10 December 2002
Former President Jimmy Carter Delivers Nobel Lecture
(Speaks in Oslo after receiving 2002 Peace Prize medal) (2800)
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter received the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize
in a ceremony in Oslo December 10 and urged the world to accept U.N.
leadership in tackling the world's challenges.
"I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled
world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally
accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights,
environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of
law," Carter told a ceremony in Oslo City Hall after receiving a Nobel
gold medal and diploma to a standing ovation.
"Global challenges must be met with an emphasis on peace, in harmony
with others, with strong alliances and international consensus,"
Carter said.
"Imperfect as it may be, there is no doubt that this can best be done
through the United Nations," said the 78-year-old Democrat, who was
President of the United States from 1977-1981.
"We must remember that today there are at least eight nuclear powers
on earth, and three of them are threatening to their neighbors in
areas of great international tension," he said. "For powerful
countries to adopt a principle of preventive war may well set an
example that can have catastrophic consequences.
"If we accept the premise that the United Nations is the best avenue
for the maintenance of peace, then the carefully considered decisions
of the United Nations Security Council must be enforced. All too
often, the alternative has proven to be uncontrollable violence and
expanding spheres of hostility."
Of immediate concern, Carter said, "is the necessity for Iraq to
comply fully with the unanimous decision of the Security Council that
it eliminate all weapons of mass destruction and permit unimpeded
access by inspectors to confirm that this commitment has been honored.
The world insists that this be done."
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil," Carter said. "But no matter
how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn
how to live together in peace by killing each other's children," he
said.
In his speech, Carter also urged Israel to withdraw from occupied
territories, in line with a U.N. resolution, as a key step toward
peace in the Middle East.
Carter also made a plea for acceptance of global standards on major
issues including a ban on land mines, creation of an international
criminal court to try war crimes and ways to combat global warming.
"Those agreements already adopted must be fully implemented, and
others should be pursued aggressively," Carter said.
About one thousand persons attended the Nobel ceremony including
Carter's wife Rosalyn and Norway's King Harald and Queen Sonja.
Following is the text of Carter's remarks, as prepared for delivery
and released by the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
(begin text)
NOBEL LECTURE
By Jimmy Carter, 10 December 2002
Your Majesties, Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is with a deep sense of gratitude that I accept this prize. I am
grateful to my wife Rosalynn, to my colleagues at The Carter Center,
and to many others who continue to seek an end to violence and
suffering throughout the world. The scope and character of our
Center's activities are perhaps unique, but in many other ways they
are typical of the work being done by many hundreds of nongovernmental
organizations that strive for human rights and peace.
Most Nobel laureates have carried out our work in safety, but there
are others who have acted with great personal courage. None has
provided more vivid reminders of the dangers of peacemaking than two
of my friends, Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, who gave their lives for
the cause of peace in the Middle East.
Like these two heroes, my first chosen career was in the military, as
a submarine officer. My shipmates and I realized that we had to be
ready to fight if combat was forced upon us, and we were prepared to
give our lives to defend our nation and its principles. At the same
time, we always prayed fervently that our readiness would ensure that
there would be no war.
Later, as President and as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, I
was one of those who bore the sobering responsibility of maintaining
global stability during the height of the Cold War, as the world's two
superpowers confronted each other. Both sides understood that an
unresolved political altercation or a serious misjudgment could lead
to a nuclear holocaust. In Washington and in Moscow, we knew that we
would have less than a half hour to respond after we learned that
intercontinental missiles had been launched against us. There had to
be a constant and delicate balancing of our great military strength
with aggressive diplomacy, always seeking to build friendships with
other nations, large and small, that shared a common cause.
In those days, the nuclear and conventional armaments of the United
States and the Soviet Union were almost equal, but democracy
ultimately prevailed because of commitments to freedom and human
rights, not only by people in my country and those of our allies, but
in the former Soviet empire as well. As president, I extended my
public support and encouragement to Andrei Sakharov, who, although
denied the right to attend the ceremony, was honored here for his
personal commitments to these same ideals.
