Patrick Loch Otieno Lamumba: 'If Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba were to rise up',

September 2018, Nairobi, Kenya

When I look at Africa, many questions come to mind. Many times I ask myself, what would happen if Mwalimu were to rise up and see what is happening. Many times I will ask myself what will happen if Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba were to rise up and see what is happening. Because what they would be confronted with is an Africa where the Democratic Republic of Congo is unsettled.

As I speak to you the Central African Republic is at war. But we talk of it only mutely. As I speak to you now, in South Sudan, the youngest nation in Africa, the Nuwera have risen against the Dinka. As I speak to you now, Eritrea is unsettled. As I speak to you now there is unease in Egypt, as there is unease in Libya. In Niger it is no better, in Senegal in the Cassamance, it is no better. In Somalia it is no better. Africa is at war with ourself.

This is what they would be confronted with. They would be confronted with an Africa which statistician and romantic economists say is growing, but which in truth is stagnated. That is the Africa that they would be confronted with. They would be confronted with an Africa which, as Professor Mlama intimated in our presentation here, is an Africa which is suffering from schizophrenia – it does not know herself.

They would be confronted with an Africa where young men and young women are constantly humiliated at embassies of European countries and the United States as they seek the almighty green card. They would be confronted with an Africa where young men and women from Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali and Mauritania drown in the Mediterranean as they seek to be enslaved in Europe. This time around, Africans are not wailing and kicking as they are being taken away to be enslaved, they are seen wailing and kicking as they seek to be enslaved in Europe and America. This is the tragedy of Africa.

They would be confronted with an Africa where people have lost their self-pride. An Africa where Africans are not proud of their things. An Africa where in the hotels of Dar es Salaam or Nairobi, even food has foreign names. When we fry potatoes we call them French fries even when they are fried in Dar es Salaam.

They would be confronted with another Africa, an Africa which does not tell her story. An Africa whose story is told by Europe and America – the CNN, Radio Deutsche-Welle, Radia France.

That is the Africa they would be confronted with. They would be confronted with young men and women who have no pride in Africa. When they want to enjoy themselves they sing the praises of football teams from Europe and America. It is Manchester United, it is Arsenal, it is Real Madrid and Barcelona. Not Yanga, not Mufulira Wanderers, not Gor Mahia, not FC Leopards.

No, that is the Africa that they would be confronted with. They would be confronted with an Africa which does not enjoy its theatre and drama. That Africa celebrates Leonardo di Caprio, it celebrates Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The Africa does not celebrate Genevive Nnaji of Nigeria or Rita Dominic or Olu Jacobs of Nigeria. It does not celebrate Bongohood or Nollywood or Riverwood. It celebrates Hollywood. That is the Africa which with they would be confronted. They would be confronted with African women whose greatest source of joy is cheap Grade B Mexican soap opera: la patrona, la muher de me vida.

Why must we remind ourselves of these realities? Because throughout the ages, the battle has always been the battle of the mind. If your mind is conquered, then you are going nowhere. And that is why in the age of enlightenment in Europe, the great René Descartes said “Cogito ergo sum.” I think, therefore I am.

And therefore if Africans are to begin to make a contribution in their affairs, Africans must begin to think. But the question is, are we thinking?

We have universities in their numbers. Tanzania has universities including Dar es Salaam. Nairobi has universities as indeed Kampala, as indeed South Africa, Johannesburg. We have all these universities. We have engineers, but our roads are not being made by Tanzanian civil engineers, it is the Chinese who are present in this assembly who are making our roads.

So we have engineers who cannot even make roads. We have doctors whom we have trained, but when we are sick – particularly if we are of the political class – depending on who colonized you, if you are colonized by the United Kingdom, you rush to London. If you colonized by the French, you rush to Paris. If you are colonized by the Portuguese, you rush to Lisbon, and if you are colonized by the Spaniards, you rush to Madrid, Spain.

And very lately, because the Arabs are also beginning to get their act together, we run to Dubai. Notwithstanding that we have the Kenyatta hospitals of this country, the Muhimbilis of Tanzania, the Chris Hani Baragwanaths of South Africa and the Mama Yemos of Kinshasa in Zaire or the DRC. But we have no faith in our doctors.

In the area of education we also don’t have faith. Our political class introduced something that they call free education, that is free indeed. Free of knowledge. Because they are so suspicious of those institutions, that the typical African politician will not dare take their children to those schools. Their children will be educated in the British system, in the American system, so that when they graduate they go to the United Kingdom, to the United States.

Not that there is anything wrong with those institutions, but the agenda is wrong because our leaders long lost the script and ought to be described for who they are – our misleaders.

But we are co-authors of our own misfortune. Whenever we are given an opportunity to elect our leaders, we are given a blank check. And if you permit me a little latitude, and if you give me a blank check and you allow me to analogize and you say that I am given the blank check to buy a Mercedes Benz, what we do is when we are called upon – having been so empowered – we buy what we call a tuk-tuk from India and we expect it to behave like a Mercedes Benz.

How does that happen? Because what we do is to elect thieves. We elect hyenas to take care of goats and when the goats are consumed, we wonder why.

Betty Boothroyd: 'Voters were let down—all of them', attack on Brexit - 2019

14 January 2019, London, United Kingdom

My Lords, I cherish my European citizenship and regret its loss when or if—dare I say it?—Brexit becomes law. I identified myself as a British patriot and a European when I went to Berlin and other war-torn cities on the continent with little ​more than £5 in my pocket at the age of 17. I stayed with social democrat families who welcomed me into their homes. Europe is part of my DNA; it transcends treaties and bureaucracy.

For a time, I sat in the European Parliament, but preferred Westminster. This is not the first time that the Tory party has torn itself apart on this issue. As Speaker of the Commons, I watched the Tory party tear itself apart during the Maastricht debates. I feared the worst when David Cameron allied his party with the far right in Strasbourg and even more so when he caved in to his right-wingers and media pressure by calling the 2016 referendum. He thought he would win but has said since that he did not mind losing. I did mind.

Theresa May, whose tenacity commands respect, has been struggling to keep her party together ever since. Her Government stumble from one expediency to another, unimpeded by a dithering leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition whose only consistency is evasion. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, was right the other day when she related the current drift and national crisis to the period of 1940, but there is a major difference. At that time, the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition gave leadership. He carried his parliamentary party with him and people in the country knew of his commitment and supported it—that is the difference.

I am not a devotee of referenda. I rather enjoy general elections, but general elections are not single-issue events—they cover a host of issues. A general election is not the way to settle the European question. After two years, we are now more aware of the minuses and pluses and the people must determine this single issue. I urge Back-Benchers in the Commons to reject the pretences of Ministers who say—I quote Dr Fox, the International Trade Secretary—that a second referendum would put us in, ‘unprecedented territory with unknown consequences’.

My Lords, we have been wandering in the wilderness since Mrs May lost her majority in the election. I wonder how high Dr Fox was flying when he dreamed that one up. In my book, if a democracy cannot be allowed to change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.

When the Minister winds up, will he say what the Government are afraid of in refusing a people’s vote? In answering that question, will he please explain to young people who have reached adulthood why they do not have the right to be heard on an issue that our generation has manifestly bodged? Brexit will shape these youngsters’ futures for the next 50 years—not ours. I have no children or grandchildren; my quality of life will not be affected. I am all right, Jack. But what about the Jacks and Jills out there? Are they to be stripped of their rights on the whim of those who peddled rubbish in the referendum and are afraid to be challenged in another?

I was a government Whip when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister. He said that anyone who claimed that membership of the European Community was a black and white issue was either a charlatan or a simpleton. I leave your Lordships to adjudicate on that one. Which brings me to Mr Boris Johnson: his campaign bus did not proclaim, ‘Say yes to no deal’. We were promised an easy ride with a cash bonus thrown in. The question ​on the ballot paper did not ask us to choose between a hard or soft Brexit, a Canadian or a Norway-plus deal, or a deal that would separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Nobody dreamed that we would be frantically preparing for worst-case scenarios. We are now paying the price for a referendum that was dominated by falsehoods. Brexiteers promised the world but ignored the social and political realities festering in our own country. Now, Parliament is convulsed, Whitehall is pulverised and Downing Street has become a drop-in for chilled wine and persuasive chats, while industry and business are alarmed and our friends and allies are bewildered. Who can possibly blame them?

In yesterday’s Sunday Express, Mrs May said:

‘Some of you put your trust in the political process for the first time in decades. We cannot—and must not—let you down’.

But voters were let down—all of them. Both sides failed to focus on the issues that mattered most to them. Look at the Electoral Commission report. It said that many voters were unclear about the consequences of victory for either side and did not know the answers to questions they expected to be at the heart of the campaign. Both the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition should heed that report and listen to the voice of a young generation, who have a right to be part of the decisions affecting their future.

Many years ago, a debate took place in the Commons that changed the course of the war. Back-Benchers played a pivotal role then and I hope will do so tomorrow. My message is: Back-Benchers arise and forget your party allegiance. The national interest demands it.

Tony Abbott: 'The IPA has been freedom’s discerning friend', IPA's 70th birthday - 2013

4 April 2013, Melbourne, Australia

In a stark reminder of the forces forcing Abbott onto the Australian people, in a speech this week, Tony Abbott fawns over the reactionary think tank, obsequiously sucks up to mining magnate Gina Rinehart and sings paeans of praise to media monopolist Rupert Murdoch.

Andrew thank you so much for that truly lovely introduction. All I can say is: I prefer your judgments to your reminiscences!

Mr Premier, Mr Lord Mayor, Your Eminence, parliamentary colleagues, I don’t want to single anyone out because there are so many of them here but I should particularly mention the Shadow Attorney-General George Brandis who did such magnificent work in opposing the current government’s attacks on free speech, family members of the founder of the IPA, CD Kemp, Gina Rinehart, who has given what I’m sure is the best speech that any one will give tonight, ladies and gentlemen.

At one level, tonight we celebrate the 70th birthday of the Institute of Public Affairs; but at a deeper level we celebrate things that are timeless – the freedom that our civilisation has nurtured and the faith that has nurtured our civilisation. In celebrating the IPA, we celebrate its calling which is to support and sustain the public culture which has shaped our country and influenced so well the wider world.

In the Garden of Eden that Adam and Eve could do almost as they pleased but freedom turned out to have its limits and its abuses, as this foundational story makes only too clear. Yet without freedom we can hardly be human; hardly be worthy of creation in the image of God. From the Garden of Eden, to the Exodus, Athenian democracy, the Roman Senate, Magna Carta, the glorious revolution and American independence, the story of our civilisation has been the story of freedom and our struggles to achieve it.

Freedom, ladies and gentlemen, is what we yearn for but it can only exist within a framework of law so that every person’s freedom is consistent with the same freedom for everyone else. This is what the poet Tennyson meant when he described England as “a land of just and old renown, a land of settled government where freedom broadens slowly down from precedent to precedent”. At least in the English speaking tradition, liberalism and conservatism, love of freedom and respect for due process, have been easy allies.

The IPA, I want to say, has been freedom’s discerning friend. It has supported capitalism, but capitalism with a conscience. Not for the IPA, a single-minded dogmatism or opposition to all restraint; rather a sophisticated appreciation that freedom requires a social context and that much is expected from those to whom so much has been given. You’ve understood that freedom is both an end and a means; a good in itself, as well as necessary for full human flourishing.

I particularly congratulate the IPA and its marvelous director, John Roskam, for your work in defence of Western civilisation. Contemporary Australia has well and truly - and rightly - left behind the old cult of forgetfulness about our indigenous heritage. Alas, there is a new version of the great Australian silence – this time about the Western canon, the literature, the poetry, the music, the history and above all the faith without which our culture and our civilisation are unimaginable.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is the foundation of our justice. “Love your neighbour as you love yourself” is the foundation of our mercy. Faith has weakened but not, I’m pleased to say, this high mindedness which faith helped to spawn and which the IPA now helps to protect and to promote.

I want to say of the IPA that, unlike some other bodies dedicated to the promotion of an ideal, the IPA has never been too proud or too pure to campaign for its beliefs or to take sides in a good cause. Your campaign against the bill of rights caused a bad government to capitulate. You campaigned against the bill of rights because you understood that a democratic parliament, an incorruptible judiciary and a free press, rather than mere law itself, were the best guarantors of human rights.

