[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[September 19, 2000]
[Pages 1872-1874]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at the Debut of ``Speak Truth to Power: Voices From Beyond the
Darkness''
September 19, 2000
Thank you very much. President Arias, first
let me thank you for your presence here tonight and your remarkable
leadership.
And Kerry, I want to join this great
throng in telling you how grateful we are that you have undertaken this
project with such passion and commitment. I know that in spite of the
fact that half the seats tonight are filled by your family--[laughter]--
there are a lot of people here who feel just as strongly about you as
Andrew and Ethel
and your mother-in-law, Matilda, and Senator
Kennedy and the others who are here. You
are an astonishing person, and we thank you for amplifying the voices of
the human rights defenders who have honored us by their presence here
tonight.
These men and women have carried on against unimaginable obstacles,
knowing the truth once spoken can never be completely erased, that hope,
once sparked, can never be fully extinguished. They have seen injustice
aided by apathy. In spite of all the nice things you said about me
tonight, a full half dozen of them were prodding me along tonight before
I came out here to do even better, and I like that a lot. They have
carried on knowing that even a single act of courage can be contagious,
and their courage and that of so many others around the world, has
indeed proved contagious.
More people live in freedom today than at any time in human history,
and in 1999 more people around the world won the right to vote and
choose their leaders than was in even the case in 1989, the year the
Berlin Wall fell. From Bosnia to Croatia to Kosovo, we are no longer
struggling to stop crimes against humanity but, instead, working
steadily to bring perpetrators to justice and to create the conditions
of humane living. From South Africa to Chile, people are confronting the
injustices of the past so that their children will not have to relive
them. And all over the world, people finally are recognizing, as Hillary
said in Beijing, that women's rights are human rights.
Yet for all the brave work that is captured in this magnificent book
and that will be honored tonight, freedom's struggle is far from over.
And I think it is appropriate tonight that we all ask ourselves at this
magic moment of prosperity and peace for our country, what are our
responsibilities to advance the struggle? How can we use this global age
to serve human rights, not to undermine them?
[[Page 1873]]
Globalization is not just about economics. It has given us a global
human rights movement, as well. Whether activists are fighting for press
freedom in Ivory Coast or the rights of children in America, they can
talk to each other, learn from each other, and know they are not alone.
Indeed, maybe the most important lesson of this evening is to say to all
of them, whom we honor, you are not alone.
Global economic integration can, if done right, make it harder for
governments to control people's lives in the wrong way. Information
technology can be one of the most liberating forces humanity has ever
known.
Twenty years ago it was a great victory if we could smuggle a
handful of mimeograph machines to dissidents in Poland or Russia. When I
went to the Soviet Union 30 years ago, young people would come up to me
on the street and try to figure out if there was some way I could
smuggle a book back in to them. Now, hardly a government on Earth, in
spite of all their best efforts, can stop their much more
technologically wise young people from using the Internet to get
knowledge from halfway around the world.
But for freedom to prevail, we need to do more than open markets,
hook up the world to CNN, and hope dictators are driven out by dot-coms.
Real change still depends upon real people, on brave men and women
willing to fight for good causes when the chance of success is low and
the danger of persecution is great--men and women like those we honor
tonight. Globalization on the whole, I think, will prove to be a very
good thing, but it is not a human rights policy. To advance freedom and
justice, we have to support and defend their champions.
Today, the defenders of human rights need our support in Serbia,
where the democratic opposition is stronger than ever, heading into
critical elections this weekend. Mr. Milosevic has stepped up his repression. Surely, he is capable
of stealing the election. But if he does, we must make sure, all of us,
not just the Americans and certainly not just the American Government,
that he loses what legitimacy he has left in the world, and the forces
of change will grow even stronger. We must keep going until the people
of Serbia can live normal lives and their country can come back home to
Europe.
The defenders of human rights need our support in Burma, as well.
Their only weapons are words, reason, and the brave example of Aung San
Suu Kyi. But these are fearful weapons to
the ruling regime. So last week they confined her again, hoping the
world would not hear or speak out. But voices were raised, and her
struggle continues.
Those who rule Burma should know, from this place tonight, with all
these people we honor, all of us will watch carefully what happens, and
you can only regain your place in the world when you regain the trust of
your people and respect their chosen leaders.
In these and so many other places, those who fight for human rights
deserve our support and our absolute conviction that their efforts will
not be in vain. All human rights defenders are told in the beginning
they are naive; they are not making a difference; they are wasting their
time. Some have even been cruelly told they are advancing some sort of
Western cultural notions of freedom that have no place in their country.
They are all laughed at, until one day their causes triumph and everyone
calls them heroes.
The same has been said of almost every human rights policy our
Nation has pursued in the past. Kerry talked about East Timor. A few
years ago, how many people would have predicted it could become
independent? A dozen years ago, how many people believed the Baltic
States would be free? But all those people who came out for Captive
Nations Week, year-in and year-out, and were literally ridiculed in the
sixties and seventies, would be right, and all the hard-headed realists
would be wrong.
The men and women we honor never gave in to repression, fatigue, to
cynicism, or to realism which justifies the unacceptable. And neither
should America.
Hina Jilani, who has worked for women and
human rights in Pakistan and is with us tonight, said, ``I never have a
sense of futility because what we do is worth doing.'' If you believe
that every person matters, that every person has a story and a voice
that deserves to be heard, then you must believe that what all human
rights defenders do everywhere is worth doing.
Let us never develop a sense of futility, for the people we honor
tonight have proved the wisdom of Martin Luther King's timeless adage,
that the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.
Thank you very much.
[[Page 1874]]
Note: The President spoke at 8:28 p.m. in the Eisenhower Theater at the
John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. In his remarks, he referred
to former President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, founder, Arias Foundation
for Peace and Human Progress; Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, author on whose work
the play was based, her mother-in-law, Matilda Cuomo, husband, Secretary
of Housing and Urban Development Andrew M. Cuomo, and mother, Ethel
Kennedy; President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro); and Aung San Suu Kyi, 1999 Nobel
Peace Prize recipient.