SECRETARY-GENERAL, ACCEPTING HONORARY DOCTORATE AT KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY, URGES STUDENTS TO ANSWER CALL TO PUBLIC SERVICE

Press Release
SG/SM/6683

SECRETARY-GENERAL, ACCEPTING HONORARY DOCTORATE AT KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY, URGES STUDENTS TO ANSWER CALL TO PUBLIC SERVICE

Following is the text of the acceptance speech by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 24 August on receiving an honorary doctorate degree in science from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana:

I am honoured to be addressing all of you in this distinguished seat of learning. And I am delighted to be back in the Garden City of Ghana, this city that -- through the Kum tree and the legend of the copper sword -- embodies the very essence of history and heritage and, at the same time, fertility and future growth.

The two wonderful years (1958-1959) I spent studying at this university were formative ones.

As vice-president of the Ghana's National Students' Association, I had an early taste of negotiating. Running with the track team taught me the importance of a sound body. And the great friends I made here helped me understand the importance of never losing touch with the place we come from.

You may know that I also went to universities in the United States and Europe. As a young man whose country had gained independence only a few years earlier, I learned much from my time at Macalaster College, MIT and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. But today, more than four decades after Ghana's independence, there are young Americans who are learning just as much from Ghana.

Last year, an American local newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, ran a series of articles about African American teenagers visiting Ghana to discover, as the saying goes, their roots. They spent a great deal of time here in Kumasi. One of them remarked that here, some of the children don't even have pencils and paper; whereas back home in Milwaukee, she went on, children don't take advantage of opportunities to get an education. What impressed all of the African Americans was hearing young people here say that to them, there was no excuse not to do well in school.

You see, your fellow citizens have given you a reputation to live up to. You must not let them down.

Your contemporaries in other continents have formed a strong idea of your abilities. Do not let their belief in you wither on the vine. For I would venture that this is no longer the age where Africans learn from Americans; nor the age where the so-called third world learns from the so-called first world, the South learns from the North, the East from the West. No -- this is the age where we recognize that there is only one world: ours. And that in that world, we all learn from each other.

The role of any institution of learning is to prepare us for what is to come; and I know that the time you have spent here will have prepared you admirably. The global outlook which this university 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 that cut across all frontiers. This is the message we are trying to send to the world. Yet too many people still think in local terms, constrained by national boundaries.

We all need to be more sensitive to the concerns of others, to think in much broader terms that carry us beyond narrow confines. And to do that, we need 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 world, and the United Nations, needs the inventiveness of young people like you to help provide them.

And we need to speak up for the rights of all humankind, not just our own. To recognize that when one person's rights are diminished, it diminishes us all.

We were all taught at an early age that life is not fair. Life itself has since demonstrated to each and every one of us that, indeed, it is not. The young people who visited you from Milwaukee gave expression to that fact. Yet we continue every day to discover new reasons to be disappointed, dismayed and distraught at the injustices this world inflicts on those less fortunate than ourselves. So we should. And so we must continue to feel, however great our frustration, however absent the immediate remedy.

I am sure all of us have seen a beggar cross the street and thought "there but for the grace of God go I". All of us must have known, or at least heard of, someone dying of AIDS and wondered, "why them and not me"? All of us have read about -- and many of us have known personally -- people who

- 3 - Press Release SG/SM/6683 25 August 1998

suffered persecution for their beliefs. And we have asked ourselves, would I have had the courage to speak up like that?

Young friends, there is a way of translating that anxiety into action; there is a way to stop it from sinking into despair and defeat, and to direct it instead into caring, commitment and courage. And that is to answer the call to public service: the cause of service to humankind.

It has been said 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 university to go out into the world, was also the year my predecessor Dag Hammerskj÷ld died.

Let me share with you his last words to the staff of the United Nations at Headquarters in New York -- in fact his last public words anywhere before his plane crashed during a mission to the Congo a week later. This is what he said:

"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 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.

- 4 - Press Release SG/SM/6683 25 August 1998

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 at Nelson Mandela, who went from prisoner to President because of his unbending integrity, bravery and beliefs. Look at Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains a lodestar of democratic values after years under house arrest in Burma. Look at Jody Williams, the woman from Vermont who with thousands of other ordinary citizens around the world helped spur 128 governments to negotiate and sign the Treaty banning anti-personnel mines. Look at Raoul Wallenberg, who as a Swedish diplomat in Budapest, saved the lives of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War Two.

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 refugee camp here in Africa or an environmental programme halfway across the world. What matters is that you choose to devote your life to the service of a better world for your fellow men and women.

- 5 - Press Release SG/SM/6683 25 August 1998

Build on your courage, 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. And remember that courage does not mean lack of fear, for only the foolish are fearless; it means doing things despite 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. Because it is often those who believe their mission to be the most important who are most likely to make it succeed. And it is ultimately those brave enough to believe they can make a difference who become the ones who do. So go on, and make your difference in this world. The very best of luck to you all.

* *** *