You campaigned against the legislative prohibition against giving offence and I’m pleased to say that the author of those draft laws is now leaving the parliament. Well done IPA! And, of course, you campaigned against the public interest media advocate, an attack dog masquerading as a watchdog, designed to intimidate this government’s media critics and that legislation was humiliatingly withdrawn. John, whatever you did to persuade independent members of parliament, please, give it to me!

John, you’ve done very well with just 20 staff – but remember what Jesus of Nazareth did with just 12 and one of them turned out to be a rat!

John, there is one campaign where you will not prevail – namely your urgent advice to me in the IPA Review last August to be more like Gough Whitlam. You had a great deal of advice for me in that particular issue and I want to assure you that the Coalition will indeed repeal the carbon tax, abolish the Department of Climate Change, abolish the Clean Energy Fund. We will repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, at least in its current form. We will abolish new health and environmental bureaucracies. We will deliver $1 billion in red tape savings every year. We will develop northern Australia. We will repeal the mining tax. We will create a one stop shop for environmental approvals. We will privatise Medibank Private. We will trim the public service and we will stop throwing good money after bad on the NBN.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that is a big “yes” to many of the 75 specific policies you urged upon me in that particular issue of the magazine….but Gough Whitlam I will never be!

Now, as it happens, John Roskam is not the only member of this audience to have had some regard for Gough Whitlam. Based on his papers’ 1972, support for the Whitlam Government our guest of honour tonight was once described as a “recovering socialist”. I suspect we will discover later on just how completely he has been cured!

John Howard has said that Rupert Murdoch has been by far Australia’s most influential international businessman; but I would like to go a little further. Along with Sir John Monash, the Commander of the First AIF which saved Paris and helped to win the First World War, and Lord Florey a one-time provost of my old Oxford College, the co-inventor of penicillin that literally saved millions of lives, Rupert Murdoch is probably the Australian who has most shaped the world through the 45 million newspapers that News Corp sells each week and the one billion subscribers to News-linked programming.

Rupert Murdoch has sometimes changed his political allegiance but he’s never changed his fundamental principles. At least since the mid-70’s, those have been greater personal responsibility, smaller government, fewer regulations and support for open societies that don’t build walls against the world.

(This speech was given at the IPA 70th birthday event this week, MC'd by Andrew Bolt, with Rupert Murdoch as guest of honour and also featuring a speech by Gina Rinehart. The text is republished in full, unedited, from Tony Abbott's personal website.)

Kevin Rudd: 'If you come by boat you will never permanently live in Australia.', Address to nation about offshore detention - 2013

19 July 2013, Canberra, Australia

My fellow Australians.

Tonight I want to speak to you about a matter of great importance to all of us.

Earlier today I met the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea and struck a new regional arrangement on asylum seekers.

From this point forward, asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat will be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and resettlement.

Australia will continue to have cooperative arrangements in asylum seekers with Nauru.

People who come by boat now have no prospect of being resettled in Australia.

The rules have changed. If you come by boat you will never permanently live in Australia.

This has not been an easy decision for me or my colleagues.

The sight of asylum seekers being exploited by people smugglers is appalling.

And the problem is likely to get worse in the future as it is for so many countries around the world.

We also have to do everything possible to protect our orderly migration system and the integrity of our borders.

The bottom line is that we have to protect lives by dealing robustly with people smugglers.

Australians have had enough of seeing asylum seekers dying in the waters to our north and our northwest.

They’ve had enough of people smugglers profiting from death.

Like me, they worry about the safety of our brave servicemen and women involved in rescue operations when boats get into distress.

As Prime Minister, I must address changing circumstances, balancing our humanitarian obligations under international law with the reality on the ground.

Australian Governments have never had a policy on asylum seekers that is set in stone.

We must always adjust to changing circumstances while remaining true to our values and vigilant concerning our legal obligations.

Asylum seeker policy is complex. It is very complex indeed.

It is hard. It involves detailed cooperation with other countries.

With this announcement there will inevitably be many hurdles along the road.

It won’t be smooth and nobody should expect the boats to stop tomorrow.

In fact, people smugglers will now try and test our resolve.

Our job is to deal with each new hurdle as it appears.

Under our new policy, Australia will continue to take genuine refugees from around the world under the normal processes of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Refugees who have often been languishing in camps for a decade.

But my message to asylum seekers around the world is simple.

Under the arrangement with Papua New Guinea, if you come here by boat, you will be sent to Papua New Guinea.

I also have a message for the people smugglers of our region and the world.

Your business model is over.

The decision we have announced today is one part of the Government’s multilayered approach in responding to the scourge of people smuggling.

The Government will continue to adjust our policy and approach in the future as necessary.

I thank you for your attention.

Jose 'Pepe' Mujica: 'Nada vale más que una vida, luchen por la felicidad', Distinción Orden Nacional al Mérito en grado de Gran Collar en Ecuador - 2014

5 December 2014, Guayaquil, Ecuador

A ceremony in Ecuador where tMujica received the "Distinción Orden Nacional al Mérito en grado de Gran Collar en Ecuador" in a handover of the pro tempore presidency of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

El presidente de Uruguay, José Pepe Mujica, recibió en 2014 la distinción Orden Nacional al Mérito en grado de Gran Collar en Ecuador, en medio de un sentido homenaje del pueblo de Guayaquil durante el traspaso de la presidencia pro témpore de la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR), y fue ahí donde se da el mejor discurso de Pepe Mujica.

Pepe Mujica consideró ser un luchador incansable sin vocación de héroe pero contrario a la injusticia social.

Fecha del mejor discurso de José Mujica: 11 de marzo de 2006

«Yo tengo que agradecer infinitamente. Soy un paisano medio atravesado, y el único mérito que tengo es ser un poco vasco, terco, duro, seguidor, constante. Y por eso aguante. Pero no soy ningún fenómeno, en realidad, los años de cana que me comí, fue porque me agarraron, me falto velocidad.

No tengo vocación de héroe, tengo sí una especie de fuego adentro, me retoba la injusticia social, la diferencia de clases.

Creo que el hombre es un animal gregario, que vivió el 90% de su historia arriba del planeta, en familias. Es un mono raro que no puede vivir solo, necesita de los demás. Por eso tiene razón Aristóteles, el hombre es un animal político, porque no es un felino, necesita de la sociedad, se dé cuenta o no se dé cuenta.
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Pero ese 10% de la historia del hombre arriba de la Tierra, es el responsable de nuestra civilización que nos dio cosas hermosas. Al fin y al cabo, en este siglo vivimos 40 años más que lo que vivían en promedio hace 100 años. Yo sé que hay hambre, pero hay el doble de población, y el doble de cantidad de alimento. Lástima que tiramos casi el 30% de la comida que producimos, ni siquiera se la damos a los perros, y menos se lo damos a la gente pobre. Esas son las contradicciones de nuestra civilización, desnuda, clara, agresiva, que nos dan razón, nos cargan las baterías para seguir luchando.

Nunca el hombre tuvo tanto como hoy, nunca tanto conocimiento. No me canso de repetir y recordar los millones de dólares por minuto que se gastan en el mundo en presupuesto militar. Decir que no hay plata en este mundo, para un gigantesco Plan Marshall que recorra toda la tierra a favor de los pobres, pa´ integrar a la vida humana. Decirme que no hay recursos, es no tener vergüenza.

Cuando nos dicen que la segunda fortuna del mundo, gastando un millón de dólares por día, tendría que vivir 220 años para poder gastar lo que tiene, pero aún tampoco podría, porque con una tasa de interés del 2-3% anual, tiene 4 millones de dólares por día. Y si decimos que en este mundo no hay plata, es porque tenemos la cobardía política, de no cobrarle y pedirle, y meterle la mano en el bolsillo a los que pueden.

Por eso estamos en política, y por eso luchamos en política, porque, al fin y al cabo, simplificando, es cortar el tocino un poco más grueso a favor de los más débiles. Porque la política es elegir decisiones, y elegir decisiones que favorecen a uno y pueden perjudicar a otro. Y estas con la mayoría o estas con la minoría y no hay término medio, no se puede ser neutral, y hay que tomar partido.

Pero aparte de esto compañeros, hay otra cosa. Hay una cosa más importante que la justicia, a algunos de nosotros nos quisieron formar en un mundo que era un valle de lágrimas para ir a un paraíso, no te la llevo. El paraíso es este, o la condena es esta, y es esta vida laque hay que pelear pa´ que la gente viva mejor, y no tiene término medio.

Entonces, el primer valor, y esto tiene sentido si hablamos de cosas centrales, elementales y olvidadas, yo no me chupo el dedo de un homenaje, de aquí voy a salir el mismo viejo que soy. Lo que tiene sentido es pensar, porque hay mucha gente joven, y si sos joven tenes que saber esto: la vida se te escapa, y si te va minuto a minuto, y no puedes ir al supermercado a comprar vida, entonces lucha por vivirla, por darle contenido a la vida.

Tu puedes, en términos relativos, ser autor del camino de tu propia vida. No eres como un vegetal que vive porque nació. Después de haber nacido puedes dar un contenido, o no. O puedes enajenar tu vida y que te la compre el mercado, y te pasas toda la vida pagando tarjetas y comprando cacharros, y le das pa´ adelante. Y al final después tas como un viejo como yo. Todo lleno de reumatismos, te pelaste y ¿Qué hiciste en este mundo?

Pero si tuviste un sueño y peleaste por una esperanza, e intentaste transmitirle a los que quedan, tal vez quede un pequeño aliento rodando, en las colinas, en los mares, un pálido recuerdo que vale más que un monumento, que un libro, que un himno, que una poesía. La esperanza humana que se va realizando en las nuevas generaciones.

Compañeros, nada vale más que la vida, luchen por la felicidad. Y la felicidad es darle contenido a la vida, y rumbo a la vida, y no dejar que te la roben. Y para eso no hay receta, está acá, en la conciencia. Si usas la maravillosa oportunidad de haber nacido, casi milagrosa.

Por lo demás, un segundo consejo a los jóvenes, lo imposible cuesta un poco más. Y derrotados, son solo aquellos que bajan los brazos, y se entregan. La vida te puede dar mil tropezones, en todos los órdenes, en el amor, en el trabajo, en la aventura de lo que estás pensando, en los sueños que piensas concretar, pero una y mil veces estás hecho con fuerzas para volverte a levantar y volver a empezar, porque lo importante, es el camino. No hay una meta, no hay un arco del triunfo, no hay un paraíso que nos recibe, no hay odaliscas que te van a recibir porque moriste en la guerra, no, la quedaste y punto.

No, lo que hay es otra cosa, es la hermosura de vivir al tope, de querer la vida, en cualquier circunstancia y luchar por ella, e intentar transmitirla. Porque la vida no es solo recibir, es antes que nada dar, algo de lo que tenemos. Y por jodido que estés siempre tienes algo para darle a los demás.

Era un pibe en un país que lo llamaban la pequeña Suiza de América, y van a estudiar en la década del 40 de toda América Latina, habíamos sido hijos privilegiados, bastardos del imperio inglés, y nos fue bastante bien. Como la Republica Argentina que estaba orgulloso entre los poderosos del mundo, El río de la plata era una cosa distinta al resto de América Latina, parecíamos casi medio europeos, y hasta por momento nos pareció que éramos. Pero eso fue un espejismo, paso, el mundo se reacomodo después de la guerra, vinieron los términos de intercambio, le empezamos a deber al fondo monetario internacional, y esa fue mi juventud. De algo que era muy alto, y hermoso y se desmoronaba. Y no hay cosa más retobada, que aquel que estando bien se viene abajo. El que está acostumbrado a estar mal, se resigna.

Por eso pertenezco a un movimiento que se golpeó la boca, y salió a intentar cambiar el mundo, y nos molieron a palo. Acariciamos nuestros sueños, eran tiempos que pensábamos que la dictadura del proletariado era una explicación importante de la lucha de clases y naturalmente, cada generación comete sus vicisitudes. Pero aquel viejo fuego que llevábamos adentro era tan grande que nos permitió llegar hasta hoy, siendo conscientes de los errores que cometimos, pero siendo conscientes de la gigantesca generosidad con que abrazamos la vida.

