NOBODY SPOKE MORE CLEARLY, MORE CONSISTENTLY, MORE CONVINCINGLY OF IDEALS OF PEACE, DIGNITY AND JUSTICE THAN MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

19 January 1998

Press Release
SG/SM/6441

NOBODY SPOKE MORE CLEARLY, MORE CONSISTENTLY, MORE CONVINCINGLY OF IDEALS OF PEACE, DIGNITY AND JUSTICE THAN MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

19980119 Secretary-General Kofi Annan States, on Occasion Of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in Event at Brooklyn Academy of Music

Following is the statement of Secretary-General Kofi Annan delivered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 19 January:

I am moved and honoured to be with you to mark this day. To Bruce Ratner and Harvey Lichtenstein, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Borough of Brooklyn and everybody who helped make this event possible, my heartfelt thanks.

"The new world is a world of geographical togetherness. This means that no individual or nation can live alone. Man, through his scientific genius, has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains; he has been able to carve highways through the stratosphere. And so it is possible today to eat breakfast in New York and dinner in Paris.

"This says to us that our world is geographically one. Now we are faced with the challenge of making it spiritually one. Through our scientific genius we have made of the world a neighbourhood; now, through moral and spiritual genius, we must make of it a brotherhood."

The words I just spoke are not mine. They are the words of Martin Luther King Jr.

And they are prophetic words. A remarkable thing about Dr. King was that he could describe the world in 1957 in the same way that we might describe our global village today.

His foresight went further. He saw that the global village presents us with an ethical challenge: to seek to ensure that human progress is matched by human understanding.

In Dr. King's America of 1957, forces of darkness raged and battled against the movement for racial equality and justice. White racists used dynamite to destroy an elementary school in Nashville that had allowed one black child to enrol. President Eisenhower went on television to announce he had ordered federal troops to escort nine black children to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. But the same year, Ghana -- my home country -- acquired independence from British rule. Dr. King went there to attend the celebrations. And that year, Dr. King argued that the African- American freedom movement had parallels in the colonial world. He called these parallels "the unfolding work of providence".

The new world, Dr. King argued, brought with it a number of new challenges. The first among them, as I quoted to you in the beginning, was to make of the global neighbourhood a global brotherhood.

He identified the second challenge as achieving excellence in our various fields of endeavour. In this new age, doors would open; in this new age, we would be forced to compete with all races and nationalities; in this new age, education for all was the key. Why? Because he knew that education is the greatest investment in freedom there is.

And finally, the third challenge: to replace the hate and injustice of the old age with the love and justice of the new. He saw that using violence, even in the struggle for justice, would render our chief legacy to future generations an endless reign of meaningless chaos.

Which of these challenges does not hold true today?

How, then, can a human race still riven by intolerance and hatred pay adequate tribute to a man who lived and died to reverse these evils?

How can a world still torn apart by injustice and conflict live up to the memory of his sacrifice?

How can what we dare to describe as a global village learn to act as a global brotherhood?

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I am especially pleased, therefore, to be addressing you on this year's Martin Luther King Jr. Day. For I believe the Declaration and the legacy of Dr. King are two voices that speak in unison. For I believe that civil rights are human rights.

The Declaration of Human Rights has been a fundamental source of inspiration for national and international efforts to protect and promote human rights and freedoms. The main principles of the Declaration have

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inspired the constitutions of many countries which have become independent since it was written. Conceived as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations", the Declaration has become a yardstick by which to measure the respect for, and compliance with, international human rights standards.

Yet today, there are also those for whom what are called universal truths are not, in fact, universal. There are those who argue that each society must choose the system that works for it at a given time. Recognizing that human rights are universal, they argue, would be both an intrusion on their sovereignty and a recipe for social and political chaos.

Take my own continent of Africa, as a case in point. Some Africans view the concern of human rights as a rich man's luxury for which Africa is not ready; or even as a conspiracy, imposed by the industrialized West.

I find these thoughts demeaning -- demeaning of the yearning for human dignity that resides in every African heart.

Do not African mothers weep when their sons and daughters are killed or tortured by agents of oppressive rule? Do not African fathers suffer when their children are unjustly sent to jail? Is not Africa as a whole the poorer when just one of its voices is silenced?

Human rights are African rights. They are also Asian rights; they are European rights; they are American rights. They belong to no government, they are limited to no continent, for they are fundamental to humankind itself.

The first article of the Declaration is quite simple. Let me quote it to you. "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

Brotherhood: there is that word again. That first article, like Dr. King's words, is no less true, no less relevant and no less important today than on the day it was written. And this is where we can pay tribute to him.

Once in a rare while, a human being touches our lives to the core. Whether or not we heard him speak during his lifetime, we know that Martin Luther King Jr. was one of those.

It has been said it takes only one person with courage to create a majority. Dr. King was one of those too.

And for that reason, all of us continue to benefit from Dr. King's life, every day, almost three decades after his death.

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Nobody spoke more clearly, more consistently or more convincingly than Dr. King of the ideals of peace, dignity and justice. And when we hear such a voice, it not only speaks to us; it speaks for us.

For that reason, the day we commemorate today will never cease to be worthy of observation. For that reason, I call upon all of you to join me in this fiftieth anniversary year of the Declaration of Human Rights to celebrate those rights. They represent the best in us. Give them life. Give them meaning. Do them justice. It is the best tribute that we could ever pay to Martin Luther King Jr.

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