Remarks by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
at
Akademgorodok
Novosibirsk, Russia
November 16, 1997
I am delighted to be here and to have this opportunity to speak to such
a distinguished audience of educators, professors, students and other citizen
leaders of Siberia. I have enjoyed my opportunity to be here, but my regret is
that my visit will be far too short. I wish I could see for myself many of the
changes and the exciting events that are occurring here, and so I will have to,
I hope, return at some future date.
Because Siberia has been that part of Russia that is closest to my
country, even when our people in the past stood far apart from each other, we
shared this part of the world. Together, we are now celebrating our new
proximitythis time, measured not only in geographical distance, but in shared
values.
I have come to Russia on behalf of my husband, the President of the
United States, and on behalf of the American people to reinforce the expanding
ties of friendship and cooperation between our two countries.
I was in Yekaterinburg last evening with a group of people, including
Mrs. Yeltsin. I told them that when I first met my husband when we were both
students at the Yale University Law School, one of the first stories I remember
him telling me is that as a student studying in England at Oxford, he did not
have enough money to go home for Christmas one year, but he did have enough
money to buy a student ticket on the railroad and go into Russia.
And so he went to Moscow. He had long hair and he was quite poor, but
he told me with such great enthusiasm how he felt he had so much in common with
the Russian people he met. When he told me that story, it was in the early
1970s, and there were many who thought our people had nothing in common. But my
husband knew better. He talked about how we had so many interests and values
that we didn't even know we shared. Now, we have an opportunity to build on
that common ground for ourselves and our children.
In the last few days and in the last several years since I have been
privileged to travel to Russia with my husband on official trips, I have
witnessed firsthand the historic transformation that is occurring, and I have
learned about how different regions of your country are making their own
contributions in advancing democracy and in creating economic opportunity.
When this academic complex was first founded, bringing together a great
university and an extraordinary academy of sciences, there were probably very
few in either of our countries who thought we could bridge the gap that divided
us. This was particularly true among our scientists. We know and can remember
that our best scientific minds were focused on competition, not on cooperation.
Now when I look back, it seems like that was another lifetime. I can
remember very well the darker side of those years when, as a young child in
school, I and my classmates would hide under our desks practicing drills in
case of a nuclear attack. We all prayed in my country and yours that such a
moment would never occur. By the grace of God, because of the courage and
wisdom of our leaders and our people, it did not.
Soldiers who were once prepared to go to war against each other now
stand side by side, securing a lasting peace together in Bosnia. When I visited
our American troops in Tuzla, Bosnia, I was so pleased to be able also to meet
some of the Russian troops who were stationed with the Americans on the same
base. Astronauts and cosmonauts who once raced each other into space now work
together high above our earth. Students who were once taught to mistrust each
other now send messages to each other over the Internet.
Clearly, we now live in a remarkable age of possibility. The light of
peace and freedom is spreading across the globe. Democracy is alive on all the
continents of our world. Scientific breakthroughs seem to be occurring at a
break-neck pace. Just think what we have seen in the last few years alone. We
are rapidly mapping the human genome. We have discovered genes linked to
diseases such as hereditary breast cancer. Technology developed to fight the
Cold War is now being used to map the ocean floor, protect the environment, and
save lives.
Consider this. There is now more computer power in a Ford Taurus
automobile than there was in Apollo 11 when Neil Armstrong took it to the moon.
Cell phones, computers, fax machines, pagers, once the stuff of fiction, are
now becoming a staple of everyday life. And yet, while we can recount the
extraordinary developments that have occurred in this age of possibility, we
also know that it is a time of real challenge for individuals and for nations.
As individuals, we face the changes in our everyday life. The older we are, the
more difficult change seems to be, especially at the pace at which it now
occurs.
In our nations, mine and yours, we face challenges about how we will
move with confidence into the next century. What you have accomplished in
Russia in just a few short years is truly extraordinary. After seven decades of
totalitarian communist rule, you threw off your past and decided with
extraordinary courage to chart a new course. The architecture of that new
freedom and opportunity may not yet be complete; but the outlines are clear to
see for anyone willing to look. I know that this time of transition, based on
conversations that I have had with Russian friends, has not been easy for any
sector of society. I assume that here in Siberia and here at this academic
complex it has posed great difficulty for many. Scientists and researchers
whose expertise and years of education once earned them status and security,
now face uncertain futures. The questions that I'm sure are being asked within
these halls include whether or not the skills that were acquired in the past
will sustain a life and a profession tomorrow. We see the same questions being
asked in our education systems, again in my country as well as yours. In my
country, we are struggling with how we try to provide high education
opportunities to all of our students, regardless of their background,
regardless of how well or poorly their own family was educated, how we set high
standards and then hold our young people to achieve them.
Here, I would imagine you also are asking how to update textbooks and
modernize classrooms for the Information Age, how to ensure that teachers
receive the pay and the respect in society they deserve, how to build up a
system of both public and private education that will preserve what was
beneficial about the old way, even as it educates young people to lead and live
in a democracy.
The fact is that for nearly half a century, science, technology and
education were used in both of our countries to fight the Cold War. Today, we
have an unparalleled opportunity to put them in service of freedom, prosperity
and democracy. Your education system has long been the envy of many of us
elsewhere in the world. Your literacy rate, your scientific and research
capacity have served as a model. I remember very well when Sputnik went up and
I was in elementary school. All of my teachers told me I had to study even
harder. They made me do mathematics in which I did not have great interest. I
think I secretly blamed Russian scientists that I had to study so much algebra.
Today, this heritage can enable you to surpass so many other societies,
to leapfrog over developments that others have had to do incrementally. The
rich depth of scientific capacity present right here gives you advantages that
few other countries can claim.
It is not only in the scientific arena that your heritage is as strong
and varied as the landscape of Siberia. I have witnessed it in the private
rooms of the Kremlin and in the Museum of the Institute of Archaeology and
Ethnography that I just visited this morning. I have seen it in the works of
literature and music that the entire world enjoys as part of our mutual
cultural heritage.
So how do we take what each of our societies has and translate it into
opportunity for the greatest number of our fellow citizens? You have a very
strong foundation on which to answer that question. Your challenge, it seems to
us who are your friends and who are your advocates, is to harness this talent
to a new free market economy and ensure that democracy and prosperity take root
and grow in Siberia and throughout Russia.
Those of you in this room today, leaders and students alike, have the
power to make that happen by creating economic progress, building a vibrant
civil society, and ensuring that the new Russia becomes a leader in the
democratic community of nations.
As I was preparing to come to Siberia, I learned about some of the
activities that are already taking place, building on the skilled work force
that is already here, that will enable you to compete in the global economy;
building on the understanding that you have, which is that education is the
bright line that divides those who will make it in the Information Age and
those who will not. It may be unfair, and I think about that in my own country,
it may be unfair that the demands of the new global economy, the knowledge
society and the Information Age fall so disproportionately on some people,
people who, for whatever combination of reasons, are ill-equipped to find their
way in this new time.
In my own country, I go into schools where I see state-of-the-art
technologyschools like the one with which you have a relationship here,
Phillips Andover, where the students will be equipped to work anywhere in the
world, where their own futures are limitless, where their contributions to
society will be very significant.
Then I go into schools where the students are not being challenged, are
not performing, are not up to the tasks that will await them when they enter
this new economy. I imagine that Siberia and Russia are not so different from
that experience. We already heard Anna introduce me in flawless English. As I
was getting out of my car to go into the institute to see the extraordinary
discoveries they have displayed there, a woman called me over across the street
and said that her son had been a Bradley Scholar studying in the United States.
We know that you have here in Russia, just as I know I have in my own
country, some of the finest young people anywhere in the world. The challenge,
though, for people like us who are blessed with intelligence and are willing to
use our energy to learn and get the best education we can, is how we then take
that and transform it into prosperity and opportunity for our broader society.
