The power of civil society. Four lessons from the war on drugs and armed violence.

Video: TED – Ideas Worth Spreading

Translation: Túlio Leão. Revision: Leonardo Silva 

Rio de Janeiro-based social and political activist Ilona Szabó de Carvalho understood that drug use and trafficking, along with homicidal violence, were increasingly transforming Brazil into a country apart. She then decided to actively participate in the creation of an organization, the Igarapé Institute (en.igarape.org.br), in Rio de Janeiro, whose main focus is citizen security and development policy. In this lecture, Ilona Szabó de Carvalho reveals four crucial lessons she learned when she abandoned her comfortable job and adopted a fearless stance against the status quo.

 Embed

Full translation of Ilona Szabó de Carvalho's lecture:

About 12 years ago, I gave up my banking career to try to make the world a safer place. This involved a journey in global and national advocacy and encounters with some of the most extraordinary people in the world. In the process, I became a civil society diplomat.

Civil society diplomats do three things: they express the concerns of the people, they are not influenced by national interests, and they drive change through citizen networks, not just state networks. And if we want to change the world, we need more of them.

But many still ask: "Can civil society make that much of a difference? Can citizens influence and shape global and national politics?" I never thought I'd ask myself this, but here I am to share some lessons about the powerful civil society movements I've been involved in. They advocate for issues I'm passionate about: gun control and drug policy. And these are issues that matter here. Latin America is the starting point for both.

Brazil, for example, this beautiful country hosting TEDGlobal, holds the ugliest world record. We are the champion, number one, in homicidal violence. One in ten people killed around the world is Brazilian. This results in more than 56 people dying violently each year. Most of them are young black boys, shot dead. Brazil is also one of the world's largest consumers of drugs, and the War on Drugs has been especially painful here. About 50% of homicides on Brazilian streets are related to the War on Drugs. The same is true for 25% of prisoners. And it's not just Brazil that is affected by the sister problems of drugs and weapons. Virtually every country and city in Central and South America is in trouble. Latin America has 9% of the world's population, but globally, 25% of violent deaths.

These are not problems we can run away from. I certainly couldn't. So the first campaign I got involved with started here in 2003, to change Brazilian gun laws and create a disarmament program. In just a few years, we not only changed national legislation, making it more difficult for civilians to carry weapons, but we also collected and destroyed almost half a million guns. That was one of the largest disarmament programs in history. (Applause) But we also dealt with setbacks. We lost a referendum in 2005 that would have banned the sale of guns to civilians.

The second initiative was also homegrown, but it is now a global movement to reform the drug control regime. I am the executive coordinator of something called: The Global Commission on Drug Policy. The commission is a high-level group that brings together global leaders to identify more humane and effective approaches to the drug issue. Since we started in 2008, the taboo surrounding drugs has been broken. Across the Americas, from the US and Mexico to Colombia and Uruguay, change is looming.

But instead of telling you the whole story of these two movements, I want to share four key points. I call them lessons for changing the world. There are certainly many more, but these are the ones that stand out to me.

So the first lesson is: change and control the narrative. It may seem obvious, but the main ingredient for civil society diplomacy is first to change and then to control the narrative. This is something veteran politicians know, but civil society groups typically don't do right. In the case of drug policy, our greatest success was shifting the discussion from waging a War on Drugs to putting people's health and safety first. In a groundbreaking report we just released in New York, we showed that the groups that benefit most from this $320 billion market are gangs and cartels. So in order for us to take power and profit away from these groups, we have to change the conversation. We have to legalize illegal drugs. But before I get you too excited, I don't want to say that drugs should be a free-for-all. What I'm saying, and what the Global Commission advocates, is creating a highly regulated market where different drugs would be regulated with different severities.

