnerships are essential. We the calls we done with the Surgeon General, and with the CDC are important because you have two important voices, the scientific community and the religious community. Our coalition NALEC has partnered with people like Barbara William Skinner, and the African American clergy network and values partnership, and the Ad Council, because we know that the key here is not just a one message, right? When we did the New York Times interview, when we did other interview, did one with Vice, it has to be repetition, repetition, repetition, because people are being flooded by misinformation more than daily, perhaps on an hourly basis, or second by second in their social media feeds and on the cell phones they carry. And so it's important that we're persistent and that we continue to repeat this message. And the more quite frankly, as the rabbi says, they see interfaith voices, that there's a broad coalition of faith voices who, from our theological and religious perspective, say "No, this is this is a moral challenge, in addition to a scientific and health challenge," to quote from from our Jewish brothers and sisters as part of being the "tikkun olam," right? The healing of the world, this is very critical, because the messages and the bombardment in the Latino community, there are videos of faux-medical experts saying that the vaccines are ineffective that, that they're targeting minority communities. And so we have to be persistent because people are being, as the rabbi has said, we are so connected in the religious community. I did not know how many WhatsApp in the Jewish tradition, but there's certainly a lot in the Hispanic faith communities. And so I think we're very similar in that. So we have to be consistent and persistent in our messaging.   FASKIANOS:  We've seen that a lot of the states are lifting their mask mandates. And obviously, the CDC came out, CDC director, and said, "Please wear your masks." I mean, rolling out vaccines is important. But wearing masks and socially distancing, washing hands, all of that we need to continue. So do you feel both of you feel that it is upon the faith leaders to also carry that message? Because again, is that message stronger coming from religious leaders than from the state and at the national level?   HAUER:  I think we have to lead on all fronts in terms of public health and public safety and trying to encourage wise and practical adherence to guidelines. There's a public health balance, which has been being struggled with on a day to day basis and figuring out how to navigate this, to give people the right amounts of guidance to be careful. And at the same time to give them the horizon, that their efforts are actually producing results to be reassuring. Sometimes we are concerned about the abundance of caution that is there. This is not a concern reserved for religious leaders that has been written about extensively in the press, you know, the abundance of caution that sometimes make people wonder "Well, if I'm still going to have to do all of this, what have I really gained by taking the vaccine?" And, you know, we're trying to responsibly make sure in concert with with government guidelines that we give people a sense of things, opening up for them as a result of the efforts that they are making, but not to declare victory before it is there. And that we should exemplify in our in our communal life, proper responsibility, our responsibility to the best we can it's a tightrope this whole thing has been such a such a complex, complex area to navigate and it's been a responsibility and an opportunity for us to try to lead our communities in these ways.   SALGUERO:  I think that's precisely it. This is a initiative that has to be fought on all fronts, faith communities, medical experts, educators, mental health experts, press, government, both local, state, national and federal government, I think all hands on deck for this global pandemic. I do think the rabbi is quite right in that I was on a call earlier today, where one of the questions is how do we tell people to stay vigilant but also talk about the advances, right? So if you've been vaccinated, fully vaccinated, and you and you've waited, the timespan that the CDC has had, now maybe you can at least meet with other fully vaccinated people. So there has been some advances, but at the same time, we have to remain vigilant. And I think that is the kind of delicate balance and message that we have to bring, I should also say their messages have to be culturally and religiously contextualized. And I think that sometimes, when we miss the contextualization, we miss the opportunity to be able to communicate in persuasive ways to communities who really need the message most urgently. And so that is why these kinds of partnerships are, are critically important because the contextualization of the message contributes to the efficaciousness of the message.   FASKIANOS:  Right. I will stop now. And I'm going to go to everybody on the webinar, you can either raise your hand or type of question in the Q&A box. There are already a couple there. And I'm just going to ask you to ask the question yourself, I know you all well enough, Paul De Vries, if you're in a position to unmute yourself and ask your question, that would be fantastic. And also identify who you are your affiliation, please.   DE VRIES:  Paul De Vries in New York City, and New York City has not been the same since you left Gabriel. Gabriel and I worked together a few years, way back. I was watching as the vaccines were made available, just kind of getting the big picture. And also personally, I live near the Bronx and noted that the other four boroughs had places receiving vaccine long before the Bronx had any place. And then, when it was set up at Yankee Stadium, which I think was the first place in the Bronx, the promotion was, especially the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is not nearly as effective as the other two. I have a hard time seeing all this without feeling there's a huge bias. Yeah, ignoring the Bronx in the first place, which is for everyone else on the call, primarily Black and brown communities, and then pushing for Johnson and Johnson, which is only 65% effective. So I think it stinks to high heaven. Is there something we can do about it? Or am I wrong?   SALGUERO:  Well, Dr. De Vries, thank you for your question. And your commitment to highlighting what is not a new phenomenon, which is health care inequities, or access to health care inequities and access to health care. Historically, communities of color have disproportionately had less access to quality health care. And so the COVID-19 has not presented a new reality, but has exacerbated existing realities, I think, is what we're seeing right? In our community, now I'm speaking about Latino communities, the high rates of diabetes, hypertension, what what are underlying conditions further complicate this, and historical distrust, right? So think about, in the African American communities, and I was talking to Dr. Barbara William Skinner, who is an African American clergy leader, and others who remember Tuskegee, and those experiments, and in the Latino community, there were challenges with sterilization of Latina women in the '60s and the '70s. And so that memory, for some may be a long distance away, but for some of us is quite recent. And so what we have to do is continue to work to level out and to provide equity in the entire healthcare system. But in this case, now, we're talking about this global pandemic, which is really urgent, maybe double and triple our efforts to ensure that everyone is getting not just equal access but correct information. I think that, as we know, the efficaciousness of all three vaccines, whether it's Moderna, Pfizer, or Johnson and Johnson, are not just commendable at the speed at which they are been delivered, I think and now with the intentionality of the present administration. I think we've come a long way. But you're quite right that we still have a lot of work to do. But this is a larger problem of health care access inequity in these communities.   FASKIANOS:  Thank you. Let's go to Katherine Marshall. And Katherine, if you want to just ask your question, it would be great.   MARSHALL:  All right. I'm Katherine Marshall. I'm at Georgetown University at the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Clearly, there's an enormous amount of energy and activity on focusing on religious communities in the US. But Reverend Salguero, I'd be very interested in how you see this beyond the United States and evangelical communities in other parts of the world, and particularly in the Northern Triangle countries, which are so much focus these days and where there are so many communities.   SALGUERO:  Well, professor Marshall, thank you for that question. Look, I think that when these these twin crises, both the kind of the migration from the Northern Triangle countries because of hurricanes that have occurred in the last year, natural disasters, continued violence, you know? Well, Dr. Marshall, many of the realities are now also being further exacerbated by the coronavirus, or the COVID-19 global pandemic, you could imagine how the Latin American evangelical there is a Latin American Evangelical Alliance, I'm on the actual on the executive committee response representing North America. And there is-I got a call from the president of the Evangelical Alliance of Paraguay, where there's real concern about how some of the the countries who have not had the same amount of distribution or access are going to respond to this. We live in an increasingly globalized world, and what happens in Latin America is certainly going to impact North America. What happens in the Caribbean is impacting Africans in Asia, and Africa. and Europe is impacting us. And so there is a real concern. And I want to say that the myths that are happening in the Latino evangelical community are also happening in Latin America There is a WhatsApp chat of the 22 evangelical alliances of Latin America, where there's intentional efforts, press releases, there was actually a virtual press conference by I think, at least twenty of those presidents to talk about the necessity of being vaccinated. But equally as important to making sure that those countries that have great access to vaccines as part of their diplomacy, and as part of their kind of global citizenship, are sharing that with those countries who have less access and that that is a real crisis and concern as you could imagine.   FASKIANOS:  I'm going to go next to Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta, who has raised her hand.   ADENEY-RISAKOTTA:  Hello, good. afternoon, everybody. Thank you, Dr. Salguero, and Rabbi Moshe. I like to now little bit about how do you contextualize your method, because you mentioned about very important to content, contextualize the message in the in the situation where all messages are not set up as true, especially in the post-truth era. Thank you.   FASKIANOS:  Who wants to take that?   HAUER:  I could start or have the very capable Reverend continue. I think that to a great degree, each of us has to come at it with an effort to understand without, starting with an effort to understand the context of those who are listening to our messages, the context of our own faith community, what works, what are what are the concerns that they themselves face or may harbor. We have to be aware of the rumor mill, of the kinds of messages which are going out to them and around them. And in that framework, see that as the context within which we have to respond with understanding, as the Reverend said before, dismissiveness is not what, you know, what will do the trick, trying to speak with with with the authority of thoughtful, thoughtful science, thoughtful research, of understanding of the issues and trying to dispel them with the right voices, finding the right voices, that will be able to address our particular community. in our framework, we have, like I think every faith community, certain, perhaps more recognized and appreciated voices, they didn't come together as one. I mean, organizationally, we made a statement early on trying to address the concerns which people had, remember that there are, there's a general issue of vaccine hesitancy in the world, and in the United States, that the corona vaccine had its own layer, even people who are doing the MMR and doing all of those vaccines that have been out there for, for decades, when it came to a vaccine, which was brought out to market that is absolutely not just record-breaking, but record-smashing pace, and using an entirely new technology, which starts to speak about genetics, it raised entirely new concerns amongst people who hadn't been concerned before. And trying to understand that, and trying to address the fair concerns that people have, but at the same time being able to dispel the really the imagined consequences of these changes, by speaking with authority, by making clear that we're not just reflexively saying "Okay, you should do it, everybody go out there and do it." But we had our own questions. And we asked them, and we explored it with the scientific community, and we came to understand and to appreciate, and this is why we are encouraging it. And this is why we are doing it ourselves for ourselves and our families. Again, every community has its trusted voices, and every community has its language. And we have to find that in all the work that we do, and certainly as well, and addressing vaccine hesitancy.   SALGUERO:  That was extremely well said, and I want to affirm that, I think there are three plumb lines that I think we are learning as faith leaders, or at least I have learned, number one, informed clergy are better messengers. So we have to be informed and ask the questions on behalf of the people we serve. The second thing, empathy is a great tool for getting in a hearing people need to feel that that their questions are being heard with empathy. And then, of course, the third thing that I keep saying is repetition, repetition, repetition. The questions that are being asked about the vaccines, its speed, and all of that those are legitimate questions, and there are scientific responses that I think can help people wrestle with that in honest ways, but also in ways that lower anxiety. And so if we use those tools, finally, I should say we all drink deeply from our own wells, in all of our traditions, or sacred texts, or however it is that that our moral worldview is being formed a religious worldview, there are stories about healing, and more responsibility that can lay ethical frameworks on how to respond from our tradition to this global and shared crisis.   FASKIANOS:  Great. Just a couple of points of clarification. You know, obviously, we have been seeing this incredible rollout of the vaccines, but they were based on a lot of the research and the testing that they were drinking the SARS virus so the scientific community was able to deploy that research, or turn it, to address COVID-19. Laura Alexander put in the chat, and I think it is worth mentioning, about just talking about the efficacy of the J and J vaccine, and since we really want to have good information, the stats are it's 100%, seems to be 100% effective, at preventing harmful hospitalizations and deaths. It's 85% effective in preventing severe disease, and about 65%, which was was stated before, in preventing mild to moderate disease. So it is quite effective. And I think that in terms of which vaccine you should take, any vaccine is better than no vaccine. And then Chloe Aldridge also put in the chat from about is there some benefit in promoting the J and J vaccine in certain communities, if that makes a difference between people getting vaccinated or not? That it's traditional, familiar technology to most who get vaccines. And again, this idea of it's only one injection than two, so it might be easier to organize, as well as the whole refrigeration. The J and J vaccine does not need to be stored in the the refrigeration temperatures that a lot of places do not have, especially in rural communities. So if you could maybe talk about those challenges that might be useful for the group?   HAUER:  Yeah, I would echo that. I mean, I think it's very important that we have we have a good perspective on that vaccine offering as well. The issues of access, ease of access that J and J presents because of the lack of refrigeration, you know, the normal refrigeration needs, not the exceptional refrigeration needs, which was one of the main issues which was presented us early on, how are you going to be able to, to have have your synagogue or your church function as a vaccine site without the ability to store according to the requirements?  And there are many, in our experience, who were disappointed when they drive by the mass vaccine sites, and they say "Today we're offering Pfizer," and they say that means today, they're offering Pfizer and has to come back in three weeks for another offering of Pfizer, and the J and J, which is a single dose, and is essentially completely effective against death, and almost completely with with severe disease, and with the single dose. I think that many people would view it as an opportunity, as an opportunity, not as being as being deprived of it. I'm sure there are different perspectives. But part of our of our building confidence will be will be to recognize the that it's a really good alternative. It's a really, really, really good alternative.   FASKIANOS:  Gabriel, anything to offer on that front?   SALGUERO:  I think that we have to look at this from the real lives of people who may be having to go to work. And it may be a challenge. I mean, this is a very sometimes it's a day to day thing that we don't take note of, they may need childcare to get to the vaccine. So some of them may see the one dose as an option because of their particular reality. The reality is that whether it's Moderna or Pfizer, or J and J, these vaccines are saving lives. And that is the message that we as faith leaders are saying, whether you take two shots from Moderna, two shots from Pfizer, or you take the one shot from J and J, the goal here is to get as many people vaccinated as possible so that we can save lives. And I think that healthcare is a very personal decision. And some people may and we have to respect the kind of, that's why there are so many HIPAA laws and things like that, because it's a very, you know, personal health is so, for so many people, such a private thing, although it has very public implications. And so we have to, as pastors, we can't mandate people what to do, but we can journey with them, and tell them the implications of making wise and responsible health decisions for them, their families, and their communities. And it's not just their religious community, but the larger community of every faith of people who have who don't claim any faith. All these people are of value and have human dignity, and the vaccinations are a way to save lives.   FASKIANOS:  Wonderful. Tom Walsh has written a question Tom, do you had that this is on my mind too. Do you want to ask it yourself? If you want to unmute?   WALSH:  Sure. Can you hear me okay?   FASKIANOS:  We can.   WALSH:  Yeah. So anyway, thank you for very fine program and a lot of great insights, very helpful for me. But I'm wondering, you know, the pandemic has changed our lives and kind of put us into this virtual world increasingly, and social network platforms, and that has opened up many opportunities we've had to adapt or become irrelevant. I'm just wondering, how do you see how this leads, in other words, we're not necessarily going back to the old days when we're through this beyond let's say, the vaccine is successful, and we begin to create a new normal, what's that going to look like? And has this pandemic and the consequences that pushed us into these areas? Are they creating lasting effects, some of them very positive and hopeful, and others that are very disruptive of the way we understand faith communities and the way faith communities build their community and solidarity together?   HAUER:  Reverend, I don't know who wants to go first. But that's a subject for a really, really healthy discussion and separate and significant discussion. I'm happy to speak out for a couple of minutes. But I think I would like to defer let you go first, please.   SALGUERO:  Thank you, Rabbi. Mr. Walsh, your question is one that is reverberating across many religious communities. Even before the vaccines, when we had to reorganize when we had to, to limit shut our actual in person places of worship, many of us went to Zoom or Facebook Live, and so the law of double factors, Aristotle once said is that nothing prevents an action from having two consequences. At the same time, one good and one bad. And so there is a sense by many religious leaders, a sense of how do we how do we recreate or create new venues for people who are sheltered for people who cannot come over during the shutdown? And so there's been a lot of ingenuity, the truth is that many young people have helped in my community to lead that right, because they're their digital natives, as the Barner report would say, but at the same time, there's a real sense of isolation. And there's a real sense of despair, I have a son who's a sophomore in high school and a middle school. And I never thought I would hear the day when my sons would say "I really want to go back to school." And so even, they're Gen Z's, right, even that cry of kind of isolation, of not being connected in person, even though they've been connecting virtually, I think that's a real concern that faith leaders have had to address. And then it's further exacerbated by the digital divide that is often generational. What about people who can't connect to the synagogue, the mosque or the church via Zoom or Facebook Live, or they don't have those digital platforms, they too need a space and a place to worship. And so I think that there are we've had to do it, we've done it with varying degrees of success and failure, we've connected with some people, it is not the same, but we're trying to at least provide pastoral care, liturgical spaces, worship spaces, but it is been, quite frankly, a challenge. And the truth is that I have found that there have been people left because of the digital divide from the worship community. And then this is a theological question that as the rabbis it would take weeks and days for for our best scholars to talk about, what does it mean to be worshiping community in a time of isolation? And what are the instruments of technology? How do they hinder or how do they contribute? And those are those are conversations that are being had even now, and I imagine that many a theological dissertation is going to be written about that in the days and weeks to come.   HAUER:  I agree with everything the Reverend has said. I think that, I find it illustrative, there are a couple of four that are not worrying about being able to get everybody to come back. I don't think football stadiums are worrying about getting people to come back, you were always able to watch a football game more clearly and more comfortably in your living room It would be easier to get some food to eat, you know, than, you know, tailgating in a parking lot before the game. But people want to be, they want to be in a place with others, they want to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. They are present in in real life, people are waiting to get back, they're not worried about it, there was always the virtual substitute, and it was never going to be good enough. And our houses of faith need to have that feeling as well, of people coming to be part of something bigger than themselves. And the more elementarily really, I don't think grandmothers are like overly worried that their grandkids won't want to come back at the first chance that they have, you know, the hugs, the tastes of home, the sense of caring and belonging. Virtual community is a nice thing. It does a lot for people when there isn't an alternative. But there's something about the in person that we can't allow ourselves, I would daresay maybe perhaps a little bit more assertively. We need to layer on additional value which we've had from all of this access, incredible access that people have had through technology, to opportunities, whether in the faith community or just educationally and socially, that they haven't had before. But they're not going to be replacement. A caring community comes from seeing each other, being there for each other. The virtual community is a distant second, to a pastor, afaith leader, a faith community, the community of kindness, which we're supposed to be creating amongst neighbors and friends, that being there, being there, there is no substitute. I will tell you that in our network, [Orthodox] Union network of synagogues because of the particulars of Orthodox Jewish faith, both laws of the Sabbath which preclude the use of technology on the Sabbath, and because of the quorum requirements for full communal prayer, for us, we have a requirement of a minion where ten people come together in order to say certain of the prayers, we can't do it unless we have ten people in one place, the virtual doesn't do it. So we have come back, hundreds and hundreds of synagogues, thousands across the world, in a safe way. Some yeah, of course, some have done it without sufficient regard for safety. But we've done it with what we have, thousands that have done it with safety, with social distancing, with masking. And thank God we have no, people just aren't getting sick in those contexts, when the synagogues do it right, they're not getting sick. And they have such a good feeling of getting back to community. And we must be courageous and lead in that way, and that not simply accept the very, very second best world of the virtual world where human beings are supposed to be capable of in person care, connection, and community and it's not something we're willing to give up on.   FASKIANOS:  We have about four minutes left, so I'm going to just ask them together. The first is about the hostility developing against religious sects that refused mass vaccines, social distancing. How do we handle this? That was from Bruce Knotts, and then second, and we can end on this one is Bob Reynolds question. Reverend Salguero, you described responses to the current COVID-19 moment being services such thing as public service announcements, pastoral dialogue, etc. As the crisis of the current COVID reality passes, what commitments can be made to minimize health systems retreating to traditional inequitable access to general health care resources?   SALGUERO:  Go ahead Rabbi,   HAUER:  No, no, you please, please.   SALGUERO:  Okay well, the challenge of the inequitable distribution, right, when there were other global health crisis, the HIV/AIDS, right, there was a response by Black doctors, blackdoctors.org, who's talked about there needs to be a restructuring and reforming of healthcare system so that all of God's children and all people feel that they have equitable access, that is a long term commitment. And it may also need the creation of alternative venues of access, public-private partnerships, healthcare partnerships with communities of faith, with pharmacies with clinics with and so we really need to think we are dealing with 21st century health crises with 20th century health care modalities. And so we need to have a 21st century healthcare access reformation, so that all people-Dr. Marshall talked about the Global South. And so, if we expand this to globally, the health care access inequity, we're really talking about something that really needs attention, whether it's from the UN, whether it's from the global, the World Health Organization, or the global private partnerships, pharmacies, to rethink healthcare access. And so that is a long term challenge, in terms of responding to the second question, I want to yield to Rabbi so he can talk about that.   HAUER:  Thank you. Thank you. And I do want to express it's been a privilege to be on the call with everybody and to partner with Reverend Salguero in discussing these issues, a true privilege and honor, thank you for including us. The coronavirus pandemic has, besides, as we know for the health issues, has been a source of tremendous division in our country on so many fronts. People have strongly held views, and sometimes also there just seems to be unfortunately a little bit of a tendency towards division. And we find the views to create those divisions. We caricature communities or ethnic communities or political communities as doing certain things or following certain approaches that endanger the rest. And I think that this is one of the battles that all of us, as faith leaders have to be really, really taking on and that's the battle for a more peaceful country. A battle for less caricatures, a battle for seeing that people have different views. And it's okay for them to do that. And just to be always conscious of one another and, and to do no harm to one another. We have to be preachers of peace, brotherhood, sisterhood, and caring for everyone you know, even as we all strive towards equity and caring for each other, and making sure that everyone, every one of God's children, every member of humanity is given the proper and fair treatment. We're going to struggle for that in a way which which builds peace and which builds harmony and which builds that sense of care, instead of it being one which builds anger within our nation. We have far too much of that. And we hope that, God willing, our joint voices, as as a faith community will will have us all looking at each other more fairly, with more love more concern and to try to make our nation and our world more whole.   FASKIANOS:  Thank you both. With that, we need to end, it is 2:00, and really appreciate your being with us today and sharing your insights, as well as the work that you're doing. Thank you for all that you are doing in your communities and at the national level, we really appreciate it, to all of you for your comments. You can follow Reverend Salguero's work on twitter @PastorsSalguero or @NalecNews, did I get your Twitter handles right? Yes. And to learn more about Rabbi Hauer's work, please go to the rabbihauer.org or follow him @OrthodoxUnion, which is also on Twitter. So we hope you will find their work there. And obviously, they're doing a lot of interviews, getting the word out about how to be a resource in their communities. You can follow us on Twitter @CFR_Religion. And please go to cfr.org for information and analysis on COVID-19 and other topics in the international arena, and email us at [email protected] with ideas and suggestions of future webinars that we can host for all of you. So thank you again for today's really wonderful conversation.  For more event audio, subscribe on iTunes or visit us cfr.org.

