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When my staff told me that I had to give a lecture, I was thinking about the old teachers choked in bowtie and tweed, and I wondered if that was a sign of more than just the stage of life in which I came in, with gray hair and a slightly faltering vision. I thought that my daughters think that all I tell them is a lecture. I was thinking about the American press and how they were often frustrated by my lengthy responses to press conferences, when my responses were not consistent with two-minute sound bites. But given the strange and uncertain times in which we find ourselves – and they are weird, and they are uncertain – with the news cycles of each day bringing more disturbing and disturbing headlines, I thought that it would be possible -being worth taking a step back. try to have a perspective. So I hope you will please me, despite the slight cold, while I spend much of this conference thinking about where we went and how we arrived right now, in the hope that He will give us a roadmap for
One hundred years ago, Madiba was born in the village of Mvezo. In his autobiography, he describes a happy childhood: he takes care of cattle; he plays with the other boys. [He] eventually went to a school where his teacher gave him the English name Nelson. And, as many of you know, he is quoted as saying, "Why did she give me that particular name, I have no idea."
There was no reason to believe that a young black boy right now, could in any way alter the story. After all, South Africa was then less than a decade under British total control. Already, laws were codified to implement racial segregation and subjugation, the network of laws that would be known as apartheid. Most of Africa, including my father's homeland, was under colonial rule. The dominant European powers, having put an end to a horrific world war just a few months after the birth of Madiba, considered this continent and its inhabitants mainly as a spoils in a fight for the territory and the abundance of natural resources and hand -d work cheap. The inferiority of the black race, indifference to the culture, interests and aspirations of blacks was obvious.
Such a vision of the world – some races, some nations, some groups were inherently superior, and this violence and coercion the primary basis of governance, that the strong necessarily exploit the weak, that wealth is determined primarily by the conquest, this vision of the world was not limited to relations between Europe and Africa, nor to relations between whites and blacks. Whites were happy to exploit other whites whenever they could. And, by the way, blacks were often ready to exploit other blacks. Around the world, most people lived at a subsistence level, without having a say in the politics or economic forces that determined their lives. Often they were subject to the whims and cruelties of distant rulers. The average person saw no opportunity to move forward from the circumstances of their birth. Women were almost uniformly subordinated to men. Privilege and status were rigidly linked by caste, color, ethnicity and religion. And even in my country, even in democracies like the United States, based on the declaration that all men are equal, racial segregation and systemic discrimination were the law in almost half of the country and the norm in the rest of the country. country. 19659002] It was the world barely a hundred years ago. There are people alive today who were alive in this world. It is therefore difficult to exaggerate the remarkable transformations that have taken place since then. A second world war, even more terrible than the first, accompanied by a cascade of liberation movements from Africa to Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, would finally bring a term to colonial rule. More and more peoples, witnesses of the horrors of totalitarianism, repeated massacres of the twentieth century, began to embrace a new vision of humanity, a new idea, based not only on the principle of self-determination in the market-economy countries, trade union movements have suddenly developed, and health and safety and trade regulations have been instituted, and access to information has been introduced. Education has been broadened and social protection systems have emerged, all with the aim of limiting the excesses of capitalism and improving its ability to provide opportunities not only to some, but to all. And the result has been unmatched economic growth and middle-class growth. In my own country, the moral force of the civil rights movement has not only overturned Jim Crow's laws, but it has also opened the door for women and historically marginalized groups to reinvent themselves, to make their voices heard, to claim their full rights. citizenship.
It is serving this long march towards freedom and justice and equal opportunity that Nelson Mandela has dedicated his life to. At first, his struggle was peculiar to that place, to his homeland – a fight to end apartheid, a fight to ensure lasting political, social and economic equality for his non-white citizens deprived of their rights. But thanks to his sacrifice and unwavering leadership and, perhaps most importantly, through his moral example, Mandela and the movement he led would come to mean something bigger. He came to embody the universal aspirations of the dispossessed peoples of the world, their hopes for a better life, the possibility of a moral transformation in the conduct of human affairs.
