Australian Jewish Message to “Global Town Hall 2020”
The Global Town Hall, a series of moderated discussions on foreign and security policy matters organised by 12 prominent think tanks from around the world, took place last weekend, running for 15 hours with high-level experts and national leaders discussing “Rebuilding from the Covid-19 World”.
Jeremy Jones
Opened by Retno Marsudi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Indonesia, the speakers included Wang Yi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, Marise Payne, Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Nobel Prize Winner and Former Timor Leste President, Jose Ramos-Horta, Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Director General of the World Health Organisation, Sergey Lavrov, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Russia and Josep Borrell Fontelles, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. There was also a wide selection of serving and former parliamentarians, including two former Australian Foreign Ministers, global media personalities and highly regarded experts in the fields of foreign affairs, global security and other global concerns.
Jeremy Jones’s short message, warning of the need to confront racism, prejudice and bigotry in a time of global uncertainty, received a warm response and he was thanked by Conference organiser Dr Dino Patti Djlalal, the Founder and Chairman of the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia and former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia. for “a wonderful message” which had a “wisdom” which should be listened to “over and over again”.
Jeremy Jones said he was humbled by the invitation to be even a small part of such a significant event and that he hoped that the goodwill and spirit of cooperation apparent in the organisation would be reflected in the actions of the participants as we move to a post-pandemic world.
