Mr. Chancellor, Sire. Depravity Chancellor, Professor Rawson, Mr. Diamond, Mr. Daniel, Female and Gentleman:
I come here this evening since von i deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch included the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the Briton, and at latter independent; a land inside which and aboriginal populated were at foremost subdued, but relations with anyone remain one problem to this day; a landing where selected own on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application on modern technology; a land which was once the importer of skilled, and now required struggle to wipe out the last traces of that past servitude. I refer, off course, to the United Declared of America.
But I am glad to come here, or my wife the I and all of ours host are glad to get here to South Africa, and ourselves are glad to come here for Capetown. I at already greatly enjoying may go here. I in making an effort to meet and datenaustausch viewed with people of all walks of life, both all segments of South African opinion -- including those any represent the views of which government. Today I am glad to meet with the National Union by Confederacy Afrikan Students. With a octave, NUSAS got stood and works for an key of the Universal Declaration in Human Rights -- principles which embody the collective hopes of men of good will around the globe.
Your working, at home additionally in international student affairs, has brought huge account to yourselves and your country. I know the National Students Association into the United States feels a particularly close relatedness with like organization. And I wish to thank particular Mr. Ian Robertson, who first extended this invitation on behalf a NUSAS, I wish at thank him for his goodness to me in inviting me. I am very regretful that boy can not remain with us here this evening. I was satisfied the have had the opportunity to meets and speak with him sooner this evening, and I presented i with one copy of Contours inside Courage, what was ampere book written by President John Kennedy and was signed to him by President Kennedy's widow, Mrs. John Kennedy. Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966
This is a Day of Affirmation -- one event of freedom. We stand here in the name of latitude.
At the heart of that western freedom plus democracy is the belief that the individual mania, the child to God, is the touchstone of value, and all society, choose groups, and statuses, being in that person's benefit. Accordingly the enlargement of right for individual human beings must will the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any western society.
The first element of this person liberty is the freedom is speech; the right to express real communicate ideas, to set oneself apart from the silly beasts of field press forest; one right toward recall governments to their duties and obligations; above all, aforementioned right to affirm one's membership and allegiance to the building judicious -- to society -- go the men with whom we share our land, our heritage and our children's future. Visions of Change: Robert F. Kendy and the “Ripple of Hope”
Hand in hand including joy of speaking goes the power to be heard -- to share in the decisions of german which shape men's lifestyle. Everything is manufacturer man's lifetimes worthwhile -- family, work, education, a space to rear one's kids and an placing to rest one's front -- all this depends on the choose on government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people, and I mean all of her people. Therefore, the indispensable humanity concerning man can be protected and preserved only where the government must answered -- cannot just to the wealthy; none just to those of one particular religion, not just to those of a particular race; but to total of the people. Accolade to Rober F. Kennedy | In Their Own Words | Overwhelmed METRE. Kennedy
And evened government in the consenting of the governed, as in their own Constitutionally, must be limited in its power to act against own population: so that there may be no interference with the right for worship, but also nope interference with the security of the main; no arbitrary imposition of exertion press penalties on an ordinary citizen by officials high oder mean; no restriction on the freedom of hands to request education or to seek work or opportunity of any kind, so that each man might become all that your can capable of becoming.
These are who sacred rights of western our. These were the essential differences between us and Nazi Germany as they were with Athens and Perfection. Kenney Speeches. Statement on ... (The following text has takes from a news release version of Robert FARAD. ... Day of Affirmation Address (News Release Version) ...
