It will certainly not be easy to awaken inpeople a new sense of responsibility for theworld, an ability to conduct themselves as if theywere to live on this earth forever and to be heldanswerable for its condition one day.
There is one great opportunity in thematter of co-existence between nations and spheresof civilizations, culture and religion that shouldbe grasped and exploited to the limit. This is theappearance of supranational or regionalcommunities. By now, there are many suchcommunities in the world, with diversecharacteristics and differing degrees ofintegration.
I believe in this approach. I believe in theimportance of organisms that lie somewhere betweennation states and a world community, organismsthat can be an important medium of globalcommunication and cooperation. I believe that thistrend towards integration in a world where--asI've said--every valley longs for independence,must be given the greatest possible support.
These organisms, however, must not be anexpression of integration merely for the sake ofintegration. They must be one of the manyinstruments enabling each region, each nation, tobe both itself and capable of co-operation withothers. That is, they must be one of theinstruments enabling countries and peoples who areclose to each other geographically, ethnically,culturally and economically and who have commonsecurity interests, to form associations andbetter communicate with each other and with therest of the world.
Co-operation between such regions ought to be anatural component of co-operation on a world-widescale. As long as the broadening of NATOmembership to include countries who feelculturally and politically a part of the regionthe Alliance was created to defend is seen byRussia, for example, as an anti-Russian,undertaking, it will be a sign that Russia has notyet understood the challenge of this era.
The most important world organization is theUnited Nations. I think that the fiftiethanniversary of its birth could be an occasion toreflect on how to infuse it with a new ethos, anew strength and a new meaning, and make it thetruly most important arena of good co-operationamong all cultures that make up our planetarycivilization.
But neither the strengthening of regionalstructures nor the strengthening of the UN willsave the world if both processes are not informedby that renewed spiritual charge which I see asthe only hope that the human race will surviveanother millennium.
In conclusion, allow me a brief personalremark. I was born in Prague and I lived there fordecades without being allowed to study properly orvisit other countries. Nevertheless, my mothernever abandoned one of her secret and quiteextravagant dreams: that one day I would study atHarvard. Fate did not permit me to fulfill herdream.
But something else happened, something thatwould never have occurred even to my mother: Ihave received a doctoral degree at Harvard withouteven having to study here.
More than that, I have been given to seeSingapore and countless other exotic places. Ihave been given to understand how small this worldis and how it torments itself with countlessthings it need not torment itself with if peoplecould find within themselves a little morecourage, a little more hope, a little moreresponsibility, a little more mutual understandingand love.
I don't know whether my mother is looking downat me from heaven, but if she is I can guess whatshe's probably think: she's thinking that I'msticking my nose into matters that only people whohave properly studied political science at Harvardhave the right to stick their noses into.
I hope that you don't think so.
Thank you for your attention.
The transcript of this speech was providedby the Harvard News office. The speech wasdelivered as part of the afternoon Commencementexercise on June 8, 1995.