As delighted as I was to see the humanities heralded on the front page of the The New York Times August 26 Continuing Education section–I actually direct a humanities based continuing ed program at the University of Scranton– I rue the tone of surrender about the humanities for the young.  My life would have been profoundly impoverished had I not inhaled and imbibed the humanities in my youth. I see the humanities as a public good–a preparation for citizenship in and commitment to a free society.  The humanities help us to read and write, to think and evaluate, I believe we must lobby for their return to the basic college curriculum. The humanities are not a luxury. They are not a digression from job training. Many corporate executives understand that they enhance performance in the business world. And they certainly help us to comprehend and appreciate the free society. And, at the personal level, they are a source of untold pleasures.

I consider it a great privilege to speak to you today on the subject that the organizers of the conference have proposed for me, “Strengthening Democracy and Good Governance in Africa: What Can Young People Do?” That’s for several reasons:

1. That I am speaking to you, members of the World Youth Alliance. I know that you are deeply committed to improving the status of your respective nations and their citizens. As you will see, I believe in preaching to the choir—speaking to the converted—because I am not in the business of conversion—rather my hope is that I can make a modest contribution to building your capacities to do exactly what you have set out to do.
2. That I believe that creating and sustaining democracy is the very best approach, in fact, I would say the only approach, to creating the New Africa –an Africa whose nations are governed by the rule of law—not by a colonial power, nor a monarch nor a self-appointed leader-for-life– but rather by laws made by the people and for the people—laws that can also, when the need arises, be changed by the people.
3. That I believe that young people are the answer—that you are the future and it is your job to create that future in which all people can enjoy the blessings of liberty and justice.

In that regard, I respectfully submit that I would like to make a slight change to the title of my speech—that is to the question at the end of it, “What can young people do?” May I change that to “What must young people do?”
You see, I believe that it is in your hands to change the course of history in your respective nations, and on the African continent, and thus, in our increasingly interdependent times, to change the course of history in the world. In short, you have a daunting task ahead—but it will surely be one of the most important and rewarding tasks that you will ever take on.

It’s important to understand what democracy is and what it is not. You may have heard what the late Winston Churchill, prime minister of England in the mid-20th century, who had lots of wisdom and a very wry sense of humor, had to say about democracy: that it is the worst form of government—except for all the rest. We all known that democracy is an imperfect system but here’s why so many people, including me, believe that it is better than all the rest:

It does not pretend to be perfect;

It is always a work in progress whose laws and regimes can be changed without bloodshed or revolution;

And most important, it gives us as citizens the dignity that we humans all deserve—to be in charge of our own destinies and to be responsible for the common good. Citizens are the essential element in the equation of what comprises a democracy. And democracy is not just a system of government—it is a way of life, based on the assumption that we have the right and the capacity to choose the way we want to live and what kind of society we want to live in—and we agree to assume responsibility for that society. It is a way of life that gives us values and ideals that help us to understand and appreciate the dignity of all human beings.

Democracies are not all alike, but whether they are socialistic, capitalistic or something in between, they do all stand on three pillars: Government, the economy and the civic sector. All three are necessary to democracy—but the civic sector is uniquely necessary while government and an economy are common to all forms of government. That third sector—sometimes called civil society–that is you and I and the organizations and institutions that we create or belong to—that sector is what we need to cultivate—in order to ensure that what government does is for the public good and what the economy does benefits not only the rich but all people in the society. We citizens provide a counterpoint to government—so that the state does not hold all the power without consulting the populace, and to the economy—so that the market, with its bottom line of profit, is not the guiding principle for what happens in society. The market, in and of itself, is not democratic—it is rather about profit for owners, not about economic justice for all. In a healthy democratic society, the rule of law and the civic sector put constraints on the market so that economic development benefits all the people.

A robust, informed and engaged civil society is what we need if we are to strengthen democracy and good governance. Citizens must have the power to work with government and the market to determine the fate of our countries. There can be no democracy without your active and informed participation in the system. Even if you have a good constitution; even if you have honest elections– — you will not have a democracy unless you have informed and active citizens.

Now I caution you that neither strong autocratic government nor the free market is interested in sharing its power with citizens—which means that you must seize that power—but never by violent means. We have many examples of power gained through non-violent protests, peaceful demonstrations, through debate and discussion leading to consensus and compromise, through declarations of independence. Those are the techniques that must be used in the spirit of creating a sustainable democratic society—there is no place for violence. Violence begets violence; indeed some violence is state-sponsored—it is an effective technique for preventing people from assuming their role as citizens.