Paul Angelo, fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, discusses the migrant situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.   This webinar is part of the Religion and Foreign Policy Program's Social Justice and Foreign Policy series, which explores the relationship between religion and social justice.  Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. FASKIANOS: Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Social Justice and Foreign Policy webinar series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach at CFR. As a reminder, today's webinar is on the record, and the audio, video, and transcript will be made available on our website CFR.org, and on our iTunes podcast channel, Religion and Foreign Policy. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.   We're delighted to have Paul Angelo with us today to talk about migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. We have shared his bio with you, but I'll give you a few highlights. Paul Angelo is a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he focuses on U.S.-Latin American relations, transnational crime, military and police reform, and immigration among other topics. He was formerly an international affairs fellow at CFR and in this capacity, he served in the State Department as a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras, where he managed the ambassador's security and justice portfolio. He provided technical assistance to the Honduran Police Reform Commission, supported strategy development agenda-setting for Afro-descendent, indigenous, and LGBTQ networks to improve civic engagement; and led policy and legal analysis on violence, crime and migration trends. He's a former active duty naval officer, and has completed several tours. And he has written commentary in many publications, including Foreign Affairs, our magazine, The New York Times, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, and the Miami Herald to name just a few. So Paul, thanks very much for being with us today. Obviously, we're seeing a lot of movement on the U.S.-Mexico border. Some have argued that it is mushrooming now that the Biden administration has come to government, so if you could talk about what's happening and maybe address the root causes, as to why migrants are making their way to the U.S.   ANGELO: Great, thank you, Irina, and thanks to our support teams at CFR for setting this up. And for the invitation to join you all today. It's a pleasure to be on this call with you. And I think my real value add in this conversation is in the discussion of the root causes of migration, because of all the time that I've spent living and working in Central America, particularly in Honduras, but I also have experience in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua doing field work. But before I get into that discussion on the drivers of migration at the U.S. southern border, I'd like to clarify what's actually happening at the border today, because I think that there's a lot of misinformation in the news. Indeed, the news media has latched onto the term "crisis." But I think that betrays the reality of what we're observing. Yes, of course, there's a lot of desperation at the border. Yes, there are a lot of people, and we are likely going to see for the year 2021 a significant jump from pre-pandemic migration levels. But what we're seeing at the border state is not materially different from what we were seeing in the fall, or even just prior to COVID-19. The truth is that we've been managing a crisis on the southern border for decades now. And every single year from 1973 to 2009, there were more than 500,000 migrants apprehended, irregular migrants apprehended annually at the U.S. southern border. During the past decade, what we were actually seeing was historic lows in terms of the number of undocumented migrants seeking to gain access to the United States. There was only one year in the past decade, where the number of migrants apprehended at the U.S. border peaked over 500,000, and that was in 2019, when the Trump administration had purportedly sealed off the border and effectively closed off opportunities for asylum. In fact, 2019 was a banner year and I think a lot of what we're seeing for 2021 is going to be built up or pent up demographic pressure that accumulated over 2020 when the Trump administration was not actually enacting protocols to allow migrants and asylum seekers access to U.S. territory.   I'd also like to take advantage of this moment to remind everyone that surges at the border are cyclical and seasonal. They respond to weather patterns, labor demands, and enforcement regimes, not just in the United States, but also elsewhere in Latin America, especially in Mexico. And so I would say that due to the Trump era programs, such as the migrant protection protocols, known as the “Remain in Mexico” program, and the process of metering, in January of 2020, just as President Joe Biden was on the eve of the inauguration, was set to take office in the White House, there were already some 42,000 asylum candidates who were camped out on the Mexican side of the border, who had not yet been processed for U.S. immigration hearings, or excuse me, asylum hearings in the United States. And so what we're seeing right now is a build up in demand, in addition to regular migration patterns. And these points of clarification are not to deny that irregular migration is a major challenge for the United States in the southern border. But I want to make sure that we're having an honest conversation about what's happening today. And in fact, it's unclear to me why what's happening at the borders is a surprise to so many people because worsening conditions in Mexico and Central America are a well-trodden narrative. And although we saw an overall dip in migration during 2020, due to COVID-19 pandemic, and the closure of borders in response to the pandemic, the pressure to migration, excuse me, the pressure to migrate in Central America and Mexico only accelerated. And so the only sustainable solution to help Central Americans and Mexicans address the root, contain migrant flows, is to help address the root causes. And to this end, the Biden administration is requesting four billion dollars in foreign assistance from Congress. And it started to make positive personnel decisions to shepherd this initiative. Why is it so necessary and what will it address?   I'd like to zero in on four main issues. Firstly, the economy. Secondly, security. Thirdly, governance. And fourthly, climate change. On the economic front, I don't think we can talk about economic issues in Latin America in 2021, without having a discussion about COVID-19. In absolute terms, Latin America and the Caribbean has been the most affected region in the world by the pandemic. It is a region that comprises only 8 percent of the world's population, but 18 percent of the known COVID cases, and some 27 percent of the known COVID deaths. And that's not accounting for systematic underreporting by Mexico's, excuse me, by the region's second-most populous country, which is Mexico, it's estimated that there were over 300,000 excess deaths in 2020, which were likely attributable to COVID-19. We've also seen that the region was impacted due to the interruptions in supply chains, and the imposition of very strict lockdowns. And because of these factors, regional economic contraction in Latin America for 2020 was at around 7.7 percent. I would also note that Guatemala and Mexico, which are two of the countries of most concern to us today, were both above that regional average. In 2020, 34 million Latin Americans lost their jobs. We saw a dip in remittances from the United States. Given the economic recession here in the United States, that dip has now recovered. But nonetheless, it exposed the fragility of finance networks for many living in Central America and southern Mexico. I remind everyone that a majority of people in Guatemala and Honduras already live below the poverty line. And across the Northern Triangle, more than 70 percent of the workforce is employed in the informal economy, which means that these people do not have access to insurance or protections, and their access to medical attention is scarce.   The tragedy, the travesty, that the region has faced on the economic front has only been exacerbated by a long-standing pandemic, excuse me, a long-standing epidemic of insecurity. Although in 2020, we saw reductions in homicide across the Northern Triangle, the Northern Triangle countries still rank among the most dangerous countries in the world. And in 2019, Mexico had set a record for the highest number of homicides in the country's recent history. It almost equaled that number in 2020, despite the fact that it was imposing strict measures to contain the pandemic in some parts of the country, especially in parts of the country that had previously been reporting very high rates of violence. There are a lot of factors that we can go into in the question and answer period if you'd like to discuss why we've seen a dip in homicides, but I don't suspect that that dip is sustainable going forward. And I think that we will see insecurity, high rates of insecurity resume for 2021 and 2022.   The third factor that I'd like to point to is an overall failure in governance. In addition to state capture by criminal groups, Central America is rife with political corruption. And we've already seen the inflation of government contracts to distribute humanitarian relief and COVID-19 vaccines in places like Honduras. This will remind close watchers of Honduras, or close watchers of Central America in general, of the Astrapharma scandal back in 2015, in which the Honduran government provided preferential access or preferential contracts to a pharmaceutical company that was owned by the National party's congressional leader, who happened to be in the business of making placebos or inert medicines that were being administered in public hospitals that resulted in the deaths of dozens of people. Likewise, there was the Pandora scandal in Honduras that emerged in the following years in which the government was diverting public funds to shell NGOs as a way of paying off bribes to members of Congress, or members of the judiciary. And, likewise in neighboring Guatemala, everyone will remember the Alenia scandal which saw the ouster of former president Otto Pérez Molina in 2015. There was some progress that was being made on going after perpetrators of major political corruption in Central America with the internationally-backed CICIG, and the internationally-backed, OAS-backed MACCIH in Honduras, which were beginning to show results. But as these internationally supported investigative bodies, that were seeking to combat impunity and corruption in Honduras, and Guatemala, were making impressive results. And as their investigations get closer to the inner ring of presidents at the time of their mandates, were cut short. And so we've seen an overall reversal in terms of the anti-corruption crusade that was gaining steam and starting to bear impressive results in Central America, in the 2016-2017 period.   And then finally, when we talk about root causes, we can't have this conversation and particularly not at this moment without talking about climate issues. Everything that I've just mentioned, there's mounting demographic pressure for people to migrate. But I think the most proximate cause for migration in this current wave that we're seeing, are the two back-to-back category five hurricanes that hit Central America in the fall. They destroyed 90 percent of Honduras's bean and corn crops, which was a death sentence for many in a region where food insecurity was already pervasive. For those of you familiar with the region, you'll know that there's a stretch of territory called the Dry Corridor that starts in Costa Rica and extends all the way up to southern Mexico. And in that tract of territory, in 2019, there were already 1.4 million people in Central America who were food insecure. These hurricanes also didn't just destroy crops, they displaced people in communities, many of which had settled or built their livelihoods alongside river beds, killed some 140,000 livestock, and completely devastated plantain and banana farms, and other large large-scale agriculture. So further reducing employment opportunities for the agricultural workers in Central America.   I would also note that this is coming on the heels of a decade of disruption of traditional livelihoods due to climate change. The region was already seeing 40 percent less rain than historical annual averages, and rising temperatures and regular rainfall led to anything from coffee rust, to a bark-eating beetle that was disrupting timber crops, to the black sigatoka, which is a fungus that has been ravaging banana crops in Honduras in recent years. And so the travesty that we saw in the fall with the hurricanes, the two back-to-back hurricanes, has only compounded the issues, the pressures to migrate that many subsistence farmers were already facing. So that sort of addresses the root causes conversation, I don't want to deny that there are also pull factors here in the United States, most notably our own economic prosperity as a country. But I'm happy to go into those with the time we have remaining, but at this point, I'll cede the conversation back over to Irina, and look forward to having a good question and answer period with all of you.   FASKIANOS: Paul, that was fantastic. Thank you very much for dispelling the misinformation and addressing the root causes. So we want to go to all of you if you want to ask a question, please raise your hand by clicking on the icon. And you can also type your question in the Q&A box, but we'd love to hear from you live. So please do raise your hand. And there are just thank-you notes in the chat, saying this is very informative, and will will it be available after the fact? And yes, it will be available after the fact, we'll have a transcript and a link to the webinar, so you can capture all the facts that Paul has mentioned. And in this short time, it's really been enriching.   So, while we wait for questions, let me see hold on a minute. We do have questions. Three hands. Okay, so I'm going to go first to Todd Scribner. And please identify yourself, your affiliation. And please unmute yourself.   SCRIBNER: Hi, my name is Todd Scribner. I'm here from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee services, their policy office. I'm curious, we're really big on the issue of root causes and addressing root causes is really the long-term solution to any of these problems. I'm wondering if you can point to any models from the past in which countries have worked with other countries to address root causes of this sort, that might be driving migration, that can be seen as a successful example of working with another country to kind of fix problems that are that are underlying drivers in the first place. Do you know of any?   ANGELO: Yeah, thank you, Todd. And in terms of this hemisphere, it's very hard for me to point to any positive, enduring examples of that. But I would sort of divert everyone's attention back to what the Obama administration was attempting to do in its final years. You will all likely recall that in 2014, there was an uptick in child migration, or unaccompanied child migration to the United States. In the span of nine months, we saw over 60,000 unaccompanied minors, most of whom were from Central America presenting themselves and seeking asylum at the U.S. southern border. And the Obama administration recognized that the only way that we were going to be able to turn the tide on that wave of migration was to help address the root causes the things that were propelling these young people from Central America and southern Mexico to the border. And the narrative that took hold here in Washington was one that was focused on violence and insecurity. Of course, these had long been some of the most violent countries in the world. In 2014 and 2015, I believe, San Salvador and San Pedro Sula were the murder capitals of the world. Honduras and El Salvador for a couple of years were competing back and forth for having the highest national homicide rates. And so the idea was that many of these young people were vulnerable to gang recruitment. And the U.S. government sought to help reform security sectors and judicial sectors to combat impunity, which over the span of the operation of the CICIG, we saw the homicide rate in Guatemala, for instance, dropped by more than half. But also, just as important, there was a real focus on providing community policing, and improving relations between the state and the most vulnerable communities in the countries of the Northern Triangle. This is something that I worked on in 2015-2016 in Honduras, it was an initiative known as the “place-based” strategy. And what it really focused on was firstly instituting community police units. And these were police that were specifically trained not to have a repressive presence of the state, but police units that were there to help with things like getting the cat out of the tree, or providing directions to somebody passing through a community. Also, these units of a community, police engaged in things like medical brigades, or providing educational materials to schools in their areas of operation. And with this model, and with a significant investment from both the Honduran government and the U.S. government in building things like infrastructure in the most vulnerable communities, in the span of two and a half years, we saw significant reductions in homicides. And in the two communities where I worked [inaudible] we saw homicide reductions by over 60 percent in both of those communities in just over two years. That was a model that was working. Unfortunately, the Trump administration came into office and in 2019, throws all U.S. assistance to the countries of the Northern Triangle on the pretext that the governments of these countries weren't doing enough to help stem migration. And I have to believe that that decision to freeze aid, and then the decision not to turn all that aid back on for the remainder of the Trump administration, really disrupted the momentum needed for the place-based strategy to take hold. The idea is that in a place-based strategy, these communities where we saw significant success, they were meant to be a geographic nucleus. And so the idea was that the community policing model would extend to neighboring communities until it had encompassed the most vulnerable areas of places like Guatemala City, San Salvador, [inaudible] San Pedro Sula, and that just hasn't happened. And so I think that going back to that model, and reinvigorating the place-based strategy is one example of how the Biden administration can once again start chipping away at the drivers that have been propelling people, and particularly young people, to the U.S.-Mexico border.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let's go next to Tereska Lynam.   LYNAM: Hi, thank you for taking my call. Can you hear me okay?   FASKIANOS: We can.   LYNAM: Oh, and thank you. So, wonderful presentation, thank you so very much. I'm from Oxford University and my experience, but I live in the U.S., my experience is that, at least in my circle of people, we're really interested in the human rights abuses that have occurred, particularly through the Trump administration with the separated families. That's what the media focuses on, obviously. Because you're talking about policy and policy, unfortunately, is boring to most people. So they don't really look at the underlying causes. They look at what's being blared at them that day. So I would love it if you could talk about how these human rights abuses are being managed right now, how people are being processed, and the border issues that we're continuing to hear. And then what kind of media advice, if you could, give to Vice President Harris, who's been charged with taking this over, in terms of doing the razzle dazzle that will make people happy, give them the sound bites they want, while also addressing these very complicated policy issues? Thank you.   ANGELO: Great. I think the answer to your second question second question helps inform the response I have to the first question. So I'll tackle that first. I think the most important thing that Vice President Harris and Ricardo Zúñiga, who's the new presidential envoy for the Northern Triangle of Central America, can do is try to relocate the drama that is unfolding at the border, and the attention that's unfolding at the border to other countries. And it's not to say that we should close off our asylum system. But what we need to do is introduce or reintroduced programs that gave people the opportunity to seek asylum or to claim refugee status abroad. There was a pilot program that was started in the Obama administration that would allow migrants, or refugees, excuse me, from the Northern Triangle countries to seek asylum via the United States in a place like Costa Rica, which is considerably safer, has higher sort of indicators for all measures of socioeconomic development. Likewise, there was an initiative that the Obama administration instituted and has now been turned back on by the Biden administration, called the Central American Minors Program, which allows for in-country refugee processing. And so to the extent that we can exert a degree of control over by preventing people from taking a dangerous journey northward, one in which every step of the way, their human rights are likely being violated. Keeping them in the region and giving them opportunities to seek relief in the region, is probably the best bet for giving our Vice President the sound bites that she would need to satisfy a rather demanding and perhaps even unrealistic public here in the United States.   But in terms of what's happening at the border, vis-a-vis human rights abuses, and/or the denial of asylum that was happening quite systematically during the Trump administration, the Biden administration has sought to bring back online our asylum system, reinstate processes to manage cross border flow responsibly, and to surge assistance to address the root causes. Those are the three main pillars. We've seen already thousands of individuals who are being held under the migrant protection protocols, indefinitely, brought across the border and assigned dates for their initial asylum hearings. And I'll just remind everyone that during the Trump administration, there were over 42,000 cases of individuals who were being held in Mexico under MPP, that faced consideration by U.S. immigration courts, but only 638 of those people were granted relief. And so it was a very, very high bar for asylum seekers to actually be granted asylum under the Migrant Protection Protocol Program. It's too early to tell what kind of results or what kind of yield the Biden administration will produce given that it's so early, but nonetheless, that the MPP participants are going to be the initial priority for the Biden administration when it comes to delivering on the issue of asylum. Likewise, unaccompanied minors are no longer being turned away, and instead, are being brought and transferred to Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities until they can be relocated to sponsors who are already in this country. The Biden administration, like I mentioned, had already turned back on the Central American Minors Program, so that refugee children can request protection in their countries of origin and then be safely flown to the United States if they qualify rather than having to pay into the pockets of human traffickers and human smugglers across the Central American isthmus and into Mexico. We've seen that other agencies in the U.S. government have now sought to bring on temporary shelters, like FEMA is building temporary shelters to deal with this ballooning of migrants that we're seeing at the border. And most of the incapacity that we have at the moment has to do with the fact that we're also confronting a pandemic and have to implement appropriate public health measures. And so in order to make sure that people are sufficiently distanced, and that we're engaged in the best, most up-to-date and best public health measures to deal with this pandemic, that's really driving the need for the construction of additional shelters. But broadly speaking, I think that the situation is certainly better. We're seeing refugee families as well, or asylum seeking families, being brought into the United States, not all of them are being turned away, as they were under the Trump administration under the pretext of Title 42, which allows the U.S. government to turn back people who are seeking to gain access to the U.S. national territory on the pretext of public health measures. So I think we're slowly and methodically seeing the Biden administration turn back on many of the processes that were stunted during the Trump administration, and particularly with the advent of the pandemic.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Just to build on that question, from Michael Thomas of Dartmouth College. Do you think that the appointment of Vice President Harris to oversee this is a good move, essentially? And I'm assuming the answer to this is yes, but is there a number that you're hearing about the number of Central American refugees who can be resettled this year?   ANGELO: So great question. One of the things that the Biden administration has in terms of outstanding work, is that it has yet to raise the refugee cap or the asylum cap that was introduced under the Trump administration. Some of you will remember that during the Obama administration, there was a cap on 110,000 refugees who are granted relief here in the United States annually. And that was reduced from the Trump administration to a mere 15,000. And so I fully expect in the weeks to come that the Biden administration will resume or reinstate the cap that was operating under the Obama administration, and may even expand it a bit to offer more generous relief, given the upswell in demand that had been building because of the restrictions that were imposed by the Trump administration. But in terms of the appointment of Vice President Harris to deal with this issue, I think really, I think symbolically, it's a very clever move. Vice President Harris herself is the daughter of two immigrants, one of whom is from the Caribbean region. And so I think that the empathy that she would bring to that role is symbolically important for the administration. I think it makes sense from a political standpoint, it just shows that this administration is taking very seriously the issues from the border, and not just build a wall and seal off the border to prevent migration, but rather, really wanting to engage with the countries of the region and providing and implementing sustainable solutions. And so I think that it's a win across the board. And like I said, I think the team that the Biden administration has brought online to deal with border and Central American issues, Ricardo Zúñiga and Roberta Jacobson, Ambassador Jacobson, who was our ambassador to Mexico under the Obama administration into the early first year of the Trump administration, he couldn't find a better group of people to shepherd this reengagement with Central America and Mexico on the issue of migration.   