GERMANY / GRANDI BERLIN FREE UNIVERSITY

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called on students and youth to fight the “narrative of impossibility” that dangerously leads to policies of exclusion. In a speech at Berlin’s Free University today, he argued the world was not facing a refugee crisis, but a “crisis in solidarity.” UNHCR

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:03:09
• Production Date: 18 June 2019
• Asset Language: English
• Personal Subject: FILIPPO GRANDI
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES - UNHCR
• Subject Topical: HUMAN RIGHTS; MIGRANTS; REFUGEES
• MAMS Id: 2410172
• Parent Id: 2410172
• Alternate Title: unifeed190618i

Description

STORY: GERMANY / GRANDI BERLIN FREE UNIVERSITY
TRT: 3:09
SOURCE: UNHCR
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT UNHCR ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 18 JUNE 2019, BERLIN, GERMANY

Shotlist

18 JUNE 2019, BERLIN, GERMANY

1. Wide shot, Grandi addressing students
2. Close up, student
3. Wide shot, students listening to Grandi
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
“The most dangerous thing that we can do now is to say it is impossible to respond, because to say that it is impossible to respond is what some politicians say in order to argue, as the next argument, that the only solution is to shut down and leave people out, and eliminate solidarity, and build walls, and push back boats and so forth. That’s the danger, of course, of what I call the danger of what I call the narrative of impossibility. I think that the narrative that we should promote is a narrative of possibility.”
5. Wide shot, Grandi addressing students
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
“If we have to turn around this narrative of impossibility which leads to rejection, we need to both find concrete solutions, and we’re working on that as I have tried to explain, and at the same time, we have to continue to uphold values that today are very much threatened. And if young people like you cannot do that, I cannot think of anybody else that can help us respond to this crisis effectively.”
7. Med shot, Grandi addressing students
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
“Responses to this situation need to be both very practical, very strategic, based on international cooperation, and founded on some shared principles and a common sense of responsibility. A lot of what I have just described is not happening right now, and this is the definition of why we have a crisis, why we have a crisis in solidarity.”
9. Close up, student taking notes
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
“If Europe’s migration and refugee strategy boils down to an argument about how many people go where, we are very far from having solved the problem, and we are in the middle of a real crisis in solidarity.”
11. Close up, Grandi addressing students
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
“Governments do not appeal to a sense of shared responsibility for refugees, and often responses are not neither strategic nor practical. The simplest response is always one ‘let’s build a wall’ or ‘push people back at sea’. That’s the response that we hear. That response may satisfy the immediate needs of people that are being terrified by those same politicians but doesn’t solve the problem and helps destroy the construction of principles that is at the very foundation of our entire civilization.”
13. Various shots, students clapping

Storyline

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called on students and youth to fight the “narrative of impossibility” that dangerously leads to policies of exclusion. In a speech at Berlin’s Free University today (18 Jun), he argued the world was not facing a refugee crisis, but a “crisis in solidarity.”

Grandi told students that the “most dangerous thing” would be to say that it is impossible to respond to what some politicians say in order to argue “that the only solution is to shut down and leave people out, and eliminate solidarity, and build walls, and push back boats and so forth” and called on students to promote “a narrative of possibility.”

The High Commissioner said to turn the “narrative of impossibility which leads to rejection, we need to both find concrete solutions” while continuing to uphold values that “today are very much threatened.” He added, “If young people like you cannot do that, I cannot think of anybody else that can help us respond to this crisis effectively.”

Grandi said responses to the current climate must “very practical, very strategic, based on international cooperation, and founded on some shared principles and a common sense of responsibility.”

SOUNDBITE (English) Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
“If Europe’s migration and refugee strategy boils down to an argument about how many people go where, we are very far from having solved the problem, and we are in the middle of a real crisis in solidarity.”

He said some governments do not appeal to a sense of shared responsibility for refugees, and “often responses are not neither strategic nor practical” adding that the simplest response “is always one ‘let’s build a wall’ or ‘push people back at sea’.” He stressed that while that response might “satisfy the immediate needs of people that are being terrified by those same politicians but doesn’t solve the problem and helps destroy the construction of principles that is at the very foundation of our entire civilization.”

Grandi was in Berlin to meet officials and deliver addresses to students, both refugee students from around the world, and students at the Free University.