About : standard furniture rugby youth bed
Title : standard furniture rugby youth bed
standard furniture rugby youth bed
next up, we're infor a real treat. geoffrey canada is going tobe speaking about his work. 20 years ago, geoffrey foundedthe harlem children's zone. now, anybody who is interestedin the cause of youth, the cause of education, or justeven lives in new york, you know, looks at geoffreyas a real hero. and the work that he's doneis just so unbelievably remarkable. you know, he's an author, avisionary, but somebody who has
really dedicated his life tobettering the lives of young people living on thestreets of harlem. and i can't resist the urgeto also note that i believe geoffrey is a third-degreeblack belt in karate or -- tae kwon do. even better. please join me in welcominggeoffrey canada. geoffrey canada: well, i amabsolutely thrilled to be here, and i was really worried aboutwhat to wear because they said
everything was casual, casual. and i thought, i bet will.i.amis going to wear just what he wants to wear and i'm not goingto be able to touch that so i'm going to just wear my regularclothes up here and be happy. [laughter] that was just brilliant, bythe way, and i -- lots of things sparked in my mind. but we've had -- we've had anincredible year because a number of different forceshave come together to, i
think, support our work. we've had the -- "60minutes." we've done "60 minutes" two times. we've got a book thatpaul tough wrote called "whatever it takes." american express decided theywere going to do a commercial and sort of highlight our work. the president of the unitedstates put $200 million in the budget to replicate our work in20 different places
around the country. and i have really been excitedto see a collection of businesses and politicians andother folk come together around some of the thingsthat i care about. i have to tell you onething, though, about "60 minutes," right? so i've done "60 minutes" twotimes, and i grew up -- now, this is a young audience andi'm not young, but i grew up watching "60 minutes" becausein the late '60s, early '70s,
if you were a social justiceperson, the place you went to every sunday to see justicewas "60 minutes." and it was the sameformat forever, right? sunday, it would come on. you'd have somescoundrel, right? he was polluting the rivers. he would come on "60 minutes."mike wallace would be interviewing him and i wouldstill there and think, "why do they go on '60 minutes'?"
it's not like it's a surprise! it's the same formatevery sunday! so the guy's on "60 minutes."he's saying "no, mike, my company never pollutes therivers," and right in the middle of that mike wallacewould like rip out the picture of the guy dumping sludgeinto the river, right? and i would sit there andsay, "why do these idiots go on '60 minutes'?" then they called me!
so i just -- the secondtime i did it, i did it with anderson cooper. i did say to anderson, i said,"anderson" -- he said, "okay, we're going to start." i said, "wait, anderson. look, if you've gotsomething, could we just get to it right away? like don't dragthis thing out." so i thought if you needed toget a message to america --
right? -- the place you neededto go on was "60 minutes" because 20 million viewers,a hard news format, right? i was wrong. do you know whose show you haveto do if you really want to get a message out to america? oprah! i was totally sleeping. i mean, i know oprah. everybody knows oprah.
but i didn't have a clue. this is how i gotmy first clue. if i'm going to do something,i'm going to do "60 minutes," i say to my wife and kids, "oh,i'm doing '60 minutes.'" they say, "oh, great, dad. have a great time." "oh, i'm going to the whitehouse, the president." "oh, yeah. oh, great.
say hi to the firstlady for us," right? like nothing. so i'm sitting around thedinner table, i say, "oh, i'm going to chicago next week,i'm going to do oprah." and they said, "oprah? you?" like what would oprahwant with you, right? and i was sitting there,and i said, "yes, i'm going to do oprah."
and they said, "well,did you get tickets?" and i'm looking at them. that doesn't even occur to me. i'm like, "tickets?" i call marty, mycommunications guy. i say, "look, marty, callthe oprah folks, see if you can get me some tickets." oprah does the worstthing possible. she gives me seven tickets.
now, look, if oprah givesme two tickets -- right? -- that's my wifeand my mother. seven? everybody in your family thinksthey're in the top seven. right? so my whole family's like,"we're going to oprah!" i'm like, "no, you're not!" so if you ask -- you say,"so geoff, what is it? why do you want to go andget on these shows?"
i am convinced, withouta shadow of a doubt, that our nation's veryfuture is in peril. i don't have adoubt about this. if our country continues to dowhat it has been doing, because we'll -- everyone's innovatingexcept in one place. education is notinnovating at all. there's a group of educatorswho have no intention of changing anything around howour children learn, despite what's happening in the restof the world, and our country
is absolutely in peril. now, i think -- i know peopleare saying, "well, geoff, that's a little hyperbole. how bad could this thing be?" well, in some places, it'sreally clear what's going on. you know, the schott foundationjust put out a report on the graduating rates fromhigh school for african-american males. less than 50%.
some places 75% of the kids,african-american males, aren't graduating from high school. we're talking aboutfrom high school. we're not talking about fromcollege, we're talking about from high school. now, if you look at whathappens when you don't have a high school diploma justin general, 54% of those kids end up unemployed. do you know what the rate isfor african-american males?
69% unemployed! 69%! i will tell you this: you findme a place on the face of the earth that has that kind ofunemployment in a group. it's just impossibleto imagine. i mean, how couldwe be doing that? and by the way -- by the way,a quarter of those folks are going to be in jail. now, here's what ournation has done.
we have made a strategicdecision that we are not going to educate all of our kids atvery high levels, but we are going to be prepared to lockthese folks up when they don't have jobs and they end upbreaking the law, which is a pretty straightforwardline, right? no jobs, 25, 30 years, peopledo what they have to do, they end up in jail. do you know our country locksup more people per capita than anyplace on theface of the earth?
by -- no one's close to us! it is staggering. the last numbers we had, 2.3million americans in jail. you think of the worst country,you think of the place that you wouldn't want to be near,you start thinking about north korea. not even close. what's it costing the nation?
the last numbers we had,about $68 billion in adult correction. so here, you know, i havethis program, right? we spend about$5,000 per child. there's a huge national debate. "oh, my god, geoffrey canadaspends $5,000 a child to get these kids in college and do-- and we -- you know, people tell me it's honest." they say, "geoff,it's not scalable.
it's just not scalable. that is not scalable. we need a number that we canscale across the country." i say, "wait a second now. let me -- let mejust get this." i have to end up in a lot ofcriminal courts because of what happens with my kids, and ihave yet to be in a court where i've seen a judge say to a kid,"look, rahim, look, this is your second armed robbery.
i told you what wasgoing to happen. now we're going to have tosend you for 10 years. let's see, at $35,000 ayear, that's $350,000. you know what? i can't do that. it's not scalable." [applause] never heard it! never!
so wait, wait, wait! so here's one part ofour system that is totally scalable. we are prepared to spend10 years, 20 years. we're prepared to spend as muchmoney as we need to to keep rahim locked up andno one bats an eye. and what are the socialpositive outcomes we get from that? nothing.
does rahim come outable to get a job? no. does he fake careof his family? is he able to go on? we have essentially spent afortune to produce nothing. and we are totallycomfortable doing that all over this country. everybody -- no oneblinks an eye. and now you've got me outhere yelling, "we ought
to -- we ought to stop. we know where the rahims are. they've been in the sameplaces for 50 years. we know it by the block. we know it by the projects. we know exactly wherethis is going on. and you know what'sgoing on there? those folk are notgetting an education. they are simply notgetting an education!