FASKIANOS: Great. Let's go next to Alan Bentz-Letts, who has his hand raised? And please unmute yourself.   BENTZ-LETTS: Oh, hi. Thank you for your talk so far and for the chance to ask a question. I'm a retired chaplain, and a member of environmental and peace and justice groups at the Riverside Church in Manhattan. In 2009, both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton supported what was really a coup against the existing president who was working to help the poorest people in Honduras. And since then, there's been just president who has been corrupt and decimated human rights in that country. And so there's a lot of evidence for saying that it's the existence of corrupt and very right-wing governments in Central America that link to gangs and that are causing the really terrible situation for poor people and for the common people in those countries. How would you respond to the claim that unless the United States changes its foreign policy, that this situation of migrants coming to the U.S. is going to continue and continue to be a serious problem?   ANGELO: Yeah, I appreciate that question. And I think that the, particularly the Trump administration's decision to really cozy up to President Juan Orlando Hernandez in Honduras was problematic for so many reasons. In fact, in 2017, you'll likely remember that there was an election that took place in which the opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla was set to win the election, was leading in the polls. And then in an act of God, the counting machines lost their electrical feed, and when they were turned back on some twelve hours later, President Juan Orlando Hernandez, the incumbent, was winning. And then he actually ended up winning the election, at least in the formal count that was made, despite the fact that there were significant international protests to that election, to include from the Organization of American States, which was suggesting that Honduras redo the election, and invite international observation mission to oversee it. The Trump administration just outright recognized the incumbent government, which was a huge setback for democracy, was a huge setback for the opposition, and really took the wind out of the sails of people who felt that that finally Honduras was turning the curve. And that finally there was going to be some accountability for the corruption that had been, for many years, perpetrated by the National Party, which has been in power for most of the past decade. And so I do think that single foreign policy decision, the recognition of Juan Orlando's victory in 2017, was a major setback. And now that we're seeing in any number of drug trafficking cases that are being processed in U.S. courts to include a case of President Hernandez's own brother, who was found guilty of cocaine trafficking and money laundering in a New York District Court. We're seeing just how deep the tentacles of these organized crime groups run inside the Honduran government. And just this past week, an associate of Los Cachiros implicated Juan Orlando Hernandez again, in drug crimes, but also implicated former President Manuel Zelaya in the same kinds of drug corruption. And so what it really points to is, in a very nonpartisan way, pervasive corruption across the political class in Honduras. And the only way to tackle that, is really for the international community, led by the United States, to go after politicians and public officials who are engaged in public corruption. And to do so is something that has been at least floated by the Biden administration as a possibility through the establishment of a regional anti-corruption body that would be supported by perhaps the UN, or the Organization of American States, to really help nascent and sometimes inexperienced investigative and judicial officials in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, conduct the kinds of investigations that are needed in order to bring public officials to justice.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to Mark Hetfield, who runs HIAS, and has done so much work in helping refugees. So Mark, if you can unmute yourself.   HETFIELD: Thanks, Irina. And thanks, Paul. I wanted to follow up on what Paul had said about the refugee ceiling and the presidential determination in the context of the Central American issues. You said that you believe that President Biden will raise the ceiling and I think all of us think he will, but the question I have for you, if you have any ideas, or insights, or theories, as to why hasn't he done it yet? Because on February 12, he sent Secretary Mayorkas and Secretary Blinken to Congress to present their fifteen page document explaining the urgent need for an emergency presidential determination on refugee resettlement. Again, February 12. And we're still waiting for it. The Biden administration has just continued to carry out the Trump administration's refugee resettlement policies 100 percent. Refugees were literally booked on flights and then had to be unbooked by the State Department, 715 of them, because of Biden's failure to sign the presence of determination that he promised on February 12. So, what's the holdup? And what's the tie in, if any, to the to the issues at the border?   ANGELO: Yeah, I would just offer that I think likely part of it has to do with optics. I mean, now that the media has latched on to this so-called crisis at the border, any sort of major move that would signal a major increase in people who are being resettled in the United States, might not be politically palatable at the moment. But I would also say that we don't really fully have our immigration, and asylum, and refugee systems fully running and back online yet, this is a process. A lot of what the Trump administration did was tweak within bureaucracies. And so even though there are executive orders that signal in the direction of a more humane migration policy, more humane asylum policy, a lot of the procedures that have been enacted are bureaucratic procedures that have to be undone by the individual agencies or by the departments that are implementing them. And so I think there's probably an instinct to wait on raising the refugee cap until we have more sustainable, and workable, and regularized mechanisms in place that are happening at the level of the bureaucracy.   FASKIANOS: Paul, I'm going to take a written question from Mary Yelenick, who is with Pax Christi International. She writes: “Can we fairly address the crisis in Latin America without a discussion of the U.S. historic military and economic interventions in the region?”   ANGELO: Right, I mean, the United States, it's no secret that it had been specially trained, the Cold War played a less than positive role in the countries of the Northern Triangle, and the militarization of the region during that period is largely why we're seeing such high levels of violence across society today. A lot of the excess arms that were left over in the wake of civil conflict in Central America have been made available to the [inaudible] the street gangs, and drug trafficking organizations that in many spaces of Central America, rule the day and can exert significant armed influence over communities. And so I think that more than anything, is the reason why the United States needs to have a prominent seat at the table. The United States has a responsibility, I think, more responsibility to help alleviate a lot of the strife that was left in the wake of the conflicts that defined Central America in the 1970s and 1980s. Likewise, I would just say on the issue of firearms and the United States, I think in terms of building the kinds of confidence with the Mexican government right now, on the issue of migration, and in seeking a more positive working relationship with the administration of President Lopez Obrador in Mexico, the United States has to get a handle on its own obsession with firearms.   A couple of years ago, I was speaking to a police officer in [inaudible], who gave me a figure that on average, there are 2,000 firearms that are either legally or illegally purchased in the United States that cross over the border to Mexico illegally on any given day. And that was in probably I think, that was a conversation I had in 2018. I'm not sure what the most updated figures are right now. But nonetheless, the scourge of violence that we're seeing beset Mexico right now, which, Mexico had historically had high elevated levels of violence, but in terms of high homicide rates, it wasn't typically among the top ten to twenty countries in the world, the homicide rate. Now we're seeing Mexico is exceeding Guatemala and El Salvador in terms of its own homicide rate, and for a heavily populated country, like Mexico, that's tens of thousands of people in any given year. And inevitably, when you trace the origins of the firearms that are being used in these homicides, a vast majority of them were purchased in the United States and illegally exported to Mexico. And so in terms, it's something that the Mexican government has long laid as an agenda item for bilateral relations with the United States. But until the United States is enforcing better its own border, and attempting to more systematically prevent the export of firearms from the United States to Mexico, I really don't think that we're going to see any sustainable gains in bringing violence down in Central America and Mexico.   FASKIANOS: And, of course, we have our own debate now on gun policy in the wake of the tragic shootings in Colorado, and last week in Atlanta. So we have a lot of work to do here. Let's go next to Steven Gutow. And unmute yourself, Steve. Okay.   GUTOW: I did it.   FASKIANOS: You did it.   GUTOW: You know, it's not easy for me, Irina, but I did do that. So.   FASKIANOS: You did do it! Good.   GUTOW: It's good to see you, Irina. And, Paul, thank you, thank you, for your service to our country, and also for your presentation to all of us. I live in the world of both policy and politics, and I never let politics get too far away from me, because I know that's a sure way to not be successful in winning anything. We live in a country that's very divided in terms of, I'm already seeing that the numbers going up and the concerns going up that Biden didn't do X and didn't do Y. And I'm more interested in what he hasn't done and what he has done. I'm more interested in hearing things he could do better than have and have been sort of shaded over by how great he is and how bad Trump is, because we all, I don't know if we all, I think that. But with that said, what is wrong? I mean, somebody woke up at 6:00 a.m. yesterday and said, "We can bring all the immigrants we want can't we?" I said, "Yeah, but we can't we can't win the 2022 elections if we do." My questions is, what is Biden doing wrong? And what did he do wrong, did he make some suggestions that everybody, we should basically should start coming over before he decided to say that they should wait? It's one of the things that the Democrats can do better and do better with not in terms of doing the more just things. I'm a rabbi, according to God, but doing the more just things according to the politics of America.   ANGELO: Well, you know, I actually think that the administration has taken some very early and positive steps in signaling to migrants in Central America and Mexico not to come. In fact, you know, within a week of being named as the president's advisor on migration issues, Roberta Jacobson, Ambassador Jacobson, was on the airwaves, using the podium of the press secretary at the White House saying in Spanish, "Do not come. Do not come now. Now is not the time. We don't have any, our processes fully in place yet." And she did so in Spanish. And it was something that was replicated and aired on radio and TV throughout Central America. That's the kind of signaling that I think is so incredibly important, mostly because we're living in an environment right now in which misinformation creates reality. And so people in Central America, in the absence of that kind of signaling, in the absence of that kind of messaging, are going to latch onto whatever the human smugglers or traffickers are pushing out to them on social media or on radio spots, or even on WhatsApp chats. And so to the extent that the United States can help control that narrative, I think we're all the better for it. Likewise, as I mentioned, the restarting the Central America Minors Program is just, it's firstly, symbolically important, but secondly, it's practically important. The less that we can, or the more that we can prevent young people from Central America and their parents from putting them in harm's way by paying human traffickers to smuggle them across borders, and into the United States, or at least to the U.S.-Mexico border, the better off we can be, and the better off we can protect their rights. And so I think from that program, as well, we can contemplate other in-country refugee processing, that can help us in a more sustainable and more humane way manage the desire and flow to access the United States.   FASKIANOS: Paul, to pick up on that point, from David Greenhaw, formerly of the Eden Theological Seminary, can you talk about the internal struggle on process in a family when they're so desperate as to send their children across the border unaccompanied? Because we know so many children are coming accompanied?   ANGELO: Well, I think this is actually part of the incentive structure that we have given our policy in the United States. That because the Biden administration is now allowing minors, unaccompanied minors, to come across the border, and it's processing them and within a couple of weeks will likely, for many of them, find sponsors, family members who already live in United States with whom they can stay. I think that's actually encouraging people to send their children across the border and accompanied. Even if these entire family units are on the Mexican side of the border together. Many of them, and I don't have any firm statistics on this, but many of them may be presenting their children as unaccompanied minors, or their children may be presenting themselves as unaccompanied minors, knowing that it's a decision between, well, if my whole family can't make it together, at least, my son or daughter can have a better future. And they have a grandmother, or an aunt, or an uncle, or a cousin who's already in the United States. And so it's the sort of discretionary policy, which doesn't treat all migrants as equals, and not saying we should from a humanitarian standpoint, that is perhaps fueling the surge in unaccompanied minors that we're seeing at the border right now. Which is why the activation of the Central American Minors program is so incredibly important in preventing future waves of irregular migration of young children to the U.S.-Mexico border.   FASKIANOS: Great, I'm going to go next to Alejandro, I'm sorry, I'm just pulling up the list. Yes. Alejandro Beutel, who has his hand raised.   BEUTEL: Hi, can you hear me?   FASKIANOS: Yes, we can.   BEUTEL: Okay. Dr. Angelo, thank you very much for an illuming presentation. And Ms. Faskianos, thank you for facilitating this conversation today. This is an issue that is near and dear to me for both professional and personal reasons. The latter being myself as someone of Central American descent with family in Honduras and El Salvador, professionally, though, as well, even taking a more domestic lens on this. At New Lines, several colleagues and I are looking at the issue of far-right extremism here in the United States and in Europe. And one of the components to that is looking at nativism in a transatlantic setting. And obviously, that includes here in the United States. One of the things that we are doing as part of that is sort of a threat assessment of the impact that nativism can have on particular communities, including ones that have been historically disenfranchised, or marginalized, or targeted. And so in the context of the present discussion today, one of the things that is sort of on our radar, and I would love to sort of get your thoughts on this, is at the moment, it appears as though far-right extremist actors within the United States have their attentions diverted elsewhere. Certain rhetorical targets, like Antifa, Black Lives Matter, even the general opposition to the Biden administration, perhaps. But that said, is that in prior years, they have also, had a very strong emphasis on nativism, which operationally, we could define as Muslims and immigrants in general. And so my question then, in the context of this, given the fact that there is this sort of crisis narrative, if you will, that's butting up against an empirical reality that you've described at the beginning of your excellent presentation. My question would be, then, in terms of trying to diminish the prospect of sort of the social aperture, the permission structures for nativist violence and harassment, what could be done in terms of policy and political tone to diminish that, in your opinion?   ANGELO: Yeah, I mean it's, I think the initial signaling from the Biden administration is an important one. The Biden campaign and the administration have long said that we are a nation of immigrants, but we're also a nation of laws. And so in order to make sure that we are living up to our, or fulfilling our promises as a nation, we need to continue to be a welcoming place for migrants. And at the same time, we also need to have the right procedures and processes in place in order to handle both the demands here in the United States for labor, particularly agricultural labor, which is a contributor of migration from Central America and Mexico. But likewise, the demand for opportunity, and even refuge here in the United States. And so, I think that's rhetorically, I think, signaling in that direction as a way to push back against the sort of nativist instincts. But I would also just cite that the Biden administration has presented to Congress a comprehensive immigration bill, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for the approximately 11 million undocumented migrants or immigrants who are already in the United States. And depending on the poll you look at, a majority of Americans support this measure. I've seen recent polling anywhere between 57 and 69 percent. But there doesn't really appear to be the kind of support for, in either chamber of Congress, for that kind of comprehensive immigration reform. And so I think that in terms of showing progress on immigration, and showing progress on a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in this country, I think getting bipartisanship, piecemeal legislation focused on issues relating to migration, will help address some of that nativist instinct. If you can show that Republicans and Democrats in Congress can both agree on things like providing relief for DREAMers or for agricultural workers, which are currently under consideration in Congress at the moment, I think that's the most sustainable or feasible way of getting essential relief as quickly as possible to people who need it, and for an immigration system that needs it, and to do so in such a way that doesn't inflame the sort of the nativist segments of the U.S. electorate.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going go next to Gonzalo Alers's question in the chat. He's at Drew University. And can you talk a little bit about the conditions of the detention centers, the relationship between the agents of governments represented, treatment of these peoples, and the presence of world observers, in terms of human rights organizations, and then just expand on that? And bringing in Hannah Stewart-Gambino's question, and religious actors on the border? Is the religion community helping affect change, or is that decreasing? Or what do you see?   ANGELO: Right, so I think religious and civil society organizations are so incredibly important. Firstly, in monitoring and making sure that the United States actually is fulfilling its promise as a nation, and is living up to its values as a nation, in the administration of our migration and refugee systems. But that being said, at the moment, because of the restrictions on movement or on access, given the public health concerns in the midst of a pandemic, I think that there's certainly some understandable hesitancy to provide access to civil society organizations that have long been guarantors of transparency in the system. But nonetheless, I mean, I myself have not been to any of the detention facilities, and certainly not the makeshift ones that have come up in recent months, that have been brought online to deal with the surge. But nonetheless, my sense is that the administration is trying to do right by the individuals who are being detained and being held.   And likewise in terms of the unaccompanied minors, there's a real commitment to trying to get unaccompanied minors who have come into United States, outside of these detention facilities, and inside the homes of sponsors who already live here in the United States. And so I would just say more broadly speaking, I think that civil society also has an incredibly important role to play in the administration of assistance, U.S. foreign assistance in Central America, as a way of addressing the root causes of migration. The Biden administration has already said that we are not going to engage with or provide assistance to institutions or individuals in Central America, who don't have our best interests or the best interests of democracy at heart. And that means that the aid is going to be largely conditioned on anti-corruption progress. And that aid that is not made available to governments, which will likely not be the majority of the aid, we made available to civil society, and especially religious organizations who are doing some of the most impressive humanitarian work coming around in Central America. And so I think that those kinds of partnerships and the ability of the United States government organizations, and departments like the Department of State, USAID, Department of Homeland Security, to outsource a lot of the good work that it's doing, that it intends to do in addressing the root causes of migration, to local civil society organizations and religious organizations is an incredibly important piece and should not be discounted in this broader discussion of how we're going to address the root causes.   FASKIANOS: Fantastic. And I just want to raise Sister Donna Markham, who is with the Catholic Relief Services, put something in the chat she has noise in the background, so she can't say it herself. But just to bring to this discussion. For meeting with our agencies serving along the border, many of those seeking asylum are targets of the drug cartels, this fear of death or torture of their children is a major reason parents are sending the kids by themselves. And then she said, are there any successful strategies from the Obama administration for curbing the public of the cartels?   ANGELO: I mean, I think this just goes to a broader conversation that is being had right now. In fact, earlier this week, Ambassador Jacobson, Ricardo Zúñiga, and Juan Gonzalez, who's the senior advisor, senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the National Security Council, all met with the Mexican government on cooperating for a more sustainable and humane migration system, and greater cooperation, collaboration between the United States government and the Mexican government. And so, Mexico itself is dealing with a plethora of issues at the moment. As I said, it's one of the worst, in statistical terms, one of the worst affected countries in the world, when it comes to the pandemic. It hasn't secured the sufficient number of vaccines for its population, the vaccines it already has on the ground are not being distributed well enough. The U.S. government, in a good faith gesture, just made available 2.5 million vaccines to the government as well. But really, when it comes to migration and making, cutting down on the vulnerability of migrant populations to organized crime, and organized crime groups and gangs, particularly in Mexico, because of the migrant protection protocols, I would say that cooperation with Mexico is key. And in order to engender the kind of confidence that will reactivate U.S.-Mexico security cooperation, more broadly speaking, because much of that security cooperation, which had become a staple of the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship under the Bush administration, under the Obama administration, had lapsed during the Trump years. I would say that the U.S. government, as I mentioned earlier, really needs to get a handle on its own firearms issues, and greater enforcement of our own border and making sure that what's going across the border from the United States to Mexico, is regulated, just as much as we regulate what's coming across from Mexico to the United States.   FASKIANOS: Great. And my apologies, Sister Markham is with Catholic Charities USA. So toggling between too many screens here. We are at the end of our time, and I apologize. I just wanted to see if you could close out, Paul, with a question from Tom Walsh, just about how we are engaging with the UN agencies such as the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, or International Organization on Migration? Or if this crisis is mostly a domestic and a regional multilateral issue?   ANGELO: That's a fantastic question. And I think that there's a bigger role for the United Nations in particular to play in helping set up in-country refugee processing in the countries of Central America. Not all of the people who are seeking refuge in another country from the Northern Triangle need to find their relief in the United States. Many of them want to because they have family ties to the region, to the country, or it seems as though it's the biggest economy that is the shortest geographic distance from them. But there are other countries in Latin America and elsewhere in the world, that could also provide the same kind of relief that the United States or Mexico can. And we can only engage in that conversation if the United Nations has a bigger seat at the table. And so I would just offer that the United States certainly does, or the United Nations certainly does have a role to play. And I would encourage the Biden administration to really seek opportunities with UNHCR and UNODC, as you mentioned, in trying to really tackle the issues, both in terms of the proximate causes for migration, but also in addressing more broader issues relating to the root causes.   FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Well, we couldn't get to all the questions but we covered a lot of ground. Thank you, Paul Angelo for this. It's great to have you at the Council. And to all of you for your terrific questions, and comments, and the work that you're doing in your communities. We appreciate it. You can follow Paul Angelo on Twitter @pol_ange. You can also find his op-eds, and testimonies, and other pieces on our website CFR.org. So I encourage you to go there. Please follow us on Twitter @CFR_Religion. And, as always, send comments, suggestions to us at [email protected]. We love hearing your suggestions of future topics we should be covering. So thank you all again for doing this, for being with us, and stay well, and stay safe.