Y cuando vemos un mundo lleno de cacharros, de plata, de recursos… Que dios me libre, parece que se les parte el alma por prestarte un auto, o por darle la mano a un pordiosero, o recoger un perro y darle de comer. Qué se yo, no he visto mundo más machete que el que nos toca vivir. Añoro aquella juventud, de corazón abierto, que equivocadamente lo entregaba y lo daba todo, y no se guardaba nada para sí mismo.

No reniego del pasado, no reniego de los errores, la vida es un aprendizaje continuo y está llena de caminos muertos, y de pisotones. Pero las viejas causas, que nos empujaron, están presentes, en el mundo en el que nos toca vivir. Nunca se ha visto tanta concentración de la riqueza, nunca se ha visto tanta desigualdad en un mundo que tiene tantos recursos, y tenemos tantas posibilidades. Creo y tengo confianza, que el hombre es capaz de construir sociedades infinitamente mejores, si tiene el coraje de mirar el rumbo de las sociedades más viejas, que están en el fondo de la historia de la humanidad. No para volver al hombre de las cavernas, sino para aprender la generosidad que nos implica la defensa de la vida, para entender esto, para entender lo elemental, lo más simple, para ser felices necesitamos la vida de los otros. Los individuos solos, somos nada. Los individuos dependemos de la sociedad, y de la marcha de la sociedad, y es lo que nos permite enriquecer y mejorar permanente nuestra vida. Por lo tanto, las causas colectivas hay que levantarlas, y en esta historia, y en este momento, eso tiene un nombre. En esta América Latina, la lucha por acercarnos, la lucha por integrarnos, la lucha por recrear una cultura que respete la diversidad, pero que exprese ese “nosotros” profundo y oculto, que viene de la conformación de nuestra propia historia. Podemos y debemos, pero será posible, si hay voluntad política, si hay compromiso.

Y a los jóvenes, si quieren vivir felices, levanten una idea en la que creer, vivan para servir a esa idea, no se dejen esclavizar por el mercado. El mundo que tendremos será el que seamos capaces de lograr, y los latinoamericanos tenemos que ser, por haber llegado tarde y de atrás, un reservorio de lo mejor de la civilización humana, un continente de paz, un continente de justicia, un continente de solidaridad, un continente donde es hermoso nacer y morir, un continente que le dice si a la justicia, un continente sin odio, un continente sin venganza, un continente que dignifique la existencia del hombre arriba de la Tierra, como animal que cuida lo portentoso de la creación que significa este barco de vida que es el planeta. Denle contenido a la existencia, porque si no lo hacen conscientemente el contenido va a ser la cuota que tienen que pagar cada fin de mes, por el nuevo cacharro que tienen que comprar y asi sucesivamente hasta el fin de vuestros días, hasta que un día los huesos no se levanten, y adiós, no queda de ti, ni el recuerdo ni el aliento.

Hay otras cosas además de la juventud, la irreverencia de mirarse en el espejo, y comprometerse con la realidad. Para eso se puede ser joven, viejo, mediano, no hay que dividir el mundo en hombres, mujeres, negros, amarillos; hay que dividirlo en dos sectores, los que se comprometen, y los que no se comprometen. Y comprometerse es abrazarse a una causa.

Yo sé que me estoy acercando al tiempo, por una pa salir, en cualquier momento marchaste, así es. Todavía no he podido creer en el más allá, ni en Dios. Respeto a todas las religiones en pila, ¿saben por qué? Porque he visto en una sala de hospital, el enorme servicio que le prestan al bien morir, y por eso si yo no puedo creer, no me rio de las religiones, las respeto. Me han hecho pensar; por su vigencia en todos los tiempos y en todas las edades, y en todos los rincones de la historia del hombre en el planeta que siempre cree en algo, que no hay bicho más utópico que el hombre, por eso mismo, porque es capaz de construir la necesidad de un más allá.

Uno de estos días seré menos que polvo, tal vez, quede alguna paloma dando vueltas, en la cabeza de alguno.

Gracias Ecuador, un abrazo a todos.«

Anna Bligh: 'We are Queenslanders', response to flood disaster - 2011

12 January 2011, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Well, Queensland is reeling this morning from the worst natural disaster in our history and possibly in the history of our nation. As we look across Queensland and see three quarters of our state having experienced the devastation of raging floodwaters, we now face a reconstruction task of post war proportions. That is how we are seeing it and that is the sort of steely determination that it will require to overcome what we have seen in the last three weeks.

As we have all watched with awe at the power of Mother Nature here and Ipswich and in Brisbane we are also very mindful that in the regions of Queensland people are still facing rising floodwaters.

Here in the southeast I think a number of people have woken up to some good news and some relief this morning but I have to stress that authorities in the south east are still on full alert. This continues to be a very dangerous situation.

But we also know that this morning, thousands of people in the southeast, literally thousands, have woken to the unbearable agony of their homes have been devastated, their businesses, their workplaces have been devastated and for some people it's been both their workplace and their homes, washed away.

For many others, they may not have water in their backyards but they have woken to the devastation of parts of their city. I don't think there is any more a powerful symbol than what's happened to the modern city of Brisbane than the sight of our floating walkway drifting down the Brisbane River this morning. The floating walkway is a much loved part of Brisbane. It is the modern face of a thriving, sophisticated capital city. It is a loss that we will all experience and there will be other experiences just like it. In neighbourhoods where people watched their parks, their swings, their recreational spaces, possibly their schools all devastated. So there's a lot of grief and there's a lot of pain, not only here in the southeast but in other parts of Queensland today.

Here in the southeast I wanted to acknowledge that overnight we had no emergency rescues. That is a great tribute to the people of this region. I am very proud of them. They did what we asked. We said 'please be sensible, make sensible decisions, move to higher ground, don't stay in dangerous situations' and they followed all the warnings, they co-operated with our emergency staff and I am very, very proud of our staff who were out there on the frontline last night. We had an enormous army of police, fire and rescue and emergency staff. They were assisted by about 400 defence personnel right across this region. It was an incredible effort overnight and I am very grateful to all of the people who heeded our warnings and helped our emergency staff keep us all safe.

When an event like this happens, you see the best come out in people and we've seen it already on our streets, people out there helping their neighbours and doing everything they can and what we're now seeing is an avalanche of people wanting to volunteer for the clean up, not only here in Brisbane but across the whole of the state.

But we'd also encourage people, please help your neighbours, your friends and your family first. If we help the people we know around us then that will make the task for the authorities that much easier. As I said at the start, we have seen here in our capital city a devastating event but it is no more devastating than those that we have seen in towns and cities right across regional Queensland for the last three weeks.
Debris in Grantham township in the wake of the 2011 floods.

Can I say to Queenslanders everywhere: Wherever you are and there are so many places to list, if you are in central Queensland, if you're in southwest Queensland, if you're in western Queensland, if you're in the Burnett Region, the Darling Downs, Toowoomba, the Lockyer Valley, Ipswich or Brisbane, all of those places have been affected by floods and I say to every one of those people in those areas and to Queenslanders in other parts of the state: as we weep for what we have lost, and as we grieve for family and friends, and we confront the challenge that is before us, I want us to remember who we are.
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We are Queenslanders; we're the people that they breed tough north of the border. We're the ones that they knock down and we get up again. I said earlier this week that this weather may break our hearts and it is doing that but it will not break our will and in the coming weeks and in the coming months we are going to prove that beyond any doubt. Together, we can pull through this and that's what I'm determined to do and with your help, we can achieve that. Thank you."

Malcolm Turnbull: 'We need a different style of leadership', Leadership challenge to PM Tony Abbott - 2016

14 September 2015, Canberra, Australia

Thank you very much. A little while ago I met with the Prime Minister and advised him that I would be challenging him for the leadership of the Liberal Party, and I asked him to arrange or facilitate a meeting of the party room to enable a leadership ballot to be held. Of course, I've also resigned as Communications Minister.
Malcolm Turnbull's challenge in full

Malcolm Turnbull announces his challenge to become Prime Minister and makes his case. Doorstop in full.

Now this is not a decision that anyone could take lightly. I have consulted with many, many colleagues, many Australians, many of our supporters in every walk of life. This course of action has been urged on me by many people over a long period of time.

It is clear enough that the Government is not successful in providing the economic leadership that we need. It is not the fault of individual ministers. Ultimately, the Prime Minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull arrives to address the media and announce that he is challenging Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the leadership.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

He has not been capable of providing the economic confidence that business needs. Now we are living as Australians in the most exciting time. The big economic changes that we're living through here and around the world offer enormous challenges and enormous opportunities.

And we need a different style of leadership. We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities, explains the challenges and how to seize the opportunities. A style of leadership that respects the people's intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy, not slogans.

We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people.

Now if we continue with Mr Abbott as Prime Minister, it is clear enough what will happen. He will cease to be Prime Minister and he'll be succeeded by Mr Shorten. You only have to see the catastrophically reckless approach of Mr Shorten to the China-Australia free trade agreement.

Surely one of the most important foundations of our prosperity, to know that he is utterly unfit to be Prime Minister of this country and yet so he will be if we do not make a change.

The one thing that is clear about our current situation is the trajectory. We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott's leadership.

Now what we also need to remember, and this is a critical thing, is that our party the Liberal Party has the right values. We have a hugely talented team here in the Parliament. Our values of free enterprise, of individual initiative, of freedom; this is what you need to be a successful agile economy in 2015.

What we have not succeeded in doing is translating those values into the policies and the ideas that will excite the Australian people and encourage them to believe and understand that we have a vision for their future.

We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people

We also need a new style of leadership in the way we deal with others whether it is our fellow members of Parliament, whether it is the Australian people. We need to restore traditional Cabinet government. There must be an end to policy on the run and captain's calls. We need to be truly consultative with colleagues, members of Parliament, senators and the wider public.

We need an open government, an open government that recognises that there is an enormous sum of wisdom both within our colleagues in this building and, of course, further afield.

But above all we have to remember that we have a great example of good Cabinet government. John Howard's government most of us served in and yet few would say that the Cabinet government of Mr Abbott bears any similarity to the style of Mr Howard. So that's what we need to go back to. Finally, let me say something about Canning. Now this is an important byelection and I recognise dealing with this issue in the week before the by-election is far from ideal.

But regrettably, there are few occasions that are entirely ideal for tough calls and tough decisions like this. The alternative if we were to wait and this issue, these problems were to roll on and on and on is we will get no clear air.

The fact is we are maybe 10 months, 11 months away from the next election. Every month lost is a month of lost opportunities. We have to make a change for our country's sake, for the Government's sake, for the party's sake.

From a practical point of view a change of leadership would improve our prospects in Canning, although I'm very confident with the outstanding candidate we have that we will be successful.

Now you'll understand… please, you'll understand that I now have to go and speak to my colleagues. I trust I've explained the reasons why I am standing for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Motivated by a commitment to serve the Australian people to ensure that our Liberal values continue to be translated into good government, sound policies, economic confidence creating the jobs and the prosperity of the future.

Remember this, the only way, the only way we can ensure that we remain a high wage, generous social welfare net, first world society is if we have outstanding economic leadership, if we have strong business confidence. That is what we in the Liberal Party are bound to deliver and it's what I am committed to deliver if the party room gives me their support as leader of the party.

Thank you very much.

Jose 'Pepe' Mujica: 'We have destroyed the real jungles and sown anonymous cement jungles', address to United Nations - 2013

24 September 2013, United Nations, New York City, USA

There is no vision or audio available for this speech.

I come from the South. At the conjunction of the Atlantic and the River Plate, my country is a gentle, temperate plain where livestock graze. Its history is one of ports, leather, salted beef, wool and meat. There were dark decades of lances and horses until finally, with the outset of the twentieth century, we were at the forefront of social, education and governmental affairs. I would say that social democracy was invented in Uruguay.

For nearly 50 years, the world saw us as a kind of Switzerland, but in reality in economic matters we were the bastard children of the British Empire. When the empire ended, we experienced the bitter and terrible terms of trade and we yearned for the past for almost 50 years, remembering Maracaná. Today, we have re-emerged in a globalized world, having learned from our pain.