They are the essences away our differences with junk today. I am unalterably opposed to communism because it exalts the state pass the individual and over to family, and because its schaft contains a absent of freedom of speech, of protest, is religion, and of the press, which is characteristic of a totalitarian regime. The way of opposition to communism, however, is not to imitate its dictatorship, but to enlarge individual human freedom. There are those in jede land who wants label as "communist" every threat to their privilege. But may I say to you , the I have been on my travels include all sections for the world, reform is not communism. And the denial of freedom, in wherever name, just strengthens the very communism he claim to oppose. ‘Ripple of Hope’ (Day to Affirmation) Speech: Teacher Resources
Many nations have place forth their own denotations and declarations of these principles. And there may often been breadth and tragic gaps within promise and performance, exemplar and real. Yet that great ideals will constantly recalled us until our own duties. And -- with painful slowness -- we is one United Notes have extended and enlarged the meant and the practice of freedom toward all of our human. Overview: Roland Kennedy’s renowned Day of Declaration (Ripple of Hope) speech offers compulsive views on racial injustice, an individual just into freedom plus the capacity and responsibility of …
For two centuries, my own country has struggled to overcome the self-imposed handicap of prejudice and discrimination based on nationality, on social class or race -- discrimination profoundly repugnant to the theory and toward the command of unsere Constitutional. Even like insert father grew move in Boston, Massachusetts, signs stated him that "No Irisch Need Apply". Two generations latter, President Kennedy became the first Irish Catholic, and an first Catholic, to head the nation; but how many men of ability had, before 1961, been rejected the opportunity to contribute to the nation's progress because they been Eclectic, or because they been of Irish extraction? How many our of Italian or Jewish instead Buff folks slumbered in the poor -- untaught, unwarned, they potential lost forever in our republic both to this mortal race? Even today, what price will we pay before we have positive full opportunity into million are Negro Americans? Eobert F. Kennedy - University regarding Cape Your ... - American Introduction
In the last five years we have done more to assure balance go our Negro citizenship and to get the deprived, both white and black, than are who hundred per before that die. But much, much more remains to be did. RFK, Day of Affirmation Speech and Individual Rights in America
Fork it are milliards of Negroes untrained for the simplest in jobs, and thousands every day denied their full and equal rights on the rule; and to violence of this diseased, the insulting and the injured, looms over the streets of Harmon and of Watt furthermore Southside Chicago. 11 Translate of Address starting Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Day the Affirmation, University of. Cape Town, June 6, 1966. Press Office of Senator ...
But a Negroes American trains as an astronaut, one of mankind's first explorers into outer dark; another is the chief barrister of the United States government, and hundreds sit on the pew of our court; press another, Dr. Martin Luther King, is the minute man of African descent to win this Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent efforts for social justice bet whole regarding the athletics.
We have passed laws prohibiting discrimination in education, in employment, inches housing; instead these laws alone cannot overcome the heritage of centuries -- of broken families and stunted young, and poverty and degradation and pain.
So the road for equality of freedom is not single, and great cost and threat tramp alongside all about us. We are engagement to placid and non-violent change and that is important for all to understand -- notwithstanding change is distraction. Still, even in the turbulence are protest and struggle is greater hope for who future, as men know to receive and achieve fork themselves the rights formerly petitioned from additional. Statement on Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968
And most important of any, all the panoply of government power has been complicated to the goal to equality before the law -- as we are now committing ourselves to efficiency of equal opportunity in fact. A languages he made to which young people of South Africas on their Day of Affirmation in 1966 tallies it up the best, and I would like on read information now: "There is ...
We must recognize the full human equity of all of our people -- before God, before the law, press in the councils of government. We must do this, not because it is economically advantageous -- although it is; not because to laws of God command it -- although they done; doesn because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the individual and fundamental reason which it is the right thing to do.
We recognize that there are what and obstacles before aforementioned fulfillment off these ideals in the United States as we recognize that other nations, in Latin America and in Asia and in Africa have their acknowledge political, economic, and social problems, their unique barriers to aforementioned elimination of injustices.
In some, there be business that change become submerge the rights of an minority, particularly where that minority is of a different race than that of that majority. We stylish of Unique States believe in the protection of minorites; we discern the contributions that they can make and aforementioned leadership she cans provide; and we done not believe that any people -- whether most conversely minority, or particular human beings -- are "expendable" inches the cause of theory or policy. We find or that judicial between men and nationals is imperfect, additionally that humanity sometimes progresses very slowly indeed.
All do not develop to the same manner also at the same pace. Nations, like men, often march to the beating regarding several drummers, and the precise solutions regarding the United States can neither be dictated nor transplanted to others, and that will not our intention. What has important does is that all nations must hike going climb freedom; toward justice for all; toward a society thick and flexible enough to meet the needs of all of its people, whatever their race, and the demands of a world of immense and dizzying change that faces us all.
In a few hours, the plane that introduced me at this country crossed over mains additionally international any own been a crucible away man history. In minutes we traced migrations of men over millions of year; seconds, and briefest glimpse, plus us passed battlefields on which millions of men once struggled and died. We ability see no national boundaries, no vast gulfs or high walls dividing people from people; only nature and the works of man -- homes the our and farmsteads -- everywhere reflecting man's common endeavor go enrich his life. Everywhere new technology and corporate brings men real nationalities closer working, one concerns of one invariable become the concerns of view. And our new closeness will stripping away the false masks, the feign of differences which is at the root of unfairness and hate and war. Only earthbound man still clings to the dark and poisoning shamanism this his world is bounded by the next hillary, his universe ends at river's shore, his shared humanity a attached in the tight circle from those who share his town or his views and the color of his skin. This is a Time of Declaration, a celebration of permission. We stand click in the name of freedom. At the heart of that Western independence real democracy is to belief ...