they can't come outand compete." so we have a small littlething we think we ought to do as a nation, which is toeducate you're children. we ought to educate them! we ought to realize that thisis a globally competitive market we're preparing americanchildren for and we're going to pay for these kids oneway or the other. it's not like we cannot do theinvestment and then we end up like, "well, we'll just saveall that money and do something
else." we're going tospend that regardless. and so we thought weought to do this. now, you know what? i thought, because of how igrew up, that, you know, i -- i wasn't going to get americansto understand that. people who were notin my business. i just honestly thought,"they don't care. i haven't convinced themthat they ought to get involved in this.
it's messy work. people are unsure aboutwhat the outcomes are." but over the years -- i've beenat the same job for going on 28 years -- i've found that youcan unite people in this country around certain kinds ofissues, if people know there's a crisis and there's somethingthat needs to be done. i mean matt blank, one of myboard members, is here, who is the president ofshowtime networks. matt was one of -- his companyis one of the first companies
where they came in and mattsaid, "geoff, i'm in. whatever we can do to help inthis effort, we're going to do. i believe that it is in thenation's best interest to solve this problem." why? okay. so -- "geoff, i understandthere's african-american kids and there's latino kids and,you know, that's a problem but you're making this intoa national crisis."
this is an interesting -- youever get something and you read it and you say, "well,that can't be true." that happens everynow and then. i get some information and iread it and i say, "well, that can't be true." someone gave me this report andit's called "ready, willing, and unable to serve," signed --the authors are top military -- 43 of the top retired militarypeople in the united states. you've got generals andlieutenant generals and vice
admirals and major generals andrear admirals and brigadier generals, and it goes on and onand on, all of the folk who sign onto this. and what is the basicthesis of this? 75% of young adults cannotjoin the military. now, i got that report, andi said, "wait a second. what was -- what did you say? did you just say 75% ofyoung adults cannot -- did you say black kids?"
they said, "no, no. we're not talking black kids." i said, "did yousay latino kids?" "no, we're not talkingabout latinos kids." i said, "so you're telling mein america, 75% of our young people in america can'tjoin the military?" they said, "oh, yes." now, i don't know about you buti never thought the high benchmark that we were shootingfor in america was to
join the military. i mean i have nothing wrongwith joining the military. i just never thought that thatwas a standard that we were shooting for, and you'retelling me that -- i didn't believe it. i said, "that data'sgot to be wrong." it's not wrong. it's not wrong, whenyou get the numbers. first you have to graduatefrom high school.
i told you about someof those numbers. that's ugly. you're going to wipe out30% of the american population right there. then you find 30% of the folkswho graduate from high school cannot pass the entrance testto get into the military. i said, "okay!" now, you have a felony? can't join.
oh, we mentioned therewas a problem in some groups with that. well, i say, "well, that'sstill not enough people." but then to join themilitary, you have to be in relatively good health. i mean, you have to be able tonot like run a marathon, right? but you should be able to runfrom this wall to that wall without needing tocatch your breath. i mean, we have allowed ourchildren to become so unhealthy
that they cannot join -- it'sstaggering what we've done to children in this country. it is staggering! and so the military leaders aresaying "because of that, we can't even accept thesekids in the military." this is a nationaldefense crisis! if we really needed tomobilize this nation, how would we do it? now, these folks understandthere's a crisis here.
they're calling for earlychildhood education. they're calling for investmentsin our young people. and i'm sitting here sayingto myself "wait, wait, wait. doesn't anybody elsesee this thing? doesn't anybody see what'sgoing to happen?" i mean, if you love america-- i love this country. i'm not talking about wearingthe flag and you do -- i'm just talking about for real. if you love this country and ifyou think like everybody says,
"well, the childrenare our future" -- see, i really believe that. i don't mean it as a slogan. i really believe that if youwant to see what america's going to be in 20 years, lookat where our children are right now and you'll be scared. but, see, you're probablythinking like i was thinking. i said, "wait a second, now. i know a lot of peoplelove this country.
the leaders aren'tgoing to lose america. i mean, come on! i know that people havean answer to this education problem. because, i mean, after all, weknow a small number of folk get together and reallyrun the world." i'm from the '60s. i just can't helpmyself, right? i never saw a conspiracyi didn't like.
i really believe -- i mean, you know, i'm sittinghere saying, "well, i know that people aren't going to loseamerica, that they're going to -- there's a solution. it's just above mypay grade," right? so over the last seven, eightyears, i've met a few presidents, a few secretariesof education, a few secretaries of labor, directorsof domestic policy. there is no plan.
there is no plan! when i meet these folks, theysay to me, "geoff, what do you think we ought to do?" i say, "you asking me? i'm here in harlem tryingto save my kids." nobody knows! so if we're going to saveamerica's children, then we're going to have to do it. we're going to have to do it.
it's not like someone -- i knowyou all are thinking, "well, geoff, isn't that your job?" oh, i'm telling you, i'm goingto save my 10,000 because that's what we decidedwe're going to do. that's my capacity. i'm going to save my 10,000. but the rest of america'schildren are in peril unless we decide, as a nation, thatwe've got to tackle this. now, let me tell you,i get in trouble now.
this is the easy part. everybody when i say this,everybody says, "okay, geoff, yeah, we're with you, we hearyou, we got to do something." let me tell you wheni get in trouble. because if we're going to savechildren, then it means that we're going to have to do somethings that people think that i'm really a radical when i saythese kinds of things, and i hope i don't leave you -- loseyou here because i say things -- and people get mad atme all over the country.
i say things like, "if youreally cannot teach and we can prove you can't teach, then youprobably shouldn't teach." now, i know. i know that's radical andthere are a lot of people who think i'm an extremist forsaying things like that. they say, "he did notjust say that!" yes, yes, yes, i fundamentallybelieve that people who can't do their job should be fired. that doesn't mean they should,like -- you know, we shouldn't
put them in chains or arrestthem, but it just means they probably should findanother career. do you know that teaching isone of the few places where 98% of them cannot be fired? i don't care how wellwe demonstrate they're lousy for kids. you cannot fire them. you have to ask yourself: thatsystem is great when it's working, but what ifit's not working?
what if it's not workingand you can't get rid of folk who aren't good? what if you can't even figureout if they are any good? you talk to people -- youknow what one of those radical things are? when you say, "well, we oughtto figure out how we could test to see whether; or notyou're a good teacher." "can't be done!" "what do you mean?
of course it can be done. we've figured that out in everyother industry in america. you can't tell me we can'tdo it for teaching." there are groups of folk whoseeducation innovation is -- this is their theory -- you canchange anything in education you want as long as youdon't change anything. and that's the deal. and we have had debates ineducation that have gone on for decades around these areas thatallow no innovation, and i
think we've got to haveinnovation in education. there's absolutely no reason --there is no reason! -- that this -- which is a huge,huge industry, by the way. we're not talkinga minor industry. we're talking a huge industry. that in this huge industry,we don't have competition. you know, this is --this is education. because i'm old, y'allare young, y'all don't know about this stuff.
