MILLENNIUM LECTURE GIVEN BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT UNIVERSITY HALL
MILLENNIUM LECTURE GIVEN BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT UNIVERSITY HALL LOWER HATCH ST., DUBLIN 2 TUESDAY, 31ST OCTOBER 2000
Tá gliondar orm bheith i láthair ag an ócáid seo agus tá mé buíoch díbh as an chuireadh agus as fáilte fíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
I am honoured and delighted to have been asked by Fr John Dardis to give this Millennium Address. The Bible tells us that ‘to every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.’ This is the year of Millennium Lectures. It is a season which, in any case, would have provoked a fair degree of rumination on things past and speculation on things to come. But the fact that this great Jubilee also coincides with a seismic shift in the economic, social and cultural landscape of Ireland, means that we, on this island, have more material than most on which to chew. And so, thanks to Our Lord’s impeccable sense of timing, we gather here as a page of history turns and at a time when we have never before had such opportunity to shape a present and future we can be proud of.
Crafting that reality isn’t the work of a single year, nor is it the responsibility of a single individual. It is the outcome of countless threads of individual effort, imagination and commitment intertwining to form the overall shape, colour and texture of Irish society. Rip one strand, and the whole starts to unravel. Exclude one colour, and the pattern becomes duller. Neglect even a single life’s potential, and though for a time it may seem that no damage has been done, the underlying linkages are weakened.
Healthy, successful societies are built on healthy, successful communities; they in turn depend on creating the complex web of conditions which support individuals as they grow from childhood to become well-adjusted and well-rounded adults. Unfortunately there is no secret formula which guarantees a successful outcome every time. One child will emerge from the most unpromising of circumstances to achieve success and happiness; while another will manage to defeat the odds just as remarkably by failing, despite every apparent advantage and support, to reach anything like his or her full potential. But however imperfect our understanding of the human development lottery, we know enough about the factors which influence the process, for good or ill, to make a fair stab at devising ways to improve individual and collective outcomes.
Perhaps the greatest tool, the greatest gift we can give any child is the gift of a good education. We in Ireland have long taken pride in our reputation, and I believe it’s a deserved one, for having imparted this gift to so many when we had little else to bestow on them. Maybe that sentiment now seems hackneyed to this generation of students which has heard it so often, and for whom that Ireland of thirty odd years ago in which free second level education for all was a novelty, seems to belong to another world. For people of my generation, it was life transforming. It provided an escape route from the ethos of fatalistic resignation to the status quo which had narrowed the horizons and possibilities of previous generations. It fuelled a hunger to escape the confines of those traditional expectations. It energised not only a search for personal achievement but also a desire to make life more equal, more humanly decent for others. More than anything, it conferred a sense of personal empowerment, the belief that one person can make a difference, that each person has that capacity if they have the will and determination to act on it.
Last week, I had the privilege of meeting the President of Uganda during his State Visit to Ireland. President Museveni’s inspiring life is a testament to how one man has made that difference, and how it was the power of education, the power of knowledge, which fuelled his capacity to do so. In his autobiography, ‘Sowing the Mustard Seed’, he describes how he became the first in his traditional, cattle-raising family to go to school, encouraged by his father who saw education as the way forward, indeed who moved the family settlement so that his young son would have two miles less to walk to primary school. He was fortunate to be among the few in his generation to attend University, an experience which opened his mind to new ideas and underpinned his determination to put his talents at the service of his people. On becoming President in 1986, education was a major priority, for as he said himself, ‘Lack of knowledge is a major factor in many of the mistakes that have occurred in Africa since the 1960s’. Redress that deficit, and you release the energy that fuels economic and social miracles.
We in Ireland have experienced that miracle. Yet if we are a lot further down the path of economic and educational development than countries like Uganda, we cannot afford to ignore the relevance for our society, of what Yoweri Museveni’s said of his own country:
‘Blessed be the day when all Ugandan children will have enlightened parents who can sympathise with them, as well as professional teachers who are capable of finding out the root of a particular child’s problems’.
There are still too many children in our society for whom the place of education is not a place of learning, of joyful discovery, of developing skills and knowledge and potential. Instead, it is a place of fear, where underachievement becomes internalised, scarring young psyches, undermining self-confidence, breeding bitterness against a system that may last a lifetime, and worse, infect the next generation with the memory of failure. We see the downstream consequences in our unacceptably high rates of illiteracy and early school leaving. Less easy to measure are the stillborn dreams and lost potential for the individual and community.
