REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE ICJP CONFERENCE MARINO INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE ICJP CONFERENCE MARINO INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER 1998
I feel very much among old friends here this afternoon and I am very grateful indeed for the warm welcome you have given to this old friend. When I look around at the familiar faces – the people who for me have been torch bearers for human rights in Ireland – the people who have never ceased to work in their own ways to push out the boundaries of justice – I feel a sense of pride in having been associated with them and their achievements through my previous connection with the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace. So I am particularly delighted to have been invited to address the conference which is, in many ways, a taking stock of where we are after fifty years of work since the Declaration of Human Rights.
It is customary on any anniversary to reflect on what has been achieved. While everyone of us here today is in no doubt that much work remains to be done, we should acknowledge the notable achievements that have been registered since the adoption of the Universal Declaration. The UN Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have been ratified by most of its member States. Conventions on racism, torture, the rights of the child and the elimination of discrimination against women are also in place – setting standards of conduct to which individual States can be held accountable by UN monitoring committees. The Human Rights Commission focuses world attention on cases of torture, racism, disappearances, arbitrary detention, summary executions and violence against women – it generates international pressure on governments to improve their respect for human rights - and, in recent years has been giving greater attention to the promotion of the rights of children.
It is important too as we look back over the past fifty years, that we are mindful of the fact that human rights were not “invented” just fifty years ago. President John F Kennedy said in his inauguration address that ‘ . . the rights of man come not from the generosity of the State, but from the hand of God’. Those rights are in their own way very modest – most people want only relatively humble modest things from life – yet these prove to be the most elusive. And it is people who deny them to each other whose hurts deny the humanities of the other. What the Declaration did do was to vindicate the rights of people – to act as a beacon which they can look to, and try to reach, out of the darkness of repression and the denial of basic human entitlements – a centre of gravity with international power to secure the unfolding of equity and peace – the gifts that God intended for his people.
In a difficult century we have faced profound and complex rights issues – from independence and partition and their legacies of conflict – to dismantling the structural straightjacket which enslaved women. Today we face the challenge of new-found wealth and the questions of sharing it equitably which this welcome change in fortune has provoked. And of course the pursuit of peace envisaged in the Good Friday Agreement forces us to look into our attitudes, beliefs and actions – and to acknowledge our individual and collective responsibility for building the new culture of consensus.
Part of the process of rectification must involve standing back and continuously reviewing what has been done – and to look afresh at where we are. That need to stand back and to critique is not confined to States. Everybody and every organisation must be prepared to look at what they do – to examine their mission statements and their structures – to consider how they interface and interact with others - to see if they are taking full cognisance of the rights of those they work with and for – that they are not cutting off opportunities – that they are not making people vulnerable. As I said in my book, Reconciled Being, “no one side ever has a monopoly on truth or answers. . . . The future has to lie with a shared vision that comes out of a respectful pooling of views and pain and ambitions”. In the case of the Catholic Church it is important that a body like the ICJP, which is dominated by lay people, should exist to continue to provoke questions – to continue to move us along the learning curve – and to pursue the rights of humankind which are central to the Christian message. It is to the great credit of the Church that it does exist and that it does such very valuable work. Indeed the Church itself has occasion to look within its own structures and procedures – at how it fulfils its mission - as the Holy Father himself has shown on five occasions over the past two years – where he has apologised for the oppression of women – and acknowledged the church’s own responsibility.
The positive and welcome developments that have taken place in the whole spectrum of human rights give us cause for hope and provide us with a base on which to build – a platform from which through scholarly research and reasoned debate – we can assess the damage that has been caused by the denial of rights and the continuing need to heal wounds – and to support those who are victims of stereotypical attitudes and prejudices that keep them down. People who have to fight for their God-given rights – to carve out a space for themselves – have to re-direct energies and resources which could, if the conditions were right, see them more productively and gainfully employed through participation as full players in society.
With our Tiger economy there are still many people who are not at liberty to use their skills and talents to benefit from our success. We need to continue to look and look again at our society and all its structures – to assess how it is balanced – and to seek out those pockets of people, however small, who through economic circumstance or constraints on access are being sidelined and denied what is rightfully theirs.
In my book I also said that “As we pick up speed towards the millennium many are already becoming bored with the hype of millenniumitis, all the count downs and expensive parties plannned . . . . . but there has been little attention given to the spiritual significance and opportunity of this anniversary . . . . the Great Jubilee of Christendom as Pope John Paul II has reminded us”. The prospect of a new millennium is in a way forcing us to think about the society that we want to see – and the things we want to leave behind. Wouldn’t it be nice to look to an Ireland that is peaceful and reconciled – that embraces diversity in creed, culture and gender – and has a space for everyone to have what is rightfully theirs.