If we look at, for example, the year 2000 in my own country, 80 percent
of the new jobs created will require post-high school education. These jobs
will demand workers who are flexible and fluent in the Information Age. What we
have tried to do in the United States as we have downsized our military since
the end of the Cold War, closing many defense industries, putting many
scientists, researchers, teachers out of work, is to take the energy and
education and intelligence in that work force and find new outlets for it to be
productive.
Some of you who have traveled to California where, as the Vice Rector
said, my daughter is now attending Stanford University, may remember that in
the 1980s and early 1990s there was a very high level of unemployment among
some of our very best scientists, researchers and technicians. When my husband
ran for the presidency in 1992, in place after place he met workers who had
lost their jobs because of the changes that were going on as we reacted to the
end of the Cold War and shut down so many of our plants, our factories, our
research institutes.
So we understand some of what you are facing as well. How do we take
those skills that were used in advanced technology on behalf of defense
industries and put them to work in the private sector? That is what you are
struggling with; that is also what we have addressed in our own way in the
United States.
Now these issues are important for everyonethe entire society, for the
individuals who are looking for ways to reclaim their future by using their
skills differently. It's especially important for children that they be given
the incentive to get the best education possible even though we are not sure
what jobs will be like in the years to come. Many of the jobs that the young
people trained here will do have not yet been invented.
It's also especially important for women who have traditionally held
roles in science and technology in Russia. One of the great benefits that your
education system has had over the years is the opportunities that it gave
educated women. And yet, despite their education, too many women are still the
first to get fired and the last to get hiredin my country as well as yours. We
have to make it clear that any economy that does not take full advantage of the
contributions of women in the workplace will never live up to its maximum
potential.
These are just some of the challenges we face when it comes to making
sure our education system and the already acquired skills of the educated will
be preparing our people to take their places in the new economy. You are not
just creating a new economy. You are also creating and building a strong,
sustainable democracy. And that means we have to be educating people to be
citizens because, ultimately, democracy is about more than a new constitution
or even the right to vote. It is built from the ground up, not from the top
down, and it is a constant struggle.
We have been a democracy for more than 200 years now, and we still
struggleagainst our flaws and our imperfections. We still struggle to make sure
that all people are treated equally as citizens in our democracy, so you should
not ever be discouraged at the progress that you have made. You should know
that the progress has got to be continuing, because the struggle is
never-ending.
Part of what makes a democracy live and function, despite whatever
stresses come from the outside, is that the space between the free market and
the government is filled by so many associations and individuals who give their
best to making their society a better place. We call that "the civil society."
I know that there are representatives in this auditorium who are working on
behalf of disabled children, on behalf of the environment, on behalf of women's
rights, on behalf of small businesses. You are building that critical civil
society that is really the third part of the triangle of democracy: the free
market, the government, and then what the citizens do on their own to make
conditions better.
Education is critical to the functioning of all three, an education
which challenges us, teaches us to think critically, enables individuals to
make their contribution to civil society. In the United States, at the
beginning of the 19th century, as some of you who have studied American history
will know, we were visited by a Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville. He came to
the United States, he traveled around, he spoke with people who were,
themselves, finding their way in a democracy. They had come from monarchies and
authoritarian regimes to find freedom in the United States, but they weren't
quite sure exactly how one did that.
So they, like many people in Russia today, were doing it as they lived,
day by day. What de Tocqueville noticed is that they were forming into all
kinds of informal associations, associations of business and farm people,
people who were working in behalf of their own better futures. There were
church groups and education groups. He pointed out something that is very
important to our democracy, and that is that what really mattered was what he
called "the habits of the heart," what it is that we felt inside ourselves
about the role of the individual, about the respect for people who were not
like ourselves.
