Press Release
New York Times columnist and former Fisher Family Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project, Roger Cohen, discussed his new memoir, "The Girl from Human Street" to an audience of students, fellows, and members of the public. He addressed some of the threats the Jewish community and the wider world confront with the rise of global displacement, Islamic State, and violent extremism.
In an intimate conversation with the Future of Diplomacy Project Faculty Director R. Nicholas Burns, students, and faculty at Harvard University, Cohen spoke about the initial impetus for penning the biography of his mother's experience growing up as a Lithuanian Jew in Apartheid South Africa. Cohen spoke poignantly about his mother's breakdown and manic depression, which he considers was linked to "the great pressure of adapting, leaving behind, forgetting, reinventing."
Cohen touched on the themes of displacement and empathy running throughout the book, reflecting that “[with] immigration there is the bright star but there’s also the dark sun; it’s loss, it’s forgetting, it’s leaving something behind.” Asking the compelling question, "What is home? What mores should one adopt," Cohen also reflected on his own life as a first-generation British citizen born of immigrant parents and tied this in with the similar set of challenges to belonging faced by Pakistani immigrants in the U.K. and Muslim communities in Europe.
Considering displacement in its present-day context, Cohen discussed his newly-released column about the recent Copenhagen attack on a Jewish security guard at a Bar Mitzvah. Cohen opined that "there's no question that a Jewish homeland is needed; the situation is the worse I've known in my life; it's combustible, you have very large and tense Muslim communities, the Jewish community is on edge; you have economic depression, rising right-wing movements; but it's a long way from the 1930s type conditions." While Cohen acknowledged these profound difficulties, he remained critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu's statements in support for aliya. In response to Netanyahu's arguments that Jews are no longer safe in Europe, Cohen maintained that "it would be pretty catastrophic to the fundamental values of all these societies if the Jews left."
Examining the situation of Muslim communities in Europe and the Middle East, more globally, Cohen argued that "there's a real problem with Muslim communities in Europe," stemming from a "failure of these societies to absorb immigration." The rise of Islamic State in the Middle East is an undeniable threat to the world, according to Cohen. "We're talking about a real threat here; they're sophisticated, they control territory, they draw people through an interpretation of Islam," he stated.
In spite of these violent trends, Cohen pinned his hopes on "brave Muslims" as "the only ones who can solve this tremendous crisis in Islam and in the world." Recognizing the disaster of Syria and its role in shattering any "hope of a shared post-sectarian citizenship" in the Middle East, Cohen urged the need to avoid creating societies "that are incubators of extremism; because they are bloc societies and radicalize people who feel estranged."