My personal story is that of a boy — because I once was a boy — who like others wanted to change his times and his world and dreamed of a free and classless society. My mistakes were in part the results of my era. Obviously I take responsibility for them, but sometimes I cry: “If only I had the strength that I had when we enjoyed such utopia!”

However, I do not look towards the past because what we have today was created from the fertile ashes of yesterday. On the contrary, I am not on this planet to settle scores or to reminisce. I am greatly anguished by the future that I will not see, and to which I have committed myself. Yes, it is possible to have a world with more humanity, but perhaps today the main task is to save life.

I am from the South and I have come from the South to this Assembly. I share with the thousands of poor compatriots in cities, in the jungles, in the plains, in the pampas and the canyons of Latin America the common fatherland that we are creating. I bear upon my shoulders the indigenous cultures, the remains of colonialism in the Malvinas, and the futile and regrettable blockades of Cuba under the Caribbean sun. I also bear the consequences of the electronic surveillance, which does nothing but create the distrust that poisons us needlessly. I also come with a huge social debt and with the need to defend the Amazon, the seas, and our great rivers of America. I also have the duty to fight for all on behalf of my fatherland and so that Colombia can finally regain peace. I have the duty to fight for tolerance for those who are different and with whom we have differences and disagreements. We do not need tolerance for those with whom we agree. Tolerance is the foundation of peaceful coexistence, understanding that we are all different in this world.

It is true that today, in order to spend and to bury our garbage in what science calls the carbon footprint, if in this world we aspired to consume like the average American, we would need three planets in order to be able to live. In other words, our civilization has mounted a deceitful challenge, and as we go on it is not possible for everyone to achieve that goal. Indeed, our culture is increasingly driven by accumulation and market forces. We are promised a life of spending and squandering; in fact, it is a countdown against nature and against future humankind. It is a civilization against simplicity, against sobriety, against all natural cycles; worse yet, it is a civilization against freedom, which requires time to experience human relationships and the most important things: love, friendship, adventure, solidarity and famil. It is a civilization against free time that does not pay, that cannot be bought and that allows us to contemplate the beauty of nature.

We have destroyed the real jungles and sown anonymous cement jungles. We have tackled a sedentary lifestyle with walking, insomnia with pills, solitude with electronics. Can we be happy when we are so far from the human essence? We have to ask ourselves this question. Stupefied, we have rejected our own biological imperative, which defends life for life’s sake as a superior cause, and we have replaced it by functional consumerism and accumulation.

Politics, the eternal mother of all human endeavors, has remained shackled to the economy and to the marketplace. Going from one adventure to another, politics achieves little more than perpetuating itself, and as such it delegates its power and spends its time bewildered, fighting for the Government. Out of control, human history marches forward, buying and selling everything and innovating in order to negotiate what is, in a way, non-negotiable. Marketing exists for everything: cemeteries and funeral services, maternity wards, fathers, mothers, grandparents, uncles, secretaries, cars and vacations.

Everything is business. Marketing campaigns deliberately target children and psychologically influence older children to reserve safe territory for the future. Abundant evidence exists of such abominable uses of technology that sometimes induce mass frustration. The average city dweller wanders between financial institutions and tedious office routines, sometimes
moderated by air conditioning. He often dreams about vacations and freedom. He dreams about having the ability to pay his bills until one day his heart stops and he is gone. Other such soldiers will fall prey to the jaws of the marketplace, sharing in material accumulation.

The crisis really rests in the powerlessness of politics, which is incapable of understanding that humankind cannot and will not escape nationalism, which is practically etched into our DNA. Today, it is time to fight to prepare a world without borders. The globalized economy has no other driving force except that of the private interests of the very few, and each nation State seeks only to maintain its own stability. Today, the great task for our peoples and our humble way of seeing things becomes the be-all and end-all. As if that were not enough, truly productive capitalism is a prisoner of the banks, which are at the summit of global power. More clearly, the world is clamoring for global regulations that respect scientific achievements, which abound, but it is not science that governs the world.

Today, we need a lengthy agenda of definitions. We must define working hours throughout the world. We need to have convergence among currencies. We need to finance the global struggle for water and against desertification. We have to figure out how to recycle more and how to counter global warming. What are the limits of each human task? We must achieve a broad planetary consensus to unleash solidarity among the most oppressed and to punish and tax waste and speculation by mobilizing the large economies not to produce disposable goods, but rather useful goods without planned obsolescence or excess, which would help the world’s poorest peoples. Useful goods could stand against world poverty. Turning to a useful neo-Keynesianism on a global scale in order to abolish the world’s most flagrant embarrassments would be a thousand times more profitable than making war.

Perhaps our world needs fewer global organizations, organized forums and conferences, which serve only to aid hotel chains and airlines; perhaps no one really benefits from their decisions anyway. We must return to what is old and eternal in human life, along with science that strives to serve humankind, and not only the rich. With scientists, the counsellors of humankind, we can create agreements for the entire world. Neither the large nation States nor transnational companies, not to mention the financial system, ought to govern the world of humanity. Yes, lofty politics combined with scientific wisdom — it must come from science, which is not attracted by material gain but looks towards the future and tells us about things we may not foresee. How many years ago did they tell us in Kyoto about certain facts linked to climate change?

We have finally learned that intelligence must be at the helm, guiding the ship to port. Actions of this nature and others that we cannot name, yet which we believe to be crucial, require life and not acquired wealth. Obviously, we are not so naïve; these and other things like that will not come to pass Many pointless sacrifices still lie ahead of us. We still must deal with the consequences and not tackle the causes. Today, the world is incapable of establishing global regulations for the planet, due to the failure of lofty global politics, which meddles with everything.

For a time, we were protected by more or less regional agreements, established to create a deceitful so- called free trade that in the end constructed protectionist, supranational barriers in some regions of the globe. In turn, important branches of industry and services dedicated to saving and improving the environment will arise. We will be comforted by that for a while. We will be distracted.

But of course, the accumulation will continue unabated, to the delight of the financial system. Wars and fanaticism will continue until nature calls us to account and makes our civilization non-viable. Perhaps our vision is too crude, not compassionate enough, and we view man as a unique creature, the only one on Earth capable of acting against his own species.

I reiterate that what some call our planet’s ecological crisis is the result of the overwhelming triumph of human ambition. This is our triumph and our defeat, given our political impotence to fit into the new era that we have helped to build without realizing it.

Why do I say this? The numbers tell the story. The truth is that the global population quadrupled and gross domestic product grew by a factor of at least 20 over the past century. World trade has doubled approximately every six years since 1990. We could continue to list numbers that clearly establish the march of globalization. What is happening to us? We are entering a new era, and rapidly, but with our political bodies, cultural accessories, parties and young people all reduced to old age before the horrific and accelerating changes that we cannot even grasp. We cannot manage globalization because we do not think globally. We do not know if this is a cultural limitation or we are reaching biological limits. The portents of revolution are present in our age as in no other in the history of humankind, yet our age does not have a conscious direction or even a basic instinctive direction, and still less organized political direction, because we do not have even the beginnings of a philosophy with which to face the speed of oncoming changes.

The greed that has been such a negative force and such a driver of history has also pushed forward the material, scientific and technical progress that has made our era and our time what it is and has enabled a phenomenal leap forward on many different fronts. At the same time, this very tool — the greed that pushed us to domesticate science and transform technology — is paradoxically pushing us over the edge into a shadowy abyss, towards an unknown fate, an era without history, and we are left without eyes to see or the collective intelligence to continue to colonize and transform ourselves.

If there is one thing that defines this tiny little human creature, it is that it is an anthropocentric conqueror. It seems that things come alive and submit to men. Glimpses of these things abound everywhere, glimmers that should allow us to discern these things, or at least make out the direction in which things are headed, but it is clearly impossible to make collective, global decisions about the big picture. Individual greed easily triumphs over our species’ greed. Let us be clear. What is the big picture of which we speak? It is the system of global life on Earth, including human life, with all the fragile balances that make it impossible for us to continue as we are.

On the other hand — and this is less contentious and more obvious — in the West in particular, because we are indeed from the West, though we are also from the South, the republics arose to make the claim that men are equal, that no one is better than anyone else, and that Governments should represent the common good, justice and equity. Often, these republics become warped and fall into the habit of ignoring ordinary people, the man on the street, the common people. Republics were not created to outgrow their constituents, but instead are historical phenomena designed to function for their own people. They must therefore answer to majority and must fight for its interests.

As for the traces of feudalism that persist in our societies, or the domineering classicism, or the consumer culture that surrounds us all, in the course of their existence republics often adopt a way of daily life that excludes and holds at arm’s length the common man. In fact, that common man should be the central cause of the republic’s political struggle. Republican Governments should increasingly look like their respective peoples in the way they live and the way they deal with life.

The fact is that we tend to cultivate feudal anachronisms, spoiled affectations and hierarchical distinctions that undermine the best feature of republics — the fact that no one is better than anyone else. The interaction of those factors and others keeps us living in prehistory, and today it is impossible to renounce war when politics fails. Thus, economies are strangled and resources wasted. Every minute in the life of our planet, we spend $2 million on military budgets around the world — $2 million a minute. Medical research on all manner of diseases, which has made huge advances and is a blessing that promises longer life, receives barely a fifth of what is budgeted for the military. That process, from which we cannot escape, perpetuates hatred, fanaticism and distrust, fuels new wars and wastes fortunes.

I know that it is very easy politically to criticize ourselves at the national level, and I think it naive in this world to propose that resources that could be saved and spent on other, useful things. Again, that would be possible if we were capable of making global agreements and working on global prevention and world policies aimed at ensuring peace and offering the weakest among us guarantees that do not exist.

Enormous resources would have to be cut to address the most shameful things on Earth, but one question suffices. Where can humankind as it is today go without those guarantees? Thus, each wields arms commensurate with his size.

And that is where we are today, because we can barely reason as individuals, let alone as a species.Global institutions, especially today, languish in the shadow of the dissenting great nations. Clearly, such nations wish to hold on to power. They block action by the United Nations, which was created in the hope and with a dream of peace for humankind. But what is even worse is that they have cut it off from global democracy. We are not all equal. We cannot be equal in a world where some are strong and others weak.As a result, our world democracy is wounded, and we face the historical impossibility of reaching a global peace agreement. We patch up diseases when an outbreak occurs as one or other of the great Powers wishes, while we look on from afar.

It would be difficult to invent a force that is worse than the chauvinistic nationalism of the great Powers. Nationalism, a force that liberates the weak through the process of decolonization, has become a tool of oppression in the hands of the strong. The past two centuries are full of examples. The United Nations is languishing and becoming increasingly bureaucratic from lack of power and autonomy, above all of recognition of democracy for the weak of the world, who are the majority.

By way of a very small example, our little country is in absolute terms the largest Latin American
contributor of soldiers to peace building missions, and we go wherever we are asked to go. But we are small and weak, and in the places where resources are distributed and decisions made, we cannot go even to serve coffee. In our heart of hearts we long to help humankind emerge from prehistory — and people who live with war are still living in prehistory, despite the many artifacts they can build — but as long as we do not emerge from prehistory and retire war as a resort when politics fails, that is the long march and challenge we have ahead of us. We say that in full awareness; we are familiar with the loneliness of war.
Such dreams, however, require us to fight for an agenda of world agreements that can begin to steer our history and overcome life’s threats, step by step. Our species should have a Government for all
humankind that supersedes individualism and creates political leaders who follow the path of science and not merely the immediate interests of those governing and suffocating us. At the same time, we must understand that the world’s poor are not from Africa or Latin America; they are all part of humankind, and that means that we must help them to develop so they can lead decent lives. The necessary resources exist. They can be found in the waste of our predatory civilization.

A few days ago a tribute was delivered in a fire station in California. An electric bulb had been turned on for 100 years. It had been on for 100 years! How many millions of dollars have they taken from our pockets deliberately creating junk so that people will buy and buy and buy? But globalization means a brutal cultural change for our planet and for our life. That is what history demands from us. The entire material basis has changed and it has changed man. In our culture, we act as if nothing had happened.Instead of us controlling globalization, it controls us.

