[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[December 31, 1999]
[Pages 2354-2357]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the ``Millennium Around the World'' Celebration
December 31, 1999

    Good afternoon. I must say, after listening to them, I don't know 
that there's anything I have to add. I want to thank all of you for 
being here. I thank the First Lady 
for her conception of this millennium celebration and for all those who 
helped to make it possible. I thank Secretary Albright for her work for world peace. Governor 
Gutierrez and the people of Guam, we 
thank you for sponsoring this event. And we welcome 
Congressman and Mrs. 
Underwood, Mrs. Gutierrez and members of your family, Governor. Guam is where 
America's day begins, you know, and today it's where our millennium 
begins. I'd also like to thank the Environmental Protection Agency and 
its Administrator, Carol Browner; the GSA 
and its Administrator, Dave Barram, who is 
here with his family; and all others who helped to make this day 
possible. I'd like to ask you to express our appreciation to the World 
Children's Choir and the United States Army Brass Quintet. We thank 
them.
    We wanted to spend a part of this day with diplomatic 
representatives from around the world and with children from around the 
world to signal the importance of strengthening our global community in 
the new millennium.
    On this day 200 years ago, in 1799, our second President welcomed 
the 19th century. It then took 6 weeks by boat to get news from Europe. 
On this day 100 years ago, when President William McKinley marked the 
start of the 20th century, it took 6 seconds to send a text by 
telegraph. Today, satellites and the Internet carry our voices and 
images instantaneously all around the world. Never before have we known 
as much about each other. Never before have we depended so much on each 
other. Never before have we had such an opportunity to move toward what 
the generations have prayed for, peace on Earth and a better life for 
all. We must both imagine a brighter future and dedicate ourselves to 
building it, and I ask you all here today to reaffirm the clear 
understanding that we must do it together.
    Two thousand years ago, the calendar that turns at midnight began 
with the birth of a child on straw in a stable, with a single, shining 
star in the sky. It attracted no notice at the time. Today, as we meet 
in this international center, though all the world is now a part of this 
millennial calendar change, we must recognize that for more than half 
the world, because they are not Christians, the number 2000 has less 
significance: for Muslims, this is the year 1420; for Hindus, it is 
1921; for Buddhists, it is 2543; Mayans honor the year 5119; and the 
Hebrew calendar marks this year as 5760.
    So what we celebrate here today is not so much a common calendar of 
history or faith but a common future for all people of good will, a 
future of peace and harmony, a future rooted in the forces of freedom 
and enterprise and globalization and science and technology that have 
powered so much of the 20th century, but a future which now--now--may 
reflect timeless lessons as well, the lessons of all religious faiths: 
Love your neighbor as yourself; do unto others as you would have done to 
you; do not turn aside the stranger; see the spark of divine inspiration 
in every person. As long as we have had philosophers and prophets on 
this Earth, this lesson has been taught. Yet, it still seems the hardest 
for us to learn.
    The past 100 years have seen the victory of freedom over 
totalitarianism. For that, we can

[[Page 2355]]

all be grateful. They have seen us coming together more and more so that 
it is possible to have a stage with this beautiful, brilliant array of 
children, and for that, we can all be grateful.
    But still all around us, we see the failure to use our freedom 
wisely, as too many people still give in to primitive hatreds, and we 
still face the oldest problem of human society: the fear of those who 
are different from us. History shows that people do tend to be afraid of 
those who don't look the same or practice religion the same way or come 
from different tribes or have different lifestyles. Those fears, when 
ignited and organized by unscrupulous leaders, have led to terrible 
violence in the modern world. Even in the most open societies, including 
our own, children who learn to look down and dehumanize those who are 
different and perhaps to blame them for their own problems continue to 
grow up to commit awful hate crimes.
    Still, we must begin a new century with great hope. Think of this: 
100 years ago not a single country in the world recognized the right of 
all its citizens to choose their leaders and shape their destinies. Now, 
for the first time in history, more than half the world's people live 
under governments of their own choosing. Sixty years ago many people 
thought that nothing could stop dictators from imposing their will on 
the world through violence. But since then, democratic countries have 
risen, not just once but time and time again, to defeat fascism, to help 
nations free themselves from totalitarianism, to help stop racial 
apartheid and ethnic cleansing, to uphold and advance human rights. In 
freedom's century, we have learned that open societies are more just, 
more resilient, more enduring.
    Even today, we see our newest discoveries bringing us closer to 
goals humanity has shared for centuries, to eradicate disease, educate 
all our children, clean our environment, provide economic support for 
families, and lift up nations. The forces of science, technology, and 
globalization have shattered the boundaries of possibility, and in the 
new century, our achievements will be bounded mostly by the limits on 
our own imagination, understanding, and wisdom.
    There are, to be sure, tremendous challenges ahead. The old problems 
are there: leaders all too willing to exploit human difference to 
preserve their own power; places where freedom still is silenced and 
basic rights denied; outdated, unnecessary industrial practices 
endangering our global environment; abject poverty, with more than a 
billion people living on less than a dollar a day. And then there are 
the new problems: the organized forces of crime, narcotrafficking, 
terror; governments too weak to handle the sweeping forces of 
globalization and their impact on their people; ordinary people across 
the world who have yet to see the benefits of democracy and free 
enterprise but have borne the burden of the economic and social changes 
some can delay but none can avoid.
    Still I say again, we must be hopeful. It is a good thing that we 
are more and more free and more and more interdependent. It is possible 
to have prosperity while preserving the environment, and it is possible 
to share prosperity more broadly with those who have been too long 
denied. It is possible to thwart the organized forces of destruction. In 
short, it is possible to listen to the children in this room, who come 
from over 100 nations of the world, and give them a chance to live their 
dreams.
    When we see threats to peace and dignity abroad, we can choose not 
to speak; we can choose not to act. But no longer can we choose not to 
know. That is why there was such a similarity in the vision these 
children from all over the globe shared with us today.
    The explosion in information and the technology for getting it to 
people everywhere at the same time has enabled us to build a common 
sense of community, that is already taking shape in ways large and 
small. When there's a flood in Venezuela that kills thousands and 
thousands of innocent people, when we see the plight of young war 
victims in Sierra Leone who have lost their limbs, when we see hundreds 
of thousands of people displaced by ethnic cleansing from their homeland 
in Kosovo, we can choose to do nothing, but we can't pretend we don't 
know, and we can no longer shield our conscience or our interest from 
their impact. So now we care about one another in ways we never did 
before. On our ever smaller planet, one way or another, sooner or later, 
what happens anywhere may be felt everywhere.
    So I'd like to make a few new year's predictions. In the new century 
we may not be able to eliminate hateful intolerance, but we will see the 
rise of healthy intolerance of bigotry, oppression, and abject poverty 
in our own communities and across the world.

