Let’s just say, as Burns said, we are all brothers
Kofi Annan delivered the inaugural Robert Burns Memorial Lecture at the United Nations in New York, in January 2004. Here is an edited version.
My own presence here tonight is not because I can trace my roots to Scotland. Yes, as we all know, there is a town of Annan there, but my name has a quite different origin. Let’s just say, as Burns himself would, that we are all brothers.
It is one of Burns’s most famous lines – “A man’s a man for a’ that” – that I should like to serve as the touchstone for my remarks. And in particular his prayer, in the same poem, that “Man to Man, the world o’er, Shall brothers be for a’ that”.
Living together is the fundamental human project in towns and villages from Scotland to South Africa, but also as a single human family facing common threats and opportunities.
One of the most disturbing manifestations of bigotry today is Islamophobia – a new word for an old phenomenon. The Crusades and colonialism are just two examples of a poisoned past in which Muslims were first portrayed as hostile or dangerous, and then subjected to aggression and domination. Followers of other faiths owe it to them, and to themselves, to distinguish between disagreement and disdain; between fair comment and unfounded condemnation.
Another dangerous hatred blights our world: antiSemitism. No one should underestimate the depth of the scars left by the long history of persecution, pogroms, institutionalized discrimination and other degradation, culminating in the Holocaust, that has been inflicted on the Jews.
No one should be allowed to use criticism of Israel’s actions as a mask for anti-Semitism. Nor, should Israel’s supporters use the charge of antiSemitism to stifle legitimate discussion.
The enterprise of living together is not easy. Including all people in one’s circle of concern requires us to go beyond our immediate family and friends, and to accept wider notions of kinship and connection.
We have just begun a new year, can almost, still, hear the echo of millions of people singing “Auld Lang Syne”, Burns’s great ode to friendship.
So let us allow hope to be renewed. Let us admire the enduring resonance of the work of Robert Burns.
And let us dream, as he did, of a true brotherhood that embraces and encompasses all humankind, and allows all people a chance to enjoy their inalienable rights, dignity and freedom.