The world has changed greatly since I left the White House. Now there
is only one superpower, with unprecedented military and economic
strength. The coming budget for American armaments will be greater
than those of the next fifteen nations combined, and there are troops
from the United States in many countries throughout the world. Our
gross national economy exceeds that of the three countries that follow
us, and our nation's voice most often prevails as decisions are made
concerning trade, humanitarian assistance, and the allocation of
global wealth. This dominant status is unlikely to change in our
lifetimes.
Great American power and responsibility are not unprecedented, and
have been used with restraint and great benefit in the past. We have
not assumed that super strength guarantees super wisdom, and we have
consistently reached out to the international community to ensure that
our own power and influence are tempered by the best common judgment.
Within our country, ultimate decisions are made through democratic
means, which tend to moderate radical or ill-advised proposals.
Constrained and inspired by historic constitutional principles, our
nation has endeavored for more than two hundred years to follow the
now almost universal ideals of freedom, human rights, and justice for
all.
Our president, Woodrow Wilson, was honored here for promoting the
League of Nations, whose two basic concepts were profoundly important:
"collective security" and "self-determination." Now they are embedded
in international law. Violations of these premises during the last
half-century have been tragic failures, as was vividly demonstrated
when the Soviet Union attempted to conquer Afghanistan and when Iraq
invaded Kuwait.
After the second world war, American Secretary of State Cordell Hull
received this prize for his role in founding the United Nations. His
successor, General George C. Marshall, was recognized because of his
efforts to help rebuild Europe, without excluding the vanquished
nations of Italy and Germany. This was a historic example of
respecting human rights at the international level.
Ladies and gentlemen:
Twelve years ago, President Mikhail Gorbachev received your
recognition for his preeminent role in ending the Cold War that had
lasted fifty years.
But instead of entering a millennium of peace, the world is now, in
many ways, a more dangerous place. The greater ease of travel and
communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual
respect. There is a plethora of civil wars, unrestrained by rules of
the Geneva Convention, within which an overwhelming portion of the
casualties are unarmed civilians who have no ability to defend
themselves. And recent appalling acts of terrorism have reminded us
that no nations, even superpowers, are invulnerable.
It is clear that global challenges must be met with an emphasis on
peace, in harmony with others, with strong alliances and international
consensus. Imperfect as it may be, there is no doubt that this can
best be done through the United Nations, which Ralph Bunche described
here in this same forum as exhibiting a "fortunate flexibility" -- not
merely to preserve peace but also to make change, even radical change,
without violence.
He went on to say: "To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play
on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any
who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every
honorable recourse in the effort to save the peace. The world has had
ample evidence that war begets only conditions that beget further
war."
We must remember that today there are at least eight nuclear powers on
earth, and three of them are threatening to their neighbors in areas
of great international tension. For powerful countries to adopt a
principle of preventive war may well set an example that can have
catastrophic consequences.
If we accept the premise that the United Nations is the best avenue
for the maintenance of peace, then the carefully considered decisions
of the United Nations Security Council must be enforced. All too
often, the alternative has proven to be uncontrollable violence and
expanding spheres of hostility.
For more than half a century, following the founding of the State of
Israel in 1948, the Middle East conflict has been a source of
worldwide tension. At Camp David in 1978 and in Oslo in 1993,
Israelis, Egyptians, and Palestinians have endorsed the only
reasonable prescription for peace: United Nations Resolution 242. It
condemns the acquisition of territory by force, calls for withdrawal
of Israel from the occupied territories, and provides for Israelis to
live securely and in harmony with their neighbors. There is no other
mandate whose implementation could more profoundly improve
international relationships.
Perhaps of more immediate concern is the necessity for Iraq to comply
fully with the unanimous decision of the Security Council that it
eliminate all weapons of mass destruction and permit unimpeded access
by inspectors to confirm that this commitment has been honored. The
world insists that this be done.
I thought often during my years in the White House of an admonition
that we received in our small school in Plains, Georgia, from a
beloved teacher, Miss Julia Coleman. She often said: "We must adjust
to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles."
