HONORABLE RAMSEY CLARK VISITS GSD
On the 4th of November 2010 GSD had the unique privilege of receiving, as its Special Guest, the Honorable Ramsey Clark, 66th Attorney General of the United States of America.
Greeted at the chateau gate by President Dr. Colum Murphy, Vice President Shahenaz Barragan, General Manager Jon-Hans Coetzer, and other members of the GSD staff, the group walked the campus in bright autumn sunshine to the Pavillon Gallatin (named for a Swiss-born former US Secretary of the Treasury ). There, Ramsey Clark, accompanied by his colleague Dr. Curtis Doebbler (a GSD Professor), met and addressed a combined group of GSD students, faculty and invited members of the Geneva diplomatic corps. The latter included GSD Dean, H.E. Ambassador Zamir Akram of Pakistan. Clark spoke movingly of the repugnant violence of many modern societies - all too often the greater powers. Denouncing what he termed militarism, Clark decried what he saw as the unnecessary and bloated defence budget of the United States.
He went on to talk of his abhorrence of societies that spend so much of their national treasure on military weapons and infrastructure, on the continuance and maintenance of a gun culture - and which are, as societies, at the same time, obsessed with consumerism and materialism. The huge numbers of killed civilians, especially children, in places like Iraq, were an unacceptable outrage - all too often unacceptably written off as mere “collateral damage”. A similar moral illiteracy was evident in the unchecked, improperly regulated use of drones as secret assassins in the “War on Terror”. At the conclusion of his talk students and faculty engaged Mr. Clark in a lively question and answer session. Questions and answers ranged over Mr. Clark views on history politics and the future of human rights. As a clear, consistent and clarion moral voice, Ramsey Clark had, throughout a long and distinguished career, played a unique historical role in the forward march of civil rights in the United States: as Attorney General he took courageous and ground-breaking decisions that made possible some of the early civil rights marches of Dr. Martin Luther King. Clark had also cleared the way for James Meredith to become the first man of colour to attend the University of Mississippi (‘Ole Miss) - making it possible for future progress in the battle against racism and segregation in the American Deep South.
The highly successful visit to GSD by Mr. Clark concluded with a reception at GSD’s Alexandre de Sales building. There, Ramsey Clark spoke to and posed for photographs with students, faculty and staff. For the media gallery please visit the following link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/genevadiplomacy/sets/72157625238197651/