Almost 20 years ago, we discussed the humble Tobin tax, which could not be applied at a global level. All of the banks with financial power rose up against it. Their private property and who knows how many other things would be harmed. However, that is the paradox. With talent and collective work, with science, step by step humankind can make deserts green; humankind can bring agriculture to the seas; humankind can develop agriculture that lives with salt water.

If the power of humankind is focused on what is essential, it is infinite. Here we see the greatest sources of energy. What do we know about photosynthesis? Almost nothing. There is a great deal of energy in the world, if we work together to use it properly. It is possible to eliminate poverty from the planet. It is possible to create stability. It will be possible for future generations, if they begin to reason as a species and not just as individuals, to bring life to the galaxies and pursue this dream of conquest that we, human beings, have in our genes.

But if those dreams are to come true, we will have to control ourselves or we will die. We will die because we are not capable of being at the level of the civilization that we have been developing with our efforts. That is our dilemma. We should not spend our time merely correcting the consequences. Let us consider the deep- rooted causes, the civilization of waste, the present civilization that is stealing time from human life and wasting it on pointless matters.

Let us remember that human life is a miracle. Consider that human life is a miracle, that we are alive as a result of a miracle, and that nothing is more important than life. Our biological duty is, above all, to respect life, promote it, take care of it, reproduce it and understand that the species is our being.

Emmanuel Macron: ' The bugles sounded and the bells of every church rang out', Armistice Centennial - 2018

11 November 2018, Paris, France

On November 7, 1918, when Bugle Corporal Pierre Sellier sounded the first ceasefire at around 10 a.m., many soldiers couldn’t believe it; they then emerged slowly from their positions while, in the distance, the same bugle calls repeated the ceasefire and then the notes of the Last Post, before church bells spread the news throughout the country.

On November 11, 1918, at 11 a.m., 100 years ago to the day and the hour, in Paris and throughout France, the bugles sounded and the bells of every church rang out.

It was the Armistice.

It was the end of four long and terrible years of deadly fighting. And yet the Armistice didn’t mean peace. And in the east, for several years, appalling wars continued.

Here, that same day, the French and their allies celebrated their victory. They had fought for their homelands and for freedom. To that end, they had agreed to every sacrifice and every kind of suffering. They had experienced a hell that no one can imagine.

We should take a moment to remember that huge procession of soldiers from metropolitan France and the empire, legionnaires and Garibaldians, and foreigners who had come from all over the world because, for them, France represented everything decent in the world.

Alongside the shadows of Peugeot, the first soldier to fall, and Trébuchon, the last to die for France 10 minutes before the Armistice, they include the primary schooteacher Kléber Dupuy who defended Duaumont, Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars in the Marching Regiment of the Foreign Legion, soldiers from the Basque, Breton and Marseille regiments, Captain de Gaulle, whom nobody knew then, Julien Green the American at the door of his ambulance, Montherlant and Giono, Charles Péguy and Alain Fournier who fell in the first weeks, and Joseph Kessel who had come from Orenburg in Russia.

And all the others, all the others who are ours, or rather to whom we belong and whose names we can read on every monument, from the sunny mountains of Corsica to the Alpine valleys, from Sologne to the Vosges, from the Pointe du Raz to the Spanish border. Yes, a single France, rural and urban, middle-class, aristocratic and working-class, of all hues, where priests and anti-clericals suffered side by side and whose heroism and pain made us what we are.

During those four years, Europe very nearly committed suicide. Mankind was plunged into a hideous maze of ruthless battles, a hell that swallowed up every soldier, whatever side they were on and whatever their nationality.

From the next day, the day after the Armistice, the grim count began of the dead, the wounded, the maimed and the missing. Here in France, but also in each country, families waited in vain for months, for the return of a father, a brother, a husband, a fiancé, and those missing people also included the admirable women who worked alongside the soldiers.

Ten million dead.
Six million wounded and maimed.
Three million widows.
Six million orphans.
Millions of civilian victims.
A million shells fired on French soil alone.

The world discovered the scale of the wounds concealed by the fervor of fighting. The tears of the dying were replaced by those of the survivors, because the whole world had come to fight on French soil. Young men from every province and from overseas France, young men from Africa, the Pacific, the Americas and Asia came to die far from their families, in villages whose names they didn’t even know.

The millions of witnesses from every nation recounted the horror of the fighting, the stench of the trenches, the desolation of the battlefields, the cries of the wounded in the night, and the destruction of lush landscapes until all that remained were the charred silhouettes of trees. Many of those who returned had lost their youth, their ideals, the joy of living. Many were disfigured, blind, amputated. For a long time, winners and losers mourned equally.

1918 was 100 years ago. It seems far away. And yet it was only yesterday!

I’ve traveled the length and breadth of French lands where the harshest battles took place. In my country I’ve seen the still grey and sterile earth of the battlefields! I’ve seen the destroyed villages which had no more inhabitants to rebuild them and which now only bear witness, stone by stone, to the folly of man!

I’ve seen on our monuments the litany of Frenchmen’s names alongside the names of foreigners who died under the French sun; I’ve seen where the bodies of our soldiers lie buried beneath a landscape that has become innocent again, just as I’ve seen where, jumbled together in mass graves, lie the bones of German and French soldiers who, one freezing winter, killed one another for a few meters of ground…

The traces of that war have never been erased in the lands of France, in those of Europe and the Middle East, or in the memories of people throughout the world.

Let’s remember! Let’s not forget! Because the memory of those sacrifices encourages us to be worthy of those who died for us, so that we could live in freedom!

Let’s remember: let’s take away none of the purity, the idealism, the higher principles that existed in the patriotism of our elders. In those dark hours, that vision of France as a generous nation, of France as a project, of France promoting universal values, was the exact opposite of the egotism of a people who look after only their interests, because patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: nationalism is a betrayal of it. In saying “our interests first and who cares about the rest!” you wipe out what’s most valuable about a nation, what brings it alive, what leads it to greatness and what is most important: its moral values.

Let us – the other French people – remember what Clemenceau proclaimed on the day of victory, 100 years ago to the day, from the National Assembly rostrum, before the Marseillaise rang out in an unparalleled chorus: France, which fought for what is right and for freedom, would always and forever be a soldier of ideals.

It’s those values and those virtues that sustained the people we’re honoring today, those who sacrificed themselves in the fighting to which the nation and democracy had committed them. It’s those values, those virtues that made them strong, because they guided their hearts.

The lesson of the Great War cannot be that of resentment by one people against others, any more than it can be to forget the past. It’s a rootedness that forces us to think about the future and what is essential.

From 1918 onwards, our predecessors tried to build peace, invented the first forms of international cooperation, dismantled empires, recognized many nations and redrafted borders; they even dreamed then of a political Europe.

But humiliation, the spirit of revenge and the economic and moral crisis fueled the rise of nationalism and totalitarianism. Twenty years later, war came once again to devastate the paths of peace.

Here today, peoples of the whole world, see just how many of your leaders are gathered on this sacred slab, the burial place of our Unknown Soldier, the poilu [First World War infantryman] who is the anonymous symbol of all those who die for their homeland!

Each of those peoples carries in its wake a long cohort of fighters and martyrs who emerged from it. Each of them is the face of that hope for which a whole young generation agreed to die: that of a world finally peaceful again, a world where friendship between peoples prevails over warlike passions, a world where the spirit of reconciliation prevails over the temptation of cynicism, where bodies and forums enable yesterday’s enemies to engage in dialogue and make it the binding force for understanding, the guarantee of a harmony that is finally possible.

On our continent, such is the friendship forged between Germany and France and the desire to build a foundation of shared ambitions. Such is the European Union, a freely agreed union never seen in history, delivering us from our civil wars. Such is the United Nations Organization, the guarantor of a spirit of cooperation to defend common goods in a world whose destiny is inextricably linked and which has learned the lessons of the painful failures of both the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles.

It’s this certainty that the worst is never inevitable when men and women of goodwill exist. Let’s tirelessly, unashamedly, fearlessly be those men and women of goodwill!

I know, the old demons are reappearing, ready to do their work of spreading chaos and death. New ideologies are manipulating religions and advocating a contagious obscurantism. At times, history threatens to resume its tragic course and jeopardize the peace we’ve inherited and which we thought we had secured for good with the blood of our ancestors.

So let this anniversary day be one on which there is a renewed sense of eternal loyalty to our dead! Let’s again take the United Nations’ oath to place peace higher than anything, because we know its price, we know its weight, we know its demands!

We political leaders must all, here, on this November 11, 2018, reaffirm to our peoples the genuine, huge responsibility we have of passing on to our children the world previous generations dreamed about.

Let’s combine our hopes instead of pitting our fears against each other! Together, we can keep at bay these threats – global warming, poverty, hunger, disease, inequality and ignorance. We’ve begun this battle and can win it: let’s continue with it, because victory is possible!

Together we can break with the new “treason of the intellectuals” which is at work and fuels untruths, accepts the injustice consuming our peoples and sustains extremes and present-day obscurantism.

Together we can bring about the extraordinary flourishing of science, the arts, trade, education and medicine, which I can see the beginnings of throughout the world, because our world is – if we want it to be – at the dawn of a new era, a civilization taking man’s ambitions and faculties to the highest level.

Ruining this hope because of a fascination with self-absorption, violence and domination would be a mistake which future generations would rightly make us historically responsible for. Here, today, let us face with dignity how we are judged in the future.

France knows what it owes its soldiers and every soldier from all over the world. It respects their greatness.

France respectfully and solemnly pays tribute to the dead of other nations it once fought. It stands at their side.

“It is in vain that our feet detach themselves from the soil that holds the dead”, wrote Guillaume Apollinaire.

On the graves where they are buried, may the certainty flourish that a better world is possible if we want it, decide it, build it and will it with all our heart.

Today, on November 11, 2018, 100 years after a massacre whose scar is still visible on the face of the world, I thank you for this gathering which renews the fraternity of November 11, 1918.

May this gathering not last just one day. This fraternity, my friends, actually calls on us to wage the only battle worth waging: the battle for peace, the battle for a better world.

Long live peace between peoples and states!
Long live the free nations of the world!
Long live the friendship between peoples!
Long live France!

Enda Kenny: 'We put away these women because .for too many years we put away our conscience', .Apology to Magdalene Laundries women - 2013

19 February 2013, Dublin, Ireland

I begin today’s debate by thanking Dr Martin McAleese and his team for their excellent work on this report.

I thank equally all the women who met with them to assist in its compilation. I also thank the religious orders who cooperated fully with Dr. McAleese.

Together they have helped provide Ireland with a document of truth.

The Magdalene laundries have cast a long shadow over Irish life over our sense of who we are.

It’s just two weeks since we received this report: the first-ever detailed Report into the State’s involvement in the Magdalene Laundries.

It shines a bright and necessary light on a dark chapter of Ireland’s history.

On coming to office the Government was determined to investigate the facts of the State’s involvement.

The government was adamant that these ageing and elderly women would get the compassion and the recognition for which they have fought for so long deserved so deeply and had, until now, been so abjectly denied.

The reality is that for 90 years Ireland subjected these women and their experience to a profound and studied indifference.

I was determined because of this that this Government – this Dáil – would take the necessary time not just to commission the Report but to actually study it and having done so to reflect on its findings.

I believe that was the best way to formulate a plan and strategy that would help us make amends for the State’s role in the hurt of these extraordinary women.

I’m glad that so many of the women themselves agreed with that approach.

And I’m glad that this time of reflection gave me the chance to do the most important thing of all: to meet personally with the Magdalene Women. To sit down with them, face to face, to listen to their stories.

It was a humbling and inspiring experience.

Today, as their Taoiseach, I am privileged to welcome some of these women to this House many of whom have travelled long distances to be here.

I warmly welcome you every one of you to your national parliament, to Dail Eireann.

What we discuss today is your story. What we address today is how you took this country’s terrible ‘secret’ and made it your own. Burying it carrying it in your hearts here at home, or with you to England and to Canada America and Australia on behalf of Ireland and the Irish people.

But from this moment on you need carry it no more. Because today we take it back. Today we acknowledge the role of the State in your ordeal.

We now know that the State itself was directly involved in over a quarter of all admissions to the Magdalene Laundries.

