SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS REWARD OF WORKING IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY IS KNOWING ONE PERSON 'CAN TRULY MAKE A DIFFERENCE'
Press Release
SG/SM/6563
SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS REWARD OF WORKING IN SERVICE OF HUMANITY IS KNOWING ONE PERSON 'CAN TRULY MAKE A DIFFERENCE'
19980518 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY In Commencement Address at Macalester College, Kofi Annan Tells Members of Class of '98 to 'Go out and Make Your Difference in This World'Following is the text of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's commencement address at Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minnesota, on 17 May:
Thank you, President McPherson, for that kind introduction. I am always very happy to be back at Macalester; today, I am also honoured to be here. When I visited you in the fall of 1994, those of you graduating today were just beginning your freshman year. In so many ways, today is one of those rare occasions that feel as though life has come full circle.
I am gratified to see how much has changed, expanded and improved since my day, and yet how much is still the same. Just like the best things in life. The Old Main looks just as beautiful from outside, even though the interior has been vastly spruced up. You have new science halls, a new library, new dorms, a new chapel. The grass where I played soccer, the track where I ran the 100-yard dash, are gone; you have new athletic fields where, I hope, people are doing even better than we did in our day.
What you have retained is the intimate nature of this small liberal arts college.
The internationalism:
-- almost half of you have studied abroad, and more than 10 per cent of you are international students, as I was.
The volunteerism:
-- several hundred of you have served in one way or another. It makes me proud to call Mac my alma mater.
Four years ago, I spoke to you about our interdependent world; I spoke about the need for universities to change what they learn and teach in relation to how the world had changed; I said that the better universities had adjusted to this fact.
I said that Macalester understood this 30 years ago; I said that it had prepared us for what was to come; I know that in these four years, it will have prepared you admirably.
The global outlook which Macalester will have instilled in you is indispensable in today's world. Issues before the United Nations, such as the environment, drugs, pandemics, sustainable development, are issues cut across all frontiers. This is the message we are trying to send to the world. Yet too many people are still thinking in local terms, constrained by boundaries.
This is where we need to be sensitive to the concerns of others, to think in much broader terms than our own narrow confines. This is where we need to rely on the power of education, of communication, of information.
The challenges of our age are problems without passports; to address them we need blueprints without borders. The United Nations is there to provide them.
And yet, this same United Nations is undergoing a financial crisis. The unpaid dues owed by the United States amounts to $1.6 billion. While this is a critical sum for the United Nations, it's slightly less than the money Titanic has made around the world in a matter of months.
Reflect for a moment on what $1.6 billion actually means to a great country like yours. On a per capita basis, it represents just over six dollars per American to repay a debt built up over a decade.
That amount would not buy you a pitcher of beer at O'Gara's.
Given this school's record of service, many of you also know already that the true measure of success in a human life is what we give back to our fellow men and women.
Our strongest role models -- whether they are the heroes of legends or the man or woman next door -- personify this quality beyond any other. But you will possess that quality on one condition: that you have the courage to believe that what you do makes a difference. The year of 1961, when I left this campus to go out into the world, was also the year my predecessor Dag Hammarskjold died. I would like to share with you his last words to the staff of the United Nations at Headquarters in New York.
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They were to be his last public words anywhere before his plane crashed during a mission to the Congo a week later.
"Dejection and despair lead to defeatism -- and defeat. It is false pride to boast to the world about the importance of one's work, but it is false humility, and finally just as destructive, not to recognize -- and recognize with gratitude -- that one's work has a sense. Let us avoid the second fallacy as carefully as the first, and let us work in the conviction that our work has a meaning beyond the narrow and individual one and has meant something for man[kind]."
Those words present us with a challenge, but they also provide us with a source of strength. I cannot advise you about your choices for the future. That is a job for those closest to you, and above all, for your own hearts and minds.
But I can encourage you. In this changing world of new challenges we need, more than ever before, dedicated and talented individuals to enter public service. More than ever before, we need people like you sitting here today, the Mac Class of '98, to make the choice of service to humankind.
It is not an easy choice to make. Some of you may be put off by the perceived weakness of the public institutions of our day; some of you may be tempted by the immediate gains offered by the private sector.
To the first I would say: joining a winning team is an easy option.
It is precisely when an institution, a cause, is struggling to find its way that it needs the support of the best and most courageous people.
To the second, I would say: the reward of working in the service of humanity goes far beyond material gain; it is the reward of knowing that one person -- you -- can truly make a difference.
When we think of intervention today, we think of armies, alliances and organizations. But intervention can mean many things. Yes, a military alliance can intervene when instability threatens a region. Yes, a community can intervene when its own ranks are threatened by intolerance.
But there is also such a thing as individual intervention.
You may think to yourself, what difference can one person make in the face of giant corporations, ecological threats and organized conflict? Yet there have always been, and always will be, those who make a difference one by one. Look to Nelson Mandela, who went from prisoner to president because of his unbending integrity, bravery and beliefs. Look to Aung San Suu Kyi, who
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remains a lodestar of democratic values after years in house arrest in Myanmar. Look to Jody Williams, who helped spur governments across the world to join forces with 1,000 NGOs to achieve the treaty banning anti-personnel mines. Look to Raoul Wallenberg, who as a Swedish diplomat in Budapest saved the lives of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Second World War.
The last example is especially moving for me, both as Secretary-General of the United Nations and in my personal capacity; for Raoul is my wife's uncle.
Raoul's life and achievements highlighted the vital role of the individual amidst conflict and suffering. His intervention gave hope to victims, encouraged them to fight and resist, to hang on and bear witness. It aroused our collective consciousness. The mystery remains, however: why were and are there so few Raouls?
These individuals' lives should be an inspiration for others to act; for future generations to act; for all of us to act. As Edmund Burke wrote: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
It matters less whether you choose to go into the service of your government, local or federal, or an organization, non-governmental or intergovernmental. It matters not if you work in a soup kitchen across town or a literacy programme in Africa. What matters is that you choose to devote your life to the service of a better world for your fellow men and women.
As part of its curriculum, Mac has always motivated its students to go out and work in the world beyond these campus walls. Build on the courage which that has instilled in you. Act on your innocence; explore new frontiers where older, wiser, more cautious people might not. Failure is part of success; if you don't fail now and then, it probably means you are not pushing hard enough.
Courage does not mean lack of fear, for only the foolish are fearless; it means doing things in spite of your fear. Confront those fears, take risks for what you believe, for it is only then you will find what you are capable of; you will discover that if your intentions are good, the worst your opponents can do to you is really not that bad. Go out and make your difference in this world. And don't forget to have fun along the way. The very best of luck to you all.
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