Madiba's light shone so brilliantly, even from that narrow island of Robben Cell, that in the late seventies, it could inspire a young student on the other side of the world to reexamine its own priorities, could make me think about the small role that I could play in the world's curvature towards justice. And when, later, as a law student, I saw Madiba emerge from prison, just a few months, you will remember, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I felt the same wave of hope that has passed through the hearts of the whole world
Do you remember this feeling? It seemed that the forces of progress were moving, that they were inexorable. Every step that he made, you felt that it was the moment when the old structures of violence and repression and the old hatreds that had so long delayed people's lives and confined the mind human – that all that collapsed before our eyes. Then, as Madiba guided this nation through laborious negotiation, reconciliation, his first free and fair elections, as we all witnessed the grace and generosity with which he embraced the ancient enemies, the wisdom for him to to leave power was complete, we understood it – we understood that it was not only the subjugated, the oppressed who were freed from the shackles of the past. The subjugator was offered a gift, giving him a chance to see in a new way, giving him a chance to participate in the building work of a better world.
During the last decades of the 20th century, the progressive and democratic vision that Nelson Mandela represented in many ways defined the terms of international political debate. This does not mean that the vision has always been victorious, but it has defined the terms, the parameters; he guided our thinking about the meaning of progress, and he continued to move the world forward. Yes, there were still tragedies, bloody civil wars from the Balkans to the Congo. Despite the fact that ethnic and sectarian struggles always broke out with a heartbreaking regularity, in spite of all this because of the continuation of nuclear relaxation and a peaceful and prosperous Japan, and a unified Europe rooted in the NATO ; China's entry into the global trading system – all this has greatly reduced the prospect of a war between the world's great powers. From Europe to Africa, from Latin America to Southeast Asia, dictatorships have begun to make way for democracies. The march was launched. Respect for human rights and the rule of law, enumerated in a United Nations declaration, has become the guiding standard for the majority of nations, even in places where reality was far from the norm. ideal. Even when these human rights were violated, those who violated human rights were on the defensive.
With these geopolitical changes, there have been radical economic changes. The introduction of market-based principles, in which previously closed economies, as well as the forces of global integration fueled by new technologies, have suddenly unleashed entrepreneurial talents to those who had been relegated to the market. outskirts of the global economy, not to mention. Suddenly, they counted. They had power. They had the opportunity to do business. And then come scientific breakthroughs and new infrastructures and the reduction of armed conflicts. Suddenly, one billion people were lifted out of poverty and, once hungry nations were able to feed themselves, infant mortality rates dropped. And, meanwhile, the spread of the Internet has allowed people to connect across the oceans, and cultures and continents have been instantly assembled, and potentially all the knowledge of the world could be in the hands of the world. a small child even in the most remote village.
This is what happened in the course of a few decades. And all this progress is real. It was vast, and it was profound, and everything happened in what – according to the standards of human history – was nothing but one. wink. And now, a whole generation has grown up in a world that, by most measures, has become increasingly free and healthier and richer and less violent and more tolerant throughout its life.
That should make us optimistic. But if we can not deny the real progress that our world has made since Madiba took these steps, we must also recognize all the flaws in the international order. In fact, it is partly because of the failures of governments and powerful elites to squarely address the flaws and contradictions of this international order that we now see a large part of the world threatening to return to an older way, more dangerous and more brutal
We must therefore begin by admitting that all the laws that existed whatever the marvelous declarations that existed in the constitutions, what good words have been uttered in recent decades during International conferences or behind the scenes of the United Nations, the previous structures of privilege and power and injustice and exploitation are never completely gone. They have never been completely dislodged. The caste differences still have an impact on the life chances of the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. Ethnic and religious differences still determine who gets the opportunity, from Central Europe to the Gulf. It is clear that racial discrimination still exists in the United States and South Africa. And it is also a fact that the accumulated disadvantages of the years of institutionalized oppression have created gaping disparities in incomes, and in wealth, and in education, and in health, in society. personal security, in access to credit. Women and girls around the world continue to be stuck in positions of power and authority. They continue to be prevented from having a basic education. They are disproportionately victims of violence and abuse. They are always less paid than men to do the same job. It always happens. Economic opportunities, for all the magnificence of the global economy, all the skyscrapers that have transformed the landscape in the world, entire neighborhoods, entire cities, whole regions, whole nations have been avoided.
Many people, the more things have changed, the more things stayed the same.
And while globalization and technology have opened up new opportunities and brought about remarkable economic growth in the regions of the world that previously fought, globalization has also sectors in many countries. It has also significantly reduced the demand for some workers, helped to weaken the unions and the bargaining power of the workers. It is easier for capital to avoid the tax laws and regulations of nation states – to move billions, billions of dollars by pressing a computer key.