In the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the nation in nonviolent protest—advocating for the laws that were ultimately passed in 1964 and 1965 that gave African Americans the legal rights that were withheld from them before;

In Poland in the 1980s Adam Michnik, cofounder of the Solidarity Movement, which ultimately overthrew the communist regime in that country, encouraged his fellow dissenters to “act as though you live in a free society—speak your mind about issues of public concern, in school, at home, in your churches , in the public square.” Michnik pointed out that with violence you cannot produce a just society—you replace one tyranny with another tyranny. It’s important to remember that. Ultimately Solidarity prevailed and broke the long lived repressive communist regime through peaceful protest.

In the 1990s Nelson Mandela emerged from his 27 year term in prison to assume the presidency of a democratic Republic of South Africa—but even that could not have happened if the ANC hadn’t, years before, turned away from violence and began to train its members in local government administration.

Fast forward to this very week, which featured Kenya’s outstanding referendum approving the new Constitution, and Rwanda reelecting Paul Kagame as its president. Both events were conducted without violence—and both make progress in strengthening their countries.

These are just a few good news stories about how to effect change, which is what we are here to discuss.

Let me turn for a moment to some of the obstacles that I think you will encounter. When I finish my remarks, I hope we can continue the session as I want to hear what you consider the major obstacles you face in your respective countries and what you are doing or would like to do to address them.

Corruption—in its many forms—seems to be the dominant, omnipresent obstacle in most emerging democracies. I sometimes refer to it as “a weapon of mass destruction.”

Poverty and illiteracy are serious problems;

Ethnic conflict is debatable and I need to consult you on that issue. Even as early as 1972, the great Kenyan writer, Ngugi, reminded his readers that “Tribe is a special creation of the colonial regimes.” He insisted that, “Now there are only two tribes left in Africa: the “haves” and the “have-nots.”

Obstacles exist, in my view, because powerful leaders—even post-colonial leaders– who have no intention of ever leaving office– refuse to address these problems. Why? Because they are not willing to give more power to the people.

The task before you is daunting—it is complicated and long lived; it is, in its very nature, never finished. Democracy is always a work in progress. But I can assure you that no matter what else you do in life, in your profession or your career, assuming civic responsibility will be your most important work. And I firmly believe that in the realm of rights and responsibilities—the most precious right that an individual can have is the right to be responsible for the public good.

The reason that I consider it such a privilege to speak to you is that I know that you have the will to be agents of this very necessary change, and you either have or can acquire the skills that are required for this huge and eternal project.

You can take wisdom and inspiration from the way others have dealt with the challenges of transforming their societies—and you must then create your own strategies. We learn from the past—although sometimes I’m not sure of that—but we create the future. In our day and age, we need to be citizens at home and citizens of the world. Our responsibilities have grown as we recognize now that, through the revolution in information and communication technologies, we are bound together. We inhabit the same planet—and our actions affect others whom we may not ever see or know, so we are obliged to consider our actions according to the good or the harm they do to the world. In this realm environmentalists have led the way. They have helped us to understand that our actions in one corner of the world have an impact—and often a negative impact—on others who are thousands of miles away.

The task as I see it is to strengthen democracy by strengthening the civic sector. So what do we need to do? Here are a few ideas that we might discuss:

How about creating and making public a declaration of civic renewal through civic participation, declaring that citizens will work to take responsibility for themselves and for the public good, for the good of their local communities, their respective nations, their continent and their world?

How about working to reform education in your countries, insisting on free primary and secondary education for all—and for the kind of education which builds capacity for personal growth and public responsibility?

How about starting democracy discussion groups around your country, through existing institutions? In Rwanda, for example, I produced a handbook. It’s called The New Rwanda: Prosperity and the Public Good, and through schools, ngos, and businesses we are starting a national conversation on prosperity and the public good. The Foreign Ministry in Rwanda is even considering making it available in its embassies worldwide.

In short, develop a campaign for training citizens, for the purpose of strengthening democracy. It is difficult and time consuming, but as I said earlier, it is your job and it is the only way to liberate yourselves and those who come after you from oppression.

Looking ahead, I believe that it would be great to have an institution similar to the Kennedy School at Harvard—to prepare students for enlightened and informed service in the public sector.

Look for examples that can give you ideas that you can then accommodate to your own situation:

Here are a few that I’ve referred to:

• The civil rights movement in the US and the subsequent women’s movement and gay and lesbian movement;
• Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia
• The Solidarity Movement in Poland
• The ANC’s training of citizens in South Africa—and the Nelson Mandela Factor
• The peaceful young dissidents who overthrew Milosevic in Serbia
• The Declaration of Civic Renewal through Civic Participation in Kenya

You cannot import your democracy; I cannot export mine. It is yours to create. I know you have the will and I’m sure that you have many of the skills. So let’s talk now about the state of affairs in your own countries and strategies that may already be in place to strengthen democracy. I welcome your comments and questions and again, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you.

I feel privileged to speak to you today on civic engagement. I am particularly pleased that this critically important topic is the focus of this capstone course in communications. In my view, if there is one thing that should be at the front of your mind and at the top of your agenda as you leave here next May is that you have an enviable job to do in this world that is as important or arguably more important than the work you have been educated to do during your years at the University of Scranton. That job is enviable because so few people in the world have it—it is the precious right to be responsible for the public good; in other words, to be a citizen. The late Supreme Court Justice said that “the most important office in our democracy is that of private citizen.”

Let me tell you why I agree with him. I’ll confess shamelessly that I am neither a super patriot nor a sentimental American exceptionalist—it’s just that through my work in strengthening democracy at home and abroad, I have come to agree with Winston Churchill on the one hand that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest,” and on the other that it is a sacred legacy to be a citizen of a democracy with all the rights and responsibilities that it carries with it.

I maintain that the most precious right that we have is one that is not explicitly referred to in the Bill of Rights, but implicitly it is the very essence of our American democracy. It is the right to be responsible for the public good. It is the power to be in charge not only of our own personal destinies but the fate of our society. That is awesome! In the past thirty years we have been drifting away from the importance of the public good in our nation, lapsed into a kind of “me-ism”–and it has resulted in some of the very crises we’re facing today. Greed has trumped the public good—see it in the economic crisis, in the aversion to regulation and the absolutely allergic reaction that so many Americans have to taxes.

I urge you to leave this university in May cured of any notions along those lines that you may have acquired over the years.

Your society needs you and you need your society. There are those who have the false notion that we go it alone; that we can do without government and politics and just climb our own personal ladders to success. But life doesn’t work that way. We are part of a family, a community, a nation, a globalized, highly interconnected world, and a highly interconnected planetary system.

The environmental movement was the first in recent times to recognize the interdependence that is reflected in the physical world and thus how our actions in Scranton affect the climate in the rainforests of Brazil. It sounded rather exotic when we first learned of such things, but now most of us accept the fact readily and many of us accept the implied mission that that knowledge bestows upon us—that we must reduce the excesses that we enjoy of limited resources; that we consider as our responsibility people in remote lands who are deprived by our excesses, and those who will be deprived in the generations that follow ours—including our own children and grandchildren.

It turns out that environmental issues are actually political and economic issues—civic issues. They are issues based on public policies that we citizens will make, accept, reject or change. In short, whatever else we do in our careers, we are citizens—responsible for ourselves and our society.

The environmental movement didn’t coin the term sustainability but it made it a household word. I propose that we expand its use to include socio-political—civic– sustainability. Just as the excesses in our use of limited resources make the physical environment unstable and its ecology unsustainable, so policies that do not remedy the widening gap between rich and poor—between haves and have nots— make our democracy unstable and unsustainable.

And so enlightened environmental, social and economic policies are all critically important to the sustainability of our very privileged way of life—a way of life that permits us to make choices—literally to choose our future.

Democracy is not a spectator sport. It is important to know the central role that citizens play in making democracy work. Other governments, autocratic or dictatorial regimes, do not need or want an active and engaged citizenry. It only gets in the way of their absolute power. Our democracy can only remain robust and, yes, sustainable, by our deeds—by our words and actions that promote and ensure the wellbeing of all members of our society.
Let’s look at all the above from the perspective of communications. Do you know how critically important communication is in our world? I’m sure that you chose this field of study because you do know that. I just would urge you to use the skills that you have acquired over the past three years to serve the public good—at least some of the time.

