MARY ROBINSON. HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD
How do you go about changing the world, exactly?
If you track the extraordinary path of Mary Robinson, the clues emerge from the overwhelming fog like signposts: challenge the status quo; don’t be afraid to be hated; work tirelessly for ideals about which you are passionate.
And – the brightest guiding light – believe that everybody matters.
“It’s something I learned from my father,” Mary Robinson told The Hoopla in Australia last week. “My father was a beloved vocational doctor in the west of Ireland, and he would listen and have all the time in the world for people, no matter who they were.
“He clearly felt, very fundamentally, that everybody mattered.”
Mary Robinson is one of the most inspiring women of our time.
She was elected as the first woman President of Ireland in 1990 (pictured below) having worked as a lawyer to bring constitutional change for Irish women at a time when divorce and the purchase of contraceptives were illegal.
One of her bedrock beliefs is that access to family planning is essential to the empowerment of women the world over (highly controversial in the Ireland she sought to change) and that the empowerment of women the world over is essential to building a better world.
Those who heard her stirring acceptance speech in 1990 can’t forget it – she quoted the poet W.B. Yeats (“come dance with me in Ireland”), and thanked the women of Ireland for helping to elect her, saying – with rising passion in her beautiful Irish timbre – “the hand that rocks the cradle can rock the system!”
She went on to become the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, travelling to the world’s worst sites of human rights abuses, giving voice to the poor and the oppressed, the tortured and abused. Her time in that office stretched over Kosovo, Chechnya, East Timor, the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the second Intifada, the civil war in Somalia, and September 11.
She was handpicked by Nelson Mandela, alongside Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu as one of The Elders -10 global leaders who work together for world peace and human rights.
Some internal compass has directed Mary Robinson to devote her life to making the world a better place, and now her autobiography gives some insight to its provenance.
The title of the book is, appropriately enough, Everybody Matters.
“It seems to capture, in a very simple way, what human rights is all about,” she said. “I often think when people hear the two words Human Rights they think of rather strident finger pointing, of governments and politics, I wanted to show that it’s all that and much, much more.
“I wanted to encourage people to understand that not only does everybody matter, but everybody can make a difference, and help to have the world be a fairer place.”
In telling her own story of a girl in 1950s Ireland who grew up to become a world leader and agent for change when the options for women were to get married or become a nun, Mary Robinson wants the oppressed women of the world to have hope that things can change quite radically in the span of just a lifetime.
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30 Responses to this article
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Rhoda October 13, 2012
She’s a wonderful woman – no doubt of it. Interesting to read of what she has accomplished since her term in office and compare to what some of our own leaders have done since. – all their political posturing and grand standing a match with big fish in little ponds.
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jonah stiffhausen October 13, 2012
A danger to us all, more like it. Any person egotistical enough to believe they can “change the world” deserves to be laughed out of town. Just the fact that she accepts the greatest hoax ever played out on mankind, ie “global warming”, is further evidence that women should not be allowed anywhere near political debate. You girls get on with your stuff and leave the grown up things to the blokes and we’ll all be the better for it.
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Ekka October 13, 2012
Troll
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JessB October 13, 2012
Jonah, you sound… misguided, and like you’re trying to bait other commentators.
I’m not going to respond further, but I wish this offensive post, which dismisses half the world’s population, would be deleted.
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Deb October 13, 2012
Well if we don’t get climate justice we will get climate chaos. Good on Mary Robinson for being where it matters.
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JoanneH October 13, 2012
Mary Robinson worries about the effects of climate change and is trying to “change the world” for everyone of our future grandchildren, and has fought for her beliefs, and social justice all her life. She is not indulging in cheap political point scoring.
As well as the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, she has received many other International awards and accolades for the difficult and courageous work she has done – more difficult I would say than sitting behind a keyboard just nit-picking!
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Ekka October 13, 2012
Amen
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Min October 13, 2012
I like the Girl !!
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Jacqueline October 13, 2012
If only there were more people like Mary Robinson in the world and less like the troll who popped in to say his bit. Thank you for the story , lucy. More please.
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Maddie October 13, 2012
Jonah, I think you’re missing your special friend Alan on 2GB. Thankfully their are people such as Mary Robinson in the world, doing real things to improve other lives, not spitting bile and hatred on the airwaves.
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Zelda October 13, 2012
I would like to throw in a menition for the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital run by Dr Catherine Hamllin AC. Well into her 80′s now Dr. Hamlin continues to care and arrange for operations for the women who have fistula as an outcome of prolonged, obstructed labour which causes permanent internal damage and incontinence. Often because they have babies before their body is ready.ie when they care still children. These women become social outcasts and doomed to life long suffering if not treated. These women need so much care.
hamlin.org.au -
Zelda October 13, 2012
That should read “Often because they have babies before their body is ready. ie when they are still children”
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JessB October 13, 2012
I think inspiring people to change the world is wonderful, and should be encouraged in every way!
I’ll definitely be reading the autobiography of Mary Robinson, and will be looking out for my own way to change the world.
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annabellouise October 13, 2012
“Challenge the status quo, dont be afraid to be hated, work tirelessly for ideals for which you are passