When confronting a challenging problem, it’s sometimes useful to listen to someone who looks at it from an entirely different angle. That’s why I found it fascinating to talk about the rise of populism and nativism with Bono last weekend at a summit in Kyiv. The Irish singer-activist-philanthropist sees the same forces that we all do, particularly in Europe, but he zeroes in on something intangible yet essential. The only way to counter the dark, pessimistic vision being peddled by nationalists and extremists, Bono says, is to have an uplifting, positive vision. Homing in on the trouble in his part of the world, he told me, “Europe needs to go from being seen as a bore, a bureaucracy, a technical project, to being what it is: a grand, inspiring idea.”
OP-ED
Fareed Zakaria: I wanted to understand Europe’s populism. So I talked to Bono
Global celebrity Paul David Hewson, better known as Bono — the frontman of rock band U2 — made his first visit to Kyiv on Sept. 15 as he was the special guest speaker at the 15th Yalta European Strategy conference.
