Ambassador

Speech of Ambassador Aubrey Hooks at the University of Abobo-Adjamé

February 2, 2006

Thank you for your invitation to join you here today.  It is a great honor for me to have the opportunity to visit this acclaimed centre of learning and to see where the future leaders of Cote d’Ivoire and the world are equipping themselves with the tools they need to build a better tomorrow.  I always enjoy my visits to schools and particularly universities for what they represent of the potential for the future.  It is here where idealistic youth can learn about those who dared to dream and from these inspirations look and in the words of the American Senator Robert Kennedy, who visited Cote d’Ivoire for President Houphet Boigny’s inauguration, “to dream things that never were and say why not?”

That is what Martin Luther King and his wife Corretta Scott King did.  Many of you may know that the United States and the world lost a great advocate for freedom and justice earlier this week, when Ms. King passed away.  She stood by her husband as he lead peaceful protests against the discrimination that existed in the United States.  When he was struck down by an assasin’s bullet, she picked up the flag and carried on.  She built an international center to continue Dr. King’s work and tirelessly advocated for peace and fought against injustice. 

It is here at the university that we are given the chance to learn about the work of such heroic and poignant figures.  It is you the students who must now pick up the banner and make sure that their cause is not forgotten, that their work serves as a building block for the construction of a more just, peaceful, and free society.  While separated by time and distance, their example is relevant to the situation confronting Cote d’Ivoire today. 

You the students of this great university must show your peers the path to peace.  Equipped with the knowledge you have been given through your studies, you must guide your generation away from the path of violence and division and toward peace and reunification.  As Dr. King and his wife Corretta Scott King have so powerfully shown us, we can accomplish more through discussion than we can through division.  This was the message that he delivered to his followers who massed on Washington in what was then the largest demonstration the United States had ever seen.

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.  We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.  We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.  Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force,” appealed Dr. King.

You too can meet physical force with soul force.  When your friends talk of hatred, you can talk of understanding.  When your friends issue calls to violence, you can rally for peace.  Where others preach the darkness of ignorance, you can show them the light of knowledge.  You must be the lights of your generation.         

If you, the students are the lights, then your professors are the fuel for your fires.  By fostering a open and honest dialogue in the classrooms and pushing their students to go beyond their own preconceptions, they can turn a small light into a boldly burning conflagration.  To the faculty and administration of this university, I offer you my highest admiration for the work that you do under the most difficult of circumstances.  Stay the course.  You are helping to spread this light and to  make sure the next generation does not have to know the pains of war that have plague so many in this country.

So, I ask you all today to rise above the calls to violence and division and to use your unique place in society to bring the light of peace to all Ivoirians.  Dream of a better future for your country.  Inspire your fellow Ivoirians with your example.  Unite them with your messages of all that you have in common.  With the knowledge that you have gained in your studies, lead them back to that glorious past of a country rich in resources and strong in its tolerance of all.  Through doing this you will assure a more peaceful and prosperous future for yourselves and future generations. 

To help you in this process, we look forward to developing exchanges with universities and students in the U.S., so that you can learn from their experiences and they from yours.  Through these exchanges, I believe that the strong ties between our two countries will continue to grow.

I thank you.