ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY ROBINSON ACCEPTING AN HONORARY DEGREE, QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY, BELFAST
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY ROBINSON ACCEPTING AN HONORARY DEGREE, QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, BELFAST, THURSDAY, 15 JUNE, 1995
I am deeply honoured by the degree which you award me today. It is not well known, I think, that I received my first invitation to apply for a job from the Law Faculty of this University. It came, unexpectedly, when I was still a law student at Harvard in the late '60s. Had the matter been pursued I very much doubt that I would now hold my present position. Although I was tempted, in the event I did not apply for the job, but I had the pleasure of giving a number of lectures here over the years, and so I did not come to you today as a stranger. And now I am privileged to be one of your alumni.
There are special times in the lifespan of any institution, and this is an important year for Queen's University, during which you, together with your sister Queen's colleges, celebrate your 150th anniversary. You do so at a profoundly significant time here in Northern Ireland, when the cessation of violence has opened up new possibilities of creating a society which is open, reconciling and inclusive.
And what does this really mean? Of course it has immediate political consequences which it would be wholly inappropriate for me to comment on. But, equally, it would be remiss of me on an occasion like this not to give you my sense of the thinking and inner reflection which is taking place, by individuals and in groups and at local community level. My only authority for this is what I have heard and gleaned from listening to a wide cross-section of individuals and groups from throughout Northern Ireland. Indeed, because the Office I hold is not one of political power, it has enabled me to listen in an open and receptive way.
What I have heard does - inevitably - include the familiar expressions of differing fears, of apprehension, disappointment at lack of progress, worry about how the ground is shifting and so on. But I have also heard new language on each side: "there is no going back to the violence", "we are going to have to live together and respect each other", "we are the ones who are going to have to work this out". Significantly, the language is more and more the inclusive "we" rather than the old divisive "them" and "us". And it is in the networks which link groups from different areas, whether they are voluntary organisations, women, young people, or reconciliation groups, that I have heard the true language of new beginnings.
Right at the grassroots, at local level, both in city and rural areas, there is an emerging vision of devising a capacity to grow and work together for the benefit of the whole community. There are exciting energies being harnessed with great commitment and goodwill, and in a dynamic which can instruct the wider society. Indeed, this dynamic has been recognised in the approach to the funding of reconciliation and regeneration of communities coming from outside the island of Ireland.
And what, in this context is the role of the university? It has not in fact changed, but can be particularly challenged by the context. Although learning remains the cornerstone of the university, President Woodrow Wilson put it well, just a hundred years ago, when he said "It is not learning, but the spirit of service that will give a college place in the public annals of the Nation". The challenge is to identify and develop to the fullest that "spirit of service" in the context of all that is happening in Northern Ireland today. A University such as this assumes a leadership role. It has a particular responsibility to set standards of behaviour which are ethical and based on a sense of justice. But it is the spirit which informs that sense of justice and fairness which is all important. It is the "spirit of service" which views the need for change in an open, generous and dynamic way, and not as a response to external pressure.
At a time when the wider society is re-assessing its values and engaging in subtle shifts of consciousness, the university is an immense resource. I have always been interested in the relationship of the intellectual, the writer, the university to society. It may be that this is what led me from the teaching and practice of law to the political life, though I was careful to keep my links with the academic world.
Last year, when I was honoured by the University of Poznan in Poland, I reflected on the importance in that context of Poznan's having upheld the value of freedom of scholarship, but also that this is not in itself a sufficient value. I posed some questions about our role as educators:
"Is it enough to teach law, if we are not also concerned with questions of justice? What value is a study of philosophy, if it is not informed by ethical considerations? How can we be obsessed with logic or with the intricacies of language and have no regard for truth or the meaning of words? Are our students to be taught to be mouthpieces of orthodoxy or critics of the system? Let us be very certain of our answers to these questions in the coming years and let us be conscious that our answers may define the future of our continent.
Above all, let us be confident in the value of what we do. There are constant calls for relevance, for the provision of marketable skills for our young people, for greater respect for market forces. I do not deny that the university curriculum must be relevant to the needs of society but let us be quite clear what those needs are. We live in a time of unprecedented change; we are witnessing a very revolution in the way we communicate and process information. What our society will need are balanced, rounded individuals who can think for themselves and who have strong analytical skills."
Here, in the local setting of Northern Ireland, I would like to focus on the particular contribution a university can make in a hitherto divided society. It is right that a university should seek to be relevant to the needs of society. And this society will greatly benefit, it seems to me, from young graduates with an inner sense of justice, with a commitment to reconciliation, with an openness to the other, a sense of belonging to a diverse community which can pull together. The best way to inculcate these values in the university is, of course, to experience them.
In a newspaper interview in 1984, Seamus Heaney described so well the tension between the individual and the group in Northern Ireland:
"Everyone in the North is born with a sense of solidarity with one or the other group. So the emergent self grows, carrying responsibility for the group, holding the line, keeping up the side. But as you come to different awarenesses you know that there are complicated concessions to be made; truths to be told beyond the official shibboleths . . . and yet the moment you set them down . . .it seems like betrayals . . . you become conscious that you are not just yourself, you are part of the group . . . so the idea of the freed self becomes very attractive."
As you rightly celebrate the achievements of the past 150 years I know that it is the "freed self", above all, that this University will foster in the years to come.
I thank you again for the honour you have done me today.