Sorrows in a Turbulent World: Reflections and Memoirs

The Centre for Arab Unity Studies has published the book Sorrows in a Turbulent World: Reflections and Memoirs, by Dr Youssef el Hassan.

This book is one link in a series of intellectual works concerned with pressing national and pan-Arab issues, and with others related to the changing international geopolitical environment. It evokes the state of our turbulent contemporary world, at a time when questions have multiplied and satisfying answers have grown scarce, and when threats, dangers and challenges have intensified: violence and wars, and the complexities of governing advanced and fast-moving technologies, in a competitive world that is becoming ever more fragmented and digitized, in which human contact is diminishing, and which is sliding into unprecedented chaos, in an international environment from which wisdom and good sense are absent, and in which people of good will have grown lax and their solidarity has weakened.

In this book, the author calls for the exercise of reason and the revival of the human conscience, the “spirit of the ship” and international humanitarian law. He evokes reflections and memories from the stages of his diplomatic career, at a time that was less turbulent and more sincere in its striving to create hope and to develop the individual and society. He does not conceal his fears about the dangers of imbalance and turmoil in today’s world, and in the Arab region in particular—dangers that call for greater awareness of them and for the restoration of collective Arab cohesion.