Final Speech
Today I charge you to choose either
The path for the future of our children and their children's children or
To close your eyes and turn away from all the subtle suggestions and
insinuations of race prejudice in various forms.
You either decide here and now to protest and fight against the racial arrogance that
condemns our children to to suffer quietly in the shadows of their graves to abandon the
fight and betray our cause, the rights of our forefathers and surrender to future
humiliation. To those who elect to run, who say leave the past in peace show them that
they guarantee only the Peace of the grave. To the others Africa's sons and daughters I
recall the lyrical words of Countee Cullen and add those of our own Claude Mckay,
If we must die let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mockery at our accursed lot.
If we must die,O, let us nobly die
So that our precious blood may not be shed in vain
When even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honour us though dead.
0 kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave
And for their thousand blows, deal one deathblow.
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous cowardly pack
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back."
otw-
NnR. DU0TION.
M.,:king said, No man has lived until he can rise above the narrow
confines of his own individualistic concerns to the broader concerns
of humanity.
shati perhaps deal with this quotation a little more fuiiy iater on,
but perhaps you may conider that it gives a broader concept to the
.purose of life itself.
Graduates, you are about to say Goodbye and Thank you to your
alma mater. I am sure you can recall. your first days at Mico. You
entered with the Hope of Youth, and tonight you are leaving with thr
onfidence and Knowledge that you are not so much reservoirs of
knowledge as gateways to the paths of greater learning and service
to your fellow men. The Mico has done much to sharen your mOnds
to develop your creative ability, to enlarge your intellect, and to
widen yur imagination.
Pile .iiuman Mind is perhaps the most powerful machine in existence.
it produces ideas some of which unlike ourselves are imperishabir.
It is in these minds that reside the goals and objectives that largely
direct the actions of our lives.
request you ali to look within yourselves and after a fair analysis
osk, uhat role am I preparing for in life?' The motives or goals which
drives most of us to get on .Ls,frankly , the desire to acquire wealth
or 1=latt±± position.
now often have we said as words of encouragement .4THERE IS ALWAYS
ROOM AT THE Ts.o have used these words myself many times. Let Me
propose an addLtional line, one which should bring out another dimension,
13 AdAYS ROOM AT T&P
BUT
Th1JRL IS 11-,,WAY3 HsD AT 2HE BOTTOM WHERE THERE ARE THOSE WHO CANNOT •
once more repeat M.—Kines quotation, ''No man etc."
6ince I sat in your seat as a student here some fifty years ago
,great changes have taken place. You wiil need new approaches to solve
the problems of the lrc . The acceleration of events the very pace
of life todaj; is hectic. Your future begins today, not next year, not
it begins now, it took my generation more time to travel from my
home in 4estmoreland to come to the Mico than it takes you to fly from
Niew York to .,..ndon
Already we can put men on the moon 6E a man-made .JatteIlte in outer
space with pinpoint accuracy, We can record scientific data here from
sources millions of miles away. an you imagine the problems of compu-tation
, navigation, communication, electronics, geography and many other
sciences which had to be overcome to achieve this so as to direct the
course of a man through outer space where there are no maps as such,
no N..h. or W. or landmarks as we know them- even carrying his own
air to breathe. 1C.s it reasonable to believe that a technology that can
achieve this should be able to lift the bare feet of our poor out of
the dust of poverty here on earth Of course they can- but to do this
they would have to adjust their goals from the ratrace.of power to the
broader considerations of the fundamental needs of mankind. In this
Computer Age, high tech enabies us to calculate in miiliseconda, problems
that would occupy the keenest minds for months. industrial and agricultu-rti
robots have substituted machinery to replace tons of thousands of
workin men and women. These developments have heiped to produce such a
surplus of food that they create in some piaces a problem of storage.
akes of milk and mounds of butter go to waste :Lag a world where
millions die ao.nually from starvation. Is this an insoluble 2i.oblem.::
r has it to do with the acquisition of more wi:alth to those who already
have while the poor who want perish in painful silence.
As we reflect on the future we may well ask not What shall it be,
but il.ether it SDC1LL be. For the first time in the history of the world
the lust for power has given man the ability to destroy mankind. To
obliterate entirely not only all his achievements throughout the thousands
of years of history, but also to ,ut a stop to the future as well.
YES, NOT WHAT SORT OF FUTURE BUT WHIDTILia THERE WILL BE A FUTURE.
Some forty-one years ago most of the nations of the world, weary
from the cruel waste of war deliberated and determined to rid the world
from war the scourge of mankind. Jut of this was born United Nations,
which is still •, despite its detractors, the single greatest repository
of Hope for Humaniyy. 2kair. :I:heirs' was a renunciation of force, econthmic
collaboration etc. Today there is still war in the Middle ast, Nicaragua,
.3outh Africa, Afghanistan, and Viet Nam which all claimed tens of thousands
of lives. But it was in that same year 1945 when the nations had agreed
to banish the plague of war that out in the desert of Nevada a nuclear
explosion ushered in an era which has given mankind this capacity for
utter self extinction, the consequences of whthch,even today, defies the
imagination. It leads me to believe that many colleges , universities,
and research centers of the world , are training our youth and minds
away from the human considerations of brotherly love and care for
mankind.