Sumit Ganguly, the Rabindranath Tagore chair in Indian cultures and civilizations and distinguished professor of political science at Indiana University, and Navyug Gill, history professor at William Paterson University, discuss the farm bills proposed by the Indian government, the protests, and how the United States might respond. Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Social Justice and Foreign Policy webinar series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. As a reminder, this webinar is on the record and the audio, video, and transcript will be made available on our website, CFR.org, as well as on our iTunes podcast channel, Religion and Foreign Policy. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have with us Dr. Sumit Ganguly and Dr. Navyug Gill with us to talk about the Indian farmer protests. We've shared their bios with you, so I will just give you a few highlights. Dr. Sumit Ganguly is a distinguished professor of political science and holds the Rabindranath Tagore chair in Indian cultures and civilizations at Indiana University-Bloomington. He has previously taught at a number of institutions, such as James Madison College of Michigan State University, Hunter College, Northwestern University, the U.S. Army War College, just to name a few. He has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for scholars, a visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He is also a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Navyug Gill is a professor of history at William Paterson University in New Jersey. He's a historian of modern South Asia and global capitalism, and his current research explores questions of labor, caste, and agrarian politics in colonial Punjab. He also teaches on global capitalism, post-colonial theory, and subaltern studies.   So, Dr. Ganguly and Dr. Gill, thank you very much for being with us today. I think we should begin with you Dr. Ganguly to give us the political context for the protests that are taking place now in India, the government farm bills, and how the United States might respond to these.   GANGULY: Thank you very much for this opportunity, Irina, and I'm delighted to be on this panel with Dr. Gill. There are five points that I'm going to make very quickly. First, the current set of laws that have just been promulgated since last fall, since last September, and have occasioned all these protests primarily around the capital city of New Delhi, mostly from farmers from Haryana and Punjab to adjoining states and sort of the agricultural breadbasket of India. But they have been joined also by farmers from other parts of the country. Much of this protest has been directed against three laws that have been passed. But before I talk about the three laws, these laws have been based upon an earlier law, which was promulgated in 2003. And actually, implemented in the state of Bihar, which is a fairly poor state, and with clearly bad social indicators, and with a rather uneven effect: some of the wealthier farmers profited from the law, but a number of poor farmers really found themselves marginalized. Nevertheless, last September, the government in its wisdom decided to pass these three laws, which seek to fundamentally transform Indian agriculture and push Indian agriculture much more towards the market. Now, it depends upon your political and economic views. Those who are oriented towards market-friendly policies will argue that these are entirely desirable and Indian agriculture does need this kind of boost, and this will actually benefit Indian agriculture in the long run, and agriculture is stagnating, agriculture is no longer profitable. And this will create a national market, these three laws will create a national market and enable farmers to sell their products at will and decide on the prices that they can get for their crops.   So on the face of it, these three laws, which is my second point, do sound fairly attractive as long as you believe in market-oriented policies. But a number of smaller farmers feel that with the agricultural price support that will be removed, and marts, where they were guaranteed a floor price for say wheat, or for corn, or for soybean, that these will be withdrawn. And because of this, they are afraid that their bargaining power, vis-a-vis large corporate entities, will be completely asymmetric. And consequently, they will get wiped out. And there is—and their fears are not chimerical, those fears have some real basis, that large corporations, of which there are several in India, can come to the farmers and say, "Look, this is the price I'm prepared to offer you for your soybean crop this week, take it or leave it. And if you don't offer it to me for that price, I'll go somewhere else, to someone who will agree to my terms." And with the removal of these agricultural price supports, and the removal of the government marts, which would guarantee a floor price for a product, for agricultural produce, you are going to be left essentially to the vagaries of the market. Again, market-friendly economists would argue this is desirable. And over the long run, this will give farmers an incentive to produce crops that are saleable, that will benefit the farmers and also create a food chain in India, involving cold storage and the like. It'll generate new jobs. And this is precisely the kind of exogenous shock that the Indian agricultural sector needs. So, there's clearly a debate that has been demarcated, and people have very strong feelings. The third point I would make, and underscore, that this is driven by a vision of the government to move India away increasingly, from state intervention, which it has been doing for some time, particularly from 1991 onwards, when it gradually adopted both business-friendly and market-friendly policies. And again, by the way, there is a debate about to what extent these policies have been business-friendly, as opposed to market-friendly. And several of my political science colleagues who work on India's political economy have vigorously taken part in this debate about whether or not these policies have benefited particular business houses, as opposed to a more, creating a more open field for a number of entrants to thrive. But that's a discussion for another day. These policies clearly are market-friendly, even though certain firms are poised to benefit disproportionately because of already their share in food processing and the like. The fourth point I will make, is that the decision that was made to pass these laws, in many ways, while technically meeting the standards of India's parliament, because ultimately, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is in power as an overwhelming majority, and technically, it had the right to pass these laws using its majority. But that's in a purely technical sense. There was no consultation with the opposition. The opposition, basically, was marginalized. And I, in part, I also blame the opposition for not coming up with a coherent alternative that they vigorously pressed and held the government's feet to the fire. The opposition was anemic, mostly leaderless, and unimaginative. But there is little or no question that this was done practically, by fiat on the part of the government. There was little or no consultation with the stakeholders, the farmers, who are going to be affected, and some people would argue, afflicted by these laws. So, but this is also characteristic of the decision-making style of this government. On major decisions, I can think of demonetization of the Indian economy, which affected over 80 percent of the currency in circulation, which was done virtually overnight, with disastrous consequences for especially poorer people in India. The wealthy always found ways to go to their preferred banks and change the high denomination notes, which were withdrawn overnight. Same thing happened when it came to the shutdown after the lockdown in the wake of COVID-19, where barely eight hours’ notice was given to millions of migrant workers who barely eke out a living, and they were told that they had to go home. And no arrangements were made to transport them several hundred miles. Many died of dehydration in the process, as they walked across India's plains and highways, with little or no [inaudible] available to them along the way, except from efforts by Indian civil society. The same sort of decision making characterized the goods and services tax, which is sensible. India needed a goods and services tax, to unify the economy and to provide a floor for goods and services and to integrate the national economy. But once again, it was done without any preparation. So essentially, this is characteristic of this government in terms of its decision-making style. And the fifth and final point I will make is that while these laws were passed with haste, without consultation, and there is a genuine debate about who is going to benefit—and Navyug, in due course, I'm sure will talk about this at length, so I leave that for him—but I will say, embedded in these laws are one or two things which are not bereft of merit. For example, for far too long, India has subsidized farming in a way that benefits large farmers. For example, the provision of electricity at virtually no cost, which is practically bankrupting the Exchequer, and that's unsustainable, that has to be modified or reformed. Similarly, the provision of water, which is not metered at rates, which are really remunerative. And as a consequence, I've actually seen this in the Punjab, and I'm sure Navyug can talk about this, where I've seen farmers let their diesel pumps run long after they've irrigated their fields. Why? Because they're not paying the real price of water. Now, these are not poor marginal sharecroppers, we are talking about relatively wealthy farmers who can afford those diesel pumps in the first place. So there are certain perverse elements that do exist in Indian agriculture, which call for reform, but the manner in which the government has gone about this, and the disregard for the consequences for those who are already at the margins of Indian agriculture, I think deserves considerable criticism. Let me end on that note and let Navyug pick up.   FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. Okay, so let's go over to you, Dr. Gill, to give us your understanding of all this and analysis.   GILL: Wonderful. So thank you, Irina, and everyone else at the Council on Foreign Relations for organizing this event, Audrey, Rivka, Grace, and Will, I'm glad to be in conversation with my co-panelist, Dr. Ganguly. And it's wonderful to see, albeit virtually, so many participants interested in the historic farmer and labor protests in India. I trust you're there; I can't see. So I'm going to, as Irina said, speak briefly about the wider historical and social context of this protest. And I'm going to focus on three areas. The first is the Green Revolution. The second is the politics of reform, and the third is contingent solidarity.   So first to the Green Revolution. In order to understand this current protest, we need to look at the transformation of agriculture in post-colonial India. After 1947, India was an impoverished country, experiencing severe food shortages to the point of having to import grain. At the same time, there were waves of leftist-inspired armed uprisings across the decolonizing world, including within India. Thus, in order to prevent both famine and communism, the government decided to rapidly increase food production. To do so, it partnered with the U.S. State Department, along with the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations in the 1960s. Together, they developed a set of technologies and strategies that became known as the Green Revolution. So this entailed hybrid, high yield seed varieties, chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and mechanization through tractors and tubewells. Now the government chose Punjab as the site to deploy this program, because it had exceptionally fertile soil and abundant groundwater, as well as self-cultivating, small-holding farmers. Now, in order to get farmers to adopt these capital-intensive technologies, the government introduced two key mechanisms. One, the minimum support prices, MSP, and the second, government procurement markets or mandis. The result was the dramatic increase in crop output, yields doubled and tripled year after year. So that Punjab as 1.5 percent of the territory of India, produced something like 60 to 70 percent of the wheat and rice that fed the entire country for decades. And that is how India became food self-sufficient. Now, at the same time, the Green Revolution had severely detrimental effects in terms of inequality, ecology, and caste. People raised objections at the time in civil society organizations, politicians, economists, religious leaders, they made several suggestions and even demands, but they were largely ignored and even maligned by the government. So that is the sort of prehistory of this crisis.   Now to the politics of reform. As Professor Ganguly mentioned, these three laws are designed to deregulate and privatize agriculture. Specifically, they allow corporations to buy crops directly from farmers at market prices. They allow corporations to engage in the stockpiling of commodities in unlimited quantities. And they allow corporations to enter into lopsided contracts with farmers without due legal recourse. So here, these laws use the language of choice and freedom to create a parallel private system that will lead to the collapse of the public system of MSP and mandi, as well as the dismantling of the public distribution system upon which something like 40 to 60 percent of Indians depend. Together, this will throw tens of millions of people into volatility, destabilize the livelihoods of hundreds of millions more, and jeopardize the food supply of 1.3 billion. The key point is that these are not agricultural reforms. They are little more than a corporate handle. They will not address any of the outstanding issues in the agricultural sector. So water depletion, mono-cropping patterns of rice and paddy, chemical dependence, farmer suicides, land inequality. As I just said, people have been demanding reforms that would be both sustainable and equitable for decades with little response. Now, at the same time, the protests against these laws are not an endorsement of the status quo. And I think this is the kind of old trick of neoliberalism: denigrate a certain policy is inefficient, and then claim a radically conservative option as the only possible solution. So if one pretends to be a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And I think we need to develop the creativity to go beyond this sort of bad faith myopia.   Now, to the last point, contingent solidarity. This protest began over the summer with farmer and labor unions led by sects in Punjab, but it has since grown in both scope and scale. It's actually traversed many of the usual divides of Indian society. And I'll just quickly name six areas. First, caste. There's a long history of tensions between farmers and laborers, which are Dalits and Jats. This is a tension that is both economic and cultural. But nonetheless, these two groups—Jats being farmers and Dalits being laborers —have managed to come together in the face of a common threat. Second, class. Far from just rich farmers, this protest is made up of a majority who own less than five acres of land. Those at the bottom of the hierarchy are actually most threatened by the prospect of landlessness. And the protest has been joined by urban workers, by transporters, by students, government employees, professionals, it has crossed society. Third, gender. Salute to International Women's Day yesterday, there's been something like thirty to forty to fifty thousand women protesting at the barricades. Very often these women have had to fight against their conservative households. They've had to fight against the patriarchal society, just to have the chance to fight against this government. So we are witnessing a feminist moment. Fourth is region. We saw the historic coming together of Punjab and Haryana. This was one state until 1966. They've had tensions over language and water resources in the past. Nonetheless, they are fighting shoulder to shoulder in this struggle, and they have been joined by states like Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, as well as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and elsewhere. Fifth, is the global dimension. This protest has been paralleled by an unprecedented mobilization in the diaspora. The months of agitations in front of Indian consulates and embassies in dozens of cities across the world. Now, the last area, and perhaps the most important for this conversation, has been the role of religion. This protest is informed and inspired by the Sikh tradition. And we can see that I think in three main ways. First, the Sikh concept of radical equality for all has welcomed everyone to the protest without any distinction. So Sikh are joined by Hindus, by Muslims, by atheists, by agnostics, you see [inaudible], you see Pooja, you see Namaz, all are welcome. Second, Sikh institutions like Langar, which is the collective cooking and eating of food, and Seva, which is the self-driven yet selfless activity for the common good, have created an incredible atmosphere at the barricades. They've established schools, and medical clinics, and created their own newspaper. The poor living on the outskirts of [inaudible] have actually had three meals a day for the first time because of this protest. And third, the Sikh philosophy and history has empowered people to confront their adversaries. It has instilled with them, within them, a sort of bravery to fight back against an authoritarian government. Now, this doesn't mean that tensions have disappeared. There are still fissures and frictions in this protest. We don't have to exaggerate. And we don't have to be romantic. Solidarity is not the resolution of difference. But nor is it merely a fiction. Instead, I see this as the forging of new connections, and with that, a new energy and outlook for politics in India. And I think we need to invest in that possibility. So in this sense, the farmers protest has become a broad-based popular movement. It presents the largest and most sustained challenge to the BJP's agenda [inaudible]. And it is also one of the most remarkable exercises in the making of democratic culture in the world. And I think it offers us a way to rethink the assumptions of economic progress, as well as religious politics. So with that, I'll stop. Thank you for listening. I look forward to the conversation.   FASKIANOS: Thank you both very much for that. And now we're going to go to all of you for your questions. You can raise your hand at the bottom of your screen. If you're on a tablet, click on the "more" button to raise your hand there, or else you can type your question in the Q&A box. If you could also identify yourself in the Q&A box, or when you, when I call upon you and I ask you to unmute, please say who you are to give us context, that would be most appreciated. And let's see, I'm going now, the first question—and people don't be shy—I'm going to Bawa Jain.   JAIN: Hello. Hello Irina, good to see you again.   FASKIANOS: Likewise.   JAIN: And Dr. Ganguly and Mr. Gill, I mean, I should say Dr. Gill, thank you both. I, by the way, I'm originally from Punjab. Okay, even though for the last thirty years, I've been here in the U.S. And one thing which I just wonder, I wish there had been somebody from the government side to counter this discussion. This seems one-sided. I mean, I know the laws quite well. Of the years of independence since 1947, fifty-five plus years has been the rule of the Congress Party. Dr. Ganguly mentioned in 2003, the farming laws. The international community has been asking India to reform its farm laws. Both of you have just not mentioned the middleman, which has been gouging these poor farmers for all these centuries. They were like the charlots. I've been a farmer. We've had farms since we were young. I know what happens in the mandis, they're called the mandis, [inaudible], who were the biggest beneficiaries? Today we are just faulting the government, whereas if you look since the BJP has taken power, what has been India’s standing internationally? On the transparency index, India's corruption has deeply receded. The trust in the Indian government has vastly increased. The Prime Minister today is one of the most credible people on the planet. On the vaccine diplomacy, India is leading the charge. Dr. Ganguly mentioned about farmers, look at the number of deaths per million in India as compared to the other, even the United States of America. Can we not just be fair and give credit where it is due? Nothing is perfect. Yes, I can acknowledge but we in the spirit of discussion, at least we can raise the policies, factually from both sides.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Sumit do you want to take that first?   GANGULY: Well, there really wasn't a question there. It was mostly a statement. So there are a number of responses that I could have. But much of it doesn't have to do with today's discussion. India's standing in the world is not the subject of today's discussion. It's very well focused on the farmers protests. And that's where Professor Gill I directed our remarks. In a separate seminar, I'll be happy to address the issue of transparency, and India's standing in the world about which I've written ad nauseum. So I'm not really sure that I can really respond to because there was no question attached. And I don't speak for the government of India.   GILL: Yeah, I share Sumit's perspective. I mean, if pressed, I could maybe just sort of find a couple of points to say. One is that there is no doubt that the Congress Party, when it was in power, created the infrastructure of the Green Revolution and set us on this path. That was what I was trying to explain with the Green Revolution. And the Congress is not at all free from some sort of blame. I actually believe that had the Congress been in power, they would do exactly the same thing. So there's a kind of larger, if you will, bipartisan support for these kinds of neoliberal changes that is shared by the Congress and the BJP. And so the critique extends to both of them. As far as the international community demanding changes, it is precisely those changes that the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, the IMF, are kind of insisting that countries in the Global South remove subsidies and supports for their citizens, while countries in the Global North maintain theirs. And that hypocrisy, I think, is at the center of actually rethinking foreign policy. How can the U.S. continue to subsidize large agribusinesses here while demanding everybody else in the Global South end their subsidy regimes? The last thing is the claim that this will cut up the middlemen. It's not true that it will cut out middlemen. In fact, if the middlemen are cut out, but you hand agriculture to giant corporations, you're putting people in a much worse situation. And I think the best way to maybe see evidence for that is listen to the farmer and labor groups. Listen to the people that are actually cultivating, listen to what they say. And they're absolutely clear in the effect of these laws on their livelihoods.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next question from Simran Jeet Singh.   SINGH: Hi, this is Simran. Nice to hear from both of you, incredibly insightful, and meaningful. So thanks for taking your time to share with us all. My question is less to do with the actual economics of what's inspired the protests and more towards what you what you were saying near the end, Dr. Gill around the government's response. And I'd love to hear a bit of your perspective around what the global community has really been focusing on over the last few weeks, has been the undemocratic response, the silencing of speech, the detention of journalists, climate justice activists without real charge claiming sedition for editing Google docs and supporting protests. And I'd love to hear your perspective on how this fits or squares with our understanding of the current Indian government's approach, and also what we might learn from historical examples in situations like this, of what might be around the corner for India going forward. Thank you both.   GILL: Thank you for the question Simran, and it has been really, I think, eye opening. Oh, I'm still muted? No.   FASKIANOS: No, you are fine. We can hear you.   GILL: Okay, good. It's, I think, been eye opening for the global community to witness how the Indian government has dealt with this protest. The severe and wide-ranging crackdown on dissent is there for everyone to see, from throwing people in jail, from harassing newspapers and shutting down publications, and suspending internet at the protest sites, and a whole host of things that they've done. I think it shows the insecurity and thin skin of this government, that it's not able to kind of handle dissent within its own country in sort of equitable ways. And that insecurity causes it to kind of lash out and respond to statements by civil society or even celebrities across the world. That is, I think, the greatest sort of disservice and kind of almost embarrassment to the government, its response. I do think, though, that the shift to the way in which the government has handled the protest, needs to kind of be put alongside the content of the protest, because the government sort of bungled handling of it, calling these people all sorts of slurs, from separatists, to terrorists, to Maoists, and the rest of it is condemnable, and all of that. But even if the government had handled this perfectly well, and allowed people to protest and not interfered, what they're actually trying to do, is actually the problem. And the fact that tens and hundreds of millions of people have risen up in opposition to that is what I think we have to confront. To the last part of your question, I agree with you, it does not portend well. And I think that the path that India is on, there's a lively debate, actually, about India being an authoritarian fascist state. There is a debate in this country about, is America fascist? There are debates that happen in all sorts of places in the world, in Brazil, in Hungary, Philippines and elsewhere, in Turkey. So, and I think, what does it mean to have a country that claims to be the world's largest democracy, now entering into the discourse of how authoritarian and how fascist is it? I think that gives us all something to kind of think about.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the written question from Father Joseph Varghese. Why is this—is this protest connected to the Khalistan movement? Is it a ploy by the government to undermine the real cause?   GILL: Yes, to the second part, largely, in that the government was very quick to declare these protesting farmers and laborers "separatists," it was one of the many slurs they use to try to discredit this movement and sort of have kind of denounced people for people that are Sikh, for demanding kind of a separate state. That has kind of led others to kind of insist that this is a completely secular movement, and that religion has no part of it, and that separatists have nothing to say to this struggle. Which has also led others to say, just because an accusation comes doesn't mean one has to sort of get so anxious and kind of insist on a kind of secularism, that is not actually playing out on the ground. So there's a religious dimension to it. I've tried to explain the role that religion sort of plays in politics, it's not hermetically sealed. There might be some people that have different aspirations for states' rights, for federalism, for rethinking sort of political arrangements. There's nothing wrong with thinking those things. But if you listen to people on the ground, in terms of the farmer and laborer unions, they are adamant that this is a struggle about these three farm laws and their appeal, and that it is not a religious struggle. So we can kind of sit back and look at larger sort of entanglements, we can be aware of the government propaganda, and then we ought to kind of take the word of the people engaged in the struggle on the frontlines.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to take the next question from Dr. Lavanya Vemsani, who also wrote a question so I'll let you just ask it if you can unmute yourself and identify yourself, that would be great.   VEMSANI: Thank you so much, Irina, for taking my question. And thank you, Dr. Ganguly and Dr. Gill, for both of your presentations. I have a small question. I typed it out, but I'll actually shorten it now. My question is—I actually come from southern India. South India also produces a lot of rice, I come from a rice-farming family. I have seen my family struggles with rice farming and then finding the markets for it. We were never allowed to sell in the open markets, we had to take it to the mandis and we had to pay the fee for the mandis and everything, and wait for the mercy for them to give the minimum price. The minimum price whatever the government declared. That was it. But if we can take it to the outside of the state, outside of the market, we can actually get a larger price. Actually, my uncles got arrested for taking the rice to the open markets to sell it for higher price. So in the southern states, especially in the rice farming communities, this is a welcome change. So my question is, why do you disagree with the economics of this bill? Why do you oppose farmers entering open market? Do you think government meddling in the business is good? You won't want this for any other sector, why do you need this for agriculture sector? You don't want government to declare a minimum price for any business community, business sector. Agricultural business, agricultural sector is also a business. Why do you want government to be in this business? And why do you want government to declare minimum support price? And minimum support price is never on the books anywhere. It's not a lot. Government is doing it for a long time. But it is not in the law books anywhere. So why do you want it to be the issue now?   GANGULY: Well, I'll take a crack at it.   FASKIANOS: Great, thank you. Go ahead. We can hear you.   