News
|
A tiny ripple of hope
Robert Kennedy inspired a whole generation of liberal young South African students when he delivered
the NUSAS Day of Affirmation address at the University of Cape Town on the 7th June 1966. Delivered
during the dark days of Verwoerdian apartheid, the words of his speech are as apposite and as meaningful
today as they were 42 years ago, for although circumstances have changed dramatically since those
oppressive days we still inhabit a sharply divided society, a society rent, not only by massive
inequalities in wealth and circumstance and access to the most basic of human necessities, but also
by vast yawning chasms of mistrust and uncertainty. Racial tensions still linger, and bedevil efforts
to challenge the excesses of the authorities, and the expression of a viewpoint that may run counter to
the prevailing one, is too often dismissed as those of a privileged elite clinging to a dying past.
We live in a time of great turmoil and danger, of unfulfilled expectations, of hunger and despair, for
although much has changed so much still needs to be done, and the speech made by Robert Kennedy so many
decades ago can still inspire and motivate. He spoke of the "need for the qualities of youth; not a
time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of
courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease."
He spoke of three dangers: "First is the danger of futility; the belief there is nothing one man can do
against the enormous array of the world’s ills-against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence.’
And yet, "each time a man stands up for an ideal" he said, "or acts to improve the lot of others, or
strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million
different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest
walls of oppression and resistance."
"The second danger is that of practicality; of those who say that hopes and beliefs must bend before
immediate necessities." Kennedy went on: " But if there was one thing President (John) Kennedy stood
for that touched the most profound feeling of young people across the world, it was the belief that
idealism, high aspirations and deep convictions are not incompatible with the most practical and efficient
of programmes-that there is no inconsistency between ideals and realistic possibilities-no separation
between the deepest desires of heart and mind and the rational application of human effort to human problems."
"A third danger is timidity. For every ten men who are wiling to face the guns of an enemy there is only
one willing to brave the disapproval of his fellow, the censure of his colleagues, the wrath of his society.
Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle, or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential,
vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change."
We are embarked on a great adventure, the road ahead will be strewn with many obstacles and difficulties,
but together we will prevail. Each of us have our own work to do and we should not lose heart, for
although these are times of great uncertainty and danger they are also times that are more open to the
creative energy of man than at any time in our history. Be brave, strive to be happy.
Back
|