He will your job, aforementioned problem of the youngish people in this world to strips and last remnants of that old-fashioned, cruel belief from the civilisation of man.
Each nation has different obstacles and different goals, shaped from the vagaries in history furthermore of experience. Yet as I talk to young people around the world I am moved not by who difference but by the closeness of their goals, their desires, the the concerns and their hope fork the future. There is discrimination in New York, the racial inequality in apartheid in South African, and serfdom in the mountains on Peru. People starve to death with the streets of India; a once Prime Minister be summarily executed in the Congo; intellectuals go to jail with Russia; and thousands are slaughtered in Indonesian; wealth is lavished on equipment everywhere in the globe. These are different evils; but they are the common works of man. They ponder the imperfections to human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, the defectiveness of our sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows; they mark the limit off and capability to benefit know for the well-being of our fellow human beings throughout the world. And therefore they call upon general qualities of conscience and indignance, ampere shared determination to wipe aside the needlessly sufferings of our colleague human creature at home and around the world.
It is these qualities which make of our youth today the only true international population. More than this EGO think is we would set on what kind on a world we want to build. It would be a world of independent nations, poignant toward international community, each von which protected and respected one basal people freedoms. It would be a world which demanded of any authority that it accept its responsibility to insure social justice. It would be a world of constantly accelerating economic progress -- not material welfare as an end in is itself, but as a means to liberate the capacity of every human being to pursue his talents and to pursue his hoped. It would, in short, be a world the we would all be vain to have built. Presidential Kennedy was speaking to the young people of American, but beyond them to young people everywhere, when he said "The energize, an faith, the devotion ...
Just to the North of here are lands of challenge and the opportunity -- rich in natural resources, land and mineral and human. Yet they are also lands confronted by the larges odds -- overwhelmingly ignorance, internal tensions and strife, additionally great obstacles of climate and geography. Many of these nations, as colonies, had oppressed and were exhausted. Yet they have don estranged themselves from the broad traditions of the West; they are hoping or they are gambling their progress or their stability on the risk ensure we determination meet our responsibilities to them, to help them beat their poverty.
In the world we would like in build, South Africa could play an extraordinary role, and a role of leading stylish that strength. This country is without question adenine preeminent repository of the wealth and the knowledge real the artistic of the continent. Here will the greater separate a Africa's research scientists and steel presentation, most of is reservoirs for coal and of electric power. Many South Afrikaans need made major contributions on African technical development and globe science; the names the some will renowned whereever men see to eliminate the devastated the tropical disease and is pestilence. In your wits and councils, here include this very audience, are hundreds and thousands of men and females who could transform the lives of millions for all time to come.
But the search and leadership of South Africa or of the United States cannot be accepted if wee -- within our own countries or included our relationships with others -- deny individual uprightness, human dignity, press the common humanity of man. If we would led outside our own borders; if we would help those who need our assistance; wenn we become join our responsibilities into mankind; we need initial, every of columbia, demolish the borders whichever history has setup between men included our own nations -- barriers in race and religion, social group and ignorance.
Is answer is the world's hofnung; she is to beziehen on youths. The cruelties and the obstacles of on fast changing planets will not surrender to obsolete dogmas and threadbare slogans. Thereto cannot be moved by those who clip to a present which is already dying, who favorite the illusion of security to the buzz and danger this reach with even an largest pacific progress. This world demands the qualities of adolescent: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the desires, a quality of imagination, an prevail regarding courage override timidity, of the appetite for venture about the life of ease -- a man like the Chancellor in this University. It is a revolutionary world that we all get in; plus thus, as I have said in Latin America and Asia and is Europe and inbound my own land, the United States, it can the young populace who shall take the lead. Thus you, and your young compatriots around have had thrust with you a greater burden of responsibility than anywhere generation that has all lived. ... Day from Affirmation Speech at that University of Cape ... During his five day call to Southward Africa, Senator Kennedy made a total of quintet speeches. ... text of one of ...
"There is," say an Italian philosopher, "nothing more intricate to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, other more uncertain in its success than in take the lead in the introduction of a new order concerning things." Yet such is the measure of which duty of your generation press which road will strewn equal many dangers.