Be it through the social services reformatories psychiatric institutions county homes the prison and probation service and industrial schools.

In fact we have decided to include all the Magdalene women in our response regardless of how they were admitted.

Dr McAleese set out to investigate five areas in particular;

1: The routes by which the women entered the laundries
2: Regulations of the workplace and State inspections
3: State funding of and financial assistance to the laundries
4: The routes by which the girls and women left the laundries
5: Death registrations, burials and exhumations

In all five areas there was found to be direct State involvement.

As I read this Report and as I listened to these women, it struck me that for generations Ireland had created a particular portrait of itself as a good living God-fearing nation.

Through this and other reports we know this flattering self-portrait to be fictitious.

It would be easy to explain away all that happened – all we did in those great moral and social salves of ‘the culture back then’ = the ‘order of the day’, ‘the terrible times that were in it’.

Yes, by any standards it was a cruel, pitiless Ireland distinctly lacking in a quality of mercy. That much is clear, both from the ages of the Report, and from the stories of the women I met.

As I sat with these women as they told their stories it was clear that while every woman’s story was different each of them shared a particular experience of a particular Ireland judgemental intolerant petty and prim.

In the laundries themselves some women spent weeks others months more of them years. But the thread that ran through their many stories was a palpable sense of suffocation not just physical in that they were incarcerated but psychological .spiritual social. Their stories were enriched by an astonishing vividness of recall of situation and circumstance.

Here are some of the things I read in the report and they said directly to me:

“The work was so hard, the regime was cruel.”
“I felt all alone, nobody wanted me.”
“They sent me because they thought I was going to a good school.”
“I seen these older people beside me, I used cry myself to sleep.”
“I was bold, I wasn’t going to school.”
“I was locked up I thought I would never get out.”
“We had to sew at night even when we were sick.”
“I heard a radio sometimes in the distance.”
“We were not allowed to talk to each other.”
“Your letters were checked.”
“I was so short I needed a stool to put washing in.”
“The noise was desperate.”
“I thought I would go mad from the silence.”
“The heat was unbelievable.”
“I broke a cup once and had to wear it hanging around my neck for three days.”
“I felt always tired always wet .always humiliated.”
“My father came for me after three months but I was too ashamed to go home.”
“I never saw my Mam again she died while I was in there.”

The Magdalene Women might have been told that they were washing away a wrong or a sin but we know now and to our shame they were only ever scrubbing away our nation’s shadow.

Today, just as the State accepts its direct involvement in the Magdalene Laundries society too has its responsibility.

I believe I speak for millions of Irish people all over the world when I say we put away these women because .for too many years we put away our conscience.

We swapped our personal scruples for a solid public apparatus that kept us in tune and in step with a sense of what was ‘proper behaviour’ or the ‘appropriate view’ according to a sort of moral code that was fostered at the time particularly in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

We lived with the damaging idea that what was desirable and acceptable in the eyes of the Church and the State was the same and interchangeable.

Is it this mindset then this moral subservience that gave us the social mores the required and exclusive ‘values’ of the time that welcomed the compliant, obedient and lucky ‘us’ and banished the more problematic, spirited or unlucky ‘them’?

And to our nation’s shame it must be said that if these women had managed to scale the high walls of the laundries they’d have had their work cut out for them to negotiate the height and the depth of the barricades around society’s ‘proper’ heart. For we saw difference as something to be feared and hidden rather than embraced and celebrated.

But were these our ‘values’?

Because we can ask ourselves for a State – least of all a republic.
What is the ‘value’ of the tacit and unchallenged decree that saw society humiliate and degrade these girls and women?

What is the ‘value’ of the ignorance and arrogance that saw us publicly call them ‘Penitents’ for their ‘crime’ of being poor or abused or just plain unlucky enough to be already the inmate of a reformatory, or an industrial school or a psychiatric institution?

We can ask ourselves as the families we were then what was worthy what was good about that great euphemism of ‘putting away’ our daughters our sisters our aunties ?

Those ‘values’ those failures those wrongs characterised Magdalene Ireland.

Today we live in a very different Ireland with a very a different consciousness awareness – an Ireland where we have more compassion empathy insight heart.

We do because at last we are learning those terrible lessons. We do because at last we are giving up our secrets.

We do because in naming and addressing the wrong, as is happening here today, we are trying to make sure we quarantine such abject behaviour in our past and eradicate it from Ireland’s present and Ireland’s future.

In a society guided by the principles of compassion and social justice there never would have been any need for institutions such as the Magdalene Laundries.

The Report shows that the perception that the Magdalene Laundries were reserved for what were offensively and judgementally called “fallen women” is not based upon fact at all but upon prejudice. The women are and always were wholly blameless.

Therefore, I, as Taoiseach, on behalf of the State, the government and our citizens deeply regret and apologise unreservedly to all those women for the hurt that was done to them, and for any stigma they suffered, as a result of the time they spent in a Magdalene Laundry.

I hope that the publication of the McAleese Report and this apology makes some contribution to the healing process.

But in reflecting on this Report I have come to the view that these women deserve more than this formal apology, important though it is. I also want to put in place a process by which we can determine how best to help and support the women in their remaining years.

One of the many things I have learned during my recent meetings with these women is that their circumstances and current needs vary greatly from person to person.

That’s why the Government has today asked the President of the Law Reform Commission, Judge John Quirke, to undertake a three month review and to make recommendations as to the criteria that should be applied in assessing the help that the government can provide in the areas of payments and other supports, including medical cards, psychological and counselling services and other welfare needs.

The terms of reference for Judge Quirke will be published later today and I will also arrange for the representatives of the women to be fully briefed on this process. When Judge Quirke has reported, the government will establish a Fund to assist the women, based on his recommendations.

I am confident that this process will enable us to provide speedy, fair and meaningful help to the women in a compassionate and non adversial way. I am determined that the fund will be primarily used to help the women – as is their stated and strong desire – not for legal or administrative costs.

The McAleese Report also refers to women who recounted similar experiences in other residential laundries, such as the laundry offering services to the public operated in the Training Centre at Stanhope Street, Dublin.

The government has decided that these women should be included in both the apology I have extended today, and in the Fund.

I am also conscious that many of the women I met last week want to see a permanent memorial established to remind us all of this dark part of our history.

I agree that this should be done and intend to engage directly with the representative groups and of as many of the women as possible to agree on the creation of an appropriate memorial to be financed by the Government separately from the funds that are being set aside for the direct assistance for the women.

Let me conclude by again speaking directly to the women whose experiences in Magdalene Laundries have negatively affected their subsequent lives.

As a society, for many years we failed you.

We forgot you or, if we thought of you at all, we did so in untrue and offensive stereotypes.

This is a national shame, for which I again say, I am deeply sorry and offer my full and heartfelt apologies.

At the conclusion of my discussions with one group of the Magdalene Women one of those present sang ‘Whispering Hope’. A line from that song stays in my mind – “when the dark midnight is over, watch for the breaking of day”.

Let me hope that this day and this debate – excuse me – heralds a new dawn for all those who feared that the dark midnight might never end.

Tony Abbott: 'We cannot resolve the mystery of needless suffering and death', Memorial to MH17 victims - 2014

7 August 2014, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia

It is an honour to be here in this cathedral dedicated to God and to the better angels of our natures, with the religious and civic leaders of our country, in sorrow and in solidarity with the families of the victims of MH17 on this National Day of Mourning.

Three weeks ago tomorrow, the families of 38 Australians woke up to the very worst news imaginable. Their plane had been shot out of the sky and 298 innocent people murdered, including 38 men, women and children who called Australia home.

Children had lost parents, parents had lost children and an aching void had opened in hundreds of lives made worse by the wanton cruelty of shooting down a passenger jet.

There will be a time to judge the guilty, but today we honour the dead and we grieve with the living.

We cannot bring them back, but we will bring them home, as far as we humanly can.

We do rededicate ourselves today to supporting the bereaved, to obtaining justice for the dead and for their families and to working for a better world.

Today the Australian nation expresses its gratitude for the lives so cruelly cut short and we express our solidarity with those who love them.

The dead of flight MH17 reflect what’s best in modern Australia: doctors who work with refugees, teachers who work with indigenous people and children with disabilities, volunteers in our armed forces and with local charities, business innovators and pillars of local communities, young people filled with passion for the life before them.

What could be more typical of modern Australia than a Malaysian married to a Dutchman, raising their children in outer-metropolitan Melbourne? And what predicament could be more heart-rending than that of a family now bereft of the children that are every parents’ greatest joy?

When those we love are snatched away, nothing can ease the pain. Somehow we who have not been bereaved must reach out to those who have and show, by our love, that love has not abandoned them.

You have not been abandoned and you never will be.

As the news of this atrocity broke right around our country, friends and family began calling and visiting those whose world had been shattered. Within a couple of hours, consular officials were making contact with families to let them know that their country was with them in their darkest moments.

Within 24 hours, hundreds of personnel had been mobilised in Canberra and hundreds more were being mobilised to go abroad to bring home our dead with respect and with dignity.

Hundreds of unarmed Australian police and military have been working around the clock to recover remains and belongings from a war zone. Because this is what Australians do in times of trouble. We reach out to people and do what we can to help. We try to create order in the midst of chaos and we try to inject decency into the vilest of situations.

We cannot fill the void in people's hearts. We cannot dull the ache of loss. We cannot resolve the mystery of needless suffering and death but we can armour ourselves against despair by responding to evil with good – unconquerable good.

As the Maslin family have so beautifully put it – love conquers hate.

So I salute all those who have rallied to their fellow Australians and to all the other victims of MH17 and I especially acknowledge Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, our envoy in Ukraine.

Mostly though, I pay tribute to all those who have lost loved ones. Some of you I have spoken with. Your decency, resilience and compassion have been both humbling and uplifting.

One of you even asked me how I was bearing up because in the depths of your own pain, you were still thinking of others.

Long ago it was written "there is a time to die, a time to weep and a time to mourn”, there is also a time to mend, a time to love, a time for peace and a time for keep.

In time, our thoughts will linger not on how the passengers of flight MH17 died, but on how they lived.

We will remember them as they were - joyful, open, kind and optimistic. A home-sick poet, Dorothea Mackellar, once wrote: "wherever I may die, I know to what brown country my homing thoughts will fly”.

May those who are lost arrive home to the people and the country they loved.

May the God of mercy comfort those left behind and may the God of justice answer all our prayers.

Dean Smith: 'Our country has offered a loving embrace to its own' , Third reading, Marriage Equaltiy Bill - 2017

29 November 2017, Canberra, Australia

Just under three years ago, I moved from no to yes. At 30,000 feet on a flight from Perth to Albany, I reflected on the life of Tori Johnson. Tori lost his life in the Lindt Cafe siege. He was brave, he was courageous and he had a partner named Thomas. On that flight, I thought of their love, I thought of their loss, and it changed me. I realised that people with real lives deserve their love to be blessed and affirmed by the institution of marriage if they so choose.

I am, as many of you know, a man who draws strength from institutions. They are the structures that bind us as communities and as a nation. So I begin by acknowledging my pride in this institution, the Australian Senate. Every senator has brought honour to their state and to the pillar of democracy to which we all belong. This has been a respectful debate—but, I should add, not an insipid one. It has drawn out intellect, wisdom, judgement and compassion. In this debate, we saw the soul of the Attorney; the lived experience of Senator Wong, Senator Rice and Senator Pratt; the conscience of those who oppose this bill; and the conviction of those who supported it. In a time when institutions are questioned, we have seen in this debate how our parliament was meant to work—where life experiences inform decisions, where amendments are weighted and assessed against good argument and where we debate according to an argument's merits rather than taking the political shortcut of questioning each other's motives or integrity. The real question out of this debate is: why isn't our parliament like this more often?

Over the past few years, there have been times when it has been tough to not be part of the majority of my party on this issue. I had to find my place where my conscience and my duty could be reconciled. So I say to all in this chamber: be kind to those who, in following their conscience, choose a different path. They have my respect, and I ask you to give them yours. There it is a cost that accompanies the privilege of service, but that cost should never include giving up one's conscience. It is for that reason that the bill includes protections for religious liberty. I am a conservative. A true conservative does not believe that they are the embodiment of all wisdom. Conservatives are not supposed to resist change; they are simply supposed to weigh change. We weigh change by considering the past as well as listening to our contemporaries. I acknowledge all in this debate.