When I was a young boy, this same teacher also introduced me to Leo
Tolstoy's novel, "War and Peace." She interpreted that powerful
narrative as a reminder that the simple human attributes of goodness
and truth can overcome great power. She also taught us that an
individual is not swept along on a tide of inevitability but can
influence even the greatest human events.
These premises have been proven by the lives of many heroes, some of
whose names were little known outside their own regions until they
became Nobel laureates: Albert John Lutuli, Norman Borlaug, Desmond
Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Aung San Suu Kyi, Jody Williams, and even Albert
Schweitzer and Mother Teresa. All of these and others have proven that
even without government power -- and often in opposition to it --
individuals can enhance human rights and wage peace, actively and
effectively.
The Nobel prize also profoundly magnified the inspiring global
influence of Martin Luther King, Jr., the greatest leader that my
native state has ever produced. On a personal note, it is unlikely
that my political career beyond Georgia would have been possible
without the changes brought about by the civil rights movement in the
American south and throughout our nation.
On the steps of our memorial to Abraham Lincoln, Dr. King said: "I
have a dream that on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former
slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down
together at a table of brotherhood."
The scourge of racism has not been vanquished, either in the red hills
of our state or around the world. And yet we see ever more frequent
manifestations of his dream of racial healing. In a symbolic but very
genuine way, at least involving two Georgians, it is coming true in
Oslo today.
I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled
world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally
accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights,
environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of
law.
During the past decades, the international community, usually under
the auspices of the United Nations, has struggled to negotiate global
standards that can help us achieve these essential goals. They
include: the abolition of land mines and chemical weapons; an end to
the testing, proliferation, and further deployment of nuclear
warheads; constraints on global warming; prohibition of the death
penalty, at least for children; and an international criminal court to
deter and to punish war crimes and genocide. Those agreements already
adopted must be fully implemented, and others should be pursued
aggressively.
We must also strive to correct the injustice of economic sanctions
that seek to penalize abusive leaders but all too often inflict
punishment on those who are already suffering from the abuse.
The unchanging principles of life predate modern times. I worship
Jesus Christ, whom we Christians consider to be the Prince of Peace.
As a Jew, he taught us to cross religious boundaries, in service and
in love. He repeatedly reached out and embraced Roman conquerors,
other Gentiles, and even the more despised Samaritans.
Despite theological differences, all great religions share common
commitments that define our ideal secular relationships. I am
convinced that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and
others can embrace each other in a common effort to alleviate human
suffering and to espouse peace.
But the present era is a challenging and disturbing time for those
whose lives are shaped by religious faith based on kindness toward
each other. We have been reminded that cruel and inhuman acts can be
derived from distorted theological beliefs, as suicide bombers take
the lives of innocent human beings, draped falsely in the cloak of
God's will. With horrible brutality, neighbors have massacred
neighbors in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the
inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our
opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all
religions. Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of
God's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value. We deny personal
responsibility when we plant landmines and, days or years later, a
stranger to us -- often a child -- is crippled or killed. From a great
distance, we launch bombs or missiles with almost total impunity, and
never want to know the number or identity of the victims.
At the beginning of this new millennium I was asked to discuss, here
in Oslo, the greatest challenge that the world faces. Among all the
possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal
problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on
earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now seventy-five
times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the
separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also
within them. The results of this disparity are root causes of most of
the world's unresolved problems, including starvation, illiteracy,
environmental degradation, violent conflict, and unnecessary illnesses
that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS.
Most work of The Carter Center is in remote villages in the poorest
nations of Africa, and there I have witnessed the capacity of
destitute people to persevere under heartbreaking conditions. I have
come to admire their judgment and wisdom, their courage and faith, and
their awesome accomplishments when given a chance to use their innate
abilities.
But tragically, in the industrialized world there is a terrible
absence of understanding or concern about those who are enduring lives
of despair and hopelessness. We have not yet made the commitment to
share with others an appreciable part of our excessive wealth. This is
a potentially rewarding burden that we should all be willing to
assume.
Ladies and gentlemen:
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it
is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live
together in peace by killing each other's children.
The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of
our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can
choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for
peace. We can make these changes -- and we must.
Thank you.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