You may plan to use your skills for marketing, for promotion of commercial products and projects; of course, that is fine. But you have that other job to do as citizens—and that is to use your powers of articulation and persuasion for the public good: to advocate for those public goods that are closest to your hearts and minds—for education, for narrowing the gap between rich and poor, promoting research for particular diseases, for civil rights or women’s rights or men’s rights, or gay and lesbian rights, and for the big American project of offering the promise of “liberty and justice for all.” And all of those involve building and strengthening the capacities of all members of society. Whatever your particular passion is in the bigger picture—I urge you to use your innate talents, your values and ideals, and the good education that you are receiving– for the public good.

Hope is in the air in Rwanda and Kenya. It has reared its beautiful head in each of these nations in the form of a constitutional referendum in Kenya and a presidential election in Rwanda. What made these events dramatically different is that in both cases they were peaceful expressions of people’s hopes and dreams, with extraordinarily high participation and virtually no incidences of violence.

What’s so important about hope? Just about everything. Post-colonial nations are all-too-often left with an insidious legacy of autocratic rule and indigenous leaders generally take up the governance style of their colonial predecessors: disregarding the rule of law and term limits if they exist, rigging elections and discouraging civic participation by inciting ethnic divisiveness and imposing a culture of almost impenetrable corruption to discourage citizenship by keeping individuals “in their place” as helpless subjects, without rights and responsibilities – and without hope.

The people in Rwanda and Kenya have spoken in overwhelming numbers to move on from that legacy and create a new era of progressive, prosperous, participatory governance. They could not have done it without a new wave of hope – seeing a window of opportunity in the referendum on a new constitution in Kenya and in reelecting Paul Kagame to the presidency in Rwanda. People in both countries have gained courage and resolve through the years, and are developing the increasingly strong civic culture that is the best and arguably the only effective weapon against tyranny. They are, in short, saying “Yes We Can!”

I had the privilege of witnessing these events firsthand and “inhaling” the spirit of hope – a hope that breeds a sense of power that defies the colonial legacy and the post-colonial generation of leadership that bought into it. They have gotten on that road to democracy – a road that definitely goes somewhere but never gets there – because democracy is always a work in progress. The belief that it has a final destination is the kind of wrong-minded idealism that breeds paralysis – the perfectionism that discourages civic progressive action.

Negative views at home and abroad might have stood in the way of the Kagame re-election in Rwanda. But Rwandans have found in him a leader who has actively encouraged them to choose their future, both economically and politically, providing training in entrepreneurship and civic initiatives, who has more women than men in his parliament and who has been intolerant of corruption, ethnic divisiveness and environmental abuse. In Kenya, too, there is ample reason for skepticism, notwithstanding the resounding support for the new constitution, as there is a level of corruption there, in both the public and private sectors that creates an enormous obstacle to progress.

When we Americans look with admiration at our own remarkably forward-thinking founders, we recall that several of them were slave owners. Of course that was wrong – and they knew it was wrong; but they also realized that they would not get the support necessary to launch a nation committed to liberty and justice for all if they included the slavery issue in the Constitution. And so they designed a system that would, albeit belatedly, abolish slavery and provide rights to many of those who were not included in the original definition of “We the People.” They did not, in the words of Voltaire, let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Steps forward in any nation are not panaceas. There are none. But, they are necessary. Without hope, without belief in themselves, without trust in their capacity to shape their future, Rwandans and Kenyans would not have taken these important steps forward last week. I applaud them.

I saw two of the summer’s hottest hits last week and while each has its special “charms,” they have something strikingly in common. They have a post-modern and, perhaps more to the point, post-moral character

The films, “Inception” and “Salt,” were without question skillfully done, each with effects to die for. Death, indeed murder, was as routine as breathing; superhuman stunts were totally beyond any reality but superb technological achievements.

Each made a cheap, failed pass at empathy. Inception hero Leonardo DiCaprio remembered that he had to get back from I’m not sure where to his children – he claimed unconvincingly that that was his real purpose in life. Angelina Jolie had a commitment to her adoring and, one was made to think, adored husband – on their anniversary. But the test of her true character is that she could watch him being murdered without flinching. And she was spy and counterspy with equal commitment to – well – killing. It didn’t matter whom she was killing.

I think I’m pretty naïve when it comes to films of this kind. By what criteria beyond the technological are we to judge them? Is there literary virtue in human characters who have no moral or affective capacities at all? Is there aesthetic value? Is there nuance?

On the one hand, I think they feature two truly psychopathic “heroes” who give chilling affirmation to the ethical code “whatever it takes.” On the other, I wonder if they are more like robots or animated figures than psychopaths. In a word, I’m stumped.

Since I have had an intimate relationship with the Margaretta Award from its conception, I have always felt a kind of co-ownership of it; the owning was mostly about my pride in contributing to its birth. So getting the call from Mary Rhodes in late March reporting to me that I was to be its recipient in 2010 startled me and gave it a whole new meaning. I felt surprise and gratitude and then a flood of emotion about the virtues of its namesake and the nature of her work and mine.

One if not the greatest of Margaretta’s virtues was her modesty. The longer I live the more important that virtue seems to me. I’ll try to explain that. We live in a culture where, to some of us, praise comes easily and often. Praise is important when used with discretion. It rewards good deeds, which is very important—especially for children—and can inspire more good deeds—in both children and adults—and when it calls attention to good deeds to a wide audience—it can, if the stars are aligned, inspire more people to do more good deeds.

But beware, if you are the recipient of such praise, to remember what needs to be done in this world that we can never get done. Are we doing unto others what we would have them do unto us? Are those we consider “others” truly other—or simply people who are culturally, economically, ethnically, religiously or socially different from us? Do we realize that no matter how conscientious and caring we are, we will only do a tiny bit of our share in healing the world?

In this we can take a lesson from Margaretta. She seemed too modest at times, for a person who perceived every problem as one she should try to solve; who never stinted in the time and energy she gave to alleviate pain and suffering; who worked hard to strengthen existing institutions and organizations and encouraged others to do the same; and who was bold enough, when called upon, to set aside her humility to take on jobs that she considered far beyond her skills. Her goodness was profuse; her capacities protean; her modesty profound. And so I accept this award to honor her memory and aspire to her very special kind of goodness.

As many of you know, I have been engaged over the past several years in projects that pertain to democracy and interdependence. I shifted to this work in the early ‘90s when I came to believe that “the most precious right that an individual can have is the right to be responsible for the public good.” I realized then that very few people in the world have that right. We in this room—and we in this nation– do have it. Therefore I believe it is incumbent upon us— first of all, to exercise that right to act on behalf of the “public good” —whatever our career or profession is. Further I believe that we must do everything in our power to extend that right to others—the millions of people in the world who have no control over their own destinies, let alone “the public good.”
I believe that interdependence, both for better and worse, is the driving principle of our age. The revolution in information and communication technologies dictates that we know what is happening in the world—just about simultaneously with its happening! That extends our realm of responsibility enormously; thus we must expand our mindsets and our skills to deal with this 21st century reality.

That came home to me in January. I had just arrived in Rwanda and turned on the TV in my room to learn that there had been a serious earthquake in Haiti. For the next nine nights I watched CNN reporting on it. I saw much more of it than I ever would have if I had been at home. What struck me most was the vulnerability of those Haitians to the elements. I had been in two earthquakes of similar strength in Los Angeles in which no one died. In Haiti a quarter of a million people died. And many thousands of others were left in despair—without homes, without limbs, without parents, without children.

What lessons do we learn from living in an interdependent world where the perils and vulnerabilities, wherever they exist, are before us—every day? That there are those, many millions, who have little hope of a long and healthy life and who are virtually helpless against natural disasters. We, who have the power over our own lives and the public good, must do everything we can to alleviate suffering and build the capacities of those who don’t share our gifts. And at the same time, we must realize, with modesty and hope, that we will never finish that work.

I don’t want to be too somber as you join me in this celebration, so let’s just be grateful for what we have and what we can do, and salute together the woman whose spirit and actions serve as our guide. I think that Margaretta is blushing now—and I know that she is smiling down on us too.

Words cannot express how privileged I feel to have the opportunity to speak to you today about interdependence. While interdependence is our reality, as a people we Americans have yet to acknowledge that and develop a culture of interdependence, which I believe should be our guiding principle in the 21st century. Enough—we must say—to the culture of combat and conflict, which leads us again and again to lost lives among the young and innocent, lost limbs, lost time and lost hope. I speak not as a preacher or a pacifist but as a realist. I ask myself, “Do the ends justify the means? Is what we call victory really victory? Are the ends, in and of themselves, appropriate ends? Or does war beget war and hate beget hate?” I don’t pretend to have the answers but feel impelled to ask the questions, as increasingly we engage in battles that have no winners—only losers.