GANGULY: Well, okay, good. It's a fair question. There's little or no question in my mind, and Navyug may disagree with me on this, that a certain segment of the farming community will benefit from the possibilities of entering the open market, because they have the wherewithal to negotiate a fair price for their agricultural produce. But given that a very substantial number, I forget the precise percentage, but it's quite high, that a very substantial percentage of India's farmers own barely two hectares of land. It's they who will feel the brunt of these policies if they are actually implemented. Just like in the Green Revolution, as Navyug correctly pointed out. And here I would bring up the book of Francine Frankel, who is a colleague of mine, who wrote a major book called India's Green Revolution: Economic Gains and Political Costs. And in that she pointed out that the Green Revolution disproportionately benefited a certain segment of the farmers and essentially, marginalized smaller farmers. And this, these sets of bills, if they are actually implemented, will no doubt lead to a segment of the farming community, who are already somewhat well off, to be able to profit from a national market, the ability to negotiate prices for their produce, and the like. But, a very substantial portion of the farming community, which is not so well-endowed, will find themselves even marginalized further.   GILL: Yeah, I would agree and sort of just add a couple of points. One, is that the MSP and mandi regimes, and they work hand-in-hand, exists in Punjab and Haryana, and to an extent Rajasthan, and [inaudible], because that was where the kind of focal point of these technologies were being deployed. So I'm not quite sure where the person asking the question what state they're from and what the dynamics are in that state. But if they're, if a person wants to kind of—so the MSP systems don't actually sort of exist in the rest of India in the same way. And there aren't those procurement markets and farmers are at the kind of mercy of private buyers. The best example of this is 2006 in Bihar, when there was a government mandi system that was dismantled, and farmers were sort of given access to sell privately. And what we saw in Bihar in 2006, was farmers becoming more impoverished. Prices actually plummeted. A [inaudible] of rice in Bihar get something like 900 or 950 rupees, and in Punjab, it's like 1800. And so Bihari farmers have been actually becoming landless, and working as migrant laborers in other states, or trying to find ways to sell their produce in Bihar. So open markets, the volatility of the market, does not actually result in upward mobility and security and prosperity for all. I think this is one of the things we might have internalized. But markets don't function in that same way, Bihar is the example. I mean, we can look at this country, why do we have a minimum wage? Why is there so much debate actually, in U.S. politics about a minimum wage? Because left to the market, they might pay people 2 dollars an hour. Right? So we actually have to put in place certain safeguards and protections because everything doesn't function in the kind of abstractions that economists are used to dealing with.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let's go to Razi Hashmi, raised hand. And please unmute yourself, Razi.   HASHMI: Thanks, Irina. Hi, Sumit, good to see you.   GANGULY: Hi, there.   HASHMI: It's a pleasure, Dr. Gill, pleasure to meet you. My name is Razi Hashmi, I am a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations. I also cover South Asia in the Department of State's International Religious Freedom office. I had some technical issues at the beginning, so I may have missed it. But I wanted to ask, how do you see the farm protests in the broader trends of issues that have been facing Indians, from the revocation of Article 370, CAA, NRC, the Bhima Koregaon case, anti-conversion laws, which have included many marriage restrictions. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on this, but also what recommendations you have for U.S. policymakers, technology companies, such as social media, and the U.S. diaspora community, which is as diverse as that of India. Thank you.   GANGULY: Well—   GILL: Go ahead, yeah.   GANGULY: A terrific question. And I'll take an initial crack at it. Many of the issues that you have outlined quite correctly, basically deal with the constriction of personal liberties and political choices. And I think these are all deeply disturbing developments. And the government's response to any form of protest against these policies has led to further efforts to constrict free speech and dissent. And the manner in which the government, as Navyug has correctly pointed out, has sought to squelch the farmers' movement, is part of a piece that has manifested itself in a number of other different areas. The government seems to have a view that Indian citizens are really their subjects, rather than citizens. Citizens speak out, citizens criticize, citizens have a right to dissent. Instead, how the government is treating its population is that you have to accept the strictures that we are passing simply because we have an elected legislature, and we have a majority in parliament, and the majority will prevail. And dissent is increasingly being constrained. Journalists are being systematically harassed. Members of civil society find themselves besieged. Amnesty International has been forced to shut down its operations on the basis of utterly dubious claims. Institutions are being used in a fashion, for example, the Enforcement Directorate, which looks at economic crimes, is being directed mostly to harass individuals who dissent from the government, members of the political opposition, members of civil society that have criticized the government. And the response, as Navyug very correctly pointed out, the attempt to tar and feather the farmers movement, because it's primarily based in the Punjab, that these people are really separatists, terrorists, and Khalistanis seeking to split up the Indian state. It's all part of a piece.   So finally, your question about policy response. Well, much as India is important to the United States for a whole variety of reasons, given the links with the diaspora, the economic relationship, the security relationship, all of these things are vitally important. But we should not be afraid of criticizing our friends. Friends should point out to friends when friends are in error. And so I leave it to you, as a member of the State Department, to forthrightly raise these issues, without being unpleasant in any fashion. One does not have to be obnoxious about it, but quietly, but firmly, one has to raise this with one's Indian counterparts, because the very future of India's democracy is at risk.   GILL: Yeah, absolutely. I agree with Sumit on all those points, actually. I would add a couple of thoughts. Razi sort of mentioned the connections across these different struggles. So I will say that there are connections being made between people fighting against the CAA protest, people engaged in the Bhima Koregaon case, and the farmers protests. People at the frontlines of a barricade have a lot on their hands, and we can't expect them to kind of cover and address every single issue all at once. But they have made those alliances, they have spoken out against targeting of political prisoners and things like that. Again, it's a bit akin to here in the U.S., we have the Black Lives Matter movement, the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline, people fighting for a 15 dollar minimum wage, people fighting for migrant justice. So these are all distinct struggles, there are some overlap, they're confronting a kind of common opponent, but they're not exactly the same thing, either. Right? So we should maybe pay attention to those differences, as well as appreciate the connections that are made.   To your second question, yes, absolutely, U.S. should be concerned. And the U.S., I think, as Sumit explained, the claim of the U.S. to be, its position and standing in the world, and to kind of uphold a certain set of values when they're being undermined in countries that we're supposed to be allies with, we absolutely have an obligation to speak up and do something. And I think it should occur on two fronts, I think there should be the kind of pressure through all sorts of diplomatic civil society channels to address these kinds of things. But at the same time, I think that there should also be a reexamination of U.S. foreign policy that demands countries in the Global South and their subsidies and supports. It has to go both ways. And we have to kind of insist on that two-pronged strategy, and perhaps extend the generosity that when civil society organizations in places like India, comment upon violations of rights and freedoms in the U.S., we can also bear that too. Right? In a sense, if we're taking seriously that we're part of a global community, maybe then we should be able to kind of hold world leaders accountable wherever they are.   The last point, I think, is I think that big tech companies have shown that they are not able to handle these serious and deep questions. They are actually perhaps obsolete. They are arbitrary in their means of kind of deciding which account gets shut and which hashtag gets blocked. And I think they need an overhaul and oversight by external forces because it doesn't seem like they are able to deal with the new world that we're in.   FASKIANOS: Thank you, I'm going to take the next written question from Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta, from Duta Wacana Christian University, who thanks you both for your perspectives. How do you describe the transformation of agricultural law to sustainable development goals that need to be applied by all countries including India?   GANGULY: This is a really tall order. And, in part, Navyug has touched upon this at various moments. And I would argue that yes, Indian agriculture is in need of reform. But so is agriculture in the advanced, industrialized world. For heaven's sake, we subsidize tobacco farmers, while the FDA, and the Center for Disease Control are telling us to cut back on smoking. And I live in a state where any number of people who are obese, and in addition to that are smokers, and are contributing to the healthcare crisis in this country, and yet we continue to subsidize tobacco farming in this country. There's the Common Agricultural Policy in Europe, which subsidizes highly inefficient farmers. But that's how also we get extraordinary brie. And at a price that is sustainable. In France, I have personally witnessed vines being pulled out of the ground by a tractor while on vacation in Provence. Why? Because you want to keep the price of wine in Paris at a price that the consumer in Paris finds happy. So while we can talk about the reform of agriculture, which India desperately needs, and I alluded to it by saying that there are certain agricultural subsidies which have produced perverse outcomes. Environmental degradation through the use of chemical fertilizers, through the excessive reliance on diesel pumps, cheap electricity, which does not give farmers an incentive to conserve, these are all things that need to be tackled. But it can't be done without addressing this on a global scale, and recognizing the complicity of advanced industrial states, which happily subsidize their own farmers, but are always hectoring poorer countries in the Global South to reform their agriculture. And the bargaining power, the structural bargaining power that exists in organizations like the WTO, is lopsided. And we need to forthrightly talk about this.   GILL: Yeah, I agree. Those are excellent points. And I think, specifically in India, I think this is why I was trying to emphasize that these are not agricultural reforms, just because of the way the narrative is kind of spun is that agriculture was stagnant, something needed to be done, nobody was doing anything, so the government had to make this bold move. In fact, there were lots of options on the table. Lots of different people had put forward suggestions and arguments, and like I said, demands even, and they were largely ignored and maligned. So I think we have to kind of do the patient work of reading through all of those proposals and bills, and initiatives, to see the kind of landscape of possibilities. One example I can give is the Swaminathan Commission. Far from some radical fringe activist document, this is a government-sanctioned body that produced a report in the early 2000s, that laid out all sorts of suggestions. Very sort of detailed policy recommendations, if you will, in terms of how to address water depletion, how to distribute land, how to get out of monocropping. And it was received by the government and shelved. Right? So something like that is on the table. And it can and needs to be brought back. The last thing I'll say is, we ought to maybe rethink, what is an expert? How do we use this word "expert," who gets to be an expert? And I think this struggle has maybe revealed that the people that are insisting that the free market is a solution to this problem, are actually reproducing an ideological argument. And it's not just some technocratic evaluation of the facts, a neutral position. That is ideological. The commitment and demand for MSP and mandi systems across India, that's also ideological. There's also kind of different commitments and affiliations people have. But when we start seeing that, perhaps we can get out of, "just trust the experts," and actually then think about, as Sumit was saying, the different stakeholders and who is involved in bringing other people to the table and maybe rethink the model along the lines that the questioner is asking.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to Kavneet Singh. I think you might have written your question, but why don't you just ask it since we only have four minutes left?   SINGH: Can you hear me?   FASKIANOS: Yeah.   SINGH: Okay. So my question is, Dr. Ganguly was mentioning about the wastage of water, and I agree with him that water cannot be wasted because it is very precious, but on the flip side, Punjab being your [inaudible] state, and water actually flowed, not from the old Punjab, it had all the water and the [inaudible] states have full control of the water as per international treaties. But for Punjab in particular, the center usurped all the water, all the surface water, and used it to supply water to other states. So technically, Punjab is owed over one billion dollars in water royalty, while Punjab currently is in approximately the same amount of debt. So if the water royalty was paid, Punjab would be debt free today. So my question is, how do you resolve this, collecting water, the [inaudible] water is fine and dandy, but the existing water which is already there, which should be used by the people who have very intensive agriculture, that's not being allowed?   GANGULY: There are two issues involved here. It's a fair question. One is the issue of federalism in India, that India is a federal polity. And so rivers flow from one state to others, and you have to work out equitable mechanisms for the distribution of water. And there is no simple solution to this issue. This is not only an issue in the Punjab. It's an issue in my native state of West Bengal, it's an issue with the Kaveri river waters in southern India. And there is no magical formula by which one can allocate this water. And this is, of course, subject to political negotiations between states and stakeholders. So there is no easy answer to that part of the question. The part that you weren't addressing, and which is what I was focusing on, and this is not just true of the Punjab, but elsewhere, that electricity and water for farmers across India is subsidized by the state, largely because farmers, especially more powerful farmers, constitute an important lobby. And entire state electricity boards, which are state-run companies across India, are basically going bankrupt, because they cannot charge a reasonable price for electricity, largely because farmers will punish you at the ballot box. And this is an unsustainable strategy for the long-term future. So while you do raise an important question about Indian federalism, and questions of equity, it's not simply that alone. There are other structural problems that need to be addressed, which is draining aquifers, especially in the Punjab.   GILL: And let me just quickly add, I think the problem of the water usage in Punjab is also a question of which crops are planted. So that paddy is actually an alien crop. It doesn't belong in this region, because Punjab doesn't get the kind of monsoons that in the east, in the south, those regions get. Now, the reason why people are growing paddy is because this is what the government wanted Punjab to grow and provided those subsidies to get them hooked on it, it requires twelve inches of standing water for five months, which is absurd in Punjab. So crop diversification, if we move away from paddy, we will actually greatly alleviate the problem of groundwater depletion. And that, I know people, everyone I know that grows paddy in Punjab doesn't want to grow it. Everybody I know that has moved away from it, have twenty-five or thirty or fifty acres, and they can afford to do it. So if we want crop diversification, it has to actually come from a state support for alternative crops. And that would I think, get towards some of the concerns of the questioner.   FASKIANOS: Well, thank you both. We are out of time. But we really appreciate your taking this hour to be with us. And to all of you, I'm sorry that we couldn't get to your written questions and raised hands. We will just have to continue exploring this topic. We encourage you to keep up with Dr. Ganguly's work. He just authored a piece in Foreign Affairs entitled "India's Farmers Will Benefit From Reforms." And you can follow Dr. Gill on Twitter @NavyugGill. We also encourage you to follow CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program on Twitter @CFR_Religion. And obviously, please, as always, reach out to us at [email protected] with any suggestions on future webinars or topics that you would like us to cover. So thank you all again for being with us today.

Andrew L. Whitehead, associate professor of sociology at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and co-author of Taking Back America for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, discusses the proliferation of Christian nationalism and its influence on American politics. Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. FASKIANOS: Thank you, Julissa. Good afternoon to everyone. Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Religion and Foreign Policy webinar series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach at CFR. As a reminder, today's webinar is on the record, and the audio, video, and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org, and on our iTunes podcast channel, Religion and Foreign Policy. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have professor Andrew Whitehead with us today to talk about the rise of Christian nationalism. We've shared his bio with you but just to give you a few highlights: Professor Whitehead is an associate professor of sociology and director of the Association of Religion Data Archives at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University—Purdue University Indianapolis. His research focuses on how religion both shapes and is shaped by contemporary American culture. He's the coauthor of Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, as well as over three dozen peer-reviewed journal articles. In 2019, Professor Whitehead's article "Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election" won the Distinguished Article Award for both the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. He's also currently associate editor for Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review and was elected to the board of directors of the Religion Research Association. So Andrew, thanks very much for being with us today. I thought you could set the table by talking about how you define the term Christian nationalism, and I know you also want to share some slides with us to illustrate your thesis.   WHITEHEAD: Yes, thank you so much for the warm introduction and for inviting me today. I'm excited to be part of this discussion and share a little bit about what we've been studying with Christian nationalism. And so I will share my screen here. And I, too, want to highlight my coauthor, Sam Perry. This was a true collaboration and much of our work  we do together. And so, yes, when we talk about Christian nationalism, and especially in the events of the last month with the Capitol insurrection, seeing so many Christian symbols like "Jesus Saves 2020" or praying around a cross or a flag, "Jesus is My Savior: Trump is My President," and then to when the insurrectionists breached the Capitol and were on the Senate floor praying. And if anybody has spent time in an evangelical congregation in the U.S., that prayer sounded familiar. And so we see religion suffusing a lot of what we saw at the insurrection. And so Christian nationalism we wouldn't say is the only explanation to what happened, but we do think it is a key explanation, is a key part of what we saw take place at the Capitol. And so in our book Taking America Back for God and also in the number of peer-reviewed articles that we have and published on Christian nationalism, we define Christian nationalism as a cultural framework. So it's a collection of myths and traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems that idealize and advocate for a fusion between Christianity, and you can place an asterisk by Christianity, with American civic life. So the reason we placed an asterisk there is—I'll show a bit today and as we talked about in our book—is that it includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, authoritarianism, militarism, and it sanctifies and justifies violence in the service of what they deem the greater good or even God's plan.   So Christianity in this definition really refers to a certain population, people like us, which tends to be white, native born, culturally Christian Americans. And so it's really more of a cultural package overall. Now, when we talk about Christian nationalism, how do we measure it? Well, in our work, we survey large numbers of American adults, and we asked them six different questions. And these questions are really rather benign but asking for a level of agreement around their views towards the relationship between religion, or especially Christianity, and American civic life. And so we'll ask them questions like, "Should the federal government advocate Christian values? Should they allow prayer in public schools? Or is the success of the United States part of God's plan?" And so the degree to which our respondents agree or strongly agree or disagree or strongly disagree with the six questions, we assign them a point value and combine those together into a scale, and then we're able to see a distribution of responses and orientations towards Christian nationalism across the U.S. population. And as we can see here, it is very similar to a normal distribution where most Americans find themselves somewhere in the middle. We have people that strongly embrace it, they're at the upper end, or strongly reject it, they're at the bottom. But we won't say, and we don't say, that Christian nationalism is either an either/or proposition, that there's a spectrum of how strongly Americans embrace it and we find that that's really key. So rejecters, we see there at the left-hand part of the figure, are those that are below one standard deviation below the mean. And then resisters are the next group, accommodators, and ambassadors. And so when we combine these together into these four orientations towards Christian nationalism, we'll use these categories from here on, and we can see that rejecters and resisters, taken together, are about 48 percent of the population. So rejecters completely repudiate any notion of a close relationship between Christianity and American civil society. And they're about 22 percent of the population, as you can see. Resisters are slightly larger and they're uncomfortable with this idea of a Christian nation, but they are not wholly opposed. They lean towards opposition. Accommodators are actually our largest group, about 32 percent of the population, and they're a mirror image of resisters but lean towards accepting the Christian nation narrative and cultural framework. So their support is undeniable, but it isn't comprehensive. And finally, we have those on the very right of the screen. These are our ambassadors. These are Americans who are wholly supportive of Christian nationalism. They believe either that the U.S. was or still is a Christian nation and that we need to reestablish that connection in order for the United States to flourish.   Now, in the interest of time, I won't share the demographic differences between these groups, but they are fascinating, especially where they're similar. But we do find that these four groups are well represented across socio-demographic groups in the U.S., religious traditions, and even political party. And so it isn't as though one of these groups only fits within a certain socio-demographic group, but we see them represented all over. Now, one part of today, as you know, we were thinking about what we would study or look at, was this idea of the rise of Christian nationalism. And so the size of these groups, have they changed over time? Well, we actually find when we collected data in 2007 and then in 2017 and compared across the decade, that for the most part it's been relatively stable. Now, the bold numbers are those that, you could say, are a significant change from 2007 to 2017. So rejecters have grown by a couple percent. Resisters have also grown by about 4 percent. Accommodators are essentially the same size, they're not significantly different from '07 to 2017. And ambassadors have shrunk just slightly. And so we do see some shift overall over the course of the last decade but not large-scale shift. And so it will be interesting to continue to follow this as we go forward. But we wouldn't say that over the last decade there's been a dramatic increase overall, but it is relatively stable.   Now, as we look at Christian nationalism, define it, but then also start to think of, well, does it matter, these next bit of slides that I would like to share kind of set the table in a little way of why Christian nationalism matters in what ways. So when we talk about support for Donald Trump, as we saw in the insurrection in 2016 and even in 2020, Christian nationalism was not the only story but is a key part of explaining Americans' attitudes and support for Donald Trump. So when we look at 2016, we can see there on the left in the 2017 Baylor Religion Survey, that if someone was a rejecter, resister, accommodator, or ambassador, was key to understanding whether or not they voted for Donald Trump. And in 2020 the story stayed the same. Christian nationalism was a key predictor of whether Americans supported Donald Trump. We see that for the most part, it's a similar distribution and the same number of people were supporting him overall, with ambassadors being those that are most likely to support Donald Trump in both those years. Now, what's very interesting about this is it isn't just that Christian nationalism predicts support for Donald Trump, but then it does so even when we account for socio-demographic variables, political ideology and party, and also religious tradition.   And so in this next slide, we can see that across religious traditions, Christian nationalism is a key variable to explain whether they supported Donald Trump. So a couple things stand out. The white bars are for white, born-again Protestants. And again, this is data that we collected just after the 2020 election. You can see that whether somebody is rejecter, a resistor, an accommodator, or an ambassador, is key to explaining whether or not they voted for Donald Trump. Now, the dark blue bar are white liberal Protestants and you can see the same relationship. If somebody is rejector versus an ambassador, that tells us a lot about whether they voted for Trump, and the gray bar are white Catholics. And so for those groups there on the right around the ambassador bars, you can see that whether somebody is an evangelical Protestant, white Catholic, or white liberal Protestant, really, there's no difference between those groups. The fact that they're ambassadors, they're much more likely to support Donald Trump. And they're more similar to each other than to coreligionists, other Catholics, white liberal Protestants, or white evangelical Protestants, who reject Christian nationalism. So we can see that Christian nationalism cuts across religious tradition and is very key to explaining whether or not a religious American supported Donald Trump.   Now, another big social issue, obviously, that we're still living with is the COVID-19 pandemic. And we know that this was something that was quickly politicized with people drawing tribal lines. And we find, in a number of articles that we published just this year, that Christian nationalism is a key explanatory variable, again, for understanding how people are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. So really quickly, we can see that wearing a mask or avoiding touching your face when we gather data in May of 2020 during the one of the first peaks of the COVID pandemic, we can see that ambassadors, especially the accommodators, were more likely to say that they never took these precautions. Whereas resisters, but especially rejecters of Christian nationalism, were more likely to say that they were taking precautions. When we asked Americans about governmental restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether the government should try to protect the economy, or protect liberty, or if it should protect the vulnerable, we see that, again, our Christian nationalism scale is a strong predictor of where Americans believe the government should be focusing. Where the more that they embrace Christian nationalism, the more likely they are to say that we should protect the economy and protect liberty, and they're much less likely to say that we should protect the vulnerable. So you can see those lines moving in dramatically different directions.   