Happiness is about true responsibility

Keynote speech by Dr. Sandro Calvani 1 [1] at the graduation ceremony of Webster University, Hua Hin, , May 15th, 2011

1 Dr. Sandro Calvani (Italy,1952) is the Director of the ASEAN Center of Excellence on Millennium Development Goals (ARCMDG), www.arcmdg.ait.asia, at the Asian Institute of Technology, www.ait.asia. He lives and works in , Thailand. www.sandrocalvani.it. The personal opinions in this speech do not necessarily represent those of the mentioned Institutions The most important discovery in attaining so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t happiness is that you are your best resource be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the The first thing which came to my mind when noise of others’ opinions drown out your own I received Prof. Ratish Thakur’s kind invitation to inner voice. And most important, have the speak to you tonight was this same moment in my courage to follow your heart and intuition. They life 35 years ago: the very moment of my own somehow already know what you truly want to graduation in biology and life sciences. A very become. Everything else is secondary.” Think powerful truth came out of my studies in microbiology deeply about this concept, feel it, experience it, and human genetics: the deeper and deeper you believe in it and make every effort to live it together peer into a microscope, the smallest parts of a whole with the people whom you love. are always the very essence of any bigger thing or life. No matter if you study an elephant, a tiny Every life will be unique means also that bacteria or a galaxy in the outer space, everything, every venture starting tonight will be different. The every whole, is made of its tiny parts. future is where you will be protagonist, either as I felt that I owned that truth very close to my leaders, team members or as humble followers. That heart, to my own existence and to my reason for future can be seen also as the crowded crossroads living. Then, on that graduation night on May 25th, of fundamental human questions ̶ where you will get 1976, I promised to myself that I would never stop a green light to happiness or a red light to my studies. I promised to grow every day of my adult irrelevance. life and to understand better the biggest mystery of science on Earth, which is human life. Happiness is about true responsibility In simple words I was following my inner feeling that my way to live a happy life was to know I believe strongly that there is a way to make myself. To me this meant I first had to understand a happy difference in the tangled hank of this the whole of humankind of which I always felt to be a beginning of a new century and of a new millennium. tiny part. My life as an international public servant Yes, everybody knows and feels it, we are all part of and a diplomat offered me one of the the same dough of more than 6 billion particles, we windows with the best view of the past four decades are all connected, not only all peoples, all cultures, all of humankind’s struggles. I think that living and religions, all genders, all classes, but even all working close to the worst conflicts, disasters, generations, including those who are not born yet. crimes, and abuses of human rights in modern We will either grow together in harmony or we will be history has given me a unique opportunity to peer unhappy and - in a way or another - we will be poor into the future of mankind. together.