Interdependence is not a new concept. John F. Kennedy saw it as a principle for our time almost fifty years ago. On July 4, 1962, speaking at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, President Kennedy had this to say: “As [the] effort for independence, inspired by the American Declaration of Independence, now approaches a successful close, a great new effort—for interdependence—is transforming the world about us.” President Kennedy was referring to the post World War 2 awakening in Europe of its economic interdependence and the measures being taken even then toward what we know today as the European Union. Further he promised that “the United States will be ready for a Declaration of Interdependence.” He predicted that it would not be completed within a year; though I doubt that he foresaw just how long it would take.

But let me hark back briefly to my delight in being here to speak to you today. I am deeply grateful to Gary Drapek for making that possible. Last year, when I asked Gary about a possible collaboration between the United Way and the Interdependence Project he immediately responded in the positive and then went on to bring the issue to the state level and to the national level as well. It was an important turn of events for those of us who are advocates of the culture of interdependence in American society to be joined by one of our most established and highly regarded institutions—the United Way.

My association with the United Way goes back to its pre-natal existence. I wrote my first check ever for one dollar to the Community Chest when I was six years old. It was my father’s idea that I should begin my philanthropic activity early—and continue it throughout my life. He was a struggling young lawyer at the time, with a limited clientele and a very limited income, but with an unlimited sense of community and social justice. He saw that, in a democratic society, we citizens are privileged to share in the responsibility for the public good. He understood that the united way (lower case) was the American way. He was an immigrant from Hungary who came to Old Forge, Pennsylvania with his parents when he was eight years old. Like many immigrants of his generation, he “inhaled” and absorbed the spirit of his adopted country very early on and never lost it.

Over the years the Community Chest became the United Fund and I was proud when my husband, Morey Myers, chaired the Lackawanna United Fund, or as we called it, LUF, also as a young struggling lawyer. And now there is the United Way—and I congratulate the leaders and especially the branders who chose that name—it speaks volumes–because helping one’s community is not just about annual campaigns—it is about a way of life—a united way of life and, in the best of times, the American way of life. The United Way is a perfect example of an institution that is greater than the sum of its parts.

I can’t help noting here that the United Way has adopted Alexis de Tocqueville as one of its heroes. Tocqueville really “got” America when he traveled here from France in the 1830s—he understood it better than anyone before him and arguably better than anyone that came after him. He had an uncanny insight into our virtues and our vices. Most particularly he noticed that we Americans like to fix things that are broken—something he had not encountered in his native land. We were, in a sense, born citizens. It was one of our outstanding virtues—only offset and often corrupted by our sometimes overbearing individualism that Tocqueville observed as a peculiarly American vice. When we keep those two traits—the civic spirit and individualism in balance, we are a truly noble people—but then balance isn’t necessarily one of our long suits. Tocqueville recognized all of this and attributed it in part to the exceptional if not unique way our country came into being. We were invented by some brilliant men of the enlightenment who devised an eminently workable system of government based on enlightened ideas. I don’t know another nation that can claim that birthright.

With your indulgence, I’ll turn back briefly to my own personal journey to interdependence. Following on a career which operated on parallel—and occasionally convergent–tracks in the arts and humanities, I turned in the early nineties, when the old world order was collapsing, and dictators on the left and right were toppling, to matters of democracy. I saw in that moment a greater opportunity for democracy than the world had ever seen, notwithstanding the obstacles along the way, which were and continue to be legion. I won’t go into detail but I had a couple of secular epiphanies about that and came to understand 1) the central role that citizens play in making democracy work and 2) how difficult it is to become a citizen when you’ve been a subject all your life.

We Americans—that is a good number of us, have enjoyed the rights and accepted the responsibilities of citizenship all our lives. In the course of my working in nations that have not had the opportunities that we have had, I’ve come to believe firmly that the most important, indeed the defining right that we have is the right to be responsible for the public good. That is, in my view, our most precious legacy, the one we should cherish and embrace by using it to the fullest- and then pass on to our children and grandchildren. There is nothing more valuable that we have to offer future generations.

Recently my husband and I had the pleasure of keynoting the 125th anniversary of the Salvation
Army in Scranton. My enthusiasm for the task blossomed when I realized they were giving their special honor to a dear and most deserving friend and that it was called the “Others Award.” The story behind that name is that the Army’s founder wired his fellow Salvation soldiers all over the world one Christmas with an affordable message. The message was one word—Others. I promise not to make this whole talk a lesson in semantics but I do think it’s worth thinking about how important words are. The United Way is more than the sum of its parts—it is a way of life; “others” may conjure up a wide variety of images and impressions, but ultimately we understand—cognitively and viscerally—that we are responsible for the “others.”