i was one of the first kidswhen i was in high school to have a computer deliveredto their high school. they had to bring this thingin an mack truck, right? i'm serious. the computer went from hereover to here -- right? -- and i thought -- you see-- you see how smart i am. so you had to typethese cards, right? you had to punch in thesecards, and we used a language no one's ever heard of calledfortran, and you'd use that
language and you'd punchin all of this stuff. it took you about anhour and a half. you'd load the cards in thedeck, it would spit out all the cards, and the computer wouldtell you what 9 times 27 was, right? and i sat there and said, "thisis not going anywhere." "i'm not investing anymoney in this thing here. this has no future," right? so what did i know?
but y'all know i'mbeing serious. i'm being serious. now, just imagine --just imagine where we are from there. let's get into phones -- ican't even say in phones. in people's toasters they havemore computing power than we had back there in '68. education has not innovatedone iota in all of that time. the same way we ran school wheni was a child and when my
mother was a child is the sameway we run school today. we have not done onething different. if it was up to educators, wewould still be having those big clunky computers. that's where we would be. now, how is that allowed? how is that allowed? so i think, you know, we'vegot to shake the system up. we've got to go out and we'vegot to get innovation.
and the thing of it, youinnovate in education -- you know, people docharter schools. oh, yeah, the charter schools-- or people say there are lousy -- there are a lotof lousy charter schools. close them down. they tried some stuff. it didn't work. guess what! that happens in life, right?
that's sort of howit goes, right? if you don't do well, youkind of go out of business. everyplace except in education. so my belief is, let's allowinnovation to flourish. here's a radical idea. we ought to holdpeople accountable. if you take the money, youought to deliver a product that's good and thathas quality to it. when i talk of --
here's another thingpeople don't like. you know, when we started ourschool, i told our mayor, i told my board -- matt andeveryone -- and i told the community, "if i don't have abetter school in five years than the other public schoolsin harlem, i'm going to fire myself." i said it. people said, "what's the date? geoff said he's goingto fire himself."
when everybody left,i got my team near. i said i just want you all toknow i'm last one leaving. let's just be clear. [ applause ] all of us have some skinin the game here, right? this is not something youcan just do and accept. can you imagine iffailure was okay? i mean, i know it'sincomprehensible for a lot of you here.
just imagine if there wasno penalty for failure. just imagine if you could failfor 25 years and we could prove it and we could demonstrate it,and yet not one thing happened. not one. i say educators -- i wasat the harvard ed school. i know my ed school is goingto be mad at me, right? they actually told us thatteaching was so hard that you could only do it about eightmonths a year; and then you needed a lot of timeoff to recover.
so here it is. you're running a school. the school you canprove it's failing. what happens? june, everybody goes. that's the end of that. your kids are failing. you work late? no, you may not work late.
you work weekends? no, you may not work weekends. so what happens if allthe kids are failing? nothing, tough on them. we adults collectour paychecks. we go on as if it's all good. now, look, if the nationwasn't imperiled, i wouldn't need you all. i need people who care aboutthis, who say look, leave
it to the educators. we can't leave itto the educators. we're in trouble. we're in trouble as a country. we're going to have to dosomething about this. we've decided we're goingto create a comprehensive strategy in harlem. we call it the harlemchildren's zone. we took 97 blocks.
we said we're going to savethose kids, and we're going to do everything. we're going to do health; we'regoing to do mental health; we're going to do education;we're going to do job training. we're going to guaranteeour kids are going to get into college. we're going to start atbirth and stay with these kids through college. people find that verycontroversial that that's
what we want to do. and we're going to spend money. but that's our strategy. i don't think it's the beststrategy in the world. that's the only one i knowthat's going to work. we'll improve it. and, if it doesn't work,we're not going to do it. we'll go out of business. that's the deal.
but we've got to have realinnovation in education if we're going to save thisnation's children. so i'd like to end with a poem. i like to write poetry thatadvocates -- this -- you know, sometimes i get veryfrustrated in this work. because some of thingsi'm talking about are so commonsensical. but it is a huge raging debatein america around these very basic ideas.
and there are many peoplewho see me sort of as like the anti-christ. he says those kindof horrible things. and some people think, "oh,that geoff is a real sort of visionary leader." i believe that we've allgot to weigh in on this. so let me close with a poemi wrote that's called "don't blame me." "the girl's mothersaid, 'don't blame me.
her father left whenshe was three. i know she don't knowher abcs, her 123s. but i am poor and work hard,you see?' you know the story, it's don't blame me. "the teacher shook her headand said, 'don't blame me. i know it's sad. he's 10. but, if the truth betold, he reads like he was six years old.
and math, don't ask. it's sad, you see. wish i could do more,but it's after 3:00. blame the mom. blame society. blame the system. just don't blame me.' "the judge was angry,his expression cold. he scowled and said,'son, you've been told.
rob with a gun, andyou'll do time. you've done it again. have you lost your mind?'the young man opened his mouth to beg. 'save your breath'he heard instead. 'your mama didn'ttake care of you. your daddy leftwhen you were two. your school preparedyou for this fall. can't read, can't write,can't spell at all.
but you did the crimefor all to see. you're going to jail, son. don't blame me.' "if there is a god or a personsupreme, a final reckoning for the kind and the mean, andjudgment is rendered on who passed the buck, who blamed thevictim, who proudly stood up, you'll say to the world,'while, i couldn't save all, i did not let thesechildren fall. by the thousands ihelped all i could see.
no excuses. i took full responsibility. no matter if they were black orwhite were cursed, ignored, were wrong or right, wereshunned, prejudged, were short or tall. i did my best to save them all. and then i can bear witness foreternity that you can state proudly 'don't blame me.'" thank you very much.
jared cohen: back by populardemand, i'm going to ask geoff one quick question. and then we're going to havethe treat of having him back up on the panel toward the end. since zeitgeist is aboutframing challenges and also taking action, how many peoplein audience, by show of hands, hear the challenges thatgeoffrey is identifying and what to know what you asindividuals and your companies can do to help?
tough question to answer,but what should all these people as individuals -- geoffrey canada: thisis what's interesting. i am a usual suspect, right? so, when i go in and fightabout these issues, people know "here comes geoff. we know what his issue is." people honestly don't believeother people care about this. first, they don't believeanyone knows about it.
and, secondly, they don'tbelieve anyone cares about it. an interesting opportunitythat's going to happen is davis guggenheim, who did"inconvenient truth" and has a new movie called "waiting forsuperman," a documentary which is going to be opening. it tackles these issues,these same issues. it's going to tackle themand put this in the front of america. people wonder whatis it we can do?
and this is what i'mgoing to say to you all. because some of it istechnical, and you have to get in the weeds. and some of it is reallystraightforward. we need innovation. we need the ability to havefolk come out, try things to see if it works, get rid ofwhat doesn't work, and then know that some things that dowork we're going to move forward these ideas.
you are going to hear over thecourse of the next six months a bunch of folks try tofigure out how to stop this innovation from happening. people know this is coming; andthey're really, really scared. and they're going to assumethat this is going to go away. i need you to connect in localcommunities around this issue. this is a very simple question. how did the kids do? and in lots of placesyou're going to find
they didn't do so well. what are we goingto do different? now, at the point you ask thatquestion, you're going to hear people -- remember how i toldyou in education you can change anything as long asyou change nothing? and we have a whole 30 years ofresearch and history of how to answer that question withoutreally doing anything different than what we did last year. and so the question is: arewe going to work longer
for the children? and the answer will be no. and you ask them why. you know what they'regoing to tell you? we can't. you'll say why can't we? they're going to start talkingabout union contracts and things like that. that's the problem.
