Professor Tommy Koh, Rector of Tembusu College,
Dr Michael Witter, Ambassador of the Republic of Germany,
Friends,
Ladies and Gentlemen and of course,
Students,
Walls are usually a symbol of insecurity. At one level, countries put up walls when they want to “keep the barbarians away”, and they are afraid of being invaded, afraid for their security. And so walls are put up and perhaps the most extreme example of that was the Great Wall. A more profound level of insecurity would be to put up a wall because you are afraid that your own people would run away. And in a sense, these two artefacts represent the latter model, of a wall borne out of profound insecurity. And what makes this wall or these artefacts more than just two big pieces of concrete is that, if you think about the lives that were lost trying to break out of this wall, then you realise that you could almost imagine them being bathed in blood. And that gives them extra poignancy and extra power.
When the Berlin Wall fell, some people claimed that it meant the end of history, the end of the Cold War, victory for the Washington Consensus, free trade, democracy, etc. Of course, that was in 1989 and 1990. Fast-forward to today, and you realise in fact it was not the end of history and some profound questions are still confronting us today.
Now, I know you are going to have a full-fledged seminar on that later on, so I am not going to go into detail, but I just want to leave you one thought, taking up from a point that Prime Minister Lee made when he visited Washington recently. He was asked, “What are the prospects of the world, fifty years from now?” Fifty years is a long time, and the truth is you can’t really predict. But he said there is actually a fundamental choice. On one hand, we can have a world consisting of independent, self-sufficient countries or blocs of countries, erecting fences and walls, and engaged in rivalry with people and blocs on the other side of the fence or the wall. If we choose such a world, it would be a world characterised by rivalry, militancy, cold wars, and perhaps, and almost certainly, proxy wars and maybe even hot wars. That is one model. The other model is an interdependent world. That we do not have walls, that we have open borders. We are open to ideas, to trade, to products, to services. In a sense, in a knowledge-based economy, surely, we must believe in an open world. Because ideas in fact derive their value not by scarcity but by being shared.
So, this is still a fundamental choice confronting the world – a world characterised by walls or an open world characterised by interdependence, mutual cooperation and win-win outcomes. So, I hope these two artefacts will continue to inspire the next generation to reflect on the meaning behind this, and to realise that, in fact, the same profound questions confront us for the future. So, I want to thank NUS for hosting this, and I think I also need to thank Lagerhaus for the sponsorship and support for this, and for all the individuals here who, in your own way, have made this possible. Thank you all very much.
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