ألقت صاحبة السمو الملكي الاميرة بسمة بنت سعود
كلمة لها في إتحاد طلبة جامعة كامبريدج تناولت فيها ما يجري من تطورات على
الساحتين العربية والإسلاميه من حيث قضايا الإصلاح وموضوع حقوق الإنسان والحاجة
الملحة إلى نمط جديد من التفكير والقيادة وابتكار أسلوب وطريق لمعاجلة القضايا
محليا وعالميا .
وأكتظت القاعة بعدد كبير من الحضور من الباحثين والأساتذة من مختلف
الإختصاصات والطلبة من مختلف دول العالم للإستماع إلى كلمة الأميرة ورؤيتها لمجمل
القضايا .
وشكل اللقاء فرصة ثمينة لتبادل وجهات النظر وطرح الأسئلة خاصة من قبل
الطلبة الذين خاطبتهم سمو الأميرة بسمة بشكل خاص وحثتهم على العمل الجاد والأشتراك
أيضاً في البحث عن مخارج وأساليب مبتكرة للتصدي لتحديات العصر ومشاكل العالم .
وكانت سمو الاميرة بسمة بنت سعود إلتقت قبل ذلك في مركز الدراسات الإسلامية
بجامعة كامبريدج بنخبة من الباحثيين وذوي الإختصاص في مواضيع عده وجرى تبادل وجهات
النظر حول عدد من القضايا والتطورات في المنطقة العربية والتحديات الماثلة وآفاق
المستقبل .
Cambridge speech of HRH
Princess Basmah Al Saud
From Arab Spring to European Spring to global
crisis:
The New Way
Ladies and Gentleman, Thank you for inviting me to
speak at the Cambridge Union. It is a
great honour for me to speak in such a hall, where so many great people have
spoken before. I am humbled to be
included amongst the speakers who have gone before me. I hope it will inspire me to go out and seek
the change of which I speak with more energy and determination. I am speaking in a place of learning, where
the youth come to listen and learn, and I hope that we can look to the youth
for a better future and leadership and I am sure that I , too, will learn from
this experience.
By birth, I am a member of the Saudi Royal
family, and by experience, an advocate of reform. I say reform and not
revolution, because the flames of the Middle East today show that revolution
has not been the catalyst for lasting change that so many of us hoped for.
Across the world in recent years a lot has happened,
but we have not seen change proportional to the upheaval. The charitable view
is that the revolutions have been about sowing the seeds of ideas in people’s
minds about how real change can come - but it is now the time for reform to
make the lasting changes, and central to all this is the field of leadership.
No country can avoid the winds of change whether in
the Arab World or anywhere else.
You will hear that I mention mainly Europe and the
Middle East today - but I could pluck examples from the world over to
illustrate these points. What we are facing is a global issue, and I hope we can find a New Way.
The
world is not the same as it was before. No matter how slow we are at realising
it, there is no leveller like global economic meltdown. And this one has been
pretty spectacular.
Financial markets were given new levels of
independence from national governments - without any of the much-needed
accountability - and of course, things went very wrong. Europe, and particularly
southern Europe, is paying a steep price.
The European project is failing because
economic union in the good times only papered over the cracks that the lack of
political union inevitably created. “A rising tide lifts all boats”, as Kennedy
pointed out in a speech in Arkansas almost 50 years ago, and as we have
discovered to our cost, only the strong survive the storm. The tide has turned
in Europe - what good is a single market of 500 million when no one is buying?
In my region, the issues are very fundamental. We
had people on the streets, the youth of today and tomorrow, asserting their
rights. It was about claiming simple human rights that were denied to millions,
it was about access to even the most basic of economic opportunities.
For my country, one whose traditions and
culture I value greatly, I do not shy away from suggesting we need a
constitution to institute and then safeguard the rights that to so many are
painfully slow in coming. But at the same time, I do not join the chorus of
universal condemnation. Results are best achieved when you work with, and not
against.
Furthermore, at the cultural level, people’s
lives and rights change without the help of laws of bills of rights. This is
much harder to perceive from afar, but no society is cast in stone: they all
live and breathe, though all with differing degrees of latitude as they do so.
But my main point here is that what governs societies are variables, not
absolutes.
In our globalised world of today, what happens
in the Middle East has an effect on Europe: the world over, no one is immune to
these upheavals and crises. Your problem is my problem, and vice versa.
However, it seems that the ideas needed to take
us forward are slow in coming.
We need fresh ideas, we need fresh YOUNG leaders,
and we need to accept that the failures within the political systems we have
been using to manage international and domestic cooperation are showing signs
of serious distress - to the extent that admitting defeat must surely be making
its way up our ‘to do’ list.