is there another answer? no, there is not. we've got to work harder. we've got to work longer. we've got to make sure we usedata to drive instruction. and it doesn't exist except inthe best -- and schools that are succeeding, you don'thave to worry about this. in schools that arefailing, it won't exist. so i need, not me -- peopleknow exactly where i
stand on these issues. they're going to come inand say, "yep, geoff, i understand." i need regular citizens inamerica to ask what are we going to do different and notaccept someone saying we're going to stay within the samelines that haven't worked for the last 50 years. if you learn about what's goingon in your local communities, people understand this is anagenda item you care about,
everyone will hearthis differently. the only reason we got the capon charter schools -- we moved in new york state -- was agroup of business people got together and saidwe're backing this. and everybody wascaught off guard. they were like who? and you know what? they're not scared of me. they are scared of you.
sort of an interesting thing. you might be thinking whywould they be scared of me? because they understand thepower that resides in folk who don't have a vested interest inan issue but do it because they believe it's right. that is a very powerful force. and all the politicians andpolicy makers understand that. so i need folk to be preparedto tackle these issues locally and be clear that this issomething you care about.
and, when people understand youcare about it, it allows folks like me to do my job easier. jared cohen: thank you, geoff. next up is a remarkableindividual named alberto vollmer who i had the privilegeof sitting next to at dinner last night. let me tell you aboutthis guy for a minute. he is the chairman and ceoof venezuela's oldest privately-owned company, whichis very much a rarity in
today's venezuelan society. just to give you an idea howold this company is, it was actually founded the sameyear george washington was re-elected presidentof the united states. beyond being a prominentbusinessman in venezuela, alberto has done somethingremarkable that goes against the trend of any landowner orbusiness person in that country, which is he hasfounded, along with his wife, an organization called projectalcatraz, which takes reformed
criminals and works toreintegrate them into society, something for which the notionof having to socialize a society to be comfortablewith taking criminals back after they've reformed isquite the undertaking. alberto is going to talk to youabout his experiences, and i know you'll enjoy it asmuch as i did last night. alberto vollmer. alberto vollmer: thanks. it's going to be a toughone after geoffrey.
i should have broughtsome of the rum and coke and black eyed peas. it would be easier. to begin, i want you to picturethe following situation. i want you to imaginethe situation. it's 7:00 at night. you're in the office in thishacienda on this property. and it's, as jared was justsaying, an old property. and you're the ceo of thisvery well-known company.
and suddenly the phone rings. it's the head of security. his name is jimmy perez. and he says, "listen,i'm here with these policemen up on a hill. they're about to kill thisguy, and they need a red light or green light." let me give you a bit ofcontext before i continue with the story.
oops, sorry about that. pressed the wrong button. a bit of context. venezuela, as jared was sayingonce again, keeping a business in venezuela is extremelydifficult, either because the macroeconomic conditions areimpossible because we've got an oil-based economy. also we've got chavez, whois taking over most of the private companies.
i think you've read about that. but also, i think one of themain things, one of the main challenges every venezuelanhas is the insecurity levels. we've got the highest homiciderate -- one of the highest homicide rates in the world. we've got the highestkidnapping rate in the world. this is just to compareiraq with venezuela. i don't know if you sawnewsweek's article a week or two weeks ago comparing thehomicide rates between
iraq and venezuela. now, bringing it closer to thestates, this is more or less what the homicide rate lookedlike in the states ciudad juarez right after the big drugwar where they had many killings. ciudad juarez wasaround 133 in 2009. caracas -- these are figuresfrom the ministry of interior, caracas was 232 homicidesper 100,000 inhabitants. that means that, compared tocaracas, detroit is like
a walk in the park. anyway, in that context, whathad happened was that these three gang members hadactually attacked one of our security guards. they had almost killed him. they took his gun. they were about tofinish him off. and then they decided --i don't know why they decided not to kill him.
but, anyway, our position was,if we don't retaliate, this is going to be a terrible messagenot only to this gang but to all the other gangs. they're going to come insideour properties, and this is going to become hell. so, if you call the police,the police isn't going to do anything about it. so i told jimmy, ex-policeman,"go after these guys. and then we'll see what we dowith them when we find them."
well, he called me up whenhe had the first one. and i said, "nah, forget it. just give them overto the police." well, the police, whenthey saw him, this is a really wanted guy. so they said, "no,we've got to kill him. we've got to bump him off." so they take himup to this hill. jimmy goes behind them justbecause he thought, you know,
they were playing withpsychological power here. but, when he realized itwas going to happen, he called me up. and, of course, i said no. i said no way red light. so that got evenmore difficult. he had to negotiate. at the end he had to bribethe policemen, which is illegal, right?
bribe the policemen so theywouldn't kill the guy, which is also illegal. so they hand him over. i told jimmy, "bringhim to me." and we have this gentleman'sconversation without handcuffs. and at the end wereach an agreement. i gave him two options. the first option was you workwith no pay for three months to make up for what you did, or wehand you over to the police.
he accepted the first option. he started working. actually, i told himcome on monday. if you don't appear and if youdon't abide by these rules, you know what we'll do. we know how to find you,and we'll hand you over to the police. so, anyway, he starts working. a few days later wefind the second guy.
and the second guy happenedto be the gang leader. well, he also acceptsthe first option. he starts working. and, after a few days, he hasto have a meeting with me. so we have this meeting. and he says, "listen, i'mthinking this could actually turn into an opportunity. do you think we could give thisopportunity or you could give this opportunity to anothertwo or three of my friends?"
and i said, "well, tellthem to come on friday." we set up a rendezvous. and, actually, what happenedwas it wasn't two or three that appeared but the whole gang. it was 22 guys, right? and it's a little intimidating. but the -- you know, youhave to go with the flow. you sort of go forward. you don't look back,especially not right now.
and so anyway, there wedecided, yeah, let's go ahead, you know. these guys, i was thinkingof what the professor was saying yesterday. why not? i mean, these guys are givingus the most valuable asset that they actually have,which is their identity. later, we would also find outthey have the information of the whole criminal network,which is incredibly valuable.
so we take them on board. they start working. and, after about two months ofworking, actually, what we do is we use psychologicaltreatment. we use rugby. rugby because it's a contactsport; it's a team sport. the other thing we use is,of course, values formation and formal education. and a lot of hard work.
so, anyway, these guys aftertwo months, they -- one of them stands up in a meeting andsays, "listen, this is fine. but this isn't going to work." "why isn't it going to work?" "well, in a month's timewe're out of the program. and we're going to have to goback to killing if we don't want to get killed, killingthe cemetery gang, which is the opposing gang." "well, you know, youbring me the problem.
give me a solution." they said, "well, the onlysolution with those guys is to kill them all. they're all psychopaths, man." so they go through thedescriptions of these guys -- they rape their mother, this,that, the whole story. and it really -- itwas a real setback. but, after a few days,we sort of rebuilt our sort of determination.
