Remarks at the Union of Students in Ireland Annual Congress 2012
4th April 2012
A Chairde,
It gives me great pleasure to be here at the Union of Students in Ireland’s Annual Congress 2012 in Ballinasloe. I was delighted to accept the kind invitation from the president of the USI, Gary Redmond, to join you all this morning as you come together to discuss your work for the year ahead. Is deas liom an oiread sin daoine óga éirimiúla, fuinniúla a fheiscint atá gafa leis an Aontas agus atá ag déanamh ionadaíochta ar mhic léinn as gach aird den tír. It speaks of an active studentship and an active and participatory citizenship which are values that I believe are critical to Ireland’s future.
In my Presidential campaign, I spoke of my wish for the people of Ireland to come together and work to achieve an alternative set of values to those which permeated this society during the era of the Celtic Tiger. That era saw the rise of a type of individualism new to us in Ireland; one that was based on evaluations of the person in terms of financial worth and the emphasis on opportunities for personal acquisitiveness – rather than any social consideration.
I spoke in my inaugural speech of the need for an active and inclusive citizenship – the need to create an inclusive citizenship capable of, and committed to disassembling, any and all obstacles to people’s full participation in society. To create a kind of Irishness of which we might be proud in terms of inclusion. I spoke of this being fitted within a creative society – creative in everything we do, in how we deal with each other.
In my inaugural address I spoke of a necessary transformation in consciousness, values, institutions and behaviour too if we were to achieve this.
At this time in our history, who could reasonably argue against the need for redefining values, for seeking values which will enable the creation of a sustainable economy built on ethical assumptions and a society which reflects the best communal value system built on the needs of the people who live within it?
Every citizen in this country has a part to play in redefining those values and it is encouraging to see so many young people who are prepared to take an active part in that debate; for the world ahead will be one of complete change in the years ahead – with new models of relationships, of economy, of culture and society; of political organisation, of international relations; of relationships between nature itself and our fragile planet; of concepts of responsibility, accountability and of justice; of public office and service will emerge – all institutional structures of which are now in a state of flux and uncertainty. We must have the courage now to allow for the break with what has been, that which served the interests of a few, but which failed us as a people.
Tá an-dóchas agam as muintir na tíre seo maidir lena gcumas chun athraithe ar mhaithe leis an sochaí seo a chur i gcrích. Students, in and through, the USI are uniquely positioned to be influencers and instigators of the change that will realise the type of envisioned future for Ireland we need. USI has an advocacy record that is impressive and that points to significant achievements in inclusion, in information and public awareness.
A lack of tolerance for dissenting voices, critique or radical thinking served us poorly in recent times. Ireland needs a strong independent student voice, not only as the voice of those currently in education but, in many ways, representative of the future.
A more active and critical participation of our youth at this pivotal time of economic and social upheaval and change will both generate hope and shape the evolution of society itself.
When people consider the history of student activism, the picture that often comes to mind is that of radical young people participating in sit-ins or protest marches. I myself led a march of 600 students in 1965 to protest about landladies who discriminated against students in the summer period. While the landscape changes and the challenges are different, the desire to effect change is fundamentally the same.
It is the wish to engage with society and challenge those things which we feel need to change for the benefit of those who are voiceless that makes an active citizen. One of the world’s most eminent computer scientist once said that, ‘‘it is not the task of the university to offer what society asks for, but to give society what it needs.” It is important therefore that young people be given the opportunity, not merely to be mirror images of adults in the world around them, but to become inspirational to those around them. To quote Johann Gottfried Von Herder “without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel within us which needs to be ignited with sparks.”
There will be opportunities for our third level institutions to lead us into a new engagement with our current circumstances and students have a critical role to play in developing that new discourse. For example the current paradigm in economics, I suggest, drawn from the fiction of rational markets, needs to be replaced by a scholarship that is genuinely emancipatory, genuinely original, that restores the unity between the sciences and culture, unleashing rather than squashing human curiosity, discovery and celebratory impulses.
The exciting people, the genuinely original people, innovative people are those who are able to draw the different sources of knowledge and wonderment together.
