Dr Benjamin Barber – August 2 1939 – April 24 2017

I am as devastated by this news as I am grateful for having knowing this man.

As he was to many, he was a mentor, teacher, friend, comrade, brother, father, nurturer, guide, challenger and champion in and of my life. He was, in my opinion, a precious jewel, which is how all teachers of his kind must be regarded. He wed action and reflection in a way that was irresistible and contagious. You had to engage in life, in meaning, in questioning, in laughter and, most assuredly in discourse, discussion and debate when and if you encountered him. His praxis was of a quality, an ethos not unlike those of great leaders, heroes and heroines. His sense of humor and love of beauty and the creative imagination was Whitmanesque.

I write this from work where one colleague of mine just asked me if I want to go home due to the too much, too-muchness of this loss. Too bad for me, I knew Ben too well. There is a critical meeting coming up today that involves the kinds of key issues that mattered very much to Ben: education, empowerment of dis-empowered youth, citizenship. I’ll go home when I go home…but now I get to stay close to Ben and carry him with me into this meeting.

Another colleague came by my desk and asked, “Are you going to be all right?” It was this incredibly busy and engaged glocal leader, Dr. Ben Barber – leading locally and globally – who befriended me in the midst of my messy youth, along with this beloved wife Leah Barber, and who walked me through some of the greatest losses of my life thus far. Now he walks me through an even greater loss in losing him. What a paradox. I can see him grinning and laughing and saying “Of course you’re going to be all right!!” Of course I am.

How lucky are we who knew, loved, worked with and debated with him. How willing and humble we all must be now in taking up the core of his message and life’s work at this very specific time in human history…particularly those beneficiaries of the “Barber Diaspora” who happen to live in America. It’s a far lighter load, in fact, then the load of moving on without my dear friend. Yet, he is closer to me than he ever was before. Yes, he changed the world and succeeded.

Barnaby Spring
New York City

Very sad news. 🙁 I met prof. Barber several times and had opportunity to exchange views on different topics like civic education, consumer culture, democracy. Brilliant academician, full of humor and warm person, friend of Poland. Big loss to sociology… His books were the fundament of my academic career in sociology.

Ben Barber died Monday. Many of you know him from his book If Mayors Ruled The World. He wrote 17 books, his latest, Cool Cities, was published a few days before his death. Noted academics heralded him as one of the world’s greatest political theorists. Universities and academics and national governments awarded him the highest honors for his writing, his thoughts, and his words.

I knew him as a dreamer; a dreamer with a passion, a dreamer with courage, a dreamer with tough words, a dreamer who knew what he wanted to do, a dreamer who would never stop pushing, cajoling, and never ever, ever gave up until his dream came through.

When I met him, he had already written his book; he was already on the international circuit to call attention to the nations on earth that cities and mayors are the future of our planet.

During my decades of working with mayors, I, too, had a dream that one day, we would have an organization where mayors, and mayors only, could sit, discuss, share, and vote on common beliefs and even more, vote on present and future actions.

When we met in 2015, our dreams collided and connected and coupled on his new-born dream of establishing a Global Parliament of Mayors. He had already presided over preliminary meetings in Rotterdam. Our minds clicked and we came together, united, to work together, to establish the Global Parliament of Mayors.

From the time I met him, along with his associate Eileen Haring Woods, I followed his dream. And Paul Leroux and I followed him literally and physically all over the world.

There were phone calls, emails, trips, and meetings over lunch, dinner, and yes, drinks. When I was with Ben, I seldom relaxed because we were working on our future project. We would make one step forward and then we would stumble and have to rethink our next move. So much of our working together had to do with people who we thought we had with us and then they would not be with us. Ben was obsessed with recruiting mayors and sometimes non-mayors to be a part of “his” Global Parliament of Mayors.

And there were times when Eileen and his staff and I with my staff could not keep up with who he had met or what he had promised.

But that didn’t matter. Ben was Ben. He had a dream and he never stopped using his incredible energy to make the Global Parliament of Mayors a reality. We adjusted to any decision he made with anyone he met anywhere in the world. That’s the way it was. And that’s why it was so special. Ben was Ben and we pondered but accepted it, because we believed in him.

My life has been mayors. And I never knew anyone who believes in mayors as much as Ben Barber did. That’s why I followed him and I was fortunate to have met a person who believes as he did and wondered once or twice why we hadn’t met earlier in our careers.

In The Hague on September 9, 2016, the Global Parliament of Mayors was born. As with the creation of any international organization, it wasn’t an easy birth and the organization is still new and in its infancy. The dream of Ben Barber though was accomplished and it could not have happened without his idea and his tenaciousness to make it happen.

While Brexit, Trumpism, and national populism are indeed pushing to change the international political landscape of the world, we must not forget what Ben Barber taught us.

His theory and assessment was, and still is, that the “humankind began its march to politics and civilization in the polis – the township. It was democracy’s original incubator. But for millennia, we relied on monarchy and empire and then on newly invented nation-states to bear the civilization burden of the democratic load. Today, after a long history of regional successes, the nation-state is failing us on a global scale. It is unsuited to interdependence. The city, always the human habitat of first resort, has in today’s globalizing world once again become democracy’s best hope.”

