"There is no civilizational clash..."

The same day the World Cup opened, Kofi Annan gave a speech to teenagers graduating from the United Nations International School, New York, in which he says, "There is no civilizational clash. The clash is one of closed minds" (9 June, 2006).

He wanders around a bit in the speech, so I took the liberty of streamlining it. But I left the goofy generational jokes in, and the one Ghana joke (chuckle).

Yours is the most diverse school in the most diverse city on Earth. You speak Hungarian and Hindi, Greek and German and, I suspect, even some hip hop and haiku — almost 90 languages in all! I am proud of my association with [you] — students of all nationalities, religions and ethnicities living and learning in harmony. Many, if not most of you, are headed straight to university. Some may choose to meander a bit — travel, work, volunteer or explore — before continuing your formal education. That is OK too! I have heard Ghana is a wonderful place to visit!

I hope [your education has] prepared you to discharge your responsibility towards your fellow inhabitants of the planet Earth.

Technology, travel and trade have made us interconnected and interdependent. Means of communication have reduced global distances to mere nanoseconds. Consequently, whatever may happen at one end of the globe can intensely affect large populations at the other. No, I don’t just mean the worldwide gasp at Chris Daughtry’s exit from American Idol. Or even the bated breath of billions at the start of the soccer World Cup today. I also have in mind the cartoons, published in one corner of the world, which cause widespread and agonized convulsions in lands far away. Or the acts of terrorism, which are witnessed by men and women around the globe, powerfully affecting their emotions and, sometimes, their actions.

In an interconnected world, none of us can be indifferent to such [consequences]. That is why I hope your time at UNIS has not only instructed your minds, but has also opened your hearts. That alone is the basis of true scholarship and true humanity.

You are not in a “waiting period” — waiting to be leaders, waiting to make a difference. You matter now!

Indeed, you already are making a difference. You live and breathe multiculturalism. People talk of a clash of civilizations. Your diverse backgrounds reinforce my own belief that there is no civilizational clash. The clash is one of closed minds.

A century ago, Woodrow Wilson declared: "We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this."

Today, we know our responsibilities. The tragedy of our times would be to neglect them.

If you want to see the actual text, cut and paste the following link:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2006/sgsm10508.doc.htm

My own little addition is that: we are citizens of the world, and the world includes the Internet.