And let me turn now, semantically and substantively speaking, to interdependence. I said earlier that Interdependence is our reality; that is the good news and the bad news. It is particularly the case now, at a time when, thanks to the revolution in communications and information technologies, we are more aware than ever of our connectedness with all the world’s people. What is good news is that we can know of people’s problems, be they natural disasters or fatal accidents or wars, simultaneous with their occurring, empathize with them and can send help immediately. What is the bad news? Asian flu and swine flu, international terrorism—terrorists can be trained anywhere and travel anywhere—it is not so hard for them to navigate through security systems; international corruption—it travels with the speed of light; ecologically speaking, we know that our actions here can and do have a profound impact on the environment on the other side of the globe and even as we speak we see the impact of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico reaching far beyond its place of origin. Though unintended, it could be called metaphorically, a weapon of mass destruction. In short, with regard to natural phenomena and human error—the world is porous. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman told us the world was flat—but equally or perhaps even more important, I maintain, is the idea that the world is porous.

Still thinking about the reality of interdependence leads us to reflect on its moral and civic implications. What does it suggest in terms of others, for example? How “other” are “they?” Who are the” they” and who are the “we?” Where does our responsibility begin and where does it end—or does it end at all? Aren’t we all others to somebody? Doesn’t our expanded sense of community expand our moral responsibility at the same time? You know I believe that the answer is yes—and we certainly see in the responses to the Haitian earthquake, the Indonesian tsunami, the Rwandan genocide—as well as to hunger and poverty in our own back yard that, de facto we are living interdependently.

So forty-eight years after President Kennedy’s keen awareness that we had moved beyond independence to interdependence, why do we even have to address the issue of interdependence? Because even within our nation, we still have forces like the Arian nation and the Ku Klux Klan—media extremists who fan the flames of prejudice, tea partyers who hate government, birthers who don’t believe our president is an American– and more. We are grateful to have free speech protected under the Bill of Rights, but it leaves us citizens to discern what is destructive and what is constructive or neutral—what is fact and what is propaganda. We can never relax our vigilance, on the one hand, and on the other, we must reinforce, especially for the sake of the young among us, the values of liberty and justice for all—with the emphasis on “For all”– that have been our stock in trade for over two hundred years. Internationally, the porousness that I referred to earlier has paved the way to international terrorism, a lethal and insidious phenomenon that defies the rules of conventional warfare and creates a climate of fear that can lead to xenophobia—hatred of the other. So our challenges are greater than ever before if we want the center of this mighty nation to hold. And the way we can and must proceed to walk the walk of interdependence is through our institutions. And that takes me back to the United Way.

So let me propose to you who embrace and lead the United Way that you consider:

Celebrating Interdependence Day each year by creating an occasion for community wide reflection on the realities of interdependence and the attendant acts of community service;

Including the language of interdependence and a brief history of the creation of Interdependence Day, and perhaps the Declaration of Interdependence in your publications and on your websites;

Encouraging your constituents to organize in their own venues, throughout September, activities that honor interdependence;

Creating Interdependence Day committees in communities where they don’t exist, inviting civic, cultural, educational and religious organizations to take leadership in advocating the culture of interdependence.

Giving United Way Interdependence Awards for service—from local to global—to acknowledge individuals and organizations that best reflect the culture of interdependence.

We live in challenging times. Our nation has been confronted recently with some massive crises and challenges, almost as bad as the ones we experienced in 1929 and 1941. On September 11, 2001 we got a wake-up call about our porousness, and how those who hated and feared us could use that porousness to our disadvantage. We had rapid police and the military response—but we have yet to address the challenges we face educationally. We need to interpret the happenings of 9/11 and begin to understand the reasons for the buildup of hate and frustration that make suicide bombers and martyrs out of students and middle class workers from cultures that are different from ours.

We need education for an interdependent age. We must know more history and geography, and we must teach our children the values that we revere, if we want them to live in a world united—not homogenized but united in common cause—reaching beyond consumerism and excessive individualism, reaching beyond ourselves and our families to embrace others who are very different from us, preserving the future of our children now that we know that the impacts of our actions are far reaching not only in space but also in time. Returning, if you will, to the adage upheld by the world’s foremost religions and cultures—of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

We who have the power not only over our own personal destinies but the destiny of our nation and world must exert that power for the sake of the world. The task is daunting in scale and it is an ongoing task. But it is our task. The United Way is the only way that we can move forward.