Now, beyond COVID-19, another big social issue that we've been struggling and working with in the United States, especially over the summer, was racial injustice and protests. So we asked a number of questions, but one that I'll share with us today, is when we charted the percent of whites and Blacks who agree that reports of police brutality against Black Americans are exaggerated by the media, we can see that for white Americans, who more strongly embrace Christian nationalism, they're much more likely to believe that these reports of police brutality are exaggerated. So they're less likely to say that injustice towards Black Americans is a real thing. But for Black Americans, as they embrace Christian nationalism more strongly, we can see relatively no change in those blue bars. Christian nationalism doesn't work the same for Black Americans as it does among white Americans. But we can see that for white Americans, this idea of a Christian nation is wrapped up in their views towards racial inequality, especially police brutality towards Black Americans. Now, when we talk about Christianity in the U.S. and its influence on social policy or the society at large, we need to understand and clarify that for many Americans, Christianity means something more than perhaps just orthodox religious beliefs. But that, again, it comes with this cultural package, this cultural framework. of Christian nationalism. And we need to know and recognize that for many Americans, especially white Christian supporters of Trump or Trumpism, they're primarily motivated by fear of loss of privilege within this culture in the social sphere. And Christian nationalism is something as a cultural framework that speaks to that and works in such a way that really pushes them towards wanting to and desiring to keep themselves at the center of politics and in this culture. And with that, I will stop sharing. Hopefully, that worked. And there and look forward to the discussion.   FASKIANOS: Thank you, Andrew. That was really fascinating data. And let's turn now to all of you to share questions and comments with us. So as you all know, just click the "raise hand" at the bottom of your screen. And you can also type your question in the Q&A chat if you prefer to do that. And I'll call on you, and if I call on you, please announce your name and affiliation to give us context for who you are. Oh, my goodness, we have many questions. Many, many questions. So I'm going to start with Reverend Peg Chamberlin. And Peg, if you can unmute yourself?   CHEMBERLIN: Thank you. I'm Peg Chamberlin, former director of Minnesota Council of Churches, now retired and head consultant in Justice Connection. Andrew, I wonder if you had asked the question, "Do you self-identify as a white nationalist, as a Christian nationalist?" what kind of response you would have gotten? Thank you.   WHITEHEAD: Yes, that's a wonderful question. Thank you for that. You know, we do not ask respondents to self-identify as either white nationalists or self-identify as Christian nationalists. I would assume that for many Americans, this idea of "are you a Christian nationalist?" wouldn't be something that's really on their radar. I'm sure that the self-identification there'd be very few that would know what that is or even want to self-identify in that way. And so for us, what we wanted to try and do was really measure the, you know, cultural framework as a whole and in some of those aspects that make up that cultural framework, that, you know, if I asked somebody, "Are you a Christian nationalist?" they might say no, but if I asked them our six questions, they might strongly agree with each one. And when we performed interviews for our book, that's what we found over and over. I don't think Christian nationalism is something that they would identify with as Christian nationalists. But when we asked them the measures that make up that scale, they, by and large, you know, those that strongly agree with it will do that. And so that's how we measured it, but wonderful question.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to Bruce Knotts, who raised his hand and typed his question. So Bruce, why don't you unmute yourself and just ask it yourself.   KNOTTS: Hello, my name is Bruce Knotts and I direct the Unitarian Universalist Association Office of the United Nations. We hosted an event with Robert Jones and his book, White Too Long, which comes to some similar conclusions. And I'm wondering if you're familiar with that book, if you could compare and contrast your work with Robert Jones's work?   WHITEHEAD: Yes, I am familiar with that book. I bought it right when it came out and read it. And Robert Jones, yes, it was a wonderful book and really, yes, really well done and I'm a big fan of him and his work. And so I think there are a lot of very similar overlaps. I think we're looking at the same, in many ways, the same cultural framework and talking about it perhaps in slightly different ways and using some different methodological strategies. So he has a chapter in that book where he really draws on the Public Religion Research Institute or PRRI data. And so I think our book in that sense, you know, is in the spirit of that chapter where we're serving large numbers of the American population and trying to operationalize Christian nationalism and understand it. But what we find over and over that I think is very similar to his book and his work, is that Christian nationalism is, to a very large degree, racialized within the U.S. context. So when we're talking about Christian nationalism and as Americans are thinking about, again, this idea of Christianity in the public sphere, it's in many ways raced, where for white Americans it means something like, you know, this us, those are white Americans, this culture was made for us. And so in that sense, saying that we're a Christian nation and we need to then defend those Christian values has historically and over time been a way for them to, in some ways, cloak, you know, some of the racialized beliefs in religious symbolism and talk about race without talking about race in that sense. And, Robert Jones's book I would recommend, if you haven't read it, to buy it and read it. I think he's really drawing that out historically but then also with social scientific data and his personal autobiography, which was really provocative and a great, great work. So hopefully that kind of helps, but we have a chapter on boundaries and racial boundaries are a key part of Christian nationalism.   FASKIANOS: So I'm going to group two questions from Kathryn Poethig at California State University, Monterey Bay, who wanted to know what was the geographic and age range of your survey. And then Laura Alexander, who's at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, who wrote, "Has your work given any insight into why someone who doesn't identify as Christian would nevertheless support Christian nationalism even being an ambassador for that ideology?"   WHITEHEAD: Yes, definitely. So the first one, our surveys we primarily draw on two within our book. And then since then there's a number of other surveys that we use in our peer-reviewed research articles. But for our book, we use two [inaudible] of the Baylor Religion Survey, which is a national random sample of American adults. And so the geographic scope covers the U.S. and age ranges from anywhere from eighteen to, I don't know the exact upper bound or who is the oldest in the survey, but basically all American adults eighteen and up. And then the second part of the question about people who are not affiliated or perhaps not religious also, perhaps, drawing into this cultural framework, we do find evidence of this where we have Americans. And granted, it's not a large number of unaffiliated or non-religious Americans who are ambassadors of Christian nationalism, so it is small. The majority of ambassadors are pretty religious or largely religious Americans. But what we find is those that are unaffiliated that still identify with this cultural framework, they can take on a number of different, kind of, I guess, flavors, but one is this idea of what we see in some parts of Europe where this idea of, kind of, Western civilization, who we are as a people, and again, that can be racialized in some ways. But that Christianity, again, is a stand-in for this culture and this people that, kind of, started this country. And so for them, when they say that we should advocate Christian values, really they're talking about, again, this cultural framework of basically white, native-born, politically, maybe even religiously conservative Americans. And so it doesn't require them to be personally pious in that way. And so, you know, when we look at the years of Trump when he was running for the presidency, and when he was president, we see him as kind of the perfect test of Christian nationalism and the strength of that cultural framework, because he makes really no attempt to be personally religious or pious. Whereas other Republican presidents have utilized the language and rhetoric of Christian nationalism, but then also tried to say that, "Yes, I am personally religious." So one example is George Bush. When he was running for president, first saying that Jesus was his favorite philosopher in a debate, right? So he's talking about his personal faith. Whereas Trump really didn't care to do that. But over and over, Trump would say, "We need to defend Christianity. They're coming after you. We need to defend your culture and this culture. It's so key to being an American is being Christian in this great Christian nation." And so for him and for other Americans who are nonreligious, there are still aspects of Christian nationalism that they find useful and that they buy into and they can be ambassadors for that in that sense. So, I think, that's one way that these things overlap where the majority of ambassadors are religious, but there are Americans who are not religious personally but are still ambassadors of Christian nationalism.   FASKIANOS: So there are a few questions in the chat about ambassadors, so I'm just going to group them and if you can work your way through them: "Ambassadors are 20 percent of the general population, more so than the majority of the subpopulation. Can you talk about the early percent who voted for the Trump side who are the non-Christians who are ambassadors of Christian nationalism? And finally, can you clarify how people of other faiths can be Christian nationalist ambassadors?"   WHITEHEAD: Yes, so I'm not sure if I follow the first question exactly what they're asking for.   FASKIANOS: Yes, I just read it directly. I think he saw in your survey that ambassadors are 20 percent of the general population and that's more than a majority of a subpopulation.   WHITEHEAD: Yes. So it's that last part that I'm not clear on. So I'll try. So 20 percent of the U.S. population, and we find this across a number of different national surveys, not just in one, which makes us, you know, pretty confident in those point estimates. But I guess if we look at different subpopulations—so let's look at religious traditions. So if we're looking at evangelical Protestants, a large number of evangelical Protestants right around 40 percent are ambassadors. So depending on the subpopulation, you can see the number of those people rise and fall depending on whether they embrace Christian nationalism really strongly. But again, with mainline Protestants or Catholics, that number is still higher than the national average, so over 20 percent. And so, across some subpopulations you see those changes. And we demonstrate some of those characteristics throughout one of the chapters in our book and so, I guess, I would turn there, too, just in case I didn't answer the question perfectly this time. And then what was the next one, Irina, I'm sorry?   FASKIANOS: No, that's okay. I threw a lot at you. So the next one was the differentiation between the percentage who voted for Trump that were non-Christians who were ambassadors of Christian nationalism. So in 2016 versus 2020.   WHITEHEAD: Okay, so what it says there?   FASKIANOS: Yes.   WHITEHEAD: Yes. So let's see, we find there were similar numbers. So again, the number of ambassadors who are unaffiliated, if you're looking at the whole population, is rather small. But what we find in 2016 and 2020 that that small number of people overwhelmingly voted for Trump even though they were nonreligious. If they were ambassadors the likelihood they voted for Trump was really high. I forget right now, I'd have to open up the PowerPoint again, but in 2020, I think, it was 70–80 percent of unaffiliated or secular Americans who are ambassadors that voted for Trump. And we find that was true in 2016 as well, and so that was a consistent finding over those two election cycles.   FASKIANOS: Great, and how can people of other faiths be Christian nationalist ambassadors?   WHITEHEAD: Yes, so this is interesting question. And one part—I'm not trying to just punt on the question—but we are limited somewhat by the data at our disposal. So with these national surveys, because other non-Christian faiths are a small slice of the American public, we tend to not pick up as many, right? So they're small in our surveys as well. And so I hate to speak too strongly or beyond the data with a small sample size that we have. But when we pull all them together, we do find similar things that work. Now, with that, what we also have to keep in mind is that there are very different reasons why different non-Christian groups might embrace Christian nationalism. So one group that we find, and this is drawing on data that others have collected out west, but among Latter-day Saints, we do see that they will strongly embrace Christian nationalism, that that is a cultural framework that is definitely present within the Latter-day Saints community. And so for them, I think it does operate very similarly to what we might find in other conservative Christian groups overall. Now, when we look at other religious groups, I think then we would have to turn more towards qualitative interviews or research techniques where for us in our large samples, we just have so few of those people that I hesitate to draw any strong conclusions or make any strong claims over why somebody who might be a non-Christian faith would also embrace Christian nationalism as a whole.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Let's go next to Razi Hashmi. And Razi, can you unmute yourself?   HASHMI: Sure. Can you hear me okay?   FASKIANOS: We can.   HASHMI: Hi there. Thank you, Andrew. Again, my name is Razi Hashmi. I work at the State Department and I'm a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations. I am also with the Office of International Religious Freedom covering South Asia. My question is actually not related to my work, but more of interfaith and interfaith dialogue. So what is the perception that you've, kind of, ascertained from your conversations, whether through your actual survey or just maybe informal conversations with folks on interfaith and intrafaith dialogue? And then how has the broader Christian community or Christian nationalists come to terms with anti-Semitism and Islamophobia that has been pervasive especially amongst Christian nationalist figures, preachers, and pastors? Thank you.   WHITEHEAD: Yes, thank you for the wonderful question. And so I think the first and second part to your question are, at least in my mind, strongly interrelated. So we're talking about interfaith and interfaith dialogue. I think among Americans that embrace Christian nationalism there isn't much and I don't think they really have any interest in doing that to really find areas of compromise or working together. They tend to because Christian nationalism is about creating more of a tribal identity of an "us" versus a "them," and again, at least culturally, Christianity is a key part of that. And so any types of dialogue, I think, run into issues because as we find with Christian nationalism, it really is predicated on power. And they see it as a zero-sum game where for us to have power and be at the center of the culture, we have to ensure that others don't have access to that. And so in many ways, it's anti-democratic, it really has no interest in compromise, because, again, they're locating their desired outcomes in the will of the Christian God. And so they really aren't interested in any sort of give and take. Now, again, Christian nationalism is a spectrum and so Americans that are accommodators might be more open to that. But when we talk to them about, even accommodators or ambassadors, if we talked to them about one example, like praying before a football game, right, they'll say, "Well, of course, the Christian prayers should be there." And they become much more hesitant with any other religious group being a part of that ritual. And so that's one way that it gets lived out, I think, in their minds, as we think of how the, I guess, in one way the rubber meets the road.   Now when we talk about anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, what we find in our book, but then other scholars in the social sciences that are working alongside us on Christian nationalism, we find over and over that, just like you said, there are really high degrees of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia where accommodators, and especially ambassadors, when we talk about or ask about fear or threat towards Muslims, they're much more likely to not only fear them, but feel as though they're physically threatened by Muslims, that there's going to be a physical attack, are much more likely to fear that. And then when we ask about Jews and Jewish Americans, we find that Americans that embrace Christian nationalism are even more likely to fear physical attack or believe that that Jews don't share the same morals and values that they do as  embracing Christian nationalism, which, again, is very interesting when we think about that in terms of the support for Israel that they'll often talk about the nation state. When we talk about actual people, again, that is part and parcel with this. And so, as I mentioned in my short presentation how Christian nationalism is interested in drawing boundaries around who is a true American, what it means to be a true American, those are racialized but then, too, those boundaries are religious as well. So in thinking about any non-Christian group or groups of people they believe are non-Christian, they draw those boundaries that exclude them from, you know, equal participation in civil society and in the culture.   FASKIANOS: Thank you, I'm going to ask Kim Vrudny's question: "What lessons might we derive from Nazi Germany and South Africa under the Christian nationalists? What can be done to interrupt the trajectory toward which all this might be heading?" And Kim is with the University of St. Thomas—Minnesota.   WHITEHEAD: Yes, that's a really good question. And so I would want to say at the outset that I'm not an expert in Nazi Germany or South Africa. And so while I know a lot about Christian nationalism in the U.S., and being able to draw consistent comparisons to those, I hesitate to do that. I think as we're thinking about Christian nationalism in the U.S., I think what's key to understand and to realize is that, perhaps in those other countries, that what seemed to be somewhat benign beliefs like the U.S. as a Christian nation or the federal government should advocate Christian values, realizing and recognizing that strongly adhering to those have real repercussions towards how people view immigrants, or people of their religious faiths, or racial minorities, or gender and sexuality minorities. I think those are key because from what limited I know about, let's say, Nazi Germany or South Africa, religion was again a part of a larger project to draw lines around who we are and what we should all be about. And so as desires for certain groups get legitimated in the sacred, like Christian nationalism saying, "This is God's desire for this country," it really creates a situation where, again, compromise or allowing others to share in power and finding a common path forward become almost impossible. And so to the degree to which that draws similarities to other, you know, regimes and other countries, I think that is a key part of what we see here in the U.S. and that we need to be aware of and not take it lightly were even trying to draw lines around "this is who we are and this is what we've always been about" can be difficult and can have, again, real-world implications to how they imagine what America should be or who a true American is.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to Charles Randall Paul, who typed a question and also raised his hand. So why don't you ask it yourself. If you can unmute yourself and identify yourself.   PAUL: Hi, I'm the president of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy and we work on building trust between religious rivals who remain rivals. The question I ask is related to your research, I don't know if you can help us with it or not, but what is the endgame among most Christian nationalists? Are they believing that the Second Coming will be soon and that the bad guys will all get wiped out and we need to hold firm till then? Or are they proselytizers? Do they believe they can convert people to Christ and save the world that way? In other words are they hunkered down or are they reaching out? Is there a tension between them? What would they say is the endgame for Christian nationalism?   WHITEHEAD: Yes, that is a great question. And I think in some ways we see that when we talk to Americans that embrace Christian nationalism, it becomes, and this maybe unsurprising, becomes a little more muddled where I think even in our own minds it's a little bit of both, where, in some ways, this is highlighting the pre- and postmillennialist kind of histories and trajectories within Christian nationalism where for some that were really strongly advocating this as a Christian nation and should become even more of a Christian nation, they were postmillennial, they were thinking that this was a part of bringing around the Second Coming of Christ, converting people, or bringing the U.S. under the will of Christians and Christianity. But we see another strong strand within Christian nationalism and Americans that embrace it that is premillennial, where they feel as though the culture and everything is essentially heading to hell in a handbasket and we need to maintain our faithfulness, but at that point of time, as we're faithful, we'll be stashed away. We do find among Americans, they tend to espouse more premillennialists views, those that strongly embrace Christian nationalism. So this idea of "We need to be faithful. We need to hunker down, but, you know, Christ's Second Coming will come." But I think within that and you can see this—one example is Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas. He had a book that he published a little while back, Twilight's Last Gleaming, where he essentially makes this case where the U.S. is headed away from what we always should have been. But we still need to maintain our faithfulness, we still need to fight for the culture, we need to be a part of it. But we need to ultimately understand that it's probably a losing battle, and we just need to be faithful within it. And so in that sense, it is a little of both. And so I think the endgame for many Americans is somewhat muddled where they want to be faithful to what they see is the dictates of the Christian faith but also try to influence and stave off the U.S. moving in this direction for as long as possible because for them the fear is that's when God will turn His back on the U.S. and then it will be really a difficult country to live in and one that nobody wants to be in. So in that sense, there's a lot going on and interwoven, but I think that is a lot of how many Americans, at least, tend to see those relationships   FASKIANOS: Okay. I might have frozen. I've been having trouble with my internet connection. So I'm going to go next to Shaik Ubaid who has his hand raised in the queue? And if you can unmute yourself.     UBAID: Thank you so much for taking my question. You know that the numbers are, even though I have been involved in, you know, in human rights work and monitoring the rise of extremism, the numbers are almost intimidating. But the good thing is they are declining. I think one of the reasons is that, except for the new analogy like white supremacist, the other group such as the evangelicals have been accorded recognition and they will not, you know, look down upon. So how we describe them is very important so that people are aware. For example, Christian nationalist. Christian is a good term; nationalist is also maybe a good term because Gandhi was a Hindu nationalist but he is completely different than the Hindu supremacist who killed him and are now ruling India. And we support the same things that we are seeing here in America. So calling them as ambassadors, whereas the other word for people who are resisting them is rejecters, which is a negative term, so I'm talking about the semantics of this bringing this to attention. And my question is, supporters from other groups, especially among the immigrants, isn't the common theme, Islamophobia, for example, the Hindu supremacist, or the settlers from Israel, or the Burmese Buddhists involved in the genocide, the extremists among them, they all support Trump even though in their own countries they are persecuting Christians. So that's a fascinating point that I have been noticing for a long time. So did you come across this pack in your interviews of people who belong to other faiths and who are supporting Christian nationalists?   WHITEHEAD: Yes, it's a great question. I think one of the things that we wish we could have done was spend more time among different racial ethnic groups interviewing a broader cross-section of people within those different groups to see how Christian nationalism functions. I think that's one area in our research that we're starting to unpack now in more peer-reviewed outlets that we hope to other social scientists will really push into because we do find evidence that Christian nationalism will operate similarly among different racial ethnic groups or even immigrants, as you point out, in white Americans. And then on other issues, they work completely in opposite directions. Christian nationalism doesn't operate the same way for white Americans as racial ethnic minorities or immigrant groups. So I think being able to really be able to draw out those differences is a key aspect that we're exploring now and that we don't do much in the book. But yes, I think when we look at support for Trump, there were immigrant communities, that was one of the surprising parts, was among different, even within Hispanic communities, even within that grouping, very different trajectories for who would support Trump and then who didn't and the reasons why, which I think will be of importance going forward and more work is starting to really look into that.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. So I'm going to go next to Reverend Jonathan Barton, who is a retired general minister of the Virginia Council of Churches. He asks, "Is there a relationship between Christian Zionism and Christian nationalism?"   WHITEHEAD: Yes, I think there is a relationship, I think historically, so there are a number of books that are helpful with this. Julie Ingersoll, she's looking at Christian reconstructionism and this idea of dominionism and Christian nationalism. And then when we're thinking about Zionism, I think there are relationships overall. We see some of those play out. Now, in our book, again, of a broad cross-section of American society, for many Americans this idea of Christian Zionism there are relatively few of them and so it doesn't get drawn out in those large surveys. But there is a common refrain, like pastor Robert Jeffress at First Baptist, kind of a noted Christian nationalist pastor, who also is strongly supportive of Israel and that's a common refrain among white evangelical Protestants but to especially Christian nationalists, that having America be on the right side as they see it, of Israel or being alongside Israel, is key to keeping America on God's good side. And so those definitely overlap. Now among kind of rank-and-file Americans how strongly those things are coupled could be very different, but for the most part you do see those connections.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to go next to Anuttama Dasa who says, "You describe the problem is a sense of loss and central to American culture. My question is what is the way out? The country is more diverse racially, religiously, culturally, and that will continue. How will this group become pacified and feel their interests and identity are not under attack, especially in this age of divisive media that further emboldens their fears and views?"   WHITEHEAD: Yes, I think that last part is the key part, that there's so many—it's such a multifaceted issue where the media landscape and the diversification of information sources that they can go to and in many ways people are self-selecting into those, that are feeding into a fear narrative, I think trying to change or  shut those down is obviously a Herculean task. But beyond that, I don't know that for Americans that strongly embrace Christian nationalism, if there really is anything that's going to make them truly feel as though there is nothing to worry about because, again, their networks of people they're with and congregations they are a part of that, especially where they're getting their information, for the most part will continue to feed into that narrative. And so, if their networks, not like TV networks, but their interpersonal networks changed, that could be one thing. But I think right now, the key is understanding that Christian nationalism is predicated on power, and again, trying to maintain privileged access and control to power in the levers of power. And so it will respond to power. And so I think being aware of that and understanding that it may not be a person-to-person trying to turn people away that's going to ultimately help change things but that it's recognizing that only through protecting democracy and the sharing of power and compromise and ensuring that minority groups of all different types are protected, really is going to be the only way. And then hopefully as time goes on maybe making inroads culturally, but I guess I'm cynical of any plan, and not that you are suggesting that, but any plan that thinks there's going to be broad-scale changes in people's attitudes and that will then lead us forward, I think that is too rosy an outlook. These are cultural frameworks that are central to how they see themselves as an American. And so those that are interested in a society with fair and free elections and protecting minorities of all different types, I think, then it's just about ensuring that the levers of power are not just in the hands of those that want to just protect their tribal in-group, if that makes sense.   