In Ben’s speeches, words, TED talks, and lectures, he breathed life into his words by stating the facts about what is already happening as we observe and are involved increasingly in networks of “culture, commerce, and communication.”

About his noted book, If Mayors Ruled the World -“What I want to do in this book is to get something done. To change the subject: from states [nations] to cities, from independence to interdependence, from ideology to problem-solving. The city is the right subject today because hope has always been an urban currency and mayors have always in the first instance been optimists in getting something done.”

I started off this piece saying that Ben was a dreamer. But, the bottom line is that he was a pragmatist. He knew if the challenges of the humans on earth are to be met, mayors must be involved. “Mayors count nowadays, even more in the age of globalization than in the past… mayors define cities as much as cities define them, and in ways that national leaders cannot and do not define the nation they lead. An occasional Mandela or de Gaul, or Nehru or Churchill, or Mao, or Roosevelt come to incarnate a nation… but ordinary prime ministers are ordinary politicians, whereas mayors in ordinary times are often extraordinary, bigger than the city’s character and amplify its influence.”

The news came, it seems, weeks ago; Ben was ill. The cancer took him before I could make myself face his death with him. I regret that. But in many ways, maybe I couldn’t face his death. And maybe I still can’t.

The Ben I knew, the dream he left, is still inside me. And we must go forward to keep the Global Parliament of Mayors alive and well. To that, we are committed – to keep on working to bring the mayors of the cities of the world together to simply make our cities a better place, where our people, as Ben would say, “learn and love, work and sleep, pray and play, grow and eat, and finally, die.”

He gave me so much inspiration when I was lost and always encouraged the youth to speak up and engage in meaningful conversations. He shared so much love and i know he has a bigger and better view of the whole process we are all setting out to crystallize in action from greater heights. Thinking of his loved ones who were left behind. I hope this sacrifice of a precious human being brings an impulse to us to continue to act.

A sad day. May you rest in peace Benjamin.

Those of us who knew Ben only through his writings are as saddened by his loss as those who were closer – and that thought speaks volumes for Ben’s great ability as a communicator of fresh thinking. Our worlds, our communities, need such vision and innovative leadership

Dearest Ben died and we remain behind in sadness but also in a spirit of being vigilant which he passed on to all his friends and colleagues. Ben: A visionary human being with strong commitment to the ongoing appeal for Justice and a most dedicated person make us humbly realise that if Ben would have ruled the world with the cities of his visions it indeed could have become a better place. With full respect and rich memories let us remember him. That he may rest in peace and that his family and friends may be strengthened by love. With warmest greetings, Frans Bouwen, founder and Director of external relations of The Hague Process on Refugees and Migration (THP) Foundation

Dr. Benjamin Barber was really a great visionary person . We are so stunned and have been so sorry on his demise.I had met him in Istanbul in 2009 for the first time . Since 2009,I had been working with him continuously till 2015. I was also invited to Hague GPM convene .I am highly impressed by his cordial behavior . He was a great hero of his time .He was a good writer , teacher , philosopher and a dreamer for globalized democracy to create a ,civic,civil and civilized world.. He had made some financial support to Nepal at the time of devastating earthquake in Nepal. He was a top level Think-Tank of his time . We will try with earnest promise to proceed along with the visionary path based on his guide lines with all our interdependent friends/colleagues to carry out/carry on his dream of a better world … ..We have realized the world has lost a great person of our time .

Nation states are failing miserably on some of the more urgent global challenges of the modern age — especially climate change, predatory capitalism, terrorism and forced migration. Nations are increasingly closed, parochial and outdated, slow to respond to the pressures of a fast changing world. The three and a half long century experiment is rapidly coming to an end.

The good news is that cities are stepping-up to fill the gap. And not a moment too soon. Mayors of some of the world’s largest cities are agitating for a new urban agenda. And while many nation states succumb to reactionary nationalism and dangerous populism, more and more cities are calling for openness, interdependency and pluralism.

Every once in a while a scholar comes along who predicts the big trends before the rest of us. Benjamin Barber was such a person. His 2013 TED talk — Why Mayors Should Rule the World — was a clarion call to action. It also led, late last year, to the creation of the world’s first Global Parliament of Mayors which today empowers city leaders from around the world not just to talk about our problems, but to deliver solutions.

Benjamin was a democratic futurist. His thinking was big, bold, and bombastic. His 1984 Strong Democracy: Politics for a New Age — urged readers to embrace the politics of the local. His celebrated Jihad versus McWorld came out six years before 9/11. And his most recent books — If Mayors Ruled the World (2013) and Cool Cities (2017) — are manifestos for a progressive politics of urban governance.

Benjamin was an indefatigable urban activist. He did more than shout from the rooftops. He got down into the trenches and led the way. Benjamin spent the better part of the past decade recruiting mayors to the cause. He convinced them that cities don’t just have the responsibility to confront our most urgent global challenges, but the right to do so. He radiated optimism and suffered no fools.

Benjamin was a fighter to the end. His last tweet in April ended with a reference to #globalcities and #localresistance to Trump. His life embodies all that is great about TED — the sharing of transformation ideas and the conviction to see them put into the service of the public good. He will be dearly missed, though his tireless efforts to build a better world will live on in his words and deeds.

Ben was certainly a great visionary hero of his time .