Regarding gun control, we were successful in changing the narrative, but not so much in controlling it. And that brings me to the next lesson: never underestimate your opponents. If you want to be successful in changing the world, you have to know who you're facing. You have to learn their motivations and points of view. In the case of gun control, we greatly underestimated our opponents. After an extremely successful disarmament program, we were elated. We had the support of 80% of Brazilians, and we believed that this would help us win the referendum to ban the sale of weapons to civilians. But we were completely wrong. During the broadcast of a 20-day public debate, our opponent used our own arguments against us. We ended up losing the popular vote. It was terrible. The National Rifle Association, yes, the American NRA, came to Brazil. They flooded our campaign with their own ideals, which, as you know, link the right to bear arms with ideas of freedom and democracy. They simply used everything against us. They used our national flag, our independence anthem. They invoked women's rights and improperly used pictures of Mandela, Tiananmen Square, and even Hitler. They won by playing on people's fears. In fact, guns were almost completely ignored in their campaign. Their focus was on individual rights. But I ask you, which right is more important: the right to life or the right to own a gun that takes it away? (Applause)

We thought people would vote in defense of life, but in a country with a recent history of military dictatorship, the anti-government message from our opponents resonated, and we were not prepared to react.

Lesson learned. We have had more success in the case of drug policy. If ten years ago you had asked people if ending the War on Drugs was possible, most would have laughed. After all, there are enormous military and police prisons and financial establishments profiting from this war. But today, the international drug control regime is collapsing. Governments and civil societies are trying new approaches. The Global Commission on Drug Policy truly understands the opposition, and instead of fighting it, our chairman, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, engaged in dialogue with leaders across the political spectrum, from liberals to conservatives. This high-level group agreed to honestly discuss the merits and failures of drug policies. It was this reasoned, informed, and strategic discussion that revealed the sad reality of the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs has failed catastrophically on every metric. Drugs are cheaper and more accessible than ever, and global consumption has increased. But, even worse, it has also generated massive and unintended negative consequences. It's true that some people have raised these arguments before, but we made a difference by anticipating our opponents' arguments and amplifying the powerful voices that a few years ago would have resisted change.

Third lesson: Use data to drive your arguments. Guns and drugs are emotional issues, and as we painfully learned in the Brazilian gun referendum, sometimes it's impossible to detach ourselves from emotions and see the facts. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Until recently, we simply didn't know how many Brazilians were shot to death. Incredibly, it was a soap opera called "Mulheres Apaixonadas" (Women in Love) that kicked off the gun control campaign in Brazil. In a highly watched episode, the soap opera's protagonist was killed by a stray bullet. Grandmothers and housewives were furious, and in a case of art imitating life, this episode included real footage of a march against gun ownership that we had organized right here on Copacabana beach. The televised marches and death had a huge impact on public opinion. Within weeks, our Congress passed the disarmament law that had been pending for years. We were then able to mobilize data to show the positive outcome of the changes in the law and the disarmament program. Here's what I mean: we were able to prove that, in just one year, we saved more than 5 lives. (Applause)

And in the case of drugs, to alleviate the fear and prejudice surrounding this issue, we were able to collect and present data showing that these drug policies cause far more harm than drug use itself, and people are beginning to understand that.

My fourth lesson is: don't be afraid to bring together antagonistic people. What we learned in Brazil, and this doesn't apply only to my country, is the importance of bringing together diverse and eclectic people. If you want to change the world, it's a great help to have a good sample of society on your side. In both cases, drugs and weapons, we brought together a wonderful combination of people. We mobilized the elite and gained massive media support. We brought together victims, human rights heroes, and cultural icons. We also brought together professional classes, doctors, lawyers, academics, and more.

What I've learned over the years is that we need support from both the willing and the reluctant to bring about change. In the case of drugs, we needed libertarians, legalizers, anti-prohibitionists, and liberal politicians. They may not agree on everything. In fact, they disagree on almost everything. But the legitimacy of a campaign is based on these diverse viewpoints.

For over a decade, I had a comfortable future working at an investment bank. I was as far removed from civil society diplomacy as you can imagine. But I seized an opportunity. I changed course and, along the way, helped create social movements that I believe have played their part in making the world a safer place. Each of us has the power to change the world. No matter the issue, no matter how difficult the struggle, civil society is at the heart of planning for change.

Thank you.