The result of all these trends is an explosion of economic inequalities. This means that a few dozen individuals control the same wealth as the poorest half of humanity. This is not an exaggeration; it's a statistic. Think about it. In many middle-income and developing countries, the new wealth comes from following the old bad deal that people have achieved, because it has heightened or even worsened existing patterns of inequality; the only difference is that it has created even greater opportunities for corruption on an epic scale. And for once solidly middle class families in advanced economies like the United States, these trends have resulted in greater economic insecurity, especially for those who do not have specialized skills, people who were working in the factories, .
In all countries, more or less, the disproportionate economic influence of those at the top has given these individuals an extremely disproportionate influence on the political life of their countries and their media; on what policies are pursued and whose interests end up being ignored. Now, it should be noted that this new international elite, the professional class that supports them, differs in many ways from the aristocracies of the past. It includes many of those made by themselves. It includes champions of meritocracy. And although they are still predominantly white and male, they reflect as a group a diversity of nationalities and ethnicities that would not exist a hundred years ago. A decent percentage considers itself liberal in their politics, modern and cosmopolitan in their outlook. Riddled with parochialism, nationalism, racial prejudice or religious sentiments, they are equally at home in New York or London or Shanghai or Nairobi or Buenos Aires or Johannesburg. Many are sincere and effective in their philanthropy. Some of them count Nelson Mandela among their heroes. Some even supported Barack Obama for the US presidency, and under my former head of state status, some of them consider me to be an honorary member of the club. And I'm invited to these fancy things, you know? They will fly away.
But what is nevertheless true, is that in their business relations, many titans of industry and finance are increasingly detached from one another. single and same nation-state and live more and more isolated. struggles of ordinary people in their countries of origin. Their decision to close a manufacturing plant or try to reduce their tax bill by transferring their profits to a tax haven with the help of high-cost accountants or lawyers, or their decision to profit from the immigrant labor force to the lesser the decision to pay a bribe, is often done without malice; it is simply a rational response, they believe, to the demands of their balance sheets and their shareholders and to competitive pressures.
But too often, these decisions are also made without reference to notions of human solidarity or understanding at the field level. the consequences that will be felt by particular people in particular communities by the decisions made. And from their boards of directors or their retreats, global policymakers do not have the chance to sometimes see the pain in the faces of dismissed workers. Their children do not suffer when cuts in public education and health care result from a reduction in the tax base due to tax evasion. They can not hear the resentment of an older shopkeeper when he complains that a newcomer does not speak his language on a job site where he has already worked. They are less subject to the discomfort and displacement that some of their compatriots may feel when globalization confuses not only existing economic arrangements, but also traditional social and religious mores.
That is why, in the late twentieth century, while some Western commentators declared the end of history and the inevitable triumph of liberal democracy and the virtues of the supply chain worldwide, so many missed signs of a backlash – a reaction that took so many forms. It announced the most violently with 9/11 and the emergence of transnational terrorist networks, fueled by an ideology that perverted one of the world's great religions and asserted a struggle not only between the 39, Islam and the West but between Islam and modernity. An unwise American invasion of Iraq has not helped, accelerating a sectarian conflict.
Russia, already humiliated by its diminished influence since the collapse of the Soviet Union, feeling threatened by democratic movements along its borders, has suddenly reaffirmed control and, in some cases, mix with neighbors. China, emboldened by its economic success, has begun to bristle with criticism of its record on human rights; In the United States, within the European Union, the challenges of globalization came first from the left, then came more strongly from the right, you started to see populist movements – which either By the way, are often cynically funded by right-wing billionaires who intend to reduce government constraints on their business interests. These movements undermined the discomfort felt by many people living outside urban centers, fears of economic security being eroded, their social status and privileges eroding, their cultural identities threatened. by strangers, who did not do it. (19659002) And, perhaps more than anything else, the devastating impact of the 2008 financial crisis, where the reckless behavior of financial elites resulted in years of hardship for ordinary people. Everywhere in the world, all the previous assurances of the experts sounded hollow – all those assurances that the financial regulators knew one way or another, that someone was watching the store, that it was not safe for them. global economic integration was a pure good. Because of the measures taken by governments during and after this crisis – including, I should add, by strong measures taken by my administration – the world economy has now returned to healthy growth. But the credibility of the international system, the faith in experts in places like Washington or Brussels, all that had taken a hit.
A policy of fear and resentment and entrenchment has begun to appear, and this kind of politics is now on the move. It's running at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable a few years ago. I am not alarmist. I'm just saying the facts. Look around you. The politics of the strong is rising, suddenly, by which the elections and some simulacrum of democracy are maintained – the form of it – but those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives meaning to democracy.
-the parties that are often based not only on platforms of protectionism and closed borders but also on a barely hidden racial nationalism. Many developing countries now view China's model of authoritarian control combined with mercantilist capitalism as preferable to the disorder of democracy. Who needs the freedom of expression, as long as the economy is fine? The free press is attacked. Censorship and state control over the media are on the rise. Social media, once seen as a means to promote knowledge, understanding and solidarity, has proved equally effective in promoting hatred, paranoia, propaganda and conspiracy theories.
Today we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Madiba. , a moment where two very different visions of the future of humanity are competing for the hearts and minds of citizens around the world. Two different stories. Two different stories about who we are and who we should be. How should we react?
Should we see this wave of hope that we felt with Madiba's release from prison, the falling Berlin Wall – should we see this hope that we were so naive and misguided? Do we understand the last twenty-five years of global integration as nothing more than a detour from the inevitable cycle of history? Where is politics a hostile competition between tribes and races and religions, and nations face each other in a zero-sum game, constantly on the brink of conflict until war is over? bursts? Is this what we think?
Let me tell you what I believe. I believe in Nelson Mandela's vision. I believe in a vision shared by Gandhi and King and Abraham Lincoln. I believe in a vision of equality and justice and freedom and multiracial democracy, based on the principle that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. I believe that a world governed by such principles is possible, and that it can achieve more peace and more cooperation in the pursuit of a common good. That's what I believe.
And I believe we have no choice but to go forward, that those of us who believe in democracy and civil rights and a common humanity have a better story to tell. And I believe it's not just based on feeling. I believe it based on tangible evidence:
The fact that the world's most prosperous and prosperous societies, those with the highest standards of living and the highest levels of satisfaction, are those closest to the progressive liberal ideal. we are talking about and nurturing the talents and contributions of all their citizens.
The fact that authoritarian governments have been repeatedly shown to engender corruption, because they are not responsible; to repress their people; lose touch with reality; engage in ever bigger lies that ultimately lead to economic and political and cultural and scientific stagnation. Look at the story. Look at the Facts
The fact that countries that rely on enraged nationalism and xenophobia and doctrines of tribal, racial or religious superiority as their main principle of organization, the thing that brings people together – eventually these countries are consumed by civilians war or external war. Check the history books.
The fact that technology can not be reintroduced into a bottle, we are stuck with the fact that we are now living together and that people will move, and the environmental challenges will not go away from themselves, from So the only way to effectively address issues such as climate change, mass migration or pandemics will be to develop systems of international cooperation, not less.
We have a better story to tell. But to say that our vision for the future is better, that is not to say that it will inevitably win. Because history also shows the power of fear. The story shows the lasting grip of greed and the desire to dominate others in the minds of men. Especially men. History shows how easily people can be convinced to turn to those who look different or who worship God differently. So, if we really want to continue Madiba's long march to freedom, we will have to work harder, and we will have to be smarter. We will have to learn from the mistakes of the recent past. And so, in the short time left, let me suggest some landmarks for the road ahead, landmarks that draw from Madiba's work, her words, the lessons of her life.
Madiba firstly shows those of us who believe in freedom and democracy, we will have to fight harder to reduce inequalities and promote sustainable economic opportunities for all peoples.
Now, I do not believe in economic determinism. Human beings do not live by bread alone. But they need bread. And history shows that societies that tolerate vast differences in wealth fuel resentments and reduce solidarity and grow more slowly, and that once people go beyond mere subsistence, they measure their well-being. to be in relation to their neighbors. if their children can expect to live a better life. When economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few, history also shows that political power is sure to follow. This dynamic is eating away at democracy. Sometimes it can be pure corruption, but sometimes it is not a money exchange. it's just the people who are rich who get what they want, and that undermines human freedom.
Madiba understood that. This is not new. He warned us about it. He said, "Where globalization means, as is so often the case, that the rich and the powerful now have new ways to enrich and empower themselves to the detriment of the most vulnerable. poor and poor, [then] the name of universal freedom. "That's what he said, so if we're serious about universal freedom today, if we care about social justice today, then we've got it. the responsibility to do something about it, and I would respectfully change what Madiba said, I do not do it often, but I would say it's not enough for us to protest, we're going to have to build, We are going to have to innovate, we will have to find out how we can bridge this widening gap of wealth and opportunity, both within and between countries.
We realize that this will vary from one country to another. 39, one country to another, and I know your new president is committed to roll up his sleeves and try to do it, but we can learn for the past seventy years that this is not the case. It will not involve unregulated, unbridled, unethical capitalism. read the socialism of command and control in the old. This has been tried.
Pour presque tous les pays, le progrès dépendra d'un système inclusif, basé sur le marché, qui offre une éducation à tous les enfants, qui protège la négociation collective et garantit les droits de tous les travailleurs, qui brise les monopoles pour encourager la concurrence dans les petites et moyennes entreprises, et a des lois qui extirpent la corruption et assure un traitement équitable dans les affaires, qui maintient une forme d'imposition progressive pour que les riches soient encore riches, mais ils donnent un Il faut que nous nous assurions que tout le monde ait quelque chose à payer pour les soins de santé universels et la sécurité de la retraite, et investisse dans l'infrastructure et la recherche scientifique qui bâtit des plateformes d'innovation.
J'ai été surpris par combien d'argent j'ai eu, et laissez-moi vous dire quelque chose: je n'ai pas autant que la plupart de ces gens, ou un dixième ou un centième. Il y a seulement tellement de choses que tu peux manger. Il y a seulement une maison aussi grande que celle que vous avez . Il y a tellement de beaux voyages que vous pouvez prendre. Je veux dire … c'est assez! Vous n'avez pas à faire un vœu de pauvreté juste pour dire: «Eh bien, laissez-moi vous aider. Laissez-moi regarder cet enfant qui n'a pas assez à manger ou a besoin de frais de scolarité. Laisse-moi l'aider. Je paierai un peu plus en taxes. C'est bon. Je peux me le permettre. »Je veux dire, cela montre une pauvreté d'ambition à vouloir simplement prendre de plus en plus de temps.
Il s'agit de promouvoir un capitalisme inclusif, à la fois au sein des nations et entre les nations. Alors que nous poursuivons, par exemple, les objectifs de développement durable, nous devons dépasser l'état d'esprit de la charité. Nous devons apporter plus de ressources aux poches oubliées du monde grâce à l'investissement et à l'entrepreneuriat, parce qu'il y a du talent partout dans le monde si on leur en donne l'occasion.
En ce qui concerne le système international du commerce et du commerce pour les pays pauvres de continuer à chercher l'accès à des marchés plus riches. . . . Il est également bon pour les économies avancées comme les États-Unis d'insister sur la réciprocité de pays comme la Chine qui ne sont plus uniquement des pays pauvres, de s'assurer qu'ils donnent accès à leurs marchés et qu'ils cessent de prendre la propriété intellectuelle et de pirater nos serveurs.
Mais même s'il y a des discussions sur le commerce et le commerce, il est important de reconnaître cette réalité: alors que la sous-traitance des emplois du nord au sud, de l'est à l'ouest, À la fin du vingtième siècle, le plus grand défi pour les travailleurs dans des pays comme le mien aujourd'hui est la technologie. Le plus grand défi pour votre nouveau président, quand nous pensons à la façon dont nous allons embaucher plus de gens ici, sera aussi la technologie, parce que l'intelligence artificielle est là, qu'elle accélère, et que vous allez avoir des voitures sans conducteur. et vous allez avoir de plus en plus de services automatisés, et cela rendra le travail de donner du travail à tout le monde plus dur, et nous devrons être plus imaginatifs. Le rythme du changement exigera que nous fassions une réimagination plus fondamentale de nos arrangements sociaux et politiques, afin de protéger la sécurité économique et la dignité inhérentes à un emploi. Ce n'est pas seulement de l'argent qu'un travail fournit; il fournit la dignité et la structure et un sens du lieu et un sens du but. Nous allons donc devoir envisager de nouvelles façons de penser à ces problèmes, comme un revenu universel, revoir notre semaine de travail et comment nous recyclons nos jeunes, comment nous faisons de tout le monde un entrepreneur à un certain niveau. Nous devrons nous inquiéter de l'économie si nous voulons remettre la démocratie sur les rails.
Deuxièmement, Madiba nous enseigne que certains principes sont vraiment universels, et le plus important est le principe selon lequel nous sommes liés ensemble par un humanité commune, et que chaque individu a une dignité et une valeur inhérentes.
Il est surprenant que nous ayons à affirmer cette vérité aujourd'hui. Plus d'un quart de siècle après la sortie de prison de Madiba, je dois rester ici pour une conférence et consacrer du temps à dire que les Noirs, les Blancs, les Asiatiques et les Latino-Américains, les femmes et les hommes, les homosexuels et les hétérosexuels. nous sommes tous humains, nos différences sont superficielles et nous devons nous traiter les uns les autres avec soin et respect. J'aurais pensé que nous aurions compris cela maintenant. Je pensais que cette notion de base était bien établie. But it turns out, as we’re seeing in this recent drift into reactionary politics, that the struggle for basic justice is never truly finished. So we’ve got to constantly be on the lookout, and fight for people who seek to elevate themselves by putting somebody else down. We have to resist the notion that basic human rights like freedom to dissent, or the right of women to fully participate in the society, or the right of minorities to equal treatment, or the rights of people not to be beat up and jailed because of their sexual orientation—we have to be careful not to say that somehow, well, that doesn’t apply to us, that those are Western ideas rather than universal imperatives.
Again, Madiba anticipated things. He knew what he was talking about. In 1964, before he received the sentence that condemned him to die in prison, he explained from the dock that “the Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, the Bill of Rights are documents which are held in veneration by democrats throughout the world.” In other words, he didn’t say, Well, those books weren’t written by South Africans, so I can't claim them. No, he said, That’s part of my inheritance. That’s part of the human inheritance. That applies here, in this country, to me, and to you. That’s part of what gave him the moral authority that the apartheid regime could never claim. He was more familiar with their best values than they were. He had read their documents more carefully than they had. And he went on to say, “Political division based on color is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one color group by another.” That’s Nelson Mandela speaking in 1964, when I was three years old.
What was true then remains true today. Basic truths do not change. It is a truth that can be embraced by the English, and by the Indian, and by the Mexican and by the Bantu and by the Luo and by the American. It is a truth that lies at the heart of every world religion—that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. That we see ourselves in other people. That we can recognize common hopes and common dreams. And it is a truth that is incompatible with any form of discrimination based on race or religion or gender or sexual orientation. And it is a truth that, by the way, when embraced, actually delivers practical benefits, since it insures that a society can draw upon the talents and energy and skill of all its people. And, if you doubt that, just ask the French football team that just won the World Cup. Because not all of those folks look like Gauls to me. Mais ils sont français. They’re French.
Embracing our common humanity does not mean that we have to abandon our unique ethnic and national and religious identities. Madiba never stopped being proud of his tribal heritage. Il n'a pas arrêté d'être fier d'être un homme noir et d'être sud-africain. But he believed, as I believe, that you can be proud of your heritage without denigrating those of a different heritage. In fact, you dishonor your heritage. It would make me think that you’re a little insecure about your heritage if you’ve got to put somebody else’s heritage down. Don’t you get a sense sometimes that these people who are so intent on putting people down and puffing themselves up, that they’re small-hearted, that there’s something they’re just afraid of? Madiba knew that we cannot claim justice for ourselves when it’s only reserved for some. Madiba understood that we can’t say we’ve got a just society simply because we replaced the color of the person on top of an unjust system, so the person looks like us even though they’re doing the same stuff, and somehow now we’ve got justice. That doesn’t work. It’s not justice if now you’re on top, so I’m going to do the same thing that those folks were doing to me, and now I’m going to do it to you. That’s not justice. “I detest racialism,” he said, “whether it comes from a black man or a white man.”
Now, we have to acknowledge that there is disorientation that comes from rapid change and modernization, and the fact that the world has shrunk, and we’re going to have to find ways to lessen the fears of those who feel threatened. In the West’s current debate around immigration, for example, it’s not wrong to insist that national borders matter; whether you’re a citizen or not is going to matter to a government; that laws need to be followed; that, in the public realm, newcomers should make an effort to adapt to the language and customs of their new home. Those are legitimate things, and we have to be able to engage people who do feel as if things are not orderly. But that can’t be an excuse for immigration policies based on race, or ethnicity, or religion. There’s got to be some consistency. We can enforce the law while respecting the essential humanity of those who are striving for a better life. For a mother with a child in her arms, we can recognize that could be somebody in our family, that could be my child.
Third, Madiba reminds us that democracy is about more than just elections. When he was freed from prison, Madiba’s popularity—well, you couldn’t even measure it. He could have been President for life. Am I wrong? Who was going to run against him? Had he chosen to do so, Madiba could have governed by executive fiat, unconstrained by check and balances. But instead he helped guide South Africa through the drafting of a new constitution, drawing from all the institutional practices and democratic ideals that had proven to be most sturdy, mindful of the fact that no single individual possesses a monopoly on wisdom. No individual—not Mandela, not Obama—are entirely immune to the corrupting influences of absolute power, if you can do whatever you want and everyone’s too afraid to tell you when you’re making a mistake. No one is immune from the dangers of that.
Mandela understood this. He said, “Democracy is based on the majority principle. This is especially true in a country such as ours, where the vast majority have been systematically denied their rights. At the same time, democracy also requires the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.” He understood it’s not just about who has the most votes. It’s also about the civic culture that we build that makes democracy work.
We have to stop pretending that countries that just hold an election where sometimes the winner somehow magically gets ninety per cent of the vote, because all the opposition is locked up or can’t get on TV, is a democracy. Democracy depends on strong institutions, and it’s about minority rights and checks and balances, and freedom of speech and freedom of expression and a free press, and the right to protest and petition the government, and an independent judiciary, and everybody having to follow the law.
And, yes, democracy can be messy, and it can be slow, and it can be frustrating. But the efficiency that’s offered by an autocrat, that’s a false promise. . . . It leads invariably to more consolidation of wealth at the top and power at the top, and it makes it easier to conceal corruption and abuse. For all its imperfections, real democracy best upholds the idea that government exists to serve the individual, and not the other way around. And it is the only form of government that has the possibility of making that idea real.
So for those of us who are interested in strengthening democracy, it’s time for us to stop paying all of our attention to the world’s capitals and the centers of power, and to start focussing more on the grassroots, because that’s where democratic legitimacy comes from. Not from the top down, not from abstract theories, not just from experts, but from the bottom up. Knowing the lives of those who are struggling.
As a community organizer, I learned as much from a laid-off steelworker in Chicago or a single mom in a poor neighborhood that I visited as I learned from the finest economists in the Oval Office. Democracy means being in touch and in tune with life as it’s lived in our communities, and that’s what we should expect from our leaders, and it depends upon cultivating leaders at the grassroots who can help bring about change and implement it on the ground and can tell leaders in fancy buildings this isn’t working down here.
To make democracy work, Madiba shows us that we also have to keep teaching our children, and ourselves, to engage with people not only who look different but who hold different views. This is hard.
Most of us prefer to surround ourselves with opinions that validate what we already believe. You notice the people who you think are smart are the people who agree with you. Funny how that works. But democracy demands that we’re able also to get inside the reality of people who are different than us so we can understand their point of view. Maybe we can change their minds, but maybe they’ll change ours. And you can’t do this if you just out of hand disregard what your opponents have to say from the start. And you can’t do it if you insist that those who aren’t like you—because they’re white, or because they’re male—that somehow there’s no way they can understand what I’m feeling, that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters.
Madiba lived this complexity. In prison, he studied Afrikaans so that he could better understand the people who were jailing him. And when he got out of prison he extended a hand to those who had jailed him, because he knew that they had to be a part of the democratic South Africa that he wanted to build. “To make peace with an enemy,” he wrote, “one must work with that enemy, and that enemy becomes one’s partner.”
So those who traffic in absolutes when it comes to policy, whether it’s on the left or the right, they make democracy unworkable. You can’t expect to get a hundred per cent of what you want all the time; sometimes you have to compromise. That doesn’t mean abandoning your principles, but instead it means holding on to those principles and then having the confidence that they’re going to stand up to a serious democratic debate. That’s how America’s founders intended our system to work: that through the testing of ideas and the application of reason and proof it would be possible to arrive at a basis for common ground.
I should add: for this to work, we have to actually believe in an objective reality. This is another one of these things that I didn’t have to lecture about. You have to believe in facts. Without facts, there is no basis for coöperation. If I say this is a podium and you say this is an elephant, it’s going to be hard for us to coöperate. I can find common ground for those who oppose the Paris Accords because, for example, they might say, Well, it’s not going to work; you can’t get everybody to coöperate. Or they might say it’s more important for us to provide cheap energy for the poor, even if it means in the short term that there’s more pollution. At least I can have a debate with them about that, and I can show them why I think clean energy is the better path, especially for poor countries, that you can leapfrog old technologies. I can’t find common ground if somebody says climate change is just not happening, when almost all of the world’s scientists tell us it is. I don’t know where to start talking to you about this. If you start saying it’s an elaborate hoax, where do we start?
Unfortunately, too much of politics today seems to reject the very concept of objective truth. People just make stuff up. We see it in state-sponsored propaganda. We see it in Internet-driven fabrications. We see it in the blurring of lines between news and entertainment. We see the utter loss of shame among political leaders, where they’re caught in a lie and they just double down and they lie some more. Politicians have always lied, but it used to be, if you caught them lying, they’d be, like, “Oh, man.” Now they just keep on lying. . . .
I don’t think of myself as a great leader just because I don’t completely make stuff up. You’d think that was a baseline. Anyway, we see it in the promotion of anti-intellectualism and the rejection of science from leaders who find critical thinking and data somehow politically inconvenient. And, as with the denial of rights, the denial of facts runs counter to democracy. It could be its undoing, which is why we must zealously protect independent media. We have to guard against the tendency for social media to become purely a platform for spectacle, outrage, or disinformation. We have to insist that our schools teach critical thinking to our young people, not just blind obedience.
Which, I’m sure you are thankful for, leads to my final point: we have to follow Madiba’s example of persistence and of hope. It is tempting to give in to cynicism: to believe that recent shifts in global politics are too powerful to push back, that the pendulum has swung permanently. Just as people spoke about the triumph of democracy in the nineties, now you are hearing people talk about the end of democracy and the triumph of tribalism and the strongman. We have to resist that cynicism. Because we’ve been through darker times; we’ve been in lower valleys and deeper valleys.
Yes, by the end of his life, Madiba embodied the successful struggle for human rights, but the journey was not easy. It wasn’t pre-ordained. The man went to jail for nearly three decades. He split limestone in the heat, he slept in a small cell, and was repeatedly put in solitary confinement. I remember talking to some of his former colleagues saying how they hadn’t realized, when they were released, just the sight of a child, the idea of holding a child, they had missed—it wasn’t something available to them, for decades.
And yet his power actually grew during those years—and the power of his jailers diminished, because he knew that, if you stick to what’s true, if you know what’s in your heart, and you’re willing to sacrifice for it, even in the face of overwhelming odds, that it might not happen tomorrow, it might not happen in the next week, it might not even happen in your lifetime. Things may go backwards for a while, but, ultimately, right makes might, not the other way around. Ultimately, the better story can win out, and, as strong as Madiba’s spirit may have been, he would not have sustained that hope had he been alone in the struggle. Part of what buoyed him up was that he knew that, each year, the ranks of freedom fighters were replenishing, young men and women, here in South African, in the A.N.C. and beyond, black and Indian and white, from across the countryside, across the continent, around the world, who in those most difficult days would keep working on behalf of his vision.
And that’s what we need right now. We don’t just need one leader; we don’t just need one inspiration. What we badly need right now is that collective spirit. And I know that those young people, those hope carriers, are gathering around the world. Because history shows that, whenever progress is threatened, and the things we care about most are in question, we should heed the words of Robert Kennedy—spoken here in South Africa—he said, “Our answer is the world’s hope: it is to rely on youth. It’s to rely on the spirit of the young.”
So, young people who are in the audience, who are listening, my message to you is simple: keep believing, keep marching, keep building, keep raising your voice. Chaque génération a l'opportunité de refaire le monde. Mandela a déclaré: "Les jeunes sont capables, lorsqu'ils sont excités, de faire tomber les tours de l'oppression et de lever les bannières de la liberté." Maintenant, c'est un bon moment pour être éveillé. Now is a good time to be fired up. And, for those of us who care about the legacy that we honor here today—about equality and dignity and democracy and solidarity and kindness, those of us who remain young at heart, if not in body—we have an obligation to help our youth succeed. Some of you know, here in South Africa, my foundation is convening over the last few days two hundred young people from across this continent who are doing the hard work of making change in their communities, who reflect Madiba’s values, who are poised to lead the way.
People like Abaas Mpindi, a journalist from Uganda, who founded the Media Challenge Initiative to help other young people get the training they need to tell the stories that the world needs to know.
People like Caren Wakoli, an entrepreneur from Kenya who founded the Emerging Leaders Foundation to get young people involved in the work of fighting poverty and promoting human dignity.
People like Enock Nkulanga, who directs the African Children’s Mission, which helps children in Uganda and Kenya get the education that they need and then, in his spare time, Enock advocates for the rights of children around the globe, and founded an organization called LeadMinds Africa, which does exactly what it says.
You meet these people, you talk to them, they will give you hope. They are taking the baton; they know they can’t just rest on the accomplishments of the past, even the accomplishments of those as momentous as Nelson Mandela’s. They stand on the shoulders of those who came before, including that young black boy born a hundred years ago, but they know that it is now their turn to do the work.
Madiba reminds us, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and, if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart.” Love comes more naturally to the human heart; let’s remember that truth. Let’s see it as our North Star, let’s be joyful in our struggle to make that truth manifest here on Earth, so that, in a hundred years from now, future generations will look back and say, “They kept the march going. That’s why we live under new banners of freedom.” Thank you very much, South Africa. Thank you.
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