Undercurrents. Steve Davis

a doctor?”

      He pointed toward the camp. “Because we must help each other,” he said, then looked me directly in the eyes. “You and your friends probably also need doctors, so I can help you too.”

      This kid moved me, and changed me. Though I'd been at the camp just a short time, I hadn't missed the determination of everyone there trying to create some sense of normalcy in their upended lives. Their optimism floored me. Not a single refugee I met—including the teenager who'd lost his parents—appeared to consider themselves victims. They seemed to be focused only on taking care of one another and finding a dignified path forward.

After the soccer game, I wandered over to the UNHCR processing tent, trying to get my head around the immensity of this place and the complicated issues it presented. Our friend was working with the U.S. State Department, and he'd said I could listen in on an immigration interview between a U.S. official and a refugee applying for resettlement in America. We sat in a small, airless tent—the State Department lawyer, a stout Hmong man applying for asylum, a translator, and me.

      “I was a driver for the U.S. team at the embassy,” the refugee began, speaking through the translator. At the time, it was helpful for refugees to prove that they'd worked with U.S. forces during the war.

      “Where did you drive?” asked the lawyer, checking off boxes on his clipboard.

      “I drove officials around Vientiane,” the man responded, referring to the capitol of Laos.

      “What kind of car?”

      “A Ford truck.”

      “What make?”

      “F‐150.”

      “Do you know how to drive a stick shift?” the lawyer continued with an officiousness that struck me as strange, considering the question.

      “Of course.”

      “How many gears did the Ford have—four or five?”

      This was a trick question, as that model of pickup had just three gears, and I could see that the refugee was confused. His answer might determine the fate of his entire family, and he knew it. Would they be allowed onto the list for resettlement in the United States? Forced to remain in the camp? Or returned to Laos where they could be in constant danger?

      “Four,” the man guessed. Immediately, he knew it was wrong. And the interview was over.

I walked out of that tent feeling agitated and confused. My assumptions about America's beneficence, the presumptive roles of aid workers and refugees, and my own blithe detachment from the causes of, or solutions to, this crisis, had all been challenged. The boy with whom I'd played soccer was not so different from me. In fact, we were just a few years apart in age, both strong‐willed and athletic, and I had once considered becoming a doctor too. He clearly considered himself my equal in a very unequal world. And now the Hmong man would be denied a chance to rebuild his life in the United States, simply by dint of a gear‐shift question posed by a self‐important lawyer. These thoughts swirled in my mind, upending my ideas around “us or them” and “survivors or victims,” as it became increasingly clear that the differences between us came down to little more than chance. There was nothing exceptional about me as an American, nothing more than privilege conferred by the luck of circumstance.

      Now I wondered about the aid workers. I'd been impressed by their relentless dedication and generosity, even when their task involved making difficult decisions about individual futures. Yet I couldn't ignore the nagging sense that easing people's day‐to‐day suffering, while a necessary Band‐Aid, did not really address their underlying problems. Nor did it provide a sustainable solution. It wouldn't change the political conditions that forced families to flee their countries, nor the economic duress they suffered, nor the government systems that tossed them around like faceless cargo. As we left the camp, I kept asking myself, was there anything a person like me could do to change this?

      Back in the States, I would work extensively on refugee‐related programs and interview hundreds of applicants for resettlement, learning on the job to recognize the many forces at work in these stiff conversations. Sure, sometimes people lie or shade the truth, but often their memories are tangled by anxiety. Our bureaucratic questionnaires rarely got at the rich complexity of their lives or made room to note the heart‐rending sacrifices they'd made and the difficulty of their journeys. Yet even back in that Thai camp, I grasped the basic unfairness. And I sensed a few other things too: our world is filled with outrageous injustices, I was going to commit time and talent to addressing a few of them, and every step of the way would be fraught with difficult decisions.

Forty years later, it's clear that the seeds of my approach to activism took root in that camp. My work has almost always been behind the scenes. I've never been one to storm the castle gates. Except for marching in a few demonstrations in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, I haven't spent much time shouting in the streets. And unlike other, more celebrated activists, I have not designed a game‐changing social innovation, discovered a breakthrough scientific formula, started a powerful social movement, or given away hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet, by partnering with many like‐minded colleagues around the globe, I've still been lucky to contribute to the improvement of millions of lives through a roll‐up‐your‐sleeves‐and‐get‐things‐done form of social activism: practical activism.

      There is no simple definition for practical activism. It's an approach to the work of making our world fairer, focused on long‐term systemic change. Unlike building homes for the needy or handing out food or medicine on the front lines of a humanitarian crisis, practical activism is often invisible, indirect, and unsexy—aimed at shifting public policies, negotiating partnerships, and innovating to improve government systems. Much of the work is geared toward building networks that develop and introduce new approaches or services, and, more recently, new technologies. But all of these endeavors stem from the same motivation: addressing inequities that cause too much pain and hardship for too many people.

This book is about the powerful forces that will drive practical activism forward over the coming decades. It is offered as a hopeful assessment of the challenges and opportunities that confront us, and the ability of social activists to do even more toward improving our planet and the lives of its people. It isn't a diatribe about all the things that are wrong. Nor does it offer a specific prescription for radical change. I haven't chronicled the biographies of inspiring activists at work—though there are many in these pages. Rather, this book focuses on five large themes powering activism today. I have written it in hopes that those who want to help others might find a vein of inspiration to mine for practical, meaningful solutions to the problems that confront us all.

      Though I approach this work as a disciplined, often technical and nuanced, undertaking, every bit of it—from meetings with government officials, to conference calls with funders, to conversations with health providers in the field—is still rooted in sheer outrage. It's about our collective outrage and, really, anger at the enormous inequity and unfairness in this world. It's about how we try to channel that outrage into quieter efforts to find solutions by connecting the dots between governments and people, organizations and communities. And it's about scaling those solutions to get real stuff done, for real people.

      Consequently, a central tenet of practical activism is building bridges, usually behind the scenes. It sometimes requires forging alliances between unlikely bedfellows—setting aside preconceptions and refusing to be dissuaded by political differences—in order to reach a common goal. My practical activism has launched me into advocating for foreign aid with staunch “America First” politicians. It has put me in front of Wall Street investors to explain why access to education, healthcare, and a higher standard of living in rural Africa are in their interest. It has led to quiet work on HIV prevention in countries where gay relationships are illegal. For the truly practical activist, opportunities to build bridges surface again and again.

All of us, whatever we do, are working within the context of powerful forces that shape our outcomes, though we may not always be aware of them. So, too, in activism. There are dynamics—economic, political,