Speech at a State Dinner to mark the Visit of the President of Mozambique
Áras an Uachtaráin, 4th June 2014
A Shoilse,
Excellency Armando Emilio Guebuza, President of the Republic of Mozambique,
Tánaiste,
Ministers,
Distinguished Guests,
Tá an-áthas orm fíorchaoin fáilte a fhearadh roimh A Shoilse ar an ócáid cheiliúrtha seo, an chéad cuairt Stáit ar Éirinn ag Uachtarán Mhósaimbíc . It is with great pleasure that I welcome Your Excellency Armando Emilio Guebuza on this first State Visit by a President of Mozambique to Ireland.
I know, Mr. President, that you visited our island previously, in a different capacity, so you may recall our traditional greeting, céad míle fáilte, one hundred thousand welcomes.
Ireland and Mozambique are separated by geographical distance but our two peoples are united in friendship – a friendship which your visit acknowledges and deepens; and a friendship which the visit to Mozambique by my predecessor, former President Mary McAleese, in 2006, also helped to build.
Our national histories, however distinctive they may be, are ones that chime, as in your story, we hear the echoes of our own past.
Both our countries have experienced the scourges of colonisation and hunger – “the terror of the hungry grass”,[1] as Irish poet Donagh MacDonagh described it. It is in no small part, then, that our memories of those terrible events, of the lean years that followed, of massive emigration, inform Ireland’s enduring commitment to development cooperation. We are proud to have Mozambique as a significant partner in the contemporary challenges of sustainable development – proud that together we can address issues of food security, poverty elimination, human rights and the forging of democratic institutions enabling the active participation of all citizens.
In the last century, both of our countries have also had to struggle for independence, and both of our peoples experienced the subsequent harrowing destabilisation of civil war. Although Ireland’s independence process commenced a full fifty years earlier than Mozambique’s, the experience of our emancipatory struggle retains a significance in the minds of Irish people. It informs our outlook on the world, our interpretation of the narratives and projects of others. The vindication of the dignity and freedom of individuals and other nations; the importance of being guided by justice and compassion – these are the bedrock of our values as a nation.
Roger Casement, whom we both honour, was one of the figures who most courageously and eloquently upheld such values in the early twentieth century. It was a time when few questioned the righteousness of European colonial empires, and Casement, on witnessing the brutal and dehumanising effects of colonial rule while working in what was then Portuguese East Africa gave a lead in human rights reporting and discourse that is exemplary. His unconventional mindset, his deep empathy for the suffering of others and his commitment to human dignity, led him to go on to document and publicise the abuses perpetrated against the indigenous people in the Congo, and on another continent in Peru’s Putumayo region.
In the work of Roger Casement, then, we can find seeds of the contemporary language of universal human rights – the fundamental equality and dignity of all human beings, regardless of colour, race or creed. As Mario Vargas Llosa recognised in his novel El Sueño del Celta – The Dream of the Celt, Casement’s conceptions were in no small part ‘Made in Mozambique’. He was a man whose life captures the essence of Mia Couto’s ‘lessons of hope’,[2] and I was delighted to learn that this life and work were recently brought home to Maputo, through an exhibition hosted by your Natural History Museum.
Casement’s rejection of colonialism, his revulsion at its practices – brought to an extreme in a continent such as Africa – led him to embrace the path of revolution, which ultimately, would lead him to his death.
The path of political violence is one from which both our peoples have now firmly departed, but we retain from Casement a deep concern for the freedom of subjugated peoples and for global justice. It was on such concerns that we have built the principles of our foreign policy, particularly our support for a strong multilateral system.
More recently the concepts of universal human rights were restated and embedded in the governing institutions of this island through the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, that provides a basis for peace and political stability in Northern Ireland.
Indeed I understand, Mr. President, that your last visit to Ireland was in the context of this Agreement, when you shared with us the lessons from Mozambique, whose peace process you led as a former freedom fighter and negotiator.
Casement’s values also echo those articulated during his exile in Tanzania by the first President of FRELIMO, the late Eduardo Mondlane. Mondlane’s philosophy was beautifully captured by Amilcar Cabral, when he described him as embracing “a universal culture open to the world – its problems, its contradictions and prospects for evolution.”[3]
Eduardo Mondlane himself talked about the need to build a new social structure, what he called “a cooperative, caring, non-exploitative civilisation” grounded in “the firm foundations of people’s own institutions and traditions.”[4] But he also recognised that “there is no short cut to transforming the systems of society.”[5]
This is a truth of which we, Irish people, are well aware. It takes patience to define and structure a new political space, to take – as the late Seamus Heaney wrote – “the scared, inevitable steps”[6] towards better futures for all of our citizens.
Since peace came to Mozambique, much good work has been done to establish the foundations for a more just society. Treaslaím leat, I congratulate you and your people. Of course, there is – as Mondlane said – “no short cut”, and more remains to be done. As the people of Mozambique move forward to craft a better future for themselves and their children, they can be assured of Ireland’s solidarity and support.
Mr President,
Over the course of your important visit, I hope that the affinities and commonalities between our two countries will resound. There will be opportunities to bear witness to the various elements of our warm friendship, and to our work together in such areas as health, education, agriculture and business.
We shall, I am sure, identify new avenues for our partnership and our friendship to grow.
May I now invite you, distinguished guests, to stand and join me in a toast:
To the peoples of Ireland and the Republic of Mozambique
To the good health of the President of the Republic of Mozambique, Armando Emilio Guebuza
And to the good health of all those present
Sláinte mhaith, Saude.
[1] Donagh McDonagh, ‘The Hungry Grass’, in The Penguin Book of Irish Verse, Penguin London, 1988, p. 380.
[2] Quotation from Mozambican writer, Mia Couto. The Blind Fisherman. Penguin South Africa 2010 edition, p. 130.
[3] From a lecture given in Syracuse University in 1970. Cf. Herbert Shore, ‘Remembering Eduardo: Reflections on the Life and Legacy of Eduardo Mondlane’, Africa Today, Vol 39 No 1/2 Angola and Mozambique, 1992, Indiana University Press, p. 37.
[4] Ibid, p. 50.
[5] Ibid, p. 49.
[6] Seamus Heaney, ‘Triptych’, in Opened Ground Poems 1966 – 1996, Faber & Faber London, 1998, p. 149.