When I spoke at LSE earlier this year I said that the concept of utopia is being recovered in the work of Ruth Levitas drawing on Ernst Bloch, who insists that utopianism not only involves a rejection of what is, and a hope for an alternative, but also a strategy for its implementation. It is by questioning the false inevitabilities that you have been handed that you can change everything – challenge these assumptions, prod them, refuse them and you will have taken your first steps in a journey of hope. Out of this alignment of curiosity, intellectual rigour and dogged determination a new ethical Ireland, of which we can all be proud, will emerge.
During my Presidency, I intend to hold a number of Presidency Seminars to reflect on and explore important societal themes; themes such as Being Young and Irish; the ethical connection between our economy and society; the restoration of trust in our institutions and the future of a Europe built on peace, social solidarity and sustainability. It is not a coincidence that the first of these will focus on being young and Irish and will explore issues including participation, education, employment, emigration and mental health.
I congratulate USI on your campaigns to promote mental health awareness among young people and your efforts to promote peer to peer supports for students. Your initiative, for instance, in which you broke a Guinness World record for the "Most people to contribute writing a story" with 953 participates to raise awareness of Mental Health Issues is an example of what can be achieved when imagination energy and empathy combine.
I am also aware that you created a Mental Health Directory, I congratulate you on this detailing all support services in the entire country, I am aware that you have chosen Pieta House as the National Charity for USI for its work in raising awareness of mental health and combating suicide.
My own background as a sociologist alerts me to particular problems that are facing us. I think of the pernicious racism and homophobia, that wreak havoc in the lives of many young people and result in negative self-attributions, loneliness, isolation, exclusion, violence at the hand of others and often violent self-destruction itself. We need to look inwards and ask how racism gains its foothold, how homophobia does its destructive work, how isolation and loneliness have become the reality for so many young people.
I have every confidence that we can, by facing these issues, and working together, combat these and other poisonous prejudices, and that a new Ireland will emerge from that solidarity, from our determination that hate and bigotry will not be tolerated, will not take hold, will not grow roots, will not win. It would be remiss of me not to mention what I feel to be the serious grip alcohol and other sources of dependency have taken on our society. So much life has been wasted, so many close friends lost, families distressed. The message of Raymond Williams – be the arrow not the target is appropriate for your members more than most. Be the target and you are marginalised. Be the arrow and you are an instrument of change in your life and the life of others.
As there are challenges with negative intonations for the future there are too opportunities. Young people have the opportunity to know more about the appropriate connection between science, technology and the environment. They are likely to be very advanced in relation to ecological thinking. From my interaction with the young, I find that they identify more with spirituality than belief systems embedded with rules, based on fear and compliance.
Our current young generation I sense feel and highlight the ethical and life-enhancing importance of friendship. It was Aristotle who said that the ethics of friendship make a greater demand than the ethics of justice. In the relationships between the generations, we are fortunate that there aren’t any deep fissures between older and younger people in Ireland at the moment. Indeed increasingly we witness inter-generational learning opportunities and interaction within the university setting (DCU for example) and elsewhere.
I am very aware that this is a challenging time for our students but it is often at times of great challenge that the opportunity for change presents itself. The poet T. S. Eliot once remarked that “Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.” These are indeed anxious times for all the people of Ireland and in particular our young people who face an uncertain future. But it is also a time for creativity, for optimism and for hope, for the realisation of new possibilities and they are there.
After almost 53 years in existence, the USI - representing today a quarter of a million students in over forty colleges - has left an indelible mark not only on higher education but also on graduates through the benefits of your campaigns, advocacy and representation. We need now, more than ever, a vibrant, imaginative and creative population to re-build our land, to build a real Republic. Each of you are creators and innovators and have it within you to shape the Ireland of tomorrow.
The inspiration is in yourselves and the only thing I can offer with humility is to suggest to you that you come to know that between each other, with each other, working together you will be able to acquire the divine and the ethical and the spiritual and it will empower you for all of your lives. I wish you all every success with the Annual Congress and thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you here this morning.
There is opportunity here to realise our boundless possibilities – “ár feidireachtaí gan teorainn.” I invite the students of Ireland and, in particular, the Union of Students in Ireland, to rise to the challenge of building and shaping our shared future: with an inclusive citizenship, in a creative society, bringing into existence an Irishness to be proud of home and abroad – in other words a real republic.
Molaim sibh go mór as an obair atá ar siúl agaibh. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.