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Queen Rania of Jordan called for a paradigm shift in response to global crises at the fifth edition of the Paris Peace Forum earlier this month. “We are facing a convergence of crises, but I want challenge us all to aim higher than just riding out the storm,” the Queen said in her remarks at the opening session of the 2022 Paris Peace Forum on Nov. 11. “Our world is off-balance. Simply trying to keep things steady is not enough.”
“We should treat this moment like the shake-up it is,” she continued. “It’s time for a paradigm shift and that will take four critical realignments. Renewing our faith in truth, recognizing that we all have equal worth, safeguarding the future, and believing in our ability to remake the world as we wish it could be. As we know it can be.”
Queen Rania called self-sufficiency an “illusion” and stressed that we must “honor our common humanity.” “None of us can truly thrive unless we all do,” she said. Rania pointed out that “until we embrace the reality of our connectedness, we’ll continue to bear the worst of its consequences.”
Her Majesty also stated that “we have to act in the service of future generations” because what “we do today is about tomorrow too.” She said, “We who still hold the social, economic and political levers of power have simply got to do better. Our power isn’t a right. It’s a trust. Our job is to be good stewards of our time. What matters is not the next election, or the next financial quarter, or the next generation of smartphones. What matters is doing right by the next generation of humanity. Because, the truth is, despite all the doomsday predictions, humanity’s just getting started.”
The Queen noted that the “last piece of our paradigm shift must be renewing hope and confidence in ourselves.” “The engine of hope remains our ability to imagine something new, something different. To believe that things can be better than they are, and then act to make it so,” she said.
Queen Rania concluded her remarks declaring that “every moment we have an opportunity to get it right.” She added, “Let us meet our moment together.”