i told jimmy, "you know, jimmy,let's go up to this place and see if" -- we're in this --right in the middle of this gang war. and it's one of those doubleor nothing situations. i think we don't reallyhave an option. so, finally, wedecide to go up. and just imagine. this is -- it reallysounds quite stupid. oh, by the way, i forgot toshow the -- this is some
of the gang members. but that was what happened whenwe -- this was more or less the faces we had in that firstmeeting with the 22 gang members with the first gang. so anyway, we decided to go up. what i was saying before is tryto imagine, you know, you're in the country with thehighest kidnapping rate. and you're going to go up tothe slum where the police don't enter because in the lastyear they've killed two
or three policemen. they've got sniper positions. it's a dangerous place. so, anyway, we -- it soundslike a very stupid thing to do. but i think we were in one ofthose situations where we didn't really have an option. so, we start driving up throughthis slum, windy road. as you get further and furtherup the hill, you start feeling the heavy looks at you,aggressive looks.
and they get evenmore aggressive. the road gets narrower. until finally we got to thedead end, which is where the cemetery gang meets. that's where they hang out, andi remember just an instance before stopping the car, isaid, you know what, jimmy. we got to move quick. get out of the car. when you get out of the car,let's create momentum.
we have to change the game. i, by the way, had told him weare going up there in our best suit and tie, right, to sortof create the change of game. so, anyway, we get out of thecar and it is sort of like jumping out and giving ordersto these guys that have the guns here, no shirts. they're sort of beginningto revolve around the car. i said, hey, give me a table. plug this in.
hang this screen up andso on and so forth. we were getting out with videobeams and computers and stuff. anyway, we starteda presentation. and in the first three or fourminutes we had about -- [ laughter ] yeah, i know, i putthem to sleep. but anyway... actually, what was going onwhile we were doing this, everybody started curiouslysort of peeking out, what the
hell is going on here, right? this guy in a suit and tie. these two guys insuits and ties. anyway, we had about 200people standing around us. oh, man, sorry about that. we had about two or three guysstanding around us -- 200 people standing around us. and, basically, what we didwas we talked about the future of the county.
and at the end, i decided tochallenge the cemetery gang -- most of them were standingaround us -- and seeing if they were courageous enough toenter project alcatraz. as soon as i said that, theystarted sticking out their guns and saying, those sons ofbitches, man, they killed my brother. they killed -- whatever. i said, okay. so you can continuekilling each other.
so, after this discussion,i said take me to the gang leader's house. the gang leader had been shotup by the first gang and he was paralyzed in bed,three shots in the back. so we go to his house. and i explained to him, listen,we've got this option. it is your decision, man. you take it. it is your gang.
finally, he said,okay, let's do it. so the second gang enters. we start working with themseparately until, finally, one day after about two months wedecided to put them in one room and make them make peace. now, what happened there wasthat the word spread in the rest of the region and westarted getting calls from all the gangs, prisons, so on,wanting to enter the project. ever since we have beenrecruiting those gangs and,
of course, the -- sorry,i forgot to flick these. the homicide rates havegone down dramatically in our region. and, basically, we have learnedthree very important things. the first thing is alwaysbelieve in people no matter what their background is. second, criminals areincredibly valuable for solving the criminal issue. and the third is -- at leastwhat we have found, is in the
future, in these few nextyears, businesses must get more involved insocial transformation. that's the story ofproject alcatraz. jared cohen: we'll have achance to hear more from alberto when we ask him torejoin the panel in a little bit. there is some particularquestion about role models that we are going torevisit with him. this next session is reallysomething that's very dear to
my heart, which is looking atradicalization, which is radicalization is really --especially since 9/11, one of the largest unansweredchallenges we face. you watch tv. you read online. you read the newspaper. and all you hear over and overagain is about religion, about ideology, about madrasahs,imams and so forth. this has really shaped ourfew about what we think
extremism is all about. but the question we are goingto explore in this next conversation is what happensonce you remove the mass of religion and ideology thatare cultivated by violent extremists and really get tothe root of who these young people are what they did thisand what's it all about. is it really about religion? is it really about ideology? is it about something that'sfar more familiar to us?
take something likegangs, for instance. gang violence kills morepeople in the united states than war does. and, yet, ironically, weignore that conflict at home when compared tothe conflicts abroad. today, we are going to havereally what i think might actually be the firstconversation between a former gang member, paul carrillo, whogrew up in watts and south gate, was a gang leader at avery young age, i think 14 or
15 years -- years old. and has now been out of thegang for 11 years and founded -- co-founded an organizationcalled southern california crossroads where he works withanother great organization called "a better l.a." tocounter the very organizations that he used to be part ofto get kids off the street. then we are also going tohave maajid nawaz on stage. maajid was a leader of aradical islamist group called hizb ut-tahrir which focuses onlooking towards military coups
as a way to restore thecaliphate and create a global state of political islam. maajid was imprisoned inegypt for four years, and he got out in 2006. i remember this because i wasworking -- i was working in the bush administrationat the time. maajid's defection from hizbut-tahrir shocked the world. it was the most high-profiledefection from a radical islamist group that wehad ever seen before.
he founded, along with anotherformer member of hizb ut-tahrir, the first think tankof former islamists that seeks to go into the chatrooms, gointo the doldrums where young people are recruited and reallycounter the narrative from the perspective of somebody who waspart of radical islam, saw it, didn't like it and left and isnow fighting against it. i'm pleased to welcome to themaajid nawaz and paul carrillo. jared cohen: let'sget right into it. this question whatit's all about.
both of you were recruited intoviolent organizations, radical organizations at a very youngage in very different contexts. what i really want to get atis, is recruitment into a gang or recruitment into a radicalislamist group really that different? i want to begin with yourpersonal stories and then tie it together. paul, why don't you start. paul carrillo: sure.
well, for me, i grew up in avery dysfunctional household. my father left when i wasabout ten years old. he came around for about a yearor two here or there, and it was just to abuseus or my mother. a lot of substanceabuse at home. we lived in a low-incomeneighborhood. when he left, my mother startedto abuse drugs and alcohol at an alarming rate after that. so, for me, i didn't wantto be home witnessing that
and suffering from theabuse from my mother. so i kind of wentto the streets. that's where thegang members were. it is kind of funny because iremember being 5 years old and despising my father's lifestylebecause he was a gang member. i hated the fact that the gangtook him away from us and went to prison, committingcrimes and whatnot. when i turned 13, 14 yearsold, i ended up doing the same thing.
why did that happen? so the only logical explanationi can think of is i was looking for a way to vent, looking fora way out and the guys on the streets accepted me andembraced me in large part because they knew me from myrelations to my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, everybodywas a gang member. they offered support, guidance,love, respect, identity. some of the simple basic stuffthat every child should have within their household with amother and father in
a cohesive family. i didn't have, and ifound it in the gang. jared cohen: maajid, how doesyour experience compare? were you religiousgrowing up, or was this something you came to? maajid nawaz: i wasn'treligious, and i would like to actually use this opportunityto try to smash a lot of myths around islam radicalization. there are so many factors thatpaul and i, in conversation,
are similar as to why ijoined at 16 hizb ut-tahrir. but there are also thingsthat are not similar. i come from aneducated background. i am a law graduate. i studied arabic. i did my masters at thelondon school of economics. i had a very agnostic childhoodand my mother raised me in a very liberal way. most people who join theislamist organizations do
not come from the mosques. they come from the backgroundthat i have come from. bin laden is from one ofthe richest families in saudi arabia. he is an engineer. he is deputy to ayman zawahiri. he is a doctor. he is a pediatrician fromone of the most prestigious families in egypt.