FASKIANOS: So, there's a question in the Q&A box that got three thumbs up, so I'm going to ask it because people want to know about this. From John Thatamanil, excuse my mispronunciation of your name, with the Union Theological Seminary. He is still thinking about your asterisk on the word Christian. "What, if any, are the doctrinal theological convictions of these Christians? Your remarks suggests there's very little actual Christian content." Is he understanding you correctly? And if so what work does the category Christian do? So boiled down, what's Christian about Christian nationalism?   WHITEHEAD: Yes, that's a great question. And I think one thing that we don't want to do is create a thing where Americans that embrace Christian nationalism, those that disagree with it can then be like, "Well, those aren't real Christians," right? We don't want to do that. It's kind of a no true Scotsman fallacy, where if they embrace Christian nationalism, then they were never a true Christian. We want to be clear that these are church-going, Bible-believing, Jesus is the Son of God they'll hold Orthodox Christian beliefs. But with that comes with all of these, again, cultural assumptions that are really rooted in our history as a nation, especially with, for example, race. So those come as a part of and are kind of added on to this understanding of some Orthodox Christian beliefs. And so, if we were to ask them, again, a list of what maybe many people would say are Orthodox Christian beliefs, they would assent to many of those. It isn't as though they don't believe those—they do. It's just they believe, too, as a part of living out their faith, this is what it means to be a faithful Christian is to vote one way with one party and law and order,  all these things that are coded and have been coded in our culture for different policy beliefs or to basically serve the interests of one group and keeping one group in power and that's been added on to it. And so, I think being aware of that is key and really being a part of, and we see some of this happening now, Christians within, let's say, white evangelical Protestantism, trying to really wrestle with how Christian nationalism can lead to outcomes that they believe are antithetical to the gospel and trying to understand why that is and why that's important. And so I think the work that we're trying to do is, is to really lay out clearly, Christian nationalism leads to these ends. Now, whether you think that is Christianity or not, we don't necessarily delve into as much. We leave that to theologians,  as you all are at union, to really be able to make that case. But I think what is clear is that Christian nationalism and adhering to this cultural package tends to make Americans draw much sharper boundaries around who is the “us” or who we are that are racialized and lead to fear of other groups that for some, as they look at the Gospels or Jesus' teachings, believe that they don't align with what Jesus taught. And so, I think, then that work we leave to others. But I think the evidence is clear that more of the kind of prosocial, loving your enemies, loving your neighbors, that type of thing, can look very different in many ways doesn't align with what, you know, some orthodox or historic Christian beliefs are.   FASKIANOS: Elias Mallon of Catholic Near East Welfare Association asks, "Racism and anti-Semitism share a great deal in common, yet I feel there's significant differences, which need to be taken into account. There seems to be something deeply American to anti-Black racism. How do you think the two are related yet different?"   WHITEHEAD: Yes, that is a big question and one that, again, I wouldn't say that I'm an expert on in really being able to distinguish similarities and differences at a deep level. I think, a part of that history that we see in one great book, the name is escaping me now, is Kelly Baker. She wrote a book on basically in the 1920s the Klan in the U.S. She actually had interview in the New York Times, I think, yesterday so you could go and find it with Elizabeth Dias. But she's writing, and we know that in the history with the KKK, there were distinct anti-Semitic and obviously anti-Black narratives that were a part of how they saw the world. And so the close relationships of those, I think, are clear. Now how exactly those are different or play out differently, I'm not an expert in that area so I wouldn't want to hazard a guess. But I think the fact that they are so closely related and for many are a part and parcel of what really Christian and white supremacy through the decades and through the centuries in the U.S. has been a part of that we need to attend to it and be aware of that, like at the Capitol insurrection, you're going to see the Confederate flag, you're going to see sweatshirts, I think, it was like a "Camp Auschwitz" or something like that. I mean, a very anti-Semitic—especially you're going to see all those things together. And this is something that, you know, at the extreme levels is, you know, they're drawing together.   FASKIANOS: I'm going to go to Tom Walsh, he has his hand raised. If you can unmute yourself.   WALSH: Thank you, Irina. And thank you, Professor Whitehead. Excellent discussion and great, great topic. I mean, there's so many thoughts going on in my head, but I guess one of the thoughts is, the previous person asked what is the Christian aspect of Christian nationalism. The other is nationalism itself is a kind of generic term. And it's not just an -ism in the sense of something that leans toward, let's say, fascism at one extreme but that it's commonplace. That somehow there's a sense in which every nation state needs some degree of nationalism, if we think of it as the solidarity of the citizens. And then you get faith people who probably all apply their faith background to that project in some way. So there's Christian nationalism, you can say the social gospel movement of Walter Rauschenbusch or Washington Gladden, was a kind of nationalism but of a different sort, for sure. So I guess it's a little bit that's, you know, kind of a typology of nationalisms from, you know, there was a major article in the Wall Street Journal on the weekend in that review section about Catholic social thought. Could Catholic social thought under the Biden administration kind of bring America together? So we're living in this post-secular environment where all the religions are trying to fill a gap or a vacuum that has been emptied out with perhaps an overreaching secularism. So these are just thoughts. So I really appreciate your presentation and maybe would ask you about that. Isn't this going to continue because we do need to find the foundation or basis for solidarity. We can say it's the Constitution. We have constitutional nationalism, but it's very rational and kind of unfeeling. And so people do want to bring their entire being into their life in the world and if they're Buddhist, or Muslim, or Christian, or Jew, there's aspects of that that fit in. And it's not all pathological, I guess is my point. Anyway, thanks, again. Great program and great presentation.   WHITEHEAD: Yes, thank you. I think, too some of what I hear in your thoughts is this distinction between civil religion and Christian nationalism and the fact that with civil religion it's kind of drawing on this shared heritage or idea that there are things that we come around as Americans that are important to us that might highlight Providence or God in some sense, but really tries to highlight where we're more similar than might be different. Whereas Christian nationalism tends to be much more tribal of “us” against “them,” rather than trying to draw us together. And two, I think, a part of what I hear there is, you know, a distinction between patriotism and nationalism, where patriotism is love of fellow country, men and women, whereas nationalism is trying to ensure that our nation is at the top at the expense of other nations. So I think those are key aspects and a part of as we try to understand civil society and how it operates that, yes, I think there are different strains but we might be able to label them somewhat differently, and they definitely have different outcomes and what that means for a pluralistic democratic society.   WALSH: Thank you.   FASKIANOS: Andrew, one last question from Jason Morton, who is at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom: "Did any of your questions have a foreign policy component? Did explore whether Christian nationalists are more isolationist? And is there any correlation between Christian nationalism and opinions about foreign aid?"   WHITEHEAD: Yes, that is a great question. I would say that for most of our book and our research thus far is looking at really domestic issues. We do ask about militarism,  it might be the "war on terror" or wars in different parts of the world. I think that touches a little bit on some of your concerns where Christian nationalists or Americans that embrace Christian nationalism tend to be much more militaristic, and again, trying to enforce, in some way, what they see as American ideals elsewhere and ensuring that we are dominant in that sense. And as far as foreign aid, I'd have to go back but recent data we've collected, too, asks about kind of fears of globalism or other economic systems. And in Christian nationalism, they're afraid of things that they view, again, as un-American. So capitalism is excellent. Anything else or any sort of interaction with the global community they tend to be much more afraid of. And so that's a really broad question, but I think that would probably if we asked a lot more follow-up questions we would draw out how those things would connect to some of those foreign policy issues.   FASKIANOS: Fantastic. Well, that should be the questions that you incorporate for your next survey that you do, so you can come back and report on it. And we actually have to have you back because we had over, I still have about thirty-five questions in the chat and hands up, and I apologize to all of you for not being able to get to you because we'd love to hear from each and every one of you, of course. But we're respectful of everybody's time and so we do need to end, but thank you, Andrew Whitehead, for your insights today and to all of you for your great questions and comments. We encourage you to follow up Andrew Whitehead's work by following him on twitter @ndrewwhitehead. We also encourage you to follow CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program on Twitter @CFR_Religion as well as reach out to us. Send us an email with ideas for topics and speakers you would like us to cover in future webinars. You can email [email protected]. So again, thank you all for today's discussion. And Andrew, really thank you for your invaluable research. It really is insightful, especially in what we've seen this past month.   WHITEHEAD: Yes, thank you so much for having me. It was really wonderful.   FASKIANOS: Thank you.    

J. Nadine Gracia, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Trust for America’s Health, and Jennifer Nuzzo, senior fellow for global health at CFR, discuss the COVID-19 vaccine and ensuring it is equitably distributed throughout the United States.  Learn more about CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations Social Justice and Foreign Policy webinar series hosted by the Religion and Foreign Policy Program. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president for the National Program and Outreach at CFR. As a reminder, today's webinar is on the record and the audio, video, and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org, and on our iTunes podcast channel, Religion and Foreign Policy. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have Dr. J. Nadine Gracia and Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo with us to discuss COVID-19 and domestic equity. I've shared their bios with you so I'll just give you a few highlights.   Dr. J. Nadine Gracia is executive vice president and chief operating officer at Trust for America's Health, where she works to develop and implement strategic policy priorities and manages their core business functions and internal operations. Prior to joining Trust for America's Health, she served in the Obama administration as deputy assistant secretary for minority health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There she directed departmental policies and programs to end health disparities and advance health equity and provided executive leadership on administration priorities, including health reform and criminal justice reform. She also led the Federal Office of Minority Health where she pioneered innovative multisector partnerships in the public and private spheres. She also served as chief medical officer in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.   Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. She's also a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering and the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. An epidemiologist by training, Dr. Nuzzo's work includes global health security with a focus on pandemic preparedness, outbreak detection and response, health systems as it relates to global health security, and infectious disease diagnostics. She directs the Outbreak Observatory, which, in partnership with frontline public health practitioners, conducts operational research to improve outbreak preparedness and response. And she's also the lead epidemiologist for the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Testing Insights Initiative housed within the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. So thank you both for being with us.   Dr. Nuzzo, I think I'll start with you to give us a brief overview of where the vaccines stand for COVID-19 production, logistics, and the timeline for getting the country vaccinated as we now have a new administration—very nascent, under a week old—and what you see coming down the pike.   NUZZO: Sure, thanks so much and I'm really happy to talk about this issue. I know there a lot of questions about it, everybody sort of wondering where they are in line and whether they should take it. So just to offer my perspectives on the issue both as an epidemiologist, so sort of understanding what the value case of using vaccine in this context is, as well as someone who has been working on the field of pandemic preparedness and seeing, if we are to get ready for pandemics, what tools do we need. It's almost always the case that thinking about having a vaccine in hand becomes a game changer. So I'm oriented to the use of vaccine through that lens, which is that it's an incredibly important tool. And I am so very happy that we are lucky enough to have options to vaccinate now.   I get a lot of questions about the vaccine and often these questions are laced with concern in part because of perceptions that these vaccines have been developed in what seems to be an unprecedentedly quick time, a short period of time. And it's partially true. But I think what we have failed to acknowledge is that people have been working to develop coronavirus vaccines since the first SARS virus was identified in 2003. So, in recognizing that we had a new coronavirus that's circulating, another SARS virus, SARS-CoV-2, this virus is called, scientists didn't start from scratch. They built on the, close to, gosh, almost twenty years' worth of research that had been done before. There's a reason why we didn't have a coronavirus vaccine before now and in part that the way vaccines are developed, that the early stage research is often funded by government and it may be done through the NIH or through academic groups. They get the vaccine to a point and then inevitably it has to be sort of turned over to a company to do the very expensive and usually time-consuming clinical trials that will allow a vaccine candidate to be developed into an authorized or licensed vaccine that can be used in people. With the other coronaviruses, it's not just the 2003 one, but there was a later one that was associated with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome a few years ago, there was never a market for those vaccines. The first virus, SARS, disappeared and MERS was never really one that was contagious between people in a sustained way. And so the idea of turning over a vaccine candidate to advance clinical trials just didn't make business sense for companies that would normally take up that take up that work. So I just want to acknowledge all of the scientific progress that's been made to date.   But in the context of the vaccines that we have now, it is true, from isolation of a new virus to the availability of authorized vaccines in under a year, that is a fast time. And there's two reasons for that speed. The one is the vaccine technology that's being used. So the vaccines that we are currently inoculating people with here in the United States are based on a new technology called mRNA vaccines. And basically what it is, is a genetic code that gets injected in your body that can use that information to make a protein that it will present on some of the surface of your cells, your immune system sees that protein, learns to recognize it, goes after it, attacks those cells, and in the process gets trained to recognize that protein the next time it should invade your body. That protein is what the SARS virus, SARS-CoV-2 virus, uses to infect yourselves. So we've never used an mRNA vaccine like this. The advantage to this approach is that you can develop a candidate in really a matter of days. So that's a shorter period of time, because once you figure out what the genetic code is for that protein then you know how you're going to make your virus. What then takes time, and this is true of all vaccines, is to do the rigorous clinical trials that can establish that the vaccine candidate is both safe and effective. And there we have had an unfortunate benefit of speed, in the sense that the reason why we were able to go through the same rigorous clinical trials and get to a authorized vaccine more quickly than we would for other vaccines, is unfortunately because so many people have gotten infected with this virus that we were able to achieve statistical significance in the clinical trials more quickly than with other diseases where you have to wait a long time to accumulate enough people in your placebo group who get infected. So it's an unfortunate benefit of the pandemic that has really gotten to we're looking at almost a hundred million global cases being reported either today or tomorrow. But that has enabled us to get to the point of the vaccines being available.   Now, of course, comes the hard part. And unfortunately, while there has been a lot of effort that has gone on to the science and to assure that the vaccine is safe and effective, in my view much less effort has been put into figuring out how we were going to distribute this vaccine in a way that's both fast, because the sooner we get it into arms the faster we protect people, particularly seeing that the increased transmission of the virus in recent months, but also with respect to our knowledge of who is most at risk, both in terms of exposure and in terms of severe outcomes like hospitalizations and deaths. And one thing that's been abundantly clear since pretty much the start of this pandemic is that we don't all share those risks equally. And so in vaccinating, we must be mindful of the disparities that exist and make sure that we don't leave behind the communities who have been disproportionately affected by the virus.   So the Biden administration has set a goal of doing a hundred million vaccinations in a hundred days, which amounts to about a million vaccinations a day. We're averaging about that now. I think in the coming weeks there'll probably be some questions about the availability of vaccines that could affect our continued progress on that front. But other vaccines are in development and may help alleviate some of the supply bottlenecks that are currently being experienced. Now I think the hard work is figuring out how we administer these vaccines, both with an eye towards speed because we don't want this virus to continue to circulate and outpace efforts to vaccinate people, we want to be able to protect as many lives as possible by using the vaccine, but we also don't want to administer vaccines in a way that further entrenches the disparities that we've seen. And unfortunately some of the anecdotal reports is showing that the coverage of vaccine has not been achieving those equity goals. So there's just a report today that African Americans are underrepresented in those who have been vaccinated to date. It's both a function of access issues and the challenge of trying to vaccinate people quickly. There also mistrust issues that similarly need to be addressed. And it's also the fact that most states aren't even tracking their vaccination progress with respect to these equity goals. And so that will be, I think, a challenge in the weeks and months ahead is to make sure we're making sufficient progress while not leaving communities behind.   FASKIANOS: Thank you, that's a perfect segue now to Dr. Gracia to talk about your work addressing health disparities and what you feel needs to happen in order to ensure that the COVID-19 vaccines are distributed equitably and we're not leaving those populations behind.   GRACIA: Thank you very much and good afternoon, everyone. It's really a pleasure to join in this conversation today. I'm really honored to be here and, in particular, in the context of religion and social justice and knowing how much you as religious leaders and those of you of faith and civic institutions are so vital in the efforts to advance equity in the COVID-19 pandemic, not only in the response but also in the recovery. And we are certainly sitting here at a time in the United States where we have more than twenty-five million cases of COVID-19 and more than 420,000 lives lost and always remembering that these are individuals and not statistics, and that there are countless family members and friends and neighbors who mourn their passing. And as we're talking about here, the pandemic has exposed and it's exacerbating our deeply-rooted structural and systemic inequities, which continue to challenge us. And these disparities we know existed long before the COVID-19 pandemic. And while disparities show themselves during so-called normal times, they're certainly exacerbated during emergencies. And we see these not solely in health, per se, but we see these in the structural drivers of health that lead to what we see as differential power and resources in communities, such as unequal social and economic and environmental conditions, whether it's substandard or lack of access to affordable housing to lack of good jobs, to less access to healthy food grocers to less availability of health care services and poor quality schools, as well as greater exposure to pollution. And we often in public health will frame this as the social determinants of health, which have such a significant influence on health and how this is unfolded before our eyes. We're seeing how these conditions have put certain communities at greater risk of exposure, of illness, of hospitalization, and of death from COVID-19. And much of that inequity really has spanned generations resulting from poverty, from discrimination, structural racism, and disinvestment in far too many communities.   And when we think about the definition of health equity, that it's a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible, we must really then center equity in our efforts as it relates to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and now this opportunity that we have through the COVID-19 vaccine. But what we're seeing, certainly, as Dr. Nuzzo discussed, we see that Black and Latino, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities are experiencing disproportionately higher rates of cases and hospitalizations and deaths, that Asian-American communities are facing rising rates of discrimination and prejudice, that their historically underserved communities such as low-income populations in rural communities, as well as certain immigrant communities that are encountering really significant challenges and barriers to accessing services. And that groups that typically have been largely marginalized, whether that's individuals who are homeless or who are in correctional facilities, are experiencing really concerning outbreaks and many others. And these are just some of the many stark realities that we're facing. And we know that these are not just disproportionate health impacts, but that there's also certainly the economic impacts that was alluded to as well.   But when it comes to the moment that we're in, it's really, I think, both complex but a critically important task of COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration and ensuring that that distribution and uptake are equitable, for this is really an effort unlike any that we've undertaken as a nation. But we should bear in mind that as we embark in this, the vaccinations and barriers to vaccinations have long existed, for example, among people of color both in terms of the challenges in access to, as well as, as was noted earlier, some of the issues with regards to mistrust in government and health system, which is rooted in historic maltreatment through today where there's ongoing present-day racism and discrimination. And as you heard just last week, actually, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report showing that people of color, in particular, Black and Latino communities, are seeing lower rates of vaccination. And so it really raises the concerns about access to the vaccine as well as ensuring that there is outreach and education to address questions and concerns that communities have.   So our organization, Trust for America's Health, we are a public health policy, advocacy, and research organization in Washington, DC, and just last month we released, in partnership with the National Medical Association and UnidosUS, a report on earning and building trust in access to COVID-19 vaccine in communities of color and tribal nations where we focused on recommendations for policymakers to address access to the COVID-19 vaccine in a safe and equitable way. We had over forty groups and organizations that participated in a convening in which we got their feedback to talk about how do we prioritize equity in particular as a vaccine distribution and administration began. And there were some key recommendations that we outline in this report. One, as Dr. Nuzzo described, and she did it really well, to explain the process of vaccine development, because that's really important to ensure that communities understand the process, that there's transparency and an understanding how safety has been a priority in the vaccine development process. That, two, you're equipping trusted community organizations and networks within communities of color and tribal nations to participate through the spectrum—from the planning, to the education and delivery, and administration of vaccinations—and ensuring that there's meaningful engagement of those trusted entities, including faith-based organizations, faith leaders, religious leaders, to have a seat at the table and really be involved in that planning. And not only that but ensuring that they have the resources and tools to do so. Thirdly, we talked about providing communities with the information that they need to make informed decisions and to deliver messages through trusted messengers and pathways. And importantly, we should recognize that all communities and families want to be healthy, they want to keep their families healthy and safe, but need access to information that is culturally and linguistically appropriate, that provides them with the services that they need. And so importantly as we turn to trusted messengers, it's also ensuring that there's funding that's going to those community and faith-based organizations to be able to do this work, to be able to do the outreach that's needed. Fourth, we recommend that we ensure that it's as easy as possible for people to be vaccinated and that vaccines actually are delivered in community settings that are trusted, that are safe, and accessible. And the challenge can be having vaccination sites. If they're not accessible to communities, especially those that are disproportionately impacted, then you're not going to see the vaccination rates that you're hoping to see. And so ensuring that, in partnership from the federal to state to local, tribal and territorial levels, working within communities, that those types of vaccination sites are truly accessible and trusted in communities. We also have a recommendation on ensuring that there is complete coverage of the costs that are associated with vaccines that are incurred by individuals as well as the administration costs that providers have with regard to vaccinations, because cost really cannot be a barrier with regards to vaccination efforts. And lastly, it's that we ensure that there is funding and the resources to actually have data that are disaggregated. As you heard, there are a handful of states in which we have the data that are showing, by race and ethnicity and other factors, who was actually being vaccinated. But we need to do much more to be able to actually have access to that data. And that's been a long-standing challenge in public health and the surveillance systems and really shoring up the system to be able to do so. Because that will then help us to know which communities are not being reached, where we need to target our efforts, and ensuring that they have access to the vaccine.   What's clear through this crisis is that we really can't succeed to getting to the other side of it without caring for everyone and prioritizing equity. And that includes in the COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration. And with some of the more recent COVID-19 relief bills that were passed in December, there's more funding now getting to states and localities. That's going to take time with regards to the distribution and administration, and so really working in partnership to ensure that communities are being reached as it relates to having access to those resources for vaccinations. And as was alluded to with the Biden-Harris administration, that with this new administration and the priority on not only COVID-19, but on prioritizing and centering equity, there really is opportunity here to ensure that we can have equity in the COVID-19 pandemic response moving forward and in the recovery as well. And we all certainly have a role to play. And certainly you as religious leaders, your voice and engagement are so essential. So I look forward to the conversation that we'll have this afternoon on how we can further really address some of the inequities that we see and how we work to advance equity not only for COVID-19, but for the health and well-being and economic vitality of our nation moving forward.   