COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS TO THE CLASS OF 2014 His Excellency Dr. Nawaf Salam (’71) Lebanon’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations “Class of 2014, like you, I am a proud graduate of this great institution, which is also close to my heart as both my late father and my two sons attended IC. Being here today is like returning home, and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to share some thoughts with you. I spent seven years at IC. I have no doubt whatsoever that they were the most formative of my life. At IC, while treasuring freedom, we also learned to appreciate the value of hard work, the meaning of commitment, and the strength of team spirit. We followed a rigorous academic curriculum, but were also encouraged to think independently and creatively. For example, in my first art class, my peers and I were asked to imagine and paint “a tree on the moon”! At IC, I had amazing, dynamic, and engaging teachers. But I also learned a lot from participating in a vast array of extracurricular activities, from school magazines to athletic programs and student clubs, in so many different fields such as drama, chess, photography, debate, and cinema – all of which contributed to broadening the horizons and building the self-confidence of IC students, and to making this school an even more vibrant and inspiring place. With a diverse student body of Christians, Moslems, and Jews - coming from different social, economic, cultural and regional backgrounds - my IC was a true “melting-pot”. Despite the impacts of conflicts and violence on the Lebanese social fabric since then, I believe it is safe to say that the IC population is still much more diverse than that of any other school in Lebanon. Class of 2014, you are graduating from the best school in our part of the world. You have not only received a first class education, you have also been prepared to be true citizens and active leaders. Personally, I cannot forget that it is in an IC classroom that I had my first experience with democracy, both by being granted the opportunity to vote on certain school matters and by running for the elected position of class representative. Graduates, this leads me to emphasize that the IC diploma you are receiving today also carries with it a big responsibility. Clearly, you are graduating at a difficult time in the history of Lebanon. Regardless of what your different political ideas may be, the indisputable facts are that: - Parliament has failed last month to elect a new President within the constitutional timeframe. - The formation of each of the past three governments has required unprecedented long months of laborious negotiations - up to 11 for the present one! - Legislative elections did not take place when they were supposed to be held in 2013, and Parliament extended its own mandate. - Finally, no new budget for the State has been adopted for the past nine consecutive years, even though this is supposed to be a yearly matter. You need not be a political scientist or a constitutional lawyer to conclude from these facts that the Lebanese political system is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. Furthermore, all the results of credible polls, of which I am aware, indicate that youths, in overwhelming numbers, have many worries about their future in Lebanon. These worries are legitimate indeed. 1 It is your right to aspire to live in a truly modern and democratic State which, while safeguarding the diversity of its members, recognizes them primarily as “Citizens”; that is, as equal individuals enjoying the same full political, civil, and social rights before the law - and not as mere members of confessional groups with unequal opportunities. It is your right to aspire to live in a stable and efficient State where the quest of the shared “Common good” prevails over divisive parochial interests. And you are of course entitled to have a system of government based on good governance, the rule of law, and accountability. That is, a more responsive, just, and transparent system of government that will address your main needs and aspirations, at the top of which are greater and better job opportunities in Lebanon. You are the ones who can bring about such reform because you have the energy and the audacity of youth, and because you can bring the fresh thinking and the daring ideas of youth. Therefore, my first message to you is: Be active citizens. You deserve a better Lebanon and you can make change happen. Apathy and complacency are your enemies. So, don’t let the cynics discourage you. And don’t believe sceptics who would advise you not to waste your time seeking change, claiming that things will remain the way they are because they have always been the way they are. Time and again, history has proven such pessimists wrong. In fact, in my own lifetime, I have witnessed the advent of major political changes that would simply have been unthinkable at the time of my birth: - The end of colonialism - The remarkable strides in the field of human rights - The end of the Cold War - The increasing empowerment of women - The fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa - The spread of a culture of putting an end to impunity - The formation of the European Union - The spectacular rise of China - The election of an African-American President in the United States - Last but not least, the tremendous changes that have in the past years shaken the Arab the world We are living today in an era of amazing technological advances, whether in robotics, information technology, biotechnology, or nanotechnology. In the age of the Internet, even the meaning of time and space is changing. The sharing of information, ideas, photos, videos, and music has become instantaneous, and millions of goods and services are now a mere “click” away due to the incredible expansion of e-commerce. Unquestionably, our world has become the most interconnected and interdependent in human history. Hence, my second message to you is: Be global citizens. As a matter of fact, we are increasingly facing global challenges that have often been referred to at my place of work, the United Nations, as “problems without passports” because they know no national borders and because they cannot be solved by any single State on its own. By way of example, let us now consider the following 5 global challenges: One: Climate change is expected to significantly harm ecological systems and reduce biodiversity, negatively affect human health, damage agriculture, put stress on water supplies, raise sea levels, and cause more droughts, floods and storms. There is growing scientific evidence that human activities have 2 been the major cause of the recent global warming phenomenon mainly by increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The problem is clearly not limited to one part of our planet even if its effects on individual regions may vary. Therefore, whether to mitigate or adapt to such changes, sustained international cooperation is and will remain required. Two: Epidemics have never stopped at national boundaries, of course. To move from one country to the other, viruses need no visas. This is clearly illustrated by the worldwide spread of HIV/AIDS. Since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, infection rates have remained the highest in Africa, but they are rising again in Asia and in both North and South America. This shows that there can be no national, or even regional, solution to this epidemic, but only an effective global system of coordinated response. Three: Despite the end of the Cold War, there are still some 17,000 nuclear warheads in the world, enough to destroy human civilization many times over. There are currently 9 countries in possession of nuclear weapons and 25 in possession of enough plutonium or highly enriched uranium to produce one or more nuclear bombs. To prevent nuclear proliferation and advance disarmament, international cooperation is clearly necessary. Four: Failing to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger is one of the most appalling problems of our time. Today, one in 8 people on earth go to bed hungry every night. We cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering of so many people in our world. It is not only ethically unacceptable and morally shameful, it is also politically wrong since such huge inequalities have always been a source of international conflict and instability, let alone the fact that poor countries and societies are fertile grounds for terrorist networks that respect no borders. Five: Many criminal activities are correctly characterized as “Transnational Organized Crime” because they involve more than one country. They include different types of illegal businesses that know neither borders nor rules, such as human trafficking, smuggling of migrants, money-laundering, trafficking in drugs, firearms, fake medicines, and many aspects of cybercrimes that involve the stealing of private data and the fraudulent accessing of bank accounts. Fighting such crimes requires integrated international action and partnership between governments, businesses, and civil society members and organizations in all parts of the world. Addressing such global problems will require both your vision and your activism. Half of the earth’s population is under the age of 25. You are part of this largest generation of youth in world history. And you have at your disposal the new and all-powerful tools of social networking that allow you to communicate more effectively and to mobilize more widely. Young people, a better Lebanon and a better world are your right and your responsibility. The future is yours. Shape it. From my experience, I can tell you with confidence that the action of each and every one of you can make a difference.