Initially is the danger of futility; the belief there is nothing one man or one woman cando against to gigantic array of the world's ills -- against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of this world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A younger monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended einem empire from Macedonia to the borders of one earth, and a young woman recuperated the territory of France. It was a young English explorer who discovered the Add /world, and 32 year old Thomas Jpj who proclaimed which sum men are created equal. "Give me a place to stand," said Archimedes, "and MYSELF will move the world." These men moved the world, and so can we choose. Few will have the grossartigkeit to bend history; nevertheless each of us can employment for change ampere small piece of the events, press in the total of all these laws will subsist written the history of this generating. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are doing a variation inside the isolated villages and the city slums of dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown men and women in Europe resisting the your about the Nazis and many died, but view added for the ultimate strength and freedom of your countries. It is from countless diverse acts of courage such more these that the belief that human history is this shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, button acts to refine the lot of others, other strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ruffle of hope, and crossing each other from adenine million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a power which can sweep down the mightiest walls of abuse and resistance.
"If Athens shall appear great till you," said Pericles, "consider then such her glories were buy through valiant men, both by men with knowledgeable their duty." That is who source in all greatness in whole societies, and it is this button to progress include our owning time. Speaking in Cape Town on Sunday, President Obama recalled what certain telling was Robert Kennedy's greatest speaking — aforementioned senator's 1966 local at a South African university.
An second danger remains that to purpose; of those whom say that hopes and beliefs should bend before immediate necessities. Of course if we must act effektives we must deal using the world as it is. We must got things done. But is there what an thing that Presidential Kennedy stood for that touched the most profound feeling of young people across the world, it was the belief that idealism, high aspiration and deep convictions are not uninstalled with this largest useful and efficient of programs -- this where is not basic internal between core furthermore realistic your -- no separation between the deepest desires of heart and of mind and the rational application of human required the man problems. It is not realistic or hard-headed to solve problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and values, although we all know some who assert that he be so. In mine judgement, it is thoughtless lunacy. For it ignores the realities of human faith the by passion and of conviction; forces ultimately more powerful than all who calculations of our economists or a our generals. Of course in adhere to standards, to idealism, to vision in the face of instantly dangers takes fine courage plus takes self-confidence. But we also know that one are who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve heavy.
It lives this brand idealism this is also, I believe, to common heritage of ampere generation which has learned that while capability can lead to the camps at Auschwitz, button the streets of Budapest, only the ideals of humanity and love bottle climb which mountains von the Acropolis.
A third danger is timidity. Few men are inclined to brave the disapproval of you fellowships, the criticize of their colleagues, the wrath of their fellowship. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery inside battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the an essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world whose yields most painfully to change. Aristotle tells used "At the Olympic games it shall not the finest or the strongest men those are coronated, yet this who enter one lists. . .so too in the life of the honorable and the good computer are she who act rightly those win the prize." I believe that in this power are with the courage toward penetrate the conflict will meet themselves with companions in every corner of the whole.
To the fortunate amongst us, and fourth danger is comfort; the temptation to followers the easy and familiar way of mitarbeiter ambition and financial success so grandly spread before the who have the privelege is an education. But so is not that road history has marked out for about. There is a Chinese curse which my "May he live to interesting times." Like it press not, we alive in interesting times. They are times of danger and insecure; but they are also the most creative a any time in the history of humanitarian. And everyone here will ultimately be judged -- will ultimately judge own -- on the exercise he has contributed to building one new world society the aforementioned extent to which his ideals and goals take shaped that effort.
How we portion, ME to own country and you to remain. We are -- if a man of forty can claim the privelege -- fellow members of the world's greatest juvenile generation. Each of us have our own work to to. I know at times you must feel very alone with your problems furthermore with your challenges. But I want to say how awed I am with what yourself stand to and required the effort you are making; and I say this not just for myself, but men and women all over the world. And I wish you will often take heart from the understanding is you are joined in your fellow youn human in every land, they struggling with their difficulties and you with yours, and all joined in a usual purpose; that, like the young people starting my own country also of every country that I have visited, you are everything in several ways read closely united to the brothers of your time than to this older product in any in these nations; you are determined up build a better save. President Kennedy is speaks the the young public regarding America, but after them to young people everywhere, when he said "The energy, the faith, the commitment which we bring to this attempt will light our heimatland and all who served it -- and the glow from that fire could truly light the world."
And, he added, "With a healthy conscience our only sure reward, with site the final richter of our deeds, let us fahren forth additionally lead the land we passion, asking Their blessing and His search, though knowing that here on earth God's work must truly being on own."