New York, Sept. 27 (BNA): Pakistan’s new prime minister ascended to the UN podium and confronted world leaders, ready to chronicle the story of floods, climate change and more than 33 million people at risk. Shahbaz Sharif began: “And I am standing here today to tell the story of my country…”
In essence, that’s what every world leader has been here to do over the past week, the Associated Press reports.
One by one, they took the podium different leaders from different traditions, under one roof, reflecting most of world history. Everyone had a fleeting opportunity to craft a story about their nation and the world that they hoped would get others to sit up and listen. Some did it better than others.
We are storytellers, we are human beings. Even in the age of globalized politics and instant simulcasting, the story the way it is told, the details used, the sound, the rhythm and the emotion (or lack thereof) can win the day.
However, the dawn of widespread storytelling over the past two decades has bloated ordinary people globally next to world leaders, and entire industries devoted to spreading disinformation across continents make it difficult for even the most powerful to notice their messages.
“Define political success,” said Evan Kornog, author of Strength and Story: How a Presidential Narrative is Made.
“It’s very difficult to break through,” Kornog said. “And I think it got more and more difficult. In the Dwight D. Eisenhower era of politics, there was more inclined to think, ‘I should listen to this guy.’ Today it’s getting ready, ‘This is all propaganda, and I shouldn’t have paid attention to this.'”
However, watching a week of what is effectively an open mic night for the people who rule the world, she revealed that in the attention economy, and especially for countries that aren’t in the spotlight right now, the way you tell the story can make all the difference.
Urgency was a major issue. The “inflection point” appeared a lot, as well as the “action moment”. “We are already living in a watershed moment,” said Bharat Raj Podial, Nepal’s foreign minister.
Tandy Dorje, Bhutan’s foreign minister, read a letter from a child about climate change. “Help and save our little village from global warming,” she said, and it was hard not to stop and notice.
Other speeches were more practical. Some were just dots about priorities. Some were trait-rich monkeys about ancient enmities. Some were, frankly, quite shaken.
However, some leaders (or their speechwriters) have honed storytelling into a persuasive art. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, for example, got an exemption to be the only world leader allowed to talk by videoconference this year thanks to his wartime status as president. Thus, he gained some advantages:
He controlled the production values. If he makes a mistake, he can re-record. Most of all, he can tap into the storytelling visuals that have served him so well since the war with his olive t-shirt, background flag, and ability to control his own environment rather than being framed by the same green marble as everyone else.
Then there is the case of Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of the island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. His speech on Saturday was full of metaphors and language that some might call epic and others great but was very noticeable either way.
“I ask the relevant and haunting questions: What’s new? What scientist? And who gives the orders? The future of humanity depends on satisfactory answers to these questions,” Gonçalves said flourishingly.
Storytelling, of course, goes beyond rhetoric even in the context of rhetoric. Some of the UN’s most memorable stories have been told by leaders who go beyond words.
Let’s take, for example, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, whose legendary boot hit at the 1960 General Assembly was a defining moment in his public life and was not even on the podium at that time. and Libyan Muammar Gaddafi, who spent an hour and 36 minutes venting his anger at the United Nations before pulling out a copy of its charter and tearing it up.
Most speeches are not live and, in fact, would be boring for many people. This is partly because storytelling often targets different audiences than the general international audience.
Sometimes the story is dedicated to fellow assembled leaders or to a particular leader (many UN General Assembly speeches were given to one audience: the President of the United States). Sometimes it is intended for a financial institution, such as the World Bank. Sometimes it is told to the audience of the local media, or to the people of the neighboring country.
“They’re still learning. Heads of state are learning how to tell stories, and how to use that format to get their message out there,” said William Mack, chair of political science at North Central College in Illinois.
“They are not always the great storytellers,” he said. “But now we have the means and technology to share these stories. So anyone who is really good at telling stories can thrive in this space.”
One story has faded into the background this year: the story of COVID-19. The dominant narrative in both the virtual UN General Assembly 2020 and the 2021 Hybrid version, it slipped into a B story this time with war, climate change and food insecurity in the front row. Besides the universal desire to move forward, there seemed to be an acknowledgment that it was time for other stories.
Outside the General Assembly building this month, a mockup of an outdoor classroom with desks for pupils and backpacks has been set up for a bit about changing education.
Every day, delegates passed by and saw these words engraved on the board: “Only one in three ten-year-olds globally can read and understand a simple story.”
The message was clear. Telling, understanding, and taking an appreciative and critical look at stories is at the heart of literacy in the twenty-first century. It’s an essential part of being a citizen, a smart consumer, and a leader.
It is also a way station to what the United Nations aspires to more than anything else: peace.