Georgetown Global Dialogues
Ways Forward in a Divided World. Georgetown Global Dialogues.
At a time of war, political breakdown, widening inequality, and climate crisis we need a more inclusive, international conversation about ways forward in a divided world. On the premise that only by engaging perspectives from the Global South can we address critical contemporary challenges, Georgetown convenes top scholars and creatives with youth to advance a global vision of human equality.
Upcoming Events
Human Frailty and Global Solidarity
November 3-6, 2025
Barcelona, Spain, and Online Livestream
Fragmentation and polarization in today’s world are reinforced by claims and counterclaims of victimhood. Hatred and resentment, exacerbated by social media echo chambers, swamp efforts to understand and identify with the other.
Any fresh vision for global solidarity must address structural inequalities in our societies and how to alleviate them. But it will also require a fuller recognition of an often-overlooked basis of our common humanity: a widely shared sense of frailty, the human experience of suffering, weakness, and humiliation.
Literature and the arts, with their innate virtues of ambiguity and irony and their openness to paradox and contradiction, can help us to understand our precariousness and extend imaginative sympathy across hardened boundaries. GGD and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona will bring together writers and critics to address the relationship between human frailty and global solidarity, with a focus on voices from the Global South. A formal program of panels will be flanked by informal dialogues—online and in person—with university students.
Youth Voices: GU-Q Students in the Global Dialogue Forum
In short essays, Student GD Fellows responded to prompts by the writers and scholars participating in the Global Dialogues, highlighting what gives them hope and keeps them striving for a better world. The essays of Nafisa Sagdullaeva and Honore Mugiraneza were selected among three winners of the 2025 Georgetown Global Dialogues student essay contest.
On Fraternity and Solidarity
The Strength We Refuse
“Political love is not about affection. It is about commitment. It is the refusal to abandon each other even when institutions fail. During the pandemic, mutual aid groups formed in neighborhoods across the world…These are not gestures of charity. They are strategies for survival.”
—Nafisa Sagdullaeva (SFS’26)
On Confronting Powerlessness
Building Communities That Insist on Hope
“When the bombs fell in Doha, I realized that powerlessness is not the absence of power; it is the refusal to imagine how small acts bind us into larger possibilities…We need to practice, every day, the fragile but radical work of building communities that insist on hope when the air grows thick with despair.”
—Honore Mugiraneza (SFS’29)
If They Can, Why Can’t We?
“Don’t we hold the power to reshape the concept of power itself? I sometimes catch myself thinking: maybe this is just how the world is, maybe the best I can do is adapt. But then I see climate strikers, women in Iran who risked everything to chant Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom), and I remember that resignation is exactly what oppressive systems count on. Systems are built on the basis of making people powerless.”
—Shahid Usman (SFS’28)
Communities That Save Us
“From educational institutions to churches, every community must exist as a transformative space that stands for justice and peace. We have to uphold these spaces knowing that community is our greatest source of strength. Coming together through this shared pain makes each tragedy easier to bear. We have to believe, no matter how hopeless we feel, because we live not just for ourselves but for each other. We must love the hard work and effort put into building communities, as it is this love and connection that will save us.”
—Daphne Soriano (SFS’28)
Confidence in Many Hands
“When we say ‘I can’t do anything,’ maybe the real problem is the I. Alone, none of us can move mountains, but together, encouraged by each other, we can. Confidence grows when it’s shared, and change becomes possible when it’s carried by many hands and not just one. The truth is, everyone is waiting for everyone else to act…Powerlessness ends when we stop waiting for someone else to be “the one,” and start choosing to lead—together.”
—Carmen Saleh (SFS’28)
On Calling out Cruelty
Politics of Numbness
“If cruelty is socially produced, we can undo it where it is produced. This can happen by making compassion measurable and rewarded. An example of this institutionalization is New Zealand’s decision to adopt a “Wellbeing Budget,” which shifts national priorities away from GDP growth alone toward mental health, child welfare, and environmental protection.“
—Jemimah Hyelazira Golo (SFS’26)
The Quiet Revolution
“Humanity seems to celebrate division and justify brute force as a means to an end, normalizing the Social Darwinist belief that only the ruthless deserve to endure. If cruelty has become a spectacle that the world applauds, then compassion should become our quiet revolution.”
—Tony Mwambali Cirhulwire (SFS’29)
The Essence of Real Power
“The Qur’an reminds us that cruelty often grows out of arrogance and transgression; in other words, the illusion that strength and power makes one untouchable. To push back, one must first realize that cruelty is not strength, but rather a weakness in disguise. True power is measured by the ability to act within restraint, humility, and empathy.”
—Salma Bayoumy (SFS’26)
Past Forums
Dean Masri Shares Importance of Global South Voices at Major International Forum in Rome
To contemplate the intersection of its jesuit values and advancing global peace through education and knowledge production, Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) partnered with Georgetown University’s Berkely Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, and the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education to host leading authors and public thinkers in Rome for a major international forum titled “Human Fraternity in a Divided World: Writers Engage the Legacy of Pope Francis.”
GU-Q Joins Global South Intellectuals in Georgetown Global Dialogues
Georgetown University hosted leading intellectuals from the Global South to engage with each other, prominent U.S.-based thinkers, and students, faculty, and a wider public in a series of dialogues designed to generate a multi sided, international conversation about the challenges facing global humanity. During the panel titled “Reviving Cosmopolitanism through a Cultural and Spiritual Turn,” Rhodes Scholar Asma Shakeel (GU-Q’24) shared insights from her honors research on Kashmir on the historical and contemporary significance of cosmopolitanism.
About The Dialogues
The Georgetown Global Dialogues (GGD) are a multiyear conversation which began in Washington, DC (April 2024), continued in Rome (June 2025) and will next convene in Barcelona (November 2025). We invite you to learn more about GGD events to date, the seven GGD fellows, and the ideas being explored in the GGD Forum.
GGD seeks to advance four interrelated goals: