Saturday, September 21, 2024
5:30 p.m. EDT
Perspective on the way forward – Summit of the Future Action Days – Closing Ceremony
Venue: ECOSOC Chamber, UN GQ, New York
We are here on a Saturday afternoon from so many different corners of the earth because we know that our time here and our commitment matters more than ever.
As we speak, war rages in the Middle East, in Africa, in Europe, and in the Americas, while there is no declared war, there is conflict that causes the loss of lives because of access to assault weapons and all of those other things that literally have undermined citizen security in our hemisphere. We are here in the season of superlatives, from the driest to the wettest, to the strongest storms, every possible thing that we could imagine that can disrupt our way of life from the environment and the range of biodiversity that is so essential to the balance of our earth has already been affecting us. And we are here, generations after countries declared independence, with the intention of being able to deliver for their people the best life possible, but constrained of course by the absence of access to development opportunities and most importantly of all, to the fuel, to the oxygen, to the financing that matches the needs of their people.
I do not tire in saying that we cannot build schools and hospitals with 10 and 15 year money. We are here because even though noises were made every decade for the last few decades that things ought to change, they continued in the same direction. Fueled by greed, fueled by inequity, fueled by marginalization, fueled by values reflected by human beings taking decisions or as His Holiness would say to us, from literally the desensitization that comes that allows us to take comfort in ignoring what we see and what we hear.
I take comfort this evening from the fact that we are here, but we being here will only be a record or a footnote in history if our actions just end here. Yes, the conclusion of the pact for the future is the seminal treaty and theoretical point from which we want to take our action. But the truth is that that may become just simply another document in history if all that we have come to do is to secure a pact.
We have now to ensure that we enlarge the people, the army, the believers, the doers who are prepared to say that in the same way history can record successfully that slavery was wrong and needed to be abolished, in the same way that we can have history record successfully that women should have the right of agency over their vote and their body, in the same way that history can record successfully that the people who live in separate and apart systems in South Africa or regrettably now as we see in the Middle East, that they should be freed from the bondages that allow others to determine what their destiny should be and to be able to secure it for themselves and the least capable among them. If you lived at those points in history, you might well have said that the battle was impossible. But we know enough to know, as President Mandela told us, it is not impossible if it can be done or it is impossible until it is done.
This world can change, but it needs our energy, our commitment and in the same way in electoral matters we go out and find other people to help us proselytize and canvas, we must now go out and find ordinary citizens who are prepared to say that they are not wishing to be pawns anymore of others and that the notion of two worlds, one for those who have and the rest for those who are relegated to not have it, one for those who see people and feel people and understand their obligation to help and others who are insensitive and do not quite frankly care or see those around them. If we doubted the power of the people, we only need to see where that power has made significant changes even in this year that we live in. But what matters now is that there be coordinated action and that we believe and that we sell and share with each other that there is a possibility for a win-win, that there is a possibility for us to have a green transition that can mitigate the damages that would otherwise come from the climate crisis, that there is the possibility for ensuring greater equitable access to artificial intelligence and that the power of regulation can ensure that it be a force for good and not an instrument of oppression or recolonization of the earth.
That it is possible for us to be able to take stances that recognize that investment in education will always trump conflict and war and guns, but that there may be difficult decisions that we may have to make too. And the problem is, is that if we have a world that is dominated only by 60-second sound bites and four-column inches, rather than allowing the spaces for discussion as we are doing in here, not just at the UN but in the villages, in the towns, in the communities, in the homes, in the households, that if we don’t get that discussion going, we’re not going to get the level of participation and we’re not going to build the momentum necessary that can move the inequity and that can remove the threats that this world has. I believe that it is possible for us to have a win-win.
I believe that hope can be restored, but I do recognize that we are at that inflection point. And those who have power and want to maintain the status quo, even though they do not yet have a plan for allowing us to live on Mars, they are adamant on not creating the space or the policy flexibility or the access to the funding necessary for us to bring along others. It is unconscionable for us not to recognize that unless we can provide the basics of food, water, shelter, electricity to all people on this Earth, we cannot talk about being a successful generation in human civilization.
And we all know that there is sufficient to be able to share. What is needed is the change in attitude and values. I’m not going to reflect only on the fact that almost every religion carries us in the direction of caring for the most vulnerable because people may want then to get into the schisms and isms of religious differences.
But there is, in African civilization, the concept of Ubuntu. I am because you are. I am because we are.
And if you hear me repeat it all week, please forgive me. I’m not repeating it because I’m just looking for something to say. I’m repeating it because the establishment of a shared destiny, a common mission, and I want to salute the Secretary General who very often has not been given his due.
The common agenda sets out where we must go. The Sustainable Development Goals are the roadmap. The Sustainable Development Goals is where we hit the road with the opening words of this chart as we heard from the young people yesterday, we the peoples.
If we cannot provide for the peoples the basic rights as reflected in the SDGs, then we have banished them to another generation of failed souls at the very time when the world has more to offer them than it has ever offered them. I want us to leave here with a pep in our step and with a commitment to the principles that can truly bring harmony and a shared mission to save planet and people. There will be much that we can call upon to show the divisions and there is much that we can do to fuel hate.
But above all else, if we succumb to those divisions and hate, we will forever be condemned because at this inflection point, we have the ability to come together as human beings to save the people and to save the planet. It does mean adjustment. It does mean hard work.
It does mean sacrifice. But above all else, it is built on a heart of caring and a creative capacity that our minds have that if we don’t use it, then we will lose it. Let us therefore defend the path for the future but more importantly, bring others to understand what it is, what it means and what is the win-win for every human being.
Will we get all? Probably not. But our failure to try and our failure to press ahead is what we will be condemned for. And I pray that even at this moment of great challenge, of great, great disruption, that we as human beings will show why we on this earth are a resilient species and why we have within it, within us, the capacity to do right and to be the right person for the time by advancing not just our individual interests but recognizing our common destiny.
I am because you are. I am because we are. Thank you.
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