Jimmy Ung was born in Montreal to a family of refugees from the Cambodian war. He has traveled to over 50 countries and worked for Collège Reine-Marie, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the Parliament of Canada, and the charity WE (Free the Children). He is currently working on a book about Privilege, Power and Social Responsibility.
I first met Jimmy at the Canadian Commission for UNESCO while I was working at Canada Council for the Arts. Jimmy impressed me with his brilliant mind, boundless curiosity and his kind heart. We kept in touch over the years, including my fascination with his motorcycle crossing of the Americas in 2014-15 covering more than 30,000 kilometers.
I interviewed Jimmy in French for balado conscient on April 17, 2021 (see é28 ung - résilience et vulnérabilité) where we talked about resilience and vulnerability.
I was struck by Jimmy’s observation that ‘resilience is the capacity to be vulnerable’ which at the time seemed like a contradiction but now makes sense to me.
During this 2nd conversation, this time in English, some 3 years later, our focus was on privilege, in relation to his upcoming book, including the role that privilege plays in the arts and in relation to both the ecological and humanitarian crisis.
At the end of our conversation, Jimmy quoted Bayo Akomolafe saying ‘our times are urgent, so let us slow down’ and recommended this video: Climate Crisis, Fragmentation and Collective Trauma, with Bayo Akomolafe, Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq & Dr. Gabor Maté as part of The Wisdom of Trauma - Talks on Trauma Series.
I mentioned this link from my ‘a calm presence’ newsletter during the conversation : l'orchestre de paris à montréal.
excerpt
Proximity proportionate responsibility: if we were to do an inventory of where all the things we own were made, that would give us a very interesting map of where our responsibility, our attention and our donations ought to go because our pressures on the global systems can be revealed. That's a much more reasonable way to interact with different crises than to simply read about it on the news and interact with the whole of it without the context of our footprint.