[[Page 2356]]

    We may not be able to eliminate all the harsh consequences of 
globalization. But still, we will trade more and travel more and 
communicate more and learn to do it in ways that advance the lives of 
ordinary people and lift the quality of the environment.
    We may not be able to eliminate all the inadequacies of government 
and our global institutions, but we will see more and more governments 
able to protect their people from the harshest side effects of 
globalization and able to prepare their children--all their children, 
boys and girls--for the 21st century world; and we will see more--much, 
much more--cooperations among nations to meet common challenges and 
seize common opportunities.
    In short, the children you see on this stage, in the new century, 
will become more and more part of the same community, not by giving up 
their national, tribal, racial, ethnic, and religious differences but by 
honoring them and by affirming our common humanity and our shared 
destiny. It is happening already. I say again, you see it in our 
response to an earthquake in Turkey or a hurricane in the Caribbean.
    Earlier this year, the last time so many nations were represented in 
this room, it was on the 50th anniversary of NATO when the Allies 
gathered there to stand against ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Today, from 
southeastern Europe to the Middle East to South Africa to Northern 
Ireland to East Timor, the century is ending with a clear message that 
there is no place in the 21st century for power rooted in hatred and 
dehumanization. People everywhere want peace and harmony and the chance 
to live with their dreams not at their neighbor's expense but, instead, 
with their neighbor's help.
    We owe it to the children here to begin this new millennium ready to 
take on our problems together, an unrelenting battle against poverty, 
sharing the promise of the new economy, leaving no one behind, deepening 
our democracies, preserving our shared earthly home. Today we celebrate 
more than the changing of the calendar. We celebrate the opportunity we 
have to make this a true changing of the times, a gateway to greater 
peace and freedom, for prosperity and harmony. If we listen to our 
children, they will tell us the future we should build.
    Last week I received a letter from a sixth-grade class in 
northeastern Connecticut, who knew I would be speaking to you here 
today. Here's what they said: ``Never forget, God didn't put us here to 
fight, but to live in harmony. If we can help our children, our future 
leaders to find their way to love for all mankind and to teach them 
there is no future in racism, then we can find that the success and 
glory of world peace will grow and blossom into a never-dying flower.''
    I said at the opening of my remarks that 2000 years ago those of us 
who are Christians believe the new era began with a bright light in the 
sky. You should all know that when darkness falls tonight for the very 
last time in this millennium, the brightest light in the sky will be the 
constellation Orion. From December to April, it is the only star system 
visible from every inhabited point on Earth. Scientists tell us that the 
light from one of those stars began its journey almost exactly 1000 
years ago.
    In the time it took the light from Orion to reach Earth, Leif 
Erikson sailed; Gutenberg printed; Galileo dared; Shakespeare wrote; 
Elizabeth ruled; Mozart composed; Jefferson drafted; Bolivar liberated; 
Lincoln preserved; Einstein dreamed; Ataturk built; Roosevelt led; 
Gandhi preached; Mother Teresa healed; Mandela triumphed. A pretty good 
space of traveling light.
    Now that light shines upon all of us. For all the billions of people 
who came before, it has been left to this generation to lead the world 
into a new millennium, to use our freedom wisely, to walk away from war 
and hatred toward love and peace. When people look back on this day a 
hundred years from now, may they say that is exactly what we did, that 
in the 21st century our children went further, reached higher, dreamed 
bigger, and accomplished more because love and peace proved more 
powerful than hatred and war.
    One of America's most popular authors of children's books is Theodor 
Geisel, who wrote under the name of Dr. Seuss. One of the very last 
books he wrote was called, ``Oh, The Places You'll Go.'' I want to end 
today with words he wrote in that book, looking ahead at the world our 
children should inherit. Listen to this and help to make it so. ``And 
will you succeed? Yes, you will, indeed, ninety-eight and three-quarters 
percent guaranteed. Kid, you'll move mountains. So be your name Buxbaum 
or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea, you're off to great 
places. Today is your day. Your mountain is waiting, so get on your 
way.''

[[Page 2357]]

    Good luck to the children here, and Godspeed in the new millennium.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 2:20 p.m. in the Atrium at the Ronald W. 
Reagan International Trade Center. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. 
Carl T.C. Gutierrez of Guam and his wife, Geraldine; and Delegate Robert 
A. Underwood of Guam, and his wife, Lorraine. The transcript released by 
the Office of the Press Secretary also included the remarks of the First 
Lady.