Arabic version: أرديرن تحث القادة على إعادة بناء الثقة
According to The Guardian, former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern told an audience at the Sydney Opera House that politicians should help rebuild trust by improving financial security during a period of deep insecurity. Speaking on Sunday in a forum with author Anna Funder, Ardern said political leaders had a responsibility not to use binary thinking or the language of violence.
Ardern, who now calls Sydney home, said politicians were exacerbating polarisation rather than improving it. She said that, as globalisation took hold, people around the world had felt increasingly insecure and began attacking institutions including the World Trade Organization. In her account, political proposals such as Brexit offered people something to blame and helped pave the way for leaders such as Donald Trump.
The 46-year-old moved to Australia earlier this year, bought a house on the northern beaches in September and recently announced she would lecture and mentor at the University of Sydney. The Opera House event was promoted as a discussion of whether people can disagree without becoming divided. Ardern said public discourse had become harder when people viewed their own opinions as moral clarity that others did not share.
She also said social media had made it harder for people to change their views because opinions are recorded and retained. Ardern recalled entering politics in 2008 as New Zealand’s youngest sitting MP and the first to arrive with an existing social media account. Her view of online platforms changed after the Christchurch mosque shootings on 15 March 2019, she said, describing the attack as evidence of the weaponisation of online information.
Ardern said mistrust was reflected in voters’ grievances and insularity, while political responses had failed to address the underlying problems. She argued that empathy could help, saying it brings humility and curiosity to politics. “We have not just a crisis of trust; we have a crisis of leadership,” she said.
