Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech at Buckingham University graduation

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Buckingham
Source: Thatcher Archive: press release
Editorial comments:
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 1124
Themes: Higher & further education, Foreign policy - theory and process, Foreign policy (Central & Eastern Europe)

Vice Chancellor, Lord Lieutenant, Distinguished Honourary Graduates, Members of Faculty, Graduates, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Tribute to Quintin

First may I pay warm tribute to our last Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, a man whose culture, learning and legal distinction added enormously to the prestige of Buckingham University. It is an honour to follow in his footsteps. Alas I cannot emulate his latin—a language which influenced the whole of Europe geographically, our legal system down the centuries, and literature for all time. English, which I shall use, is even better. A language soaked in values, which spread the message of liberty, justice and Parliamentary democracy across the world and which endowed us with an unsurpassed literary heritage. I have to say, Quintin excelled at English too.

Second, may I congratulate the Vice Chancellor for the vigorous leadership he is giving to this University and thank him for his excellent speech this afternoon.

Congratulations

My prime and pleasant task is to offer warm congratulations to all new graduates whose ability, efforts and attainment have resulted in the degrees we celebrate today. What a relief! All those days when the inspiration and ideas proved elusive, when the facts wouldn't go in to the mind and the answers wouldn't come out, until as the deadline approached the adrenalin began to flow and miraculously the results poured forth.

You will know how much you owe to Members of the Faculty, and to the methods of study we use here. They are designed to deliver true education, through real discussion with your tutors, bringing depth and breadth to your knowledge and understanding.

University as a Community of learning

Universities began as communities of learning. They grew up around inspiring teachers. That itself gives us precious insight into what makes a great university at any time and in any place. Today a balance has to be struck between competing objectives. [end p1]

Universities must provide the knowledge and skills required for economic progress—hence our business studies, and our biomedical research facilities. But they have to do so as a community of learning which pursues intellectual excellence for its own sake. This ensures that however much we have vocational objectives, we remain aware of that wider civilisation which has shaped the modern world the best of which it is our duty to conserve and develop.

Buckingham University

This is a very special University. Looking back on the history of this remarkable country whose influence girded the globe, it is astonishing that it had no independent University.

And yet those English and Scottish people who left our shores to build America, taking with them the sturdy values of effort, independence, thrift, freedom, justice, self-government, and a sense of obligation to one to another—they started private universities and colleges—many of them. Of course they didn't go to America for subsidies—there weren't any. They went to pioneer and to build a country founded on their most deeply held beliefs. They did the most exciting thing of all—they built something new on principles and beliefs that were old and enduring.

There are always some very talented people who have an ambition to create something new,—a building, a new church, a new industry, a new theatre, orchestra and even a new University.

The conviction and determination of the people who started Buckingham carried them over all the difficulties which inevitably attend such great endeavours. And like the builders of the New World they didn't want government interfering too much so they went ahead on their own.

There is a saying of George Bernard Shaw, “Freedom incurs responsibility, that is why many men fear it” . The Buckingham pioneers didn't fear it. They rose to its opportunities. And in doing so gave us an example of true leadership. Based on their beliefs they decided the way ahead, and with an indestructible resolve went steadily forward until their vision become a reality.

It is a special pleasure therefore that we are now hosts to so many nationalities, for those ideas are universal. The friendships you make here will last throughout your life, and as so many of you will climb to positions of leadership and responsibility, will equip you with world contacts, which will be invaluable. [end p2]

The World of the 21st Century

What will the world of the 21st Century bring? It is not written in the stars but in ourselves. The unexpected usually happens and sometimes evil gets the upper hand: as when aggressive rulers attempt to take the land of others by conquest, whether in Kuwait, the Falklands, Cambodia or Bosnia, often using savagery and brutality that we thought had become extinct.

For those who espouse civilised values, the day of conquest has gone and that of co-operation has come. It was Winston Churchill who just before the Second World War said.

“There must be a moral basis for British Foreign Policy. If deep causes of division are to be removed from our midst it can only be because of lofty and unselfish ideals” .

Within a year we were fighting the war against evil not only for our own lives but that freedom and justice should prevail across half the world.

But keeping peace with freedom and justice is an endless task.

Times when empires fragment, —like the USSR which was an evil empire, times when states which have been put together artificially disintegrate, —as is happening in Yugoslavia, these are times of great danger, chaos and sometimes of unbelievable cruelty, as in Bosnia now.

The failure of Europe, NATO and of the Security Council to take affective action to free the suffering people is a slur on civilisation itself. What has happened to the conscience of the new Europe? Has it been discarded or forgotten in the very lands through which Christianity spread to the world? Has the habit of leadership been replaced by the doctrine of consensus, which paralyses the action needed to come to the aid of the tortured people who are our neighbours?

The only way we can defeat the powers of darkness are by strong defence, advanced weaponry, and a resolve to defend and protect the innocent from massacre and ethnic cleansing. [end p3]

At home, in the face of savage criminal acts whose horror has shocked the entire nation we must ensure that Courts of Law have all the powers they need to bring criminals to justice, to see that the guilty are found guilty, and that the available punishment is so severe that it is a real deterrent to other wrong-doers, and a genuine protection of the public.

Provided this is done, and it must be—do not be dispirited. There is so much good in the world—kindness, practical help, and deep concern for others. You who have prepared yourselves well for the future will feel a need to be attached to some great cause.

Never lose your ideals, support them by action, for you and they are the hope for a better world.

May good faith and good fortune attend your endeavours.