but what is the similarityhere is in discussions over breakfast and lunch, werealized i also suffered from acute identity crisis. i was born andraised in the u.k. my family is originallyfrom pakistan. and i was forced at a veryyoung age, around 14, 15 years old, to watch some very,very violent racist attacks. but they weren'tparticularly against me. what would happen is this groupcalled combat 18 -- i suppose
i can drop that brand atleast on this platform. they are not in dangerof becoming popular. this group used to run aroundthe streets of my hometown, and i only had white friendsbecause there weren't many people who looked likeme from my town. but they would hold me backwhilst forcing me to watch my friends get stabbed beforemy very eyes because they considered them blood traitorsfor having befriended me. so there was these veryracist and violent attacks.
hammer attacks onpeople's heads. people being stabbedmultiple times. but then combined withthat, there was constant police harassment. so it didn't matter that i wasfrom a middle-class background, educated and was trying tomake something of my life. my brother was 16. he was playing with aplastic pellet gun. i was 15 years old.
and old lady saw himand decided he must be about to rob a bank. and so at 15 years old, i wasarrested at gunpoint by police for suspicion of armed robbery. none of the people thatattacked my friends were ever convicted, but there was meconstantly being arrested and harassed by the police becauseat the time there wasn't -- this is long before 9/11. it didn't have anything to dowith islam, but it was because
of my skin color and peoplethat assumed certain things about my background. so this made me feel verydisconnected from the society where i was born. and i was in searchof an identity. and in political islam -- icall it islamism, and it is not the same as islam, the faith. in islamism, ifound an ideology. i found an identity, and ifound a belonging, exactly
as paul described. that's where i think wehave very similar stories. jared cohen: this isinteresting because going back to this notion that it's allabout ideology, right, it doesn't sound like what we aretalking about here is a religious ideology. so, when we were having lunchyesterday, i asked you, paul, the question, is there anideology of the streets? it is not religious obviously.
but can you describe anideology of the streets that actually sounds similar tomaajid's, or is it really something very different? paul carrillo: it is probablydifferent in the sense that when i first joined the gang,there was a lot of talk and lot of behavior, the viewpointof "us against the world. nobody cares about us." all the rich people on topof the hill could care less if we kill each other.
it probably benefits themin some sort of way. why should we obey the law? just stuff of that nature,underprivileged, kind of -- got to kind of fend for ourselves. and maybe even have to rob,cheat and steal to feed our families, stuff of that nature. maajid nawaz: i think wherethe commonalities are the grievances that we experienceand the identity crisis. it leads to the seeking ofbelonging in something.
there weren't gangs. europe, it is not the sameas america in that sense. we don't have those armed gangsrunning around with guns. what we do have instead isa heavy muslim population. some say they are the blacksof europe, the muslims. and what we have is a situationwhere in seeking that identity they are joining extremistorganizations and it is quite a huge problem in europe, in theu.k. and across the continent. jared cohen: we have gotten atthe grievances and the
motivational needs that ledyou, paul, to join a gang and you, maajid, to joinhizb ut-tahrir. what about thedecision to leave? what were the grievances ormotivational needs behind both of your very difficult andpotentially life threatening decisions to leave theseorganizations, which is something that is, you know,damn near impossible for most people? paul carrillo: let metry to sum this up
in about 30 seconds. there was a young kid who kindof idolized me, followed me around, wanted to be like meand i was kind of mentoring him in the gang. and i remember one particularincident, there was a party in my neighborhood and a guy froman outside neighborhood tried to stab one of my friends. he didn't know that thatwas our territory. so long story short, we chasedhim down and he was getting
beat by about ten guys. and all of a sudden, this kidtaps me on the shoulder and i turn around and it is a10-year-old, 11-year-old kid holding a turtle. he says, here, hithim with this. it was just mind goggling,like, what is this kid doing out at midnight? why is he offering mehis pet turtle to hit this guy with, right?
so come to find out, this kid'sfather had left him when he was 3 years old, started anew family in mexico. his mother remarried and hisstepdad can't stand him. so the family goes out on --family parties on the weekend, and he stays home by himself. he was just lookingfor acceptance. i tried to convince the youngerguys to keep him out of the gang, but he kept beggingto be a part of it. so for me, fast forward maybe ayear or two later, within a
period of a couple of weeks, ifound myself getting involved in some organized crime. and this guy kept endingup on my doorstep. i said, gosh, i got toget away from this guy. it is a level up fromthe street gangs, some prison gang stuff. he was arrested by the feds ona rico charge so that helped. i didn't have to worryabout him so much. my girlfriend got pregnant.
this young friend ofmine was murdered. i was at a bit of a crossroads. i said, okay, i'm going to gooff the deep end now because i never really been that violent. i was more of anorganizer in the gange. each gang member playsdifferent roles. not every gang member is akiller or a drug dealer. i was always the organizer. so i said, i'm really going togo off the deep end and avenge
his death or i'm going to manup and take care of my child, which i always promisedmyself i would do. so i chose to be a man andtake care of my daughter, and that's how it started for me. maajid nawaz: well, in my case,i mean, i yet am able to answer specifically why i took thedecision i did considering what happened in prison because mostof the people -- i mean, if you -- at the end of the day, ifyou have been through torture by electrocution, if you hadyour friends die in front of
your eyes in prison becausethey have been tortured, if you have seen 15-year-old boyselectrocuted and mothers electrocuted before theirfathers, most people in that situation go from beingnon-violent extremists, as i was, to becoming terrorists. i was on the verge of switchingwhen i was in solitary confinement in egypt tobecoming a violent terrorist. what happened in my case iswhilst we were in prison in egypt, amnesty internationaladopted us as prisoners
of conscience. i had considered amnesty asthe enemy of my people. i had considered human rightsan assault power tool of colonialism to colonize theminds of muslims and make them subservient to western values. when amnesty reached out inthat way, for the first time, i saw a consistent stance indefense of people who they knew considered them as enemies. that opened up my heart.
i think where the heartopens, the mind can follow. secondly, i think verysignificantly in prison, i was there with those whoassassinated the former president of egypt,anway sadat, in 1981. those who weren't executedin the case were given life sentences. and many of these formerjihadists had abandoned their violent ideology through aconstant process of discussion and dialogue and engagementwith people who were involved
in deradicallizationof the prisoners. those guys went onto speak to me. now, initially, i took itupon myself to think that you guys have sold out. prison has made you soft,and it is my purpose to try and reconvince of the factthat you have basically forgetten who you were. these guys had been inprison since i was -- what -- 7 or 8 years old.