The debate confirmed the evolutionary nature of this bill. The lack of substantive amendments indicates we got the balance correct. The bill expresses a faith in the current architecture of Australia's religious protections. The architecture is precise. It has allowed a multitude of faiths to thrive, and that will not change. The bill is the fulfilment of the people's will to extend equality to all citizens and it takes away no religious or civil right from anyone.

To those who have opposed this bill, I say: there is enormous goodwill to ensure that this is not the triumph of one group over another but the advancement of the sum of freedoms for all of us. Unlike so much of what characterises modern politics, this is not the triumph of one politician over another or even one party over another. Instead, it has restored faith in our parliament and in this Senate. Maybe, again, there's a broader lesson to be learned.

Like much of what we do here, most of the real winners we will never meet. We will never truly know what it means for the young Australian boy or girl who is working out that they are gay, lesbian, intersex or transgender and who quickly realises they have nothing to fear. We will never meet the thousands of families that will bless their children at marriage ceremonies that will occur because of this bill. Those parents do not think of their children as LGBTI; they think of them by their names. To their parents, they have no rainbow initial, because they see them as flesh and blood. They are kin, and that is what matters most.

And this house, the embodiment of the states, and the other place, the embodiment of our citizens, want the very same thing. We want the very best for our citizens: that they are loved and can be loved. We want them to experience joy and hope, and to experience exhilaration and its companion, heartache, because that is what it means to be human.

In a world where there are more tensions between people than ever, our country has offered a loving embrace to its own. As the Attorney-General said, in the course of a generation, we have seen the LGBTI community move from rejection to tolerance, from tolerance to acceptance, and now from acceptance to embrace. We should be proud of that. I certainly am.

This debate has demonstrated that the bill proposed is evolutionary in nature. There are no substantive changes. Is it perfect? No. As senators Di Natale and McKim admitted in their second reading speeches, it is a compromise. As Senator Kitching reminded us, it even brings together senators Rhiannon and Leyonhjelm—at least for a few brief moments. But a few brief moments of joy is what our country has ached for, because we know it will result in a lifetime of joy for so many others.

As we prepare to vote, we should recall this has been a very long path. Some have put this case for a decade and a half; others, like myself, are latecomers. For all, it has been an accepting and welcoming cause. The Good Book says:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

We can say today, after so long, that our hopes are no longer deferred.

Most in this chamber came from a party, and our parties are in so many ways the modern tribes of our nation. And let me, for a brief moment, express my pride in my party. Liberal and National voters voted yes—71 out of 76 coalition seats voted yes—because coalition voters understand that this reflects the best of our Liberal and conservative traditions.

It is correct to say many people across this chamber can take pride in their role in bringing this to a successful conclusion at this historic juncture. I especially want to thank my coalition Senate colleagues Senator Birmingham, Senator Payne, Senator Reynolds and Senator Hume.

If there is a lesson for my party from this debate, it is that we should not fear free debates. We should not fear conscience. The more the debate was resisted, the more the strength was found to fight for it. At some later point, we should reflect on how we can avoid that tortured process from ever having to happen again.

This debate has been good for the soul of the country, it's been good for the soul of this chamber and it will be good for the souls of LGBTI children throughout our great country. It's been good for us all, no matter whether you were a 'yes' senator or a 'no' senator, because we lived out the call of the saint: in essential things, unity; in important things, diversity; in all things, generosity. Unity, diversity, generosity—they are the hallmark of this bill, they are the hallmark of this chamber and they are the hallmark of our shared great country, Australia. I commend the bill.

Honourable senators: Hear, hear!

Dean Smith: 'Nothing speaks of acceptance more than marriage,' Second reading, Marriage Equality Bill - 2017

16 November 2017, Canberra,Australia

The votes of the Australian people were tallied and the Australian people have voted Yes to changing the Marriage Act.

I know many people questioned the original plebiscite. I did.

Many opposed the postal survey. I did.

And many gay and lesbian people felt uncomfortable asking for equal rights before the law, because why should you supplicate for the same rights and responsibilities as others?

Nevertheless, we must acknowledge with awe and gratitude, the willingness of our countrymen and women to stand beside us, to affirm us and to join us in voting Yes.

On behalf of the gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and intersex Australians and their families, I say, with humility and gratitude, thank you.

Yesterday, we saw a glimpse of the country that we all yearn for — a country that is fair-minded, generous and accepting.

We saw a country that was willing to embrace its hopes rather than hold on to its fears.

And many of us across this chamber have seen something of the great Australian story that compelled us into public life.

For the liberals and conservatives who yearned for change, we see in this result the "shining city on a hill" — with more freedom, more acceptance and more grace.

And for those opposite, they have lived out Ben Chifley's magnificent call to "fight for the right" so that "truth and justice will prevail".

In many cases, Australians voted for someone they knew — and in just as many, they voted for someone they didn't.

The wonder of this result is that it brings together young and old, gay and straight, conservative and progressive, immigrant and Indigenous into the most unifying Australian coalition.

True, some wanted a 15-year debate to be over so that we could move on to other pressing issues, but mostly, there was an understanding by our fellow citizens that the life path for a young gay or lesbian teenager or young adult is harder than their heterosexual brothers and sisters.

Australians voted to make that path easier.

It wasn't just a vote of acceptance — it was the deep loving embrace of a big family.

Mr President, every time we stand in this chamber we do so as representatives of the people.

In amending the Marriage Act, we do so knowing that we have the full confidence of the Australian people.

The senators from Tasmania know that 63.6 per cent of Tasmanian voters said Yes.

The senators from Queensland know that 60.7 per cent of Queensland voters said Yes.

The senators from this fine Capital Territory know that 74 per cent of Canberrans voted Yes.

The senators from NSW know that 57.8 per cent of Australia's most populous state voted Yes.

The senators from Victoria know that 64.9 per cent of Victorian residents voted Yes.

The senators from the rugged Top End know that 60.6 per cent of Territorians voted Yes.

The senators from South Australia know that 62.5 per cent of electors voted Yes.

And my 11 brother and sister senators from the great state of Western Australia know that our home state delivered a resounding 63.7 per cent Yes vote.

If ever there was a vote that took us back to being the states' house, I say this is it.

We should also note that 133 electoral divisions out of 150 delivered a Yes vote — in Western Australian it was a clean-sweep where all of its 16 electorates voted Yes.

Mr President, this was not just a vote about a law, but a vote about who we are as a people.

I have listened to hundreds, if not thousands, of LGBTI Australians in past years. Many have written, emailed, Facebooked, tweeted, spoken to me in airports and at functions, or simply picked up the phone.

There is a commonality in all those conversations and in all our lives.

It is that of rejection and acceptance, isolation and inclusion, and shame and pride.

It's the silent chord that runs through all of our lives, but acutely through the lives of LGBTI Australians.

All too often, the biggest hurdle for so many is that of self-acceptance — and finding that path where we can honestly reconcile who we are with the hopes and dreams we have for our lives and what we think are the expectations of others.

I have been fortunate: I have an accepting, embracing and loving family. The heartbeat of their love for me didn't skip a beat. Not everyone is that fortunate.

My own journey of acceptance has been greatly influenced by a book I read as a younger man.

The book was Coming Out Conservative by Martin Liebman. It helped answer that question we all face: What must I do to live an honest and authentic life?

It's a book that has sustained me through good times and bad.

Liebman writes:

"If I have learned anything about life, it is to be yourself. Be what you are, no matter who you are or how you were born. Don't try to be what others want you to be. Accept the difference of others. Include them in your lives. By shutting others out merely because they are different, you diminish your own life and that of your children."

The decision of the Australian people to allow same-sex couples to marry is an offered hand to those deep chords within gay and lesbian Australians.

Nothing speaks of acceptance more than marriage.

Marriage is also the way that we admit adult members to our families.

As Paul Ritchie wrote in Faith, Love and Australia: The conservative case for same-sex marriage:

"Marriage can be a powerful affirmation of our lives. A wedding is the day we see our parents' joyful tears and receive their blessing; it is when we hear our best friend's speech with love hidden in the humour; and it is when the love of our life is admitted to our family, and we to theirs."

It is the day we are blessed by our families. Because of this bill, that blessing will no longer be denied to our LGBTI children.

One of the reasons this bill is so vital is that it reflects the deepest of liberal and conservative ideals.

Liberal because it advances the sum of freedoms, and conservative because it nurtures our families, affirms a vital institution, and strengthens the social fabric which is but the sum of all of our human relationships.

Today I think of John Gorton, the only prime minister to come from the Senate, who 44 years ago moved a motion calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

In him, we saw a liberalism that was empathetic — and a man, who even after achieving the highest office, was still willing to walk a mile in another man's shoes.

Gorton's mantle was taken up by hundreds of Liberal and National Party members who leant their name to the Libs and Nats for Yes campaign. To all, I say thank you.

Jack Kennedy once said, with more than a touch of irony, that "victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan".

When I look at this victory and the thousands who made it possible, I keep thinking of one man: the one who carried the torch before there were any openly LGBTI members of the Coalition in the Parliament.

That man is the Member for Leichardt, Warren Entsch.

Like John Gorton, he has a wonderful mix of gruffness and empathy that made him the most unexpected but compelling warrior.

This bill is more Warren's than anyone's — we simply walk in the tracks that he has laid.

Mr President, the Australian people have voted to change the Marriage Act. Now we must move decisively on their behalf.

The postal survey was a vote on amending the Marriage Act. Full stop.

Yes, there are other worthy debates about freedom of expression and living out our shared values — and yes, I will be a willing and enthusiastic participant in those debates. But those matters cannot be part of the Marriage Act — they can live for another day.

This bill, in keeping with the express will of the Australian people, is solely about amending the Marriage Act.

I believe this is a comprehensive bill and I am willing to engage in the substantive issues the bill addresses.

This bill seeks to remove existing discrimination from the Marriage Act, protect religious institutions and does not re-introduce commercial discrimination.

Let me be clear: amendments that seek to address other issues, or which seek to deny gay and lesbian Australians with the full rights, responsibilities and privileges that they already have, will be strenuously opposed.

Australians did not vote for equality before the law so that equality before the law that has already been gained is stripped away.

This is a fair bill.

This bill recognises the special place of marriage that transcends our civic and religious life.

In many ways, the undercurrent debate over recent years has been the question: is marriage a holy secular institution or a wholly secular institution?

My message is that it can still be both — without curtailing our civic or religious freedoms.

This bill advances the civic right of all Australians and provides protection for religious institutions to continue to be guided by the tenets of their faith.

Nothing in this bill takes away an existing right, nor does any of it diminish an existing civil freedom.

The change proposed in this bill is not revolutionary, it is evolutionary.

Yesterday's decisive outcome after a 15-year debate is a reflection of Edmund Burke's admonition that: "Time is required to produce that union of minds which alone can produce all the good we aim at. Our patience will produce more than our force."

Mr President, whether we admit it or not, we all bring our full selves to this place.

All of us are a product of our families, our histories, our connections and the parties and communities from which we come. It is the strength and wonder of being a representative body.

I have spoken very much today as a gay Australian.

Let me say a few words as someone who is also a Christian Australian. It is as much a part of who I am as my nationality or indeed my sexuality — and it is, in part, why I wrestled with this issue for so long.

Being true to self is often as much about being true to the people who have loved us and nurtured us. And that equally applies to me.

My faith is not a platform, it's a refuge. It's why on my office desk there stands a crucifix — it gives me strength when there appear to be difficulties ahead.

So I want to acknowledge the very genuine concerns of some Christians and religious people around Australia have expressed during this postal survey and give voice to them.

People voted No, not because they had a particular problem with gay and lesbian Australians, but because they felt it was the easiest expression of their fear about the change in Australian culture towards people of religious faith.

The No advocates spoke much about religious freedom but couldn't point to what freedom was exactly being lost.

That's because what religious people fear has very little to do with laws — but everything to do with culture.

Let me express the fears that many people of faith have in our modern world.