FASKIANOS: Thank you very much. Let's go now to all of you for your questions. You can click on the "raise hand" at the bottom of your screen. If you're on a tablet, you can click on the "more" button and raise your hand there. And you can also type your question in the Q&A. And the first question comes from Bishop John Chane, and he was formerly with the Washington National Cathedral: "Given the mutation of COVID-19, why are the variants in Great Britain, Brazil, and South Africa different from the original COVID-19? And what are the elements in these countries that make these variants so different? And why in some cases, more lethal and more virulent?" And I would just add to that it's obviously here in the United States. We've seen it's now circulating here in the U.S. So Jennifer, do you want to start?   NUZZO: Sure, so all viruses mutate and this virus has, previously, pretty much since as soon as it was identified. But the mutations haven't really got the level of attention until now, in part, because they didn't really change much. I will call it for simply because the scientific name is so impossible, a string of numbers, it's really terrible, but this is unfortunate, I'm going to say the “UK strain” really got global attention because of an observation that it seemed to be producing more secondary infections than the previously circulating strains or the previously dominantly circulating strains. There is some question as to whether the virus is also more lethal though. I think that data aren't clear on that at this point. But anyway, the idea that the virus potentially could grow cases more quickly just because with each infected person they may have a viral load, we don't fully understand the mechanism, may affect more people than an average person who was infected with the virus that didn't have that mutation. That is obviously worrisome, because if the epidemic accelerates even further that obviously makes control much harder. I think the bottom line right now, just the public health takeaway, is what the discovery of these variants very much underscores is the need to act with urgency, but it doesn't, at this point, change what we need to do. So the more people who get infected with the virus, variants or not, the more opportunities there are for mutations, the more possibilities that these mutations could produce functional differences like either in transmission ability or in severity or potentially the ability to evade vaccines or medical countermeasures. We don't have data get to suggest that as a problem right now fully. There is a little bit of concern from the variance from South Africa that they may produce a different immune response. But so far there's still confidence that the vaccines will work. But it just raises the possibility that maybe perhaps one day we will be dealing with viruses that are harder to control with the tools that we have. So the takeaway is that these things add urgency.   One challenge in all of this is that not all countries are looking for genetic mutations. And the ones that do, we don't all do them at the same frequency. So the UK and South Africa are two countries that have done some of the most sequencing in the world. And they are unfortunate to have found these variants and reported them because now countries have responded with travel restrictions and all sorts of penalties that sort of hurts the messenger. The United States, for having the largest epidemic in the world, we have only a sequence of very, very small, like tens of thousands of our cases versus the twenty-five million that we've had. So that's just to say that our understanding of what variants are out there and where they are and where they aren't, in my view, is very much flawed based on completely inadequate surveillance. That said, what we've discovered so far suggests that we need to get serious about controlling COVID, pursue the vaccination efforts while we can, but also we can't give up on our public health efforts. And we must double down with urgency because again, the goal is to protect people with vaccine and not to let the virus outpace those efforts.   FASKIANOS: Jennifer, are we ramping up our sequencing here in the U.S.?   NUZZO: I do believe we're doing more sequencing than we were doing, but I think it's a marginal difference from where we were before.   FASKIANOS: Okay, I'm going to go next to David Greenhaw. And please unmute yourself. David, are you? Good. You just need—there you go. Please identify who you are.   GREENHAW: Yes, I'm David Greenhaw, president emeritus of Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ. I watched and participated in a parallel event we did a week or two ago on global equity, and I've been thinking about the generosity that people have. And if we could engage their generosity, that is, they're not simply serving their self-interest by getting a vaccine, but by getting a vaccine they're actually trying to save another life. And it occurred to me given the need for financial support globally, has there been or could there be something like a March of Dimes where people would be called to save a life by "get a vaccine, give a vaccine," so they'd be encouraged to give five to ten dollars, whatever the global support rate is and do that. Do you know of such efforts and do you have any thoughts about the efficacy?   FASKIANOS: Dr. Gracia?   GRACIA: Thank you, David, for that question. And I am not familiar with specific efforts related to that, but there's messaging that you share that there are quite a few efforts as it relates to how to message the importance of the vaccination and groups that are really engaged, both from the public sector with regards to the federal and state and local public health agencies, but also in the private sector that are really working in, one, doing surveys to identify what messaging seems to be most effective in helping to inform communities about the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine as well as to address concerns that may arise as it relates to the COVID-19 vaccine and importantly to understand that communities are not monolithic. That even in speaking of communities of color or even in speaking of, for example, the Latino community or the Black community that there is heterogeneity across communities and understanding what messages may really resonate and help inform communities to make the decisions with regards to vaccinations. And again, as I pointed out to understanding that individuals and families want to keep their families safe. And there was recently, from the de Beaumont Foundation, a survey that they conducted and some information that they shared and tips with regards to messaging as it relates to the vaccination efforts. And one is really importantly to describe the benefits of vaccination and not solely focused on or emphasize the consequences of not getting vaccinated. And so your point where you talked about that by you yourself getting vaccinated, that you can then help to protect others and encourage others is one of the messages with regards to saying, for example, that the benefit is that it's an important way to protect you and your family from COVID-19 and sharing that message. And then also, certainly not being judgmental as it relates to if individuals have concerns about the vaccines and listening and trying to understand when those concerns aren't being able to address those. So there are those efforts underway. The Ad Council is partnering with the COVID Collaborative, it has been doing work with regards to a public messaging campaign. The Biden administration is also planning, with regards to doing a national campaign as well. But let's also remember how important local trusted leaders are and trusted messengers are, especially as we think about advancing equity where local health-care providers, community health workers, community and faith-based organizations are so critical because they're seen as trusted messengers to really be able to answer questions and also to be able to connect families and communities to access to the vaccine.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. Somebody wrote in the Q&A, anonymously, that also, I think, that Group Luke 10 may be contemplating something like this. The group is collecting funds to help supply PPE to the suffering people of Iraq. And Moms For Peace may be a good place to check. So David, you can look there. I'm going to do a follow on question from Lawrence Whitney at Boston University. Lawrence, do you want to unmute or do you want me to read your question? I'm going to put you on the spot. Why don't you unmute?   WHITNEY: Sure, happy to ask the question. So the NIH recruited a group of religious leaders to in turn recruit a more diverse cohort of vaccine trial participants. So I'm wondering if you're aware of any similar program underway to specifically leverage religious leaders in addressing issues of equity in the distribution phase? And if so, do we have evidence that this strategy is effective?   FASKIANOS: Nadine?   GRACIA: So, I would say, one, there have been examples of states, for example, in execution of their distribution plans. There is variation across the states with reference to the distribution plans and where they've discussed and how they've prioritized equity. But there are states, for example, like Massachusetts, that has really invested in and providing grants both to faith-based organizations as well as community-based organizations to help with regards to outreach and education, messaging, and access to services as it relates to COVID-19. There are other examples of states where they've actually had a faith community liaison that is part of the task forces that are created with regards to the health equity task forces in the states to be able to, again, identify strategies and ways to bring together the various trusted messengers to not only provide them with the education of how to do this and become messengers and communities, but to help identify where those resources are needed in various communities. This is something that is not unique, I would say, to COVID-19. As we noted earlier, when I served in the Obama administration and led the Office of Minority Health, we did this effort as well as it related to the Affordable Care Act and outreach for the Affordable Care Act in working very closely with faith leaders, whether it was to help host town halls, to utilize their places of worship as places where you could actually sign up to get access to healthcare, to health insurance coverage. Similarly with other types of outbreaks such as Ebola and Zika. Similarly connecting with faith leaders and finding that was an important vehicle, again, because of the trust as well as the long established relationships and networks that leaders have in communities.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. I'm going to Rob Radtke next.   RADTKE: Thank you, Irina. I'm Rob Radtke with Episcopal Relief and Development. What consideration is being given to making vaccine distribution more patient-centered? My experience is that accessing vaccines, even for priority and vulnerable populations is extremely difficult. It requires access to computers, high levels of literacy, access to transportation often, and essentially, very, very high levels of personal motivation. And it feels like this has been very top-down. And if we really want to reach vulnerable people, and high priority populations, we kind of have to, my sense is that it needs to be rethought. And I'm wondering where or if that's happening?   FASKIANOS: Jennifer, do you want to start and then we'll go to Nadine?   NUZZO: Sure, just some high-level observations, which is, first of all, this is, I mean, what you're seeing right now is the start of a process that, in my view, should have been started a long time ago. But states have been begging for help and resources for a very long time and very only recently got money to help them start these plans, which I really think was a shortcoming in our rollout of these vaccines. But you're going to see the tension here where there is a need for speed and states are, every day they're being asked by the press how many of your vaccines have you given out versus doing the exacting work of achieving coverage in your highest priority groups. Trying to find those people, trying to meet them where they are, access them, etcetera. The first vaccination in many states focused initially on health-care workers. And so that was a captive audience, a captive population that was within health facilities that could be reached and scheduled. And even that failed to capture, say, staff that weren't on the email systems. So it's really difficult work that's being done.   I'll tell you, a friend of mine, I won't say where she works, but she works in a major city that was trying to schedule vaccination clinics. And they found out that one of their invite signup lists sort of went viral. And when they saw who signed up and the zip codes that the people were coming from and saw the zip codes that were completely not represented in those signups, probably reflecting who is more easily able to get on the computer and schedule and pass the word around, they actually cancelled the clinic and decided they need to start over again to figure out how they can make sure they're also reaching their hard-hit communities. So I think some of it is being worked on now. I think some of the approaches where it's been talked about, for instance, taking advantage of federally qualified health centers, I think we're going to have to go on multiple paths here where we are considering opening up more broadly and do more of these mass vaccination efforts in stadiums, but recognize we cannot only use those approaches because those will leave communities and people behind and that we need other options. And the extent to which the community can also self-organize, and I see those of you attending this webinar as particularly well suited to advocate for the communities that you serve, and to say people need help getting to their appointment and sort of volunteer to organize. I don't think there's a lack of interest. There's just a lack of view and a lack of time and a lack of bandwidth. And I think this is a moment in our history where everyone has to kind of roll their sleeves up and if you have a skill that you can bring to try your best to bring it to the table and help.   GRACIA: I would echo, yes, I'd echo several points that Dr. Nuzzo just mentioned, which is  bringing the vaccination to the community and recognizing that we are at the beginnings and not only where states and localities are just now starting to receive these dollars in funding. At our organization we had long called for the need for planning but needing resources to do that planning and preparation for the distribution and administration. But it's also recognizing that in particular with the public health system, the public health system has long been underfunded. They're at where there's now shortages with regards to the workforce and stretched, stretched for several months in responding to this pandemic. And so the need for the partnerships that you're discussing really are so critically important. And it will require expanding, for example, where vaccinations can be given. So whether that's in federally qualified community health centers or other community health centers in rural health centers, but also having the opportunity for mobile clinics that can go to communities and other types of community centers where they also have trust to be able to reach communities. This is going to be vital. And so not only in the advocacy that you can do to ensure that those types of sites are part of the plan with regards to ongoing distribution and administration, but also are there mechanisms and ways for you to actually engage in and be a part of that distribution and administration, a process as far as the sites that are in communities, because indeed transportation issues, ensuring that communities have access to information that is in multiple languages, that is culturally appropriate, and utilizes different mechanisms. When we, for example, were doing outreach as it related to the Flint water crisis, as well as to the Affordable Care Act, we tailored approaches to say how does the community also get information. So it wasn't necessarily to always only rely on internet technologies, but also the radio, television whether it was community outreach workers and really expanding the approaches so that we can ensure equity with regards to our outreach.   FASKIANOS: I'd like to go next to Sister Markham of Catholic Charities U.S.A. Do you want to ask your question yourself? You can unmute yourself.   MARKHAM: Sure. Happy to ask it myself. I'm Sister Donna Markham and I'm the president of Catholic Charities for the U.S. And I just think from a practicality perspective right now, we're been really trying to encourage our vulnerable communities, especially communities of color, the homeless population, etcetera, to get vaccinated but it's a tough sell because they're not real patient and they're less patient than the rest of us even are. And so when we're encouraging them, they're dispirited. There's no information about how long it's going to take them, even if they're in one of the risk categories by virtue of age or health condition. So I guess my question really is, are there any plans in the works to be transparent about what's happening, to communicate with the public to say, okay, twenty thousand people are ahead of you in line in Oshkosh, Wisconsin? It'll be about it's going to be three months before we call you. I mean, that kind of information, I think, would be really helpful and it would help those of us that are trying to serve those communities if we weren't just kind of sending them down a black hole of mystery. So that's just a question and maybe it's just difficult because nobody wants to get in the public and say, "We really don't know." It is very frustrating. And it does stand in the way of helping those communities.   NUZZO: So, I mean, I think the issue is that the states and the local health jurisdictions just don't have the information that they need in order to be able to tell the public. I mean, one of the challenges is they don't really understand how much vaccine they're going to get and when. And so that's an incredible planning challenge. And then there's also the fact that the federal government announced an intention to expand vaccination efforts beyond the initial priority groups before any state had a heads up. And the day that then secretary of Health and Human Services said we were calling on states to offer vaccines to people sixty-five and up, I mean, no state had advanced knowledge of that. And based on my friends and family I know, a lot of senior citizens got on the phone and started calling to find out when they were next. And there were no systems in place to receive those inquiries. So now they're trying to set up the systems and to bring people in but that that kind of logistic, that kind of scheduling? It's one thing to do it in a clinical environment with health-care workers. But health departments don't have that infrastructure and so they're standing it up. In some cases, private sector organizations have reached out to offer help. I think that's encouraging. There's, of course, always worries that we have to be transparent about those efforts and make sure that that doesn't gain access inappropriately to vaccines. So I don't have an answer for you other than it's not a question of nobody wanting to tell, I think people very much want to be able to say to somebody, "This is when you're going to get your vaccine." And I just think there's no way to do it right now. I mean, even the CDC director, the new CDC director, said the other day that they basically have no idea how much vaccine is coming. I think this is one of the biggest mistakes we've made in this vaccine is that we have overpromised how quickly it was going to be delivered. And my mental picture for me, as someone who's not in the high-risk group, was always that it might be sometime late summer and that was never aligned with what I was being told. But it's based on my own knowledge of how these things are likely to go. And so I think we just have to set expectations, which is that we have never attempted a vaccination campaign of this magnitude. The systems that are needed to do this have not yet been built. And the information that's needed to inform the messaging is not yet there. I think it will get there. I am quite hopeful that we are in for better days, but it's going to take some rocky terrain in the next few weeks until we get to a better place.   FASKIANOS: Nadine, do you want to add to that?   NUZZO: Yes, I would just reiterate that this being such an unprecedented logistical effort and trying to, as was said, even note how much of the vaccine that you have coming to you for the states and localities to be able to do that planning. It has been a challenge. And so I think that's why you're also seeing certainly with the Biden administration wanting to say there needs to be more communication/collaboration from the federal to the state and local levels, to have that awareness, to be able to also manage expectations. And I think with this being certainly a new vaccine rollout effort, knowing that there is going to be limited supply in the beginning phases and that the emphasis is on initially vaccinating those with the greatest exposure and understanding why health-care workers and those in long-term care facilities were the first groups to be to be vaccinated. And that as more and more vaccine becomes available to expanding those populations with regards to who has access to the vaccine. It's not easy. It is not easy to message but communicating, and regularly communicating, providing clear communications are important and updating communities to have that understanding so that there is transparency. But that we can also manage expectations and have an understanding that as communities are waiting for vaccinations, the importance of continuing with the public health measures that are so vital, from wearing masks to the physical distancing to the frequent hand washing, etcetera, and how important that is, as well as part of all of the tools that we have in really working to controlling and stop the spread of the pandemic.   FASKIANOS: I'm going to go to Adem Carroll next. If you could unmute yourself?   CARROLL: I work with diverse communities and a lot with the Muslim community. I see a lot of trust issues. And it's not necessarily among people who won't wear masks, it's people who do. But yet the depth of distrust is so pervasive. So a lot of outreach efforts will be needed. I did want to ask, though, beyond the cultural aspect, reaching the most elderly, it seems that the categories have been made very broad, as you just said, Jennifer. The states were surprised by suddenly throwing open the door to anyone over sixty-five. But somebody over eighty-five is a lot more fragile or vulnerable, I should say, generally speaking. So why were the categories made so broad? Do you have any sense and also, New Jersey is allowing all smokers to be vaccinated. So how do states allow such odd criteria for vaccination? And of course, this all relates to the question of supply, which I think we all have to ramp up production. How can we manage to do that?   FASKIANOS: Who would like to take that first?   NUZZO: So, there's a few things there. I mean, first of all, the decisions are going to be made by the states. That's just where the constitutional authority, the Constitution puts the primary responsibility for public health on the states. The priority groups were set as guidelines and states have always been free to implement those guidelines as they wish. Many states did follow them. But what you see is that identifying priority groups based on either exposure categories or risk factors for severe illness and death is, I think, in my view, a very ethical way to go about allocating scarce resources. It's just slow and exacting work to try to find those people, particularly when you don't have enough vaccine to cover the entire priority group. And we don't have an infrastructure to say, okay, let's find all of the people who are eighty-five in the community or all the people who are sixty-five plus. It's just, it's really tough and what we saw in the first month of vaccination was very slow rates of administering the vaccines that states had received, in part because they were doing this very exacting work of trying to schedule people according to priority. And in some cases those prioritization schemes were directly hindering vaccination efforts in the sense that some states didn't just say, okay, give it to everyone who works in health facility. But they said, okay, well, we don't have enough to do that so give it to the people who are most likely to be exposed in the health facility. Well, if you're a facility manager that means that you needed to find those people, schedule them, bring them in. You have to figure out which vaccine they're going to get and then you had had to figure out what to do with if you had extra doses in the vial and who you can give that to. You didn't want to be the one health facility that was in the news for giving it to the wrong people. So in some cases, we heard stories about health facilities rescheduling everybody for another day when they could get more to come and take those extra doses. Some states prevented health facilities from offering it beyond once they covered everybody in a certain job category, they had to wait until all the health facilities could catch up. So you're seeing the kind of challenges in working through these things, these plans in real time and realizing where they work and where they don't. And so as there is an increasing recognition that at some level getting the vaccine in arms is better than not, there is going to be this tension between speed and trying to just get coverage so that hopefully we can protect as many people as possible to also wanting to make sure that we cover the people who are most likely to be exposed and most likely to be harmed by the virus. And it's just really, really hard. There's always going to be, I think, that tension there. I hope it'll get easier.   I just want to say one more thing on the misinformation and why it's so hard. So, of course, there are the historical issues. And the fact that hesitation about vaccines predate COVID in all communities. All of us have some level of hesitation, it's just for different reasons. But COVID, I believe, is unique in the sense that, at least in my professional life, it is the first time I am seeing an incredibly organized set of groups that are coordinating and using tools that we never had before to spread disinformation. They're intentionally trying to mislead about not only the vaccine, but the virus for different goals. Some are anti-vax groups that are seeing COVID as a historic opportunity to expand hesitation about vaccines. And all they need to do is just sow doubt. And they are targeting groups that have historic mistrust of vaccines as a way of doing that.   There are also groups that are trying to sell things—alternatives. And so they're spreading disinformation as a way to boost their profits. And we live in a situation where the virus itself has been politicized and groups that are aiming to sow doubt about the vaccines recognize that continuing to sow doubt about the virus is a way to sow doubt about the vaccines. And so some of the work that I've been doing and looking at the rollout of COVID vaccines among health-care workers and hearing about lots of refusals, sometimes because of the vaccine, but also sometimes because even in hard-hit hospitals, they don't believe that the virus poses a threat to them as individuals. And I don't blame anybody for this other than the fact that there are very powerful forces at work trying to sow doubt and we haven't appropriately amassed counter-campaigns to spread the right information and to counter the disinformation that's being unleashed,   FASKIANOS: Unfortunately we have finish early, so I want to give the last word, so my apologies to everybody who still has questions, but I want to give Dr. Gracia a chance to make any closing thoughts on the heels of what Dr. Nuzzo said.   GRACIA: Sure. I was actually just going to pick up where Dr. Nuzzo left off with regards to both misinformation and disinformation and how, indeed, that spread of misinformation, as well as the intentional efforts through disinformation, is widespread and really challenging as it relates to addressing concerns and questions that communities have. I’ll share some resources, certainly for those of you who are actively working on this and wanting to try to really help communities and getting access to information, in addition to the access of information that you may have from local agencies and state agencies, as well as the federal agencies. There's also a Public Health Communications Collaborative that our organization is one of the members of and that has specific resources and actually is tracking some of the misinformation that is out and provides either strategies of how do you respond, do you respond, what are some tactics and techniques. And we know much more needs to be done because the information that is spread is moving at such a rapid pace that that is going to be something that we will continue to grapple with to be able to ensure that communities are getting accurate and timely information.   FASKIANOS: Thank you. And we will circulate these resources. We're going to go back to both Dr. Gracia and Dr. Nuzzo for their thoughts of resources we should share with you all. You both should sign off now because I know you have a two o'clock and I want to give you an opportunity to and I'll say thanks to you while you're leaving. Just some housekeeping notes for the group here. Thank you both very much.   GRACIA: Thank you.   FASKIANOS: So you can follow Dr. Gracia on Twitter @HealthyAmerica1 and you can follow Dr. Nuzzo @JenniferNuzzo. We also encourage you to follow CFR's Religion and Foreign Policy Program on Twitter @CFR_Religion for announcements about upcoming events and information about the latest CFR resources. As always, reach out to us at [email protected] with any suggestions on future webinars or events. We will circulate the transcript and video of this webinar along with resources. Thank you all again. Please stay well, stay healthy, and we will be convening again shortly. So thank you all. Enjoy the rest of your day.