If we want to stop that squandering of talent, part of the solution lies in the classroom – in equipping teachers with the skills and resources they need to tackle what are often complex and deep-rooted problems. But because of that very complexity, another part of the solution is to be found outside the school gates, in the wider community. No child comes to school unshaped by the circumstances of life at home and in the neighbourhood. Poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence, child abuse, racism - we can all recite the roll call of problems. It’s more difficult to imagine the year-in year-out impact on a young person, hardened early by life. More difficult still to heal the hurt and cynicism, the loss of faith in self and in others which so often results.
But it’s worth making the effort. Not only because it is the right and decent thing to do, but also because the wider we cast the net of opportunity, the more talent is captured for the benefit of our economy and society. And there is another, less tangible layer. What we loosely define as ‘quality of life’ is bound up with many things, from our level of affluence to the time it takes to commute to work. But it is also determined by the way we interact with each other, the principles we preach, the values we practice, the level of kindness, friendliness, generosity and care we demonstrate for each other.
These are aspects of our identity which others admire and we have taken pride in their admiration. They have been handed down to us by forebears whose experience of poverty and injustice had instilled in them a belief in the God-given equality of every human being. It taught them the importance of neighbour helping neighbour, of creating a network of mutual support, which helped sustain them in difficult times. It infused them with a sense of the intrinsic value of each person and a belief in the right of each person to create a better life for themselves and their family. In the absence of opportunities at home, that vision found expression abroad, in a culture of emigration. And despite the individual heartbreak and tearing apart of community which mass emigration created, it also enabled the genius of our people to blossom, in individual success stories and collectively through the development of a thriving global Irish family.
Now, on this island, the twin miracles of prosperity and peace offer the prospect of realising that vision of an Ireland of real and equal opportunity for all, which previous generations dreamed of, but hardly dared believe possible. That prospect is within sight and within grasp. But it won’t happen by chance. The public-spirited, caring ethos which underpinned that vision is not incompatible with the high-tech, prosperous Ireland of today. But neither is it something that we can take for granted. It needs champions to safeguard it; it needs people to work at keeping that vision of a comfortably diverse, tolerant and egalitarian society in focus; it needs people who recognise that the project is incomplete, to remind us that there are still many in our society for whom this prosperous, self-confident Ireland is a world away.
We are fortunate that we still have so many such people, working quietly, selflessly in every community in the country – people who have dedicated their lives to public service; people who work in a voluntary capacity in resource centres and hospices, with people who are elderly or have disabilities, offering hope and support. They are people who fight complacency, who galvanise communities to believe in their own capacity to be agents of change. They are people who forge the types of partnerships and syntheses which radically extend the reach of what is possible.
Our need for such leaders has not diminished, yet there is evidence of a slow but worrying decline in people’s willingness to become involved, to engage in voluntary activity, to dedicate their lives to public service. It may seem our world has grown more cynical, more obsessed with personal gain, less inclined to personal sacrifice and the service of others. Yet if we look further, there is no shortage of evidence that this is not the case: there are many people of courage across the world whose rejection of cynicism and despair continues to inspire, whose acceptance of leadership is motivated not by ambition but by a desire to serve. President Museveni put it thus:
“I accepted the mantle of leadership…. knowing very well that, sacrifices notwithstanding, action had to be taken if Uganda’s pitiable situation was to be reversed and transcended….My involvement with politics began with community leadership……I had no idea that the whole process would result in my eventual leadership of the country”.
The acceptance of the call to service, is rarely as dramatic as becoming President of a country which endured such suffering and destruction as Uganda. But Museveni’s example shows how radical change can have modest beginnings. What is important is that there are people who are willing to engage, who care about the fate of others, who do not leave it to unspecified others to do something about it, who themselves champion the cause of others whose lives are still scarred by poverty and inequality, at home and abroad. There are many ways of responding to that challenge, some useless, some modest, some extraordinary. The cynics will see the challenge as the work of someone else. They contribute nothing except the poison of jaundiced attitudes and smart aleck remarks. They drain away confidence, contribute little to building up. The doers come in all shapes and size. They have different talents and skills but crucially they share a can-do attitude and even more important a “must do” attitude which insists they take responsibility for their world and its fate. This generation in Ireland has the means to make this society the most equal, the most humanly decent, it has ever been. The more “doers” there are and the fewer cynics, the quicker we will deliver that ambition. You have a choice which you will be, player or spectator, giver or taker, carer or deserter. I hope you make the best choice and that together we will live to see the best Ireland ever.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh.