'OUR DIFFERENCES CAN AND MUST BE OUTWEIGHED BY OUR COMMON HUMANITY', STRESSES SECRETARY-GENERAL IN COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS TO UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Press Release
SG/SM/6977
'OUR DIFFERENCES CAN AND MUST BE OUTWEIGHED BY OUR COMMON HUMANITY', STRESSES SECRETARY-GENERAL IN COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS TO UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
19990430 Kofi Annan Says International Norm against Repression of Minorities That Will Take Precedence over Concerns of State Sovereignty Is EmergingFollowing is the text of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's commencement address to the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbour on 1 May:
Thank you, President Bollinger. Thank you, Michigan, for this extraordinary welcome. You are an extraordinary school and this is clearly an extraordinary audience. I am truly honoured to join you on this magnificent occasion.
Let me begin by congratulating the students who graduate today. You have much to be proud of. With a deeper understanding of the world, you will now enter it. With wider horizons reaching across lines of religion, race and nation, you will now seek to change that world. And with a renewed commitment to making it better -- not just for yourselves, but for your fellow citizens, here and around the world -- you can change it.
Let me also congratulate the parents who have gathered today. You, too, have much to be proud of.
Your persistence and dedication, your sacrifices and your support, have helped your sons and daughters make the most of their young lives so far. This is your day, too.
We are all -- students and parents, friends and families -- infused today with a sense of achievement, but also a sense of privilege. We know that we are privileged because we can come together today, in celebration and at peace. To achieve such peace between nations was the founding cause of the United Nations, built out of the ashes of the most terrible war in human history. Ever since, the United Nations has pursued peace fully aware of the lessons of our terrible century: that peace is not true or lasting if it is bought at any cost; that only peace with justice can honour the victims of war
and violence and deter future crimes; and that without democracy, tolerance and human rights for all, no peace is truly safe.
But our founders -- one of whom was a great son of Michigan, Senator Arthur Vandenberg -- recognized another important truth: that peaceful coexistence within nations is no less important to the overall security of the world.
They had witnessed the beginnings of world wars in small, faraway places, born of communal disputes that escalated into bloody conflicts. And they sought, therefore, to make the United Nations a tribune of the rule of law, not only in the relations amongst States, but in the individual lives of men and women throughout the world.
This dual crusade -- this understanding that peace between nations is illusory if there is war within them -- is at the heart of the often contradictory impulses that drive the United Nations engagement in the world today.
By Charter and by precedent, the United Nations is committed to the maintenance of national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the nation-States that make up our world. But by law and by conscience, we are equally committed to protecting universal rights, regardless of frontiers.
When civilians are attacked and massacred because of their ethnicity, as in Kosovo, the world looks to the United Nations to speak up for them. When men, women and children are assaulted and their limbs hacked off, as in Sierra Leone, here again the world looks to the United Nations.
When women and girls are denied their right to equality, as in Afghanistan, the world looks to the United Nations to take a stand.
Our belief in the centrality of human rights to the work and life of the United Nations stems from a simple proposition: that States which respect human rights respect also the rules of international society. States which respect human rights are more likely to seek cooperation and not confrontation, tolerance and not violence, moderation and not might, peace and not war.
More than any other aspect of our work, I believe, the struggle for human rights resonates with you -- our global constituency of the future -- and is deeply relevant to the lives of those most in need: the tortured, the oppressed, the silenced, the victims of "ethnic cleansing" and injustice.
If, in the face of such abuses, we do not speak up and speak out, if we do not act in defence of human rights, if we do not stand up for the Rwandan woman who has been assaulted, or the Kosovar man who has been murdered, how can we answer your demands for justice, and your concerns for peace?
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Will we say that rights are relative, or that whatever happens within borders shall not be of concern to an organization of sovereign States? No one that I know of can today defend that position.
A United Nations that will not stand up for human rights is a United Nations that cannot stand up for itself.
Tolerance of those who are different -- of their views, their cultures, their beliefs, and their ways of life -- is a hallmark of human rights around the world.
It is also, I know, a central pillar of the unique community Michigan has created -- one which recognizes the riches that diversity and pluralism can bring to a community of students, no less than to society as a whole.
Michigan's commitment to tolerance and dialogue is well-established. It is based on the belief that a diverse environment will give all of you the best preparation for an increasingly diverse world. But the promotion of tolerance is not only an institution's responsibility. It is a duty that falls to every one of us.
A fellow graduate of Michigan who did more than his duty, and someone whose life holds special significance for my family, was Raoul Wallenberg. Out there, on the front lawn of the Art and Architecture Building, is a monument in honour of Raoul, my wife's uncle.
By his heroic actions, he showed that even in the face of the greatest evil, one individual's courage and humanity can save thousands. His example is remembered today, in every part of the world.
When I visited Germany last week, the President told me -- in a reminder that we, too, face a test of courage, a test of tolerance -- "Whoever sees genocide and inhumane violence without acting is himself guilty."
The United Nations struggle for tolerance is based on the belief that it is diversity which gives humanity its promise. No union of nations, no assembly of people, and no community can prosper without tolerance. Without basic respect between human beings, man is doomed to a bitter fate, and the United Nations -- as an idea and a reality -- will never fulfil its destiny.
As you all know from reports of inhuman crimes committed in Kosovo, the battle against intolerance still needs desperately to be fought. The victims of those crimes are crying out to all of us -- for justice, for security, and for the right to be who they are in peace.
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And even closer to your homes, the awful massacre in the Columbine High School last week teaches us all that the fight against hatred and bigotry is never over.
Without question, the conflicts of the post-cold war world -- from Bosnia to Rwanda to Kosovo -- were rooted in the absence of tolerance and the demonization of groups and ethnicities. Solely because of who they are, how they look, and what they are named, innocent and defenceless men, women and children have been persecuted and murdered.
They are the ultimate victims of the intolerance that we must and will defeat, by persuasion if possible, by other means if necessary.
As you who graduate today know better than anyone, education and knowledge must be employed with patience and persistence if we are to win the battle for tolerance.
The lesson of the past decade is that men of war prey on people's ignorance to instil fears and arouse hatreds. If only half the effort had gone into teaching the people in those wars what unites them, and not what divides them, unspeakable crimes could have been prevented.
As long as I am Secretary-General, the United Nations as an institution will always place the human being at the centre of everything we do. No government has the right to hide behind national sovereignty in order to violate the human rights or fundamental freedoms of its peoples. Whether a person belongs to the minority or the majority, that person's human rights and fundamental freedoms are sacred.
Emerging slowly, but I believe surely, is an international norm against the violent repression of minorities that will and must take precedence over concerns of State sovereignty.
It is a principle that protects minorities -- and majorities -- from gross violations. And let me, therefore, be very clear: even though we are an organization of Member States, the rights and ideals the United Nations exists to protect are your rights and your ideals.
This hope for humanity may have come too late for the desperate thousands who have been forcibly expelled from their homes in Kosovo, and for the hundreds, if not thousands, who have been murdered simply for who they are.
But it will not have come too late for your generation, if it emboldens you to enter a new century with a renewed commitment to protecting the rights of every man, woman, child -- regardless of ethnic, national or religious belonging.
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Never forget, dear friends: We in my generation are soon history. You are the future. These are your rights, this is your future of diversity, of pluralism, and of the promise that our differences can and must be outweighed by our common humanity.
The world is going your way. The horizons of human rights are ever widening. The prospect of true equality is ever growing. But it needs your commitment, too.
I know that Michigan has given you the tools to complete the mission. It is now for you to do the job.
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