Approach and mindset to the future are key.
In the post-War world, capitalism took the spoils,
and socialism’s bastions crumbled. Capitalism is now finding out what that is
like in a way that was unthinkable just five years ago. However, it is no
longer a question of being aligned to any ideology in particular. It has been a
long time coming, but the playing field is levelling in new ways. Nevertheless,
what we build now has to mean something for the generations to come. It cannot
merely be a recasting of the old systems.
We can no longer afford to think in terms of
exceptionalism - the idea that somehow, a region’s or a country’s problems are
neatly parcelled up and cause trouble to them alone. On our increasingly
levelled playing field, our global problems are inextricably linked. Exceptionalism
seems only to make differences stand out, when what I am talking about is
drawing out the common ground, accepting mutual interdependence, not mutual
siege.
As things stand now, the future is uncertain,
and dangerously so. There is instability in many corners of the world, with
conflicts demonstrating a particular ability to draw in neighbouring countries.
My region of course has seen some serious
upheaval. When I saw the first Middle Eastern country, Tunisia, begin its
revolt, I felt sure that the rest would follow. Bit by bit, they are doing so.
Even my country, Saudi Arabia, one that seemed robust, if only for its
perceived wealth, is vulnerable.
Those countries that have been resisting the
compelling call for change will either reform voluntarily, or face revolt by
populations who look around the region, and find that their expectations have
been changed to demand better, and whose confidence has grown immeasurably when
faced down by their state’s security services.
Out of the ruins of all this, what will emerge?
This is where my concerns lie. The access to opportunity and basic human rights
that so many fought for are slow in coming.
Granted, such were the accumulations of decades
of autocracy that there was never any realistic chance that the transition
would be smooth. But while patience is certainly required, this is not to say
passivity is required.
We need to approach the future with vigour as
we set about the process of rebuilding. Expressing it in its most basic form, I
am talking about moving forward and building upon the mistakes of the past and
the sacrifices of so many.
We in the Middle East are not the only ones
rebuilding; Europe has little choice in the matter. This is about reform being
the preferable course of action, when it is undeniable that some sort of action
must be taken.
Yes we have nations, regions, tribes, pressure
groups, social classes, political parties, borders, financial systems that
divide and discriminate, but why do we allow the things that divide us to stop
us enjoying and benefiting from the things that unite us.
Let’s focus on the positive, on the things that
unite us, and the starting point must be an understanding of the fundamental
rights and laws that should apply everywhere. They do not have to start as
complicated legal systems of which there are many examples the world over -
they need to be simple, and not so broad as to exclude anyone with different
value systems and cultural contexts.
As examples, respect for each other, the right
to a name, a right to education, a right to health, gender equality are all, in
my view, fundamental rights. Practically, there are many things to be
considered. Social structures and balances, economic linkages and distribution,
management of cyberspace, systems in place to ensure rights are respected,
whether at an individual, national, or transnational level.
This requires a new global charter along with
human rights provisions that will guarantee economic, social, ethnic and
religious equality. I dream of a new approach for new generations tailored to
each country and social context including the very important but scarcely
governed frontier of cyberspace.
There is much to discuss there, naturally.
I mentioned leadership. This is a crucial. The
youth have faded away following the revolutions, and the subsequent politics
have been conducted by people who cut their teeth under the previous autocratic
regimes. The mechanics of government, the Ministries and institutions, continue
to run inefficiently, and unreformed to any noticeable extent. In other words,
the moving parts in governments were designed to serve one master, and such
institutional memory remains.
Of course, one cannot simply wish history away
- but at the same time, one must not simply wish the future wasn’t coming. The
youth who have been forgotten in the aftermath must be seen as central to
global peace and co-operative governance, not adversarial politics.
From their ranks the leaders of later on today
must emerge. While they must be helped to learn from differing contexts, from
differing experiences, their own stamp is crucial. After all, there are so many
more of them and their peers than there are grey men in suits - and the grey
men in suits must willingly cede their knowledge and experience to them in the
spirit of learning and compassion for the future.
The way forward starts with dialogue, which
will not be easy or substantive without good leadership, but we hope it will be
guided and decided upon by good and legitimate leaders.
At our most fundamental level, the similarities
between people are greater than the differences. Reaching consensus is a
wonderful thing: it can provide the common ground, the platform from which
wider success and greater progress can be tackled - basic human rights,
equitable distribution of wealth, and gender equality at a minimum.
A new way is needed everywhere so let us start
building and writing it for now and future generations.
Cambridge Union
10th October 2012