The future is practically all that truly matters Since time immemorial young generations for you tonight. Now that you have finished the have been the salt and the yeast for the dough of preparatory phase of your life, the next phase will be societies to grow on time. Indeed, your generation the second most important time, a time in which you has a very special and unique opportunity. You grew will decide the fate of your being on this planet. up at the end of the past century and saw well, with the innocent and intellectually honest eyes of I wish to encourage you to be deeply children, what was going wrong in this world. You convinced that every small part matters, and that became young adults and new graduates at the every one of you will have some impact on what the beginning of a new century when the decisions for world will become in this century. This is probably the adaptive change must be taken to re-design and most important inner truth that I would like to instill in reset the governance of global public goods. your memory tonight. Everyone is unique and irreplaceable in this global puzzle of humankind Gebreselassie and Halafi made up of 6.5 billion pieces. You must strive to find the right position of your unique personal life story. I have witnessed hundreds of real human Steve Jobs recently articulated this as principle stories which have proved and strengthened my number one of an effective and happy person. In a belief in global togetherness and interdependence, very inspiring phrase he said: Your time is limited, and that nobody can be an island either of happiness or of death in this world. I wish to tell you one of embassies of major countries in the capital city Addis these stories which struck me most, and have been Ababa. In a matter of a few days a massive relief the cornerstone of my very happy life. operation was mounted which included air-dropping and parachuting food into remote locations. The BBC In October 1984, as a junior manager of gave six minutes on their TV News and the world Caritas, a non-governmental foreign aid agency, I reacted fast. All major military powers participated was tasked to command one of the very first with heavy air force support. The operation - the first deliveries of food aid to the famine stricken . one in history where European, American, Soviet I landed in Makallè in Tigray heading a squad of four Union and Japanese forces co-operated under a joint large-haul relief flights, each carrying 20 tons of command - was called “Saint Bernard”, a race of essential food aid. It was not one of my first dogs trained to bring relief items in case of encounters with human misery and desperation. emergency to wounded mountaineers in the Italian However that time the scene was too much to bear, Alps. But the day of the beginning of the operation, a even for a specialist of humanitarian relief Soviet General radioed his veto to launch it because operations. While landing I saw a very large mass of -he vehemently complained - the Soviet Union Air almost naked people moving slowly very close to the Force could not co-operate under the name of a airstrip. As soon as we opened the doors of the cargo Saint. We immediately told him that Saint Bernard plane I saw something unbelievable: fifty thousand was actually a dog. He was very happy and became people, women, men, children and elders with fully co-operative. In the following months a fairly well absolutely nothing more than their bodies shrunken co-ordinated international relief operation built by hunger and thirst, no shoes, not a bag or a clean hospitals and large relief camps. But very large relief cloth, not a single hat or a bucket. They all stared at funds were needed. me and to my team, in absolute silence, not a word, not a gesture, not a move. A few minutes of absolute I convinced a journalist friend of mine to give silence were for me an eternity. me three minutes on prime time news on the national In those few moments I felt all possible TV and I told the Italian people the same story I am strong emotions striking me as lightings and thunder. telling you now. It was the night of Christmas Eve in I was terribly sorry and angry to have only 80 tons of 1984. In the following five days my NGO received food aid. I was unprepared for that scenario, I was donations equivalent to 25 million dollars. moved by pity and fear, I was close to panicking. Gebreselassie became a young volunteer for relief work, continued his studies at the Don Bosco school Then I remembered the live cells in my of Makallè and grew up as a good leader and a good young scientist’s microscope “we are part of a whole” friend of mine. During the following ten years of war and, all of a sudden, I felt at ease. With a loud he lost his parents, left the country and became a speaker I invited a few of the needy people who refugee orphan in Canada. He later married. To could speak English to come closer to us under the announce his marriage he sent me a message where planes and to request the mass of others to please he wrote “I can’t stop true love to grow around me.” wait a few minutes. A young student among them, When he got his first baby girl he called her “Halafi” Gebreselassie, spoke first, and after shaking our which in Amharic means Responsible. In the hands said: “Sir, the bad news you can see with your message to announce Halafi’s birth he wrote that it eyes: here we have four dead people every hour. was a short summary of a story I knew well and that The good news now is that either we live together or ideally Halafi was conceived in October 1984. we die together. If you do not give up, we will never give up.” I hugged him. Then I promised to call for I am sure we shall have many more well more aid in the next days and asked two questions: educated and responsible people re-born after whether they were able to distribute that aid fast and graduation tonight. Responsibility in its ordinary effectively and how long it would have lasted. In a meaning includes the “commitment to respond to an few minutes we saw everybody smiling and chanting event and to evaluate conscientiously the duties and for happiness. We had built a rapport of trust and of consequences in conflicting decisions”. In the cooperation. The replies were sharp. “Yes, we can twentieth century the notion of accountability became distribute. Eighty tons will last a week, or maybe less a key concept of ethics. U.S President Barack if more people will continue to arrive from the Tigray”. Obama, in his inaugural address, called for "a new era of responsibility". The global challenges for We realized fast that the situation was much responsible leaders are truly of unprecedented worse than expected. By radio we informed the magnitude and importance. Environmental risks, global crime, climate change, natural disasters with Believe me, responsibility is the best human-made consequences, new wars, failing foundation of a happy life. Do not listen to those who states, migrations, and struggles for access to water ridicule responsibility saying that it is an attitude for and energy might destabilize the world in such a way Saints. It is not. Responsibility is instead something that the recent tsunami in Japan and the oil spill in that at times even dogs can perform when well the Gulf of Mexico would seem just peanuts in trained. Do not be afraid of the thousands of daunting comparison. We need a new generation of difficulties that you will encounter in real life starting responsible women and men capable and willing tomorrow. Do not even dare to think that you are to govern better the global public goods. unprepared. Learn to enjoy inspiring silence. Remain close to friends you meet, especially those The sociologist Max Weber proposed an met in a moment of desperate need. Let love grow “ethic of responsibility”. The Declaration for a Global around you, nurture respect and tolerance for all… Ethics of the Parliament of World Religions (Chicago and become truly Halafi, truly responsible. NEVER, 1993)1, states that “self-determination and self- NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP. realization are thoroughly legitimate so long as they are not separated from human self- Thank you! responsibility and from global responsibility, that is, from responsibility for fellow humans and for the planet Earth”.

Modern transformation of society and globalization require more human responsibility than ever before. It is not a supreme duty above knowledge, science, technology, industrial and technological development or democracy. But yes, it is an absolute value of humankind to be re- discovered and put at the center of everybody’s life. Hans Kung suggests that such new ethics of responsibility should articulate in various new expressions of humanity such as imagination, sensitivity, respect, emotionality, warmth, delicacy, and respect.

The world needs you to be a new kind of woman and man.

Are you ready for such big changes of attitudes? Charles Darwin suggested that it is not the most intelligent or the strongest species that survives, but the one most adapted to change. If so, then our species of Homo Sapiens (which in Latin means Intelligent or Wise) might change to become more responsible to itself and to others, evolving into a self-improved human being who wishes to become Homo Solicitus, (in Latin: “Responsible and willing to take care of others”).

1Http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/_includes/FCKcontent/ File/TowardsAGlobalEthic.pdf