That cannot be taught; that cannot be imposed. That has to be inspired
from generation to generation. It has to be taught by mothers and fathers to
their children. It is those habits of the heart that sustain a democracy
through bad times. I am pleased that the United States, both our government and
so many private individuals, businesses and nongovernmental organizations, is
committed to working with Russia, working with Siberia, as you carry out your
reforms, particularly when it comes to education. The United States Information
Agency supports a wide range of educational initiatives, from providing updated
textbooks for students, to backing educational exchange programs, to sharing
techniques from American schools.
We want to be your partners. That is why we are offering training
programs in business, law, and journalism, and why Peace Corps volunteers are
helping teach English, and an American business center is working to train
managers. It is why, through our joint public-private efforts, the United
States has joined with Russian and Ukrainian aeronautics companies to produce
commuter aircraft, the first of which rolled off the assembly line this month
in Siberia. This effort, which involves a private company, Allied Signal, also
has the support of the United States Trade Development Agency and the
Export-Import Bank. In supporting the International Science and Technology
Center in Moscow, the United States is helping nuclear weapons specialists to
adapt their highly sophisticated skills to civilian needs for state-of-the-art
technology.
There are many ways in which we are working together. I would imagine
that sometimes as you look at the day-to-day challenges you face, the pace of
change just may not seem fast enough. It would be easy to lose sight of how
remarkable it has been to see what has been accomplished in a few years. Less
than 40 years after Sputnik made me study algebra, who would ever have imagined
that these kinds of alliances between our countries would have been possible?
Who would ever have imagined that I would be so honored to be here to talk
about our shared future, and particularly the future of my daughter, Chelsea,
and young women like Anna? That is not to say the journey will not be hard,
because the scientific process and democracy have a lot in common. Both ask
that you sacrifice today for results tomorrow. Both demand patience, stamina,
and creativity. Both require faith. I have that faith, and I see it and hear
about it in what you are doing as wellfaith in the talented and visionary
people like those here and throughout Siberiafaith because of the next
generation and faith in the next generation.
I was told yesterday that 65 percent of Russians over 65 think things
in Russia got worse over the past year. Sixty percent of people under 35 said
they got better. This is one of those examples, I suppose, of where we stand on
our life journey. As I get older, I also get more conservative. I also worry
more about change. But I don't see that in the eyes of my daughter and her
friends, and I don't see that in the eyes of the young people I saw in the
university yesterday or today. It is these students in my country and yours who
will determine the fate of both Russia and the United States, not just for the
next few years, but in the millennium.
What young people everywhere are saying and what I believe they are
saying here in Russia as well iswe want the opportunity to demonstrate our
individual talents. We want to seize the opportunities that can be made
available to us in a new and dynamic society. We want a nation that expects all
of us to live up to our own potential. I think young people in both our
countries want those of us who are older to give them nations where science,
technology, and research are never again used to divide us, but rather to unite
us always in friendship and cooperation.
At the institute this morning, I spoke with the director about how
people from Siberia crossed the Bering Strait thousands of years ago to
populate North America. Whenever I am in the company of archaeologists and
ethnographers, I think about how much we have in common because of where we all
came from. As we move through the centuries, we will either recognize that or
ignore it at our peril. We will either appreciate that the differences that
superficially divide uslanguage or race or ethnicity, even country of originare
minor compared to the deep, common values we share as human beings.
In many ways, the decisions that the United States and Russia make,
individually and together, will determine what happens in our world. I have
come to a place where I know many of those decisions will be thought about,
debated and made. I have come to stress how strongly we in the United States
want Russia to succeed in every way possible and how much we look forward to
the years ahead where our children will exchange ideas, information and
learning as easily across our oceans as they do next door to one another here.
I believe that because of our blessings in our respective countries and because
of our traditions of education, we not only have an opportunity, but an
obligation to spread the benefits of democracy and prosperity to all of our
people.
I thank you for what you are doing here, but more than that, I thank
you for what will be done here in the years to come. On behalf of peace,
prosperity, democracy, and friendship, thank you all very much. |