While these technological miracles are taking place , there remain
in ocuiatr.ies.Like piamaica the utmost third world backwardness. Until
countries like ours give educatLon the priority it deserves we shall
remain at the mercy of ignorance and depression, our society has never
done this. In fact there have been signs of cutting back on education
here and there. Any third world nation that cuts bock ,)n education at
any level is strangling the future of their ch. idren. And by education
1 do not merely mean intellectual , utilitatian or scientifoc. education
but a process with that ethical content which includes the message of
of all humanity".
‘ 1*- 3. The height by which is that "upward reach towards something
distinctly greater than humanity*.
It was Sir. H.O.B.Wooding that greater caribbean jurir;t from
Trinidad who said, ' Lt ts, T am convinced, only by raaching upward
in spirit and in deed, taht our human society can be transformed from a
neLhbourhood into a brotherhood."
Graduates, relatives and friends, what can we do about it ?
1. Speak out and follow up actively and fearlessly so as to
establish a more balanced and just society both nationally
and internationally.
2. Work towards a more stable and moral society, econthmically
viable, politically compatable and socialdyy just.
3. vwrk for the establishment of a new economic order which
take into consideration the balance of human distress as
well as the balance of payments.
4. Give full support to those intsraational bodies pledged to
secure peace, and speak out boldly against those who decry
institutions and who substitute for the rule of law the rule
of force.
5. Recognise God's presence in the person of every tunan being,
whatever his status in life, and take a resolut-Lon for the
enhancement of human dignity.
Gr;,iduates, if you leave this institution tonight having learnt
to raise your horizon above the narrow confines of your personal concerns
to include the concerns for those who need you most in the society you
will have served and dererved the Mico, your people, your country, and
through the , the world.
The last W.4.11 saw a combined unleashing by bombs, cannon,
mines etc. on both sides amounting to 3 megatons of destructive power.
Today, a single i'oseidon submarine possesses the destructive capacity
of 9 megatons- a single Trident submarine the equivalent of 8 W.W.11e.
Collectively the world controls the destructive power of 13000 megatons-
(6000 W.W. us). But still the developed world builds more weapons of
mass destructiza at the cost of one million doLLaz.L_Ltr.._ minute, ntght,
LILILL. This is the world you have to face as described by that eminent
eanudian Rhodes Seholar Michael Head. You will have to chane.&!2219y
or train the next generation to live in El crisis of misplaced values
and utter lunacy.
While the outside world trembles in the shadowy fears of death
iet us return to the land of the lingering here in amaica. One cannot
fail to notice the inrease in the number of mentally disturbed people
wandering around or the proliferation of street children in our towns
and cities.
These are all depressing facts, but facts which we mast face. They
are nnt fictions of the future but the ,resent state of the world and
amaica. But there is holpa. Fifty years ago Isat where your today,
timidly preparing to face life's problems. I give thanks today that this
Mico is a cnristian institution. Crne fof the greatest lessons we learn
here is that God is in each of us. We know that God is all powerful. 'de
should fear no evil.
MMe.i.Cing Jr. spoke of the t'aree dimensions that make up the co,4,21ete
life.-1. The length which comes from each individual's concern to develop
to the fullest extent his inner powers. The Mico has helped you to do this.
2. The breadth by which he concerns himself k±xxxilf with the welfare
of others, for no man has learnt to live until he can rise above the nar-row
confines of his LndivLduaListLc concerns, to the broader concerns
our Lord, that is SERVICE FOR HUMANITY.
Why do we think of the outside world? We are part of it in a state
of global interdependency. We must Learn of our place in this world
for though we have travelled far there is very much further to go.
Regretfully, any comparison with more developed societies brings us face
to face with our greatest national weakness- our widespread lack of
education.
Jamal was and still is a noble and praiseworthy idea even if it
was only partly successful. This was "i4y finest hour" when I shared with
the government of the day a resolution to rid Jamaica of illiteracy
within a limited period. Today we hear fine speeches acknowledging
the need for education, the teachers' sacrifice etc., but very little
action demonstrates a commitment to the cause.
Let us continue to examine our world of 1986 so that we y iore
properly assess our own roles in life and readjust our goals to
modifying the urgent and real inequalities of our
In countries like iAnlo-Lria or CentraiAfrica over 170 babies die
for every lu60 that are born. In Finland the rate is 6, in ianada 9.
The per capita income thn Bangladesh is :1-30
" Burma is 080
9U 9 9 " U.S.A. is$15000
9 9 IT 0 " Switzerland is 016,j0
All this in a world whose population from 1990 will increase at the rat*
of 100 million per year. This is more than the population of iflexico,
Nicaragua, .;tAba and calmaica combined.
Unless Freedom from ignorance is pursued with full force here in
Jamaica, all planning will be slowed down if not entirely frustrated.
High soundind national campaign on discipline, drug abuse, birth
and other aspirations of political, social or economic life can never
Axcceed in an illiterate nation.