they had done time. obviously, over the four-yearprocess, it was them who managed to change my mind andconvince me that, in fact, what i had thought was islam, myfaith, was a very politicized version of islam. it was exploiting sentiments ofgrievances and my emotional sentiments to my faith fora political ideology. so upon leaving a year later, idecided to take that step and start working for human rightsreconciliation and
counterextremism, i.e., toprevent people from ever joining extremist groupsin the first place. because i think it is very hardto convince people who have been through torture or on amacro level to convince people who have had their countriesinvaded and civilians have been bombed in front of their eyes,is very hard to change them once they havebeen radicalized. it is a lot easier to capturepeople who are youth, 60% of the world's population, beforethey join extremist
organizations. that's where we'reworking in pakistan. that's where cbs "60 minutes"followed us there to profile that work. so i think what we're trying todo is stop people from ever joining in the first place. once they have gone down thatpath, it is very difficult to pull them back. the pressures you spoke about,it cost me my marriage.
my ex-wife, who is a member ofthe group, i have a son with her, our marriage ended and allof the people that used to idealize me as a prisoner ofthat cause now consider me a traitor. and a couple of times haveeither threatened or have attacked me in pakistan. the pressures to leave theseorganizations are huge, even if you wanted to leave. i think the best solution islet's not bomb people, let's
not introduce regretativelegislation in guantanamos and abu ghraibs. let's start preventing the 60%of the world's population from ever joining those groups inthe first place because once they join, the peer pressure tostop them leaving are so intense. i mean, who is going to wantto have their marriage end up in a divorce? it is not something that everyperson wants to go through.
i think prevent isbetter than cure. jared cohen: this is agood opportunity to bring up technology. technology offers a setof tools that have been distracting youngpeople for decades. and the technology we see todayoffers a potential to distract young people off thepath of recruitment. but if you look at just thespike in technology, right, in the last ten years, cell phonegrowth around the world has
gone from 907 million to nearly5 billion, internet growth from 361 million tonearly 2 billion. we all know while technologydoesn't choose sides, the people who use it do. can you talk a little bit fromthe gang content and the radical islamist context aboutboth the negative sides of how technology is being used butalso where some of the opportunities might well, for some of the kids thati work with, most of them
have myspace accounts. i don't know if it's okayto say "myspace," but... so -- and in many of theirprofiles, they display their gang membership, if nota family member's gang membership. a lot of times there's evenaltercations that transpire on myspace and kind of filterout into the streets. not at an alarming rate,but it does happen. so, you know, promotingof the gang, it helps
to recruit members. they kind of add a kid who'skind of wanting to fit in. i see a kid -- for example, akid from south central l.a. has a friend in, you know, a suburbarea and he's kind of wanting to be from that gang and hedoesn't live in a poor neighborhood or have thesame struggles as the kid from the gang. so just stuff of that nature. it's just -- i don't know whatto do, honestly, you know.
the best thing we can try to dois educate the parents, but a lot of times the parents arekind of thinking that it's the thing to do, just let them dowhat every other kid is doing, but that's not the case. but they do use -- i wouldn'tsay e-mail so much, but text messaging. you know, "hey, i just saw thisgang -- this member here," so they go looking for the guythrough text messaging and myspace accounts and othersocial networks that help
to promote and recruit. jared cohen: maajid, realquick, because then we're going to bring out albertoand geoffrey back up. maajid nawaz: well, since thisis called "mindshift," i mean let's talk about some of theways in which i think extremist organizations are thinking moreinnovatively than we are. they're addressing globalpopulations, they're not recognizing nationalboundaries. their message is global, theirrecruitment is global, and
they're using new media in ways-- i mean, i was taught how to use the e-mail by the extremistgroup that i joined at around 17 years old. i didn't know what e-mail was. and they're activeon social media. they're using the internet inamazingly efficient ways, considering their resources. and, yes, technology isvalue-neutral, so it depends on who is using it and how theyuse it, but i think we need to
be a lot more imaginative as tohow we're using that technology to push out counter-messages,and we need to stop thinking in a restricted national way. we need to stop thinking of theborders and the impositions we put on our own minds. let's start in imaginative andcreative ways as to how we can move forward in the future toput out positive messages by using technology andother forms of media. you know, music of will.i.amand some of the work there.
but i think it's vital todevelop brands and symbols for counter-radicalization. everyone's heard of bin laden. everyone's heard of al-qaeda. who's heard of the positivealternative messages out there to try andchallenge those brands? and they are brands. and at the moment, those brandswho are challenging them don't have enough attention orbranding or symbolism around
them to develop thatpotent counter-message. jared cohen: let's move onto action and solutions. i'd like to invite geoffrey andalberto back to the stage. i think we needtwo more chairs. so geoffrey, alberto, you know,you've really heard a challenge framed, you know, across twovery different contexts, right? and in listening to thechallenge that i sort of hear, it is that radicalization isreally about the process by which, you know, illicitactors, you know, hijack
impressionable young mindsand exploit them for criminal purposes. you know, as people that haveworked in the solution space in two other different contexts toour two colleagues here, you know, what do you hear aresome of the potential problem-solving ideas? geoffrey canada: well, imean, this has been really fascinating to me because i amamazed at how young people gravitate towards extremes.
i mean, both out of curiosityand other -- but if there is an organized message ofrecruitment, it happens without the adults knowinganything about it. meaning that that world existsand the adults aren't really connected to it at all. there are two things ifound very interesting. one is that one of the placesthat people know our work the best is in prison. and i was just stunnedthat people know that.
they said, "oh, yeah, geoff. you're like a hero in there." and the reason is because theprisoners understand if they had been in my program,they probably wouldn't have been in prison. it was clear that i believe acertain set of circumstances led these kids to do thesethings and end up in this place, and so here they havesomebody saying, "oh, yeah, i know how you ended up there andwe're trying to stop you."
and in most places there wasno adult trying to stop young people when they were atthat impressionable age. the second thing is that i havea lot of my young people who are organizing around negativeareas using the internet. so we aren't -- itold you i'm old. so we're not connectedto it, right? but they are and we don'treally know what's going on. the last thing i'll say, justas a potential solution, one of the interesting things thathappened when amex decided to
do the commercial and put us onit, i have met -- and people think it had -- it didn't helpwith fundraising and stuff like that. what has happened is i meetpeople all over the country who say to me, "you know what? i am so happy to see thatsomebody is doing something" because it's the brand issue. it's like there's a brand outthere that says there's an answer, and if there's ananswer in harlem, there's
probably an answer in southcentral and other things, and that's one of the areas thati think we haven't really exploited. folks who create brandsand really get people -- i agree with you. everybody knows al-qaeda. i don't know a positivebrand, right? if you want to say -- so what's-- i haven't heard of anything. and the question is why?
because if i'm young andif i'm on the edge, where do i hook into -- maajid nawaz: you'refrom new york, yeah? geoffrey canada:i'm from new york. so of course the wholecontroversy there at the moment with the park 51 center. so we're involved in trying todevelop a positive message as an alternative, so wediscredit the clash of civilization's rhetoric.
so many people are pushing outthere that islam and the west are at war with each other. i mean, that's afalse paradigm. huntington's theoryis incorrect. the true clash is between andwithin muslims fighting for democratic rights versus thosewho are totalitarian trying to control the vastmajority of muslims. it's not muslimsversus the west. so on the 6th of october-- i mention this because
you're from new york. i'm debating a motion -- it'san intelligence squared debate organized in newyork on the 6th of october. the motion is islam is areligion of peace, and opposing the motion is one of the mostprolific voices who is a critic of islam ayaan hirsi ali, butwhat we're trying to do -- and we would like your support forthis -- is to develop a positive image, because withoutthat positive image there's nothing for the young people tograb onto and they will be
attracted to thenegative brand. and that's what'shappening at the moment. so your supportwould be welcome. geoffrey canada: i'dbe thrilled to be supportive of this. maajid nawaz: thank you. jared cohen: alberto, let meask you about role models and then ask both maajid and pauland geoff if you want to comment on it.
