With a heart that beats fervently with the pulse of compassion and social justice, Mary Robinson has devoted her life to ensuring that each of the world’s citizens lives with the human rights they deserve. From being elected the first female President of Ireland (from 1990–1997), to stepping down to become the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary’s journey has been fuelled most by her positive spirit. Standing alongside Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Aung San Suu Kyi, Kofi Annan and Desmond Tutu as one of the Elders – an independent group of respected world leaders and champions of human rights – her newest project, Realising Rights: the Ethical Globalisation Initiative, supports and promotes equitable trade, corporate responsibility, the right to health, humane migration polices, gender equality and global accountability. She will soon bring her inspiring crusade for equal human rights to Brisbane, when she delivers the 2009 Griffith Lecture as part of Brisbane Festival.
With so many humanitarian crises happening throughout the world, how do you decide where to even begin to try to effect change? Well, the position has changed at various stages. When I was elected President of Ireland, I said at my inauguration that I wanted to represent an Ireland that identified with developing countries. That led me to make visits to Somalia during the conflict and famine there in 1992, and to Rwanda after the genocide and killing in 1994 – I was the first head of state to do so. When I was serving as the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, it was necessary to carry out my mandate to give leadership on human rights in the United Nations. Because it was such a huge area, what I tried to do was be close to the worst victims and the worst situations. That’s why I was in places like Chechnya when they were bombing Grozny, and in Sierra Leone when there was the terrible fighting in Freetown – where they were cutting off the limbs of children and pregnant women – and in other places like Colombia and East Timor. Now in my work for Realising Rights, we focus on economic and social rights, and the terrible divide of poverty.
How do you find the drive to keep fighting for change when the results are often so disheartening? You just need to look for the hopeful signs. It’s important to try to find the positives in the midst of horrendous evil and vicious conflict. There are always courageous people on the ground who we have to try to support and help. You have to believe that there is a solution.
What can we as everyday people do to help ease the world’s humanitarian crises such as poverty or the subjugation of women? With Realising Rights, we work with the United Nations in not just reviewing the progress of the Millenium Goals, but actually in saying that we need to do more. In my view it would do good to link the goals with the human-rights commitments that all governments have made. I’m also very focused at the moment on the discussion leading up to Copenhagen about the threats of climate change. I’m here in the west of Ireland with my four grandchildren who will be in their forties in 2050, and I’m not sure that they’ll have a safe world at all. I’m very preoccupied with that. I just seem to have this notion of inner-justice and fairness – I don’t find the world very fair.
What has been the most confronting experience you’ve had as part of your work? When I was working in the United Nations, some of the conflict situations were really very difficult. I recently went with a few colleagues from Oxfam to the Democratic Republic of Congo and we visited the camps in Goma. The women in particular have been living terribly insecure lives because there has been persistent endemic of rape as a form of subjugation of the population. We went to visit HEAL Africa and in the hospital there were two women to a bed, and many of them had been raped or had fistula problems. Some of them were very young and that was particularly heart-rending – listening to some of the stories of rape, where a woman would escape from it and then move on and be raped again and be badly damaged because of it. It’s just shocking what happens to these women and girls. But there has also been remarkable progress, so you really have to try and see the positive side as well as the situations that are really serious and must be stopped.
What has been the greatest challenge you have had to overcome to get to where you are today? I think I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve had a lot of support from family and friends in what I’ve been doing. It was the greatest honour you could ever have, being elected president of your country. During the election campaign, it was a great challenge convincing people that a woman can be elected. There are still challenges, of course. When I get accused of things like not being balanced in a human-rights approach to Israel and the Palestinian people, it hurts because I am a human-rights person to the core and I’ve never seen human rights as being one side or the other.
What made you not give up when you came across that kind of criticism? I think if you want to make real change, you have to have a stubborn streak in you and always see the bright side. I’m committed to the value of human rights and democracy – it’s a great way to link with people and to encourage them, and to feel encouraged by the strength and resilience of the people on the ground. When I see the really grim situations that people have to cope with and make change in, that encourages me to do whatever I can to be supportive.
What has been your greatest achievement? It’s always for others to talk about achievements, but I have to say that the greatest honour was to be elected President of Ireland. I remember every minute of the inauguration ceremony and that sense of responsibility. I felt humbled by being challenged to represent my country for the next seven years. I woke up every morning for the next seven years determined to fulfil what the Irish people had asked for – a president who would do them proud. Then, when Kofi Annan gave me the honour of being the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, I woke up every morning for the next five years determined to give my best on human-rights leadership.
Why do you care? I think it goes back to the sense that I learned from my father. He was a very committed doctor in the west of Ireland who treated patients no matter how poor they were or whether or not they could pay. He did it because he believed that we are entitled to what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights said, that ‘everyone is born free and equal in dignity and rights’. But when you see people in conflict and in terrible poverty, or you see parents who are too poor to buy medicine for a dying child, there’s no dignity there.
What inspires you? I’m inspired most by the courage, resilience and humour of people on the ground and those who are working with them. They are always wonderful people to be with and to be inspired by. People like those involved in the second Sudanese Women’s Forum in Darfur. They were not all from East, West or South Darfur. Some of them were from Khartoum and Juba, but they cared about their country. The last evening of the forum, we all danced together and we communicated in some instances through dance, because some of them didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Arabic. We danced together to celebrate the experience we had shared over the past few days and that is one of those precious moments that live with you forever and continue to inspire you.
Where do you find peace in life? With family and friends. I’m currently surrounded by my four grandchildren, and I get such wonderful joy and peace from being with them.
What are your words of wisdom? We should make use of this Global Financial Crisis to rethink how we live. We need to change our behaviour as individuals, as communities and as countries, and focus on implementing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so that every family has access to food, safe water and sanitation. Our challenge is to lead a low-carbon life that makes sure the world is safe for future generations.
Interview by Mikki Brammer
Photography courtesy of The Elders
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