Sondra’s newsletter, The National Conversation on Prosperity and the Public Good, for Summer 2010 is now available.

Download it Here

*Newsletter is a PDF

On Friday, May 21, Sr. Adrian Barrett, a model of compassion and empathy, received the Others Award from the Salvation Army at its gala 125th anniversary celebration. I read of the award in a May 2 article in the Times-Tribune and was struck by its name and its origin. “Others” was the one-word Christmas message that the Salvation Army’s founder, William Booth, based in England, wired to Salvationists around the world in the Army’s early days. It was an economic measure as Booth’s lean budget did not permit a longer message—but “others” speaks volumes about the mission of the Army, of Sr. Adrian and even perhaps of all people of good will.

Good will, in the end, is about “others” –respecting their similarities and their differences and helping them when they’re in need. Too often we consider people who are other in economic, or ethnic or religious terms as unworthy of our respect.
But in fact we are all “other” to just about everyone else and its time that we stopped judging others by their “otherness.” I think it is not only unjust but unreal. From moral, religious and even pragmatic perspectives we need to be inclusive and respectful of difference in our 21st century world “without borders.” We have lessons to learn from environmentalists. They have proven to us that the physical world has an ecology—a relationship between organisms and their environment that recognizes that diversity is our reality. And so it is with the social/civic environment; it thrives on diversity. Americans should appreciate and rejoice in that as we are arguably the most diverse of societies—and that has been a major element in our unprecedented success as a nation. We humans have enormous capacity for collaboration and cooperation—and also, for bias and xenophobia.

The Salvation Army’s “Others Award” is a healthy reminder to all of us that we are all others, and that is the nature of the world.

The Salvation Army has been with me all my life—known as an organization that saves lives by serving people who need help in getting the very basic necessities of life. I am dazzled by its sustaining power, its ability to gather the funds necessary to perform its services– and the nobility of its cause. While it is evangelically Christian in its inspiration and its culture, its services are delivered to all people in need. It is at once particular and universal. Indeed, we as individuals and as people connected to our respective institutions are at the same time individual and universal.

Tonight’s award, given to a saintly and at the same time, consummately human woman, our dear friend Sister Adrian Barrett, a Catholic nun, and tonight’s keynote address, given by my husband and me, both of the Jewish faith, suggest that the Salvation Army does not limit itself in its clientele—or in the company it keeps. We are, in one way, if not in another, on the same page: partners in our commitment to leave the world a little bit better than it was before we got here. Our respective jobs are works in progress. We continue with vigor and conviction, always aware not only of the difference we make, but of the difference we don’t make—the needs that we cannot meet– the enormity of the problems in this world–of hunger and poverty, mental and physical illnesses, lives without hope, even in our great nation—arguably the richest and most democratic in the world.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered in the Scranton Times Tribune that Sr. Adrian is receiving “The Others” award. That information gave me a whole new burst of enthusiasm about the Salvation Army—and its mission of service to others; more than that—as seeing others and ourselves as interdependent; strengthening the culture of interdependence has been a campaign of mine in recent years. Others, especially those less fortunate, must be seen as part of our landscape—part of our moral responsibility—part of the human race—the race we all belong to—our brothers and sisters who need us. And yes, we need them too. For if they are in dire straits, it is our duty to help them to lift themselves out of misery—not just for them—the others—but for us, for our own good and the good of our society. Bear in mind, humbly, that we are all others to someone. That is made patently clear in this much more interconnected world of the 21st century—we see it in acts of terror against us as “the other.” But we can also take the new interconnectedness as an opportunity for greater understanding and empathy of those of different cultures.

Notwithstanding our proud status as a democratic nation, we are not the nation we aspire to be at a time when the gap between haves and have nots continues to widen. “The others” have the same right as we to live the good life. We are all interdependent.

I propose a toast to our beloved friend, Sister Adrian, who is surely the sister of all “the others” of this world, and to the Salvation Army, for presenting its coveted Others award to her. Let us vow that we will continue to be partners in our commitment to work on behalf of people in need, whoever and wherever they are, and most of all, to be partners in our humility– in recognizing our limitations, as we know that there is so much more that needs to be done.