we spoke yesterday about theimportance of role models who, you know, can be powerfulfigures either in shaping negative sentiments orshaping positive sentiments. you want to share yourthoughts on that? alberto c. vollmer: yeah i wanted to take up on whatpaul was saying before. you know, one of the thingswe've found is that the mothers of these guys, of these boys,of these young men are incredible.
they do everything. they're the mother, they'rethe father, they're everything, right? now, there's one problem. that mother needs a fathernext to -- to her to develop these young men. what tends to happen around 12,13 years old, the mechanism is that they just go out, theyneed that male role model, you know, that shouldbe the father.
they need the male role model. and who do they go after? they go after a leader. they're not going togo after a loser. they're going to look for thehit man, they're going to look for the drug dealer, they'regoing to look for the head of the gang, and that's their newrole model that they're going to latch on. and without their even beingconscious of it, they enter
these gangs and thenthey can't help it. then how do you get out? once you get in,there's no way out. so for me, you know, one of thethings that -- one of the programs that should really besort of worked on is how to rebuild fatherhood. i mean it sounds corny, but howto rebuild this for these guys. because -- and why do theycome to project alcatraz. they're looking for that rolemodel, the positive role model.
in that case, it's jamie,it's myself, and they want to be somebody else. they don't want to be stuckthere killing people or trafficking drugs. they're just like all of us. you know, they'vegot huge potential. they're bright. you've got some geniuses there. and all of that potential isbeing flushed -- flushed away.
jared cohen: now, maajid, paul,do you agree with what alberto is saying, and then can youcomment a little bit on, you know, who are some of thepositive and negative role models that you saw growing upwho could have had either an exacerbating impact on yourrecruitment or a potential diverting impact onyour recruitment? paul carrillo: you know what? i'd have to agree with alberto,and it's similar to -- to what maajid explained a while ago.
it's extremely difficult toget out, once you're in. so there's somesimilarities there. and also, i mean, for me, itwas, you know, protection, because even if you don't wantto be a gang member, if you live in the neighborhood -- geoffrey canada: yes. paul carrillo: -- the kids fromthe other side of the street are going to pick on you. so what are your options?
do you not join the gang thatyou're familiar with and just let these kids beat you, or doyou join the gang and then the numbers are kind of evened outand maybe they won't pick on you as much. that happens a lot. so a lot of times it's kind oflike by force, not by choice. you know, kind of choosingthe lesser of two evils, and it's hard, it's extremelydifficult, but i think that father figure is key.
looking for somebody to kind ofaspire to be the power, the respect, the love,or what have you. the unfortunate thing is thatgang members, young gang members, don't realize theconsequences that come with that decision until it's toolate, until they're deep into the gang, full of tattoos, inprison, and then it's like, "oh, my gosh, what theheck did i just do?" jared cohen: maajid, andthen we'll come back to you, alberto.
maajid nawaz: so there'sactually another overlap between us, which isstatistically in the u.s., so many prisoners who are inprison for gang-related offenses are converting to aradical interpretation of islam, and they're doing thatbecause they're angry. so what we have at the momentis the demand for an extreme message out there that peopleare joining on the ground. there is no demand beingcreated for a positive message, and i think that when i joinedat 16, it's really sad to say
that it's one of the biggestproblems in the world, not just in the states. islamist radicalization isone of the biggest problems. there was no positive rolemodel that i could look to and say "i'm going to channel myanger in this direction." i only had the negativity infront of me saying, "you're oppressed, you're downtrodden. look at bosnia. look at what happensto muslims in europe.
so join us, be angry, and causea revolution in the world." and that's what wequite literally did. you know, we had members ofarmies recruited to our group attempting military coupsin countries like pakistan. they were arrested in 2003. people that i recruited hadtheir backs broken in torture. it's this anger after angerafter anger, and i think that it's sad to say that at themoment, there is no prominent and visible positivealternatives.
we're using music, we're usingarts and culture, we're using democratic messages to try andget young people to, once again, make it as unfashionableas communism has become to join al-qaeda and to try and makethe democratic message of pluralism and tolerance andrespect something that's trendy and fashionableto be associated with. salman over there,he's a good friend. he's helping. we need other musicians, otherartists, all of us in a
coalition to try and makethe positive role model attractive once again. jared cohen: our red light ison, so we do need to finish up and i'm going to give maajidand paul the last words here, but let me frame something foryou before you do that because i want you to address your lastwords at the audience, again going back to the spirit ofzeitgeist being a place of action. you know, you've listen toscholars who are experts on
radicalization and gangs. you look at, you know,what the media tells us. you look at even what,you know, government is trying to do. they all tell us it's a battlefor the hearts and minds of young people, right? but the question we have is, isit really -- when i hear you all speak -- when i hear,geoffrey, you, when i hear alberto, you, as well, it'ssounds to me like it's less a
battle for the hearts andminds, and it's more a challenge of alternatives. so given that it's a challengeof alternatives, you have a whole audience of people herethat know how to build things. they build applications, theybuild programs, they build things that actually forcommercial purposes have that natural effect of divertingat-risk young people away from recruitment. you know, what shouldall these people do?
what's your call toaction for all of them? paul carrillo: i would say ithas to be a comprehensive collaborative approach, similarwhat we're trying to do with the better l.a. in los angeles,and people have to come to the table with what will.i.amdiscussed earlier and the stuff that he's doing, the amazingwork that geoffrey is doing in education. that's a big component of it. and then what alberto is doing-- and it's similar to --
to working with extremists. you know, the administrationused to have an approach of "we won't sit at the table withanybody who is on this list as a terrorist." well, we have the approachwhere, you know, now the new administration says "we'll sitdown and have a dialogue for peace with anybody that'swilling to sit down and have a dialogue." and that's what we dowith gang members.
if they're willing to sit downand say, "how can we work this out, provide you with somejobs, tattoo removal, get you out of the situation thatyou're in, then let's do it." jared cohen: maajid? maajid nawaz: i'm told inpakistan i've spoken to over 10,000 students who arevulnerable to joining some of the more angry organizations inthat country, and what i would request of everyone here is:help me create this as a brand. i mean, this is one of the mostsignificant civilizational
challenges of our time,and we need to develop positive role models. we need to create a sustaining,a self-sustaining model, and that requires artists, culturalfigures, it requires businessmen to come in and helpme create this as a sustaining brand, because in pakistan atthe moment, we're trying to launch this nationwide movementto promote democratic values and challenge extremism. but the problem we're having isof course when you talk about
challenging extremism, it's --many people want to step back because they're worried aboutbeing targeted, quite legitimately so. but we need to be as brave forthose people who are willing to risk death and torture andimprisonment for angry ideas and we should be just aswilling to risk and sacrifice all of that for ourown convictions. so my challenge to everyonewould be to help me develop this brand.
we're working day in and dayout to try and do this but we're lacking resourcesand we're lacking that self-sustaining model. jared cohen: maajid,paul, geoff, alberto, thank you very much.