Nahlah Ayed

Such a precious gift, humbling honour and urgently, timely opportunity it has been to crisscross Canada over the past two months while delivering this year's Massey Lectures. What stays with me above all is the concern, engagement and passion for human rights I heard everywhere - in the rich q&a sessions, the thoughtful conversations in listening circles & public libraries, and the beautiful moments in the book-signing lines. These are indeed fractured times, and the universal human rights promise very much needs renewal. But I can see it and feel it: change is in our hands. The five lectures will be broadcast on CBC Radio's Ideas, at 8 pm, every day this week, starting tonight, and thereafter will be available online and as a podcast: cbc.ca/radio/ideas/cbc-2025-… And the book is available at your nearest independent bookstore! Universal: Renewing Human Rights in a Fractured World.

What a gift to sit down and talk with @NahlahAyed for this episode of CBC Radio's Ideas, in the lead up to the broadcast of the Massey Lectures next week. cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-2…

Thank you to @CBCLabrador's @johngaudicbc for this engaging conversation with @NahlahAyed and me. Coming to Happy Valley / Goose Bay for Massey Lecture #4, on October 15th, to talk about human rights, is such a wonderful opportunity.

Such a gift and opportunity, certainly an immensely humbling honour, and a considerable (admittedly daunting) responsibility. I still don't quite believe that I will be delivering the 2025 #MasseyLectures this fall, but the announcement is out today, so that makes it real: cbc.ca/radio/ideas/masseys-2… I've been asked to explore the many challenges and perils in our world - the climate crisis; genocide and mass atrocities; hate and disinformation; mass displacement; economic injustice; and more. These are troubling and unsettling times, and we feel uncertainty and fear, not only about the future but about the present. But this is not just a survey of global angst and doom, I've also been asked to answer a key question: does a true embrace of human rights offer a way forward? "Universal: Renewing Human Rights in a Fractured World" will explore that question, with inescapable urgency, but also conviction and hope. Spoiler alert, the answer is yes. The proviso though is that it is up to us: to claim rights, defend rights, understand rights and above all, to live rights. As we have never truly done. And to do so recognizing that until we uphold human rights universally - for all, everywhere and always - then our world, and our lives will be riven by inequality and precarity. The promise of human rights is a universal one for a very good reason, anything less leaves us all vulnerable. The book will be out in early September, and can already be pre-ordered from House of Anansi Press (not to worry, I have actually written it): houseofanansi.com/products/u… The five lectures will be in Toronto (September 19), Vancouver (September 25), Edmonton (October 1), Happy Valley/Goose Bay, Labrador (October 15) and Ottawa (October 30). Hope to see some of you along the way. Tickets will go on sale in August. The lectures will then be aired on CBC Radio's Ideas later in November. This book and the lectures are grounded in the wisdom, insights, example, courage, audacity and inspiration of the thousands of fellow human rights travelers I've followed, schemed with, grown alongside and learned from over the decades. Through all of you, universality does and will soar.