Many Australians voted No because they fear a world where they won't be able to live their identity; where they can't fully express who they are.

They fear a world where they will be shamed for who they are.

They fear a world where their faith will be questioned by internet mobs and government tribunals.

They fear a world where they mightn't be promoted at work if people knew what they believed or how they lived.

They fear a world of ostracism for who they are and what God they follow.

They fear a world where violence might be directed against them by a mad few for no other reason than the faith they profess or the place in which they worship. I understand.

I understand these fears — because they are reflections of the fears that LGBTI citizens have felt through our country's history. Fears about acceptance, fears about jobs, fears about hiding part of you, and yes, fears about violence.

This vote is not about — and must not be about — replacing one persecuted minority with another.

Or giving one group hope, while inflicting another with fear.

It must be about advancing the hopes and dreams of all citizens no matter their sexuality, ethnicity or religion.

As Australians we have a shared inheritance.

Sir Robert Menzies, using the beautiful words of St Paul, said that we are, as Australians, "members of one another". And indeed we are.

The error of our times, Mr President, is that all too often in this chamber we seek to advance the base that elected us rather than the nation that needs us. Where we play to one group rather than advance all.

Yes, this is a great day for our democracy and our country, but it is also a day when we reaffirm our commitment to affirm the different identities of all our citizens — and pledge ourselves to protect them all.

Mr President.

As a young man, I never believed I could serve as a senior adviser to a prime minister or a premier, because I was a gay man. John Howard and Richard Court both proved me wrong.

I never believed that I could be pre-selected to be a Liberal Party candidate and senator. The Liberal Party proved me wrong.

I didn't believe my name would ever be accepted by the people at an election. The people of Western Australia proved me wrong.

And I never believed the day would come when my relationship would be judged by my country to be as meaningful and valued as any other. The Australian people have proven me wrong.

To those who want and believe in change — and to those who seek to seek to frustrate it — I simply say:

Don't underestimate Australia.

Don't underestimate the Australian people.

Don't underestimate our country's sense of fairness, its sense of decency and its willingness to be a country "for all of us".

Not only does our country live these values, it votes for them as well.

Roland Burris: 'So let us pay tribute to the suffering of our forefathers by seeking justice for our children', Juneteenth resolution - 2010

16 June 2010, US Senate, Washington DC, USA

On a hot day in the summer of 1776, delegates from across the American colonies gathered in Philadelphia to cast off the yoke of tyranny and assert the fundamental right of self-government.

That moment, a republic was born, our founders ratified a document unique to human history which contained the landmark words, and i quote -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal." end of quote.

This simple creed became the justification of a great revolutionary war which gave rise to the thriving democracy we inhabit today. Mr. President, that's why we celebrate every Fourth of July as independence day, because of the principles laid out in that remarkable declaration.

But tragically, almost a century after that document was ratified, the equality of all men remain an unfulfilled promise. It began to seem that the declaration of independence defined our aspirations rather than our core beliefs. Slavery, brutal and unjust, remained legal throughout the majority of the 19th century and helped set the stage for the bloodiest war we have ever known.

As President Lincoln had dearly hoped, out of that terrible violence was born a new and more complete freedom, a freedom that wiped out the scourge of slavery once and for all and realized a promise our founding fathers documented for all Americans. Mr. President, that is why on Saturday, many in this country observe another independence day known as Juneteenth.

Slavery ended in the confederate states of America when President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Many slaves did not learn of their freedom until much later. Finally, on June 19, 1865, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Union soldiers led by Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas. They brought news that must have been almost unbelievable to all who heard it. The Civil War was over, they announced that all slaves were free.

From that day on, former slaves in the southwest celebrated June 19 as the anniversary for their emancipation. That is why i have introduced a Senate resolution observing the historical significance of this date, Juneteenth, independence day.

Over the past 145 years, Juneteenth celebrations have been held to honor African-American freedom, but this date has come to hold even greater significance. Throughout the world, Juneteenth celebrations lifted up the spirit of freedom and railed against the forces of oppression.

At long last, this day is beginning to be recognized as both a national event and a global celebration. Just as the Fourth of July marks the beginning of a journey that continues even today, we must not forget that the long march to freedom that started on june 19 is far from over.

Our country has made great strides in the century and a half since slavery was abolished, but deep wounds are slow to heal. We will never be able to rewrite this terrible history, but we can and we must, Mr. President, do everything we can to rise above it, to seek constructive solutions to the problems that time alone cannot wash away, problems that still affect the African-american communities on a daily basis, from discrimination to crime to health care disparities to unemployment and to substance abuse and so on.

So let us pay tribute to the suffering of our forefathers by seeking justice for our children. Let us remember our past by looking to our future and confronting these problems with bold new solutions. This is the day for all of us to stand together and lift up the liberties we hold so dear, a day to look forward, look ahead to tomorrow and continue to fight for freedom and equality.

So i ask my colleagues to stand with me. I ask them to support my resolution observing the historical significance of Juneteenth, independence day. I invite them to share in the joy of those who greeted union soldiers in Galveston more than 140 years ago. Mr. President, very briefly, on another subject, in terms of President Obama's speech last night on the crisis in the Gulf, i just want to let it be known for the record that i support our president in that speech and every effort that he has made in trying to give direction and a solution to the problems that we're experiencing down on our Gulf coast, and i find it disheartening and disappointing that all of these commentators who want to attack our President, want him to be angry, want him to act -- i have no idea what they want this man to do, but i know that this man is doing all he can for the people of America, and i ask those commentators to get off of his back.

Stop attacking the President who had nothing to do with that problem and is putting everything he has, the resources that America has to solve this problem. This has never happened before in our history. It's a problem beyond comprehension. Yet still these Monday morning quarterbacks set back and criticize and bring out their undocumented types of statements about our President. I just feel emotionally disturbed by what is happening.

So i say to all Americans this President is doing all he can to support this issue that we are facing. And you have got to deal with BP. , you have got to deal with Transocean and you have to deal with Haliburtan. Those are the ones that are responsible for this problem. Let's go after them, make them pay, make them deal -- get the solution, and therefore Americans can move forward.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor, and i suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

Stefan Löfven: "The eyes of the world are on China ... sorry India', Make in India forum - 2020

14 February 2016, Mumbai, India

Good evening Mumbai, nama ste! The eyes of the world are on China … sorry India.

Mhairi Black: 'I would have to ask on who is the sun shining?', maiden speech - 2015

14 July, 2015, House of Commons, Westminster, United Kingdom

Firstly in my maiden speech I want to pay tribute to my predecessor Douglas Alexander. He served the constituency for many years. After all, I was only three when he was elected. But it is because of that fact that I want to thank him for all he did for the constituency and I especially want to take a moment to commend him for the dignified way that he handled himself on what must have been a very difficult election night. He did himself proud, he did his party proud, and I wish him the best for the future.

Now, when I discovered it is tradition to speak bout the history of your constituency in a maiden speech, I decided to do some research despite the fact I’ve lived there all my life. And as one of the tale end doing the maiden speech of my colleagues in the SNP I’ve noticed that my colleagues quite often mention Rabbie Burns a lot and they all try to form this intrinsic connection between him and their own constituency and own him for themselves. I however feel no need to do this for during my research I discovered a fact which trumps them all. William Wallace was born in my constituency.

Now, my constituency has a fascinating history far beyond the Hollywood film and historical name. from the mills of Paisley, to the industries of Johnstone, right to the weavers in Kilbarchan, it’s got a wonderful population with a cracking sense of humour and much to offer both the tourists and to those who reside there. But the truth is that within my constituency it’s not all fantastic. We’ve watched our town centres deteriorate. We’re watched our communities decline. Our unemployment level is higher than that of the UK average. One in five children in my constituency go to bed hungry every night. Paisley Job Centre has the third highest number of sanctions in the whole of Scotland.

Before I was elected I volunteered for a charitable organisation and there was a gentleman who I grew very fond of. He was one of these guys who has been battered by life in every way imaginable. You name it, he’s been through it. And he used to come in to get food from this charity, and it was the only food that he had access to and it was the only meal he would get. And I sat with him and he told me about his fear of going to the Job Centre. He said “I’ve heard the stories Mhairi, they try and trick you out, they’ll tell you you’re a liar. I’m not a liar Mhairi, I’m not.” And I told him “It’s OK, calm down. Go, be honest, it’ll be fine.”

I then didn’t see him for about two or three weeks. I did get very worried, and when he finally did come back in I said to him “how did you get on?”

And without saying a word he burst into tears. That grown man standing in front of a 20-year-old crying his eyes out, because what had happened to him was the money that he would normally use to pay for his travel to come to the charity to get his food he decided that in order to afford to get to the Job Centre he would save that money. Because of this, he didn’t eat for five days, he didn’t drink. When he was on the bus on the way to the Job Centre he fainted due to exhaustion and dehydration. He was 15 minutes later for the Job Centre and he was sanctioned for 13 weeks.

Now, when the Chancellor spoke in his budget about fixing the roof while the sun is shining, I would have to ask on who is the sun shining? When he spoke about benefits not supporting certain kinds of lifestyles, is that the kind of lifestyle that he was talking about?

Mhairi Black, the twenty year old SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South
If we go back even further when the Minister for Employment was asked to consider if there was a correlation between the number of sanctions and the rise in food bank use she stated, and I quote, “food banks play an important role in local welfare provision.” Renfrewshire has the third highest use of food banks use and food bank use is going up and up. Food banks are not part of the welfare state, they are symbol that the welfare state is failing.

Now, the Government quite rightly pays for me through tax payers money to be able to live in London whilst I serve my constituents. My housing is subsidised by the tax payer. Now, the Chancellor in his budget said it is not fair that families earning over £40,000 in London should have their rents paid for my other working people. But it is OK so long as you’re an MP? In this budget the Chancellor also abolished any housing benefit for anyone below the age of 21. So we are now in the ridiculous situation whereby because I am an MP not only am I the youngest, but I am also the only 20-year-old in the whole of the UK that the Chancellor is prepared to help with housing. We now have one of the most uncaring, uncompromising and out of touch governments that the UK has seen since Thatcher.

It is here now that I must turn to those who I share a bench with. Now I have in this chamber for ten weeks, and I have very deliberately stayed quiet and have listened intently to everything that has been said. I have heard multiple speeches from Labour benches standing to talk about the worrying rise of nationalism in Scotland, when in actual fact all these speeches have served to do is to demonstrate how deep the lack of understanding about Scotland is within the Labour party.

I like many SNP members come from a traditional socialist Labour family and I have never been quiet in my assertion that I feel that it is the Labour party that left me, not the other way about. The SNP did not triumph on a wave of nationalism; in fact nationalism has nothing to do with what’s happened in Scotland. We triumphed on a wave of hope, hope that there was something different, something better to the Thatcherite neo-liberal policies that are produced from this chamber. Hope that representatives genuinely could give a voice to those who don’t have one.

I don’t mention this in order to pour salt into wounds which I am sure are very open and very sore for many members on these benches, both politically and personally. Colleagues, possibly friends, have lost their seats. I mention it in order to hold a mirror to the face of a party that seems to have forgotten the very people they’re supposed to represent, the very things they’re supposed to fight for.

After hearing the Labour leader’s intentions to support the changes of tax credits that the Chancellor has put forward, I must make this plea to the words of one of your own and a personal hero of mine. Tony Benn once said that in politics there are weathercocks and sign posts. Weathercocks will spin in whatever direction the wind of public opinion may blow them, no matter what principal they may have to compromise. And then there are signposts, signposts which stand true, and tall, and principled. And they point in the direction and they say this is the way to a better society and it is my job to convince you why. Tony Benn was right when he said the only people worth remembering in politics were signposts.

Harriet Harman has called on her party to abstain on voting on the welfare and work bill
Now, yes we will have political differences, yes in other parliaments we may be opposing parties, but within this chamber we are not. No matter how much I may wish it, the SNP is not the sole opposition to this Government, but nor is the Labour party. It is together with all the parties on these benches that we must form an opposition, and in order to be affective we must oppose not abstain. So I reach out a genuine hand of friendship which I can only hope will be taken. Let us come together, let us be that opposition, let us be that signpost of a better society. Ultimately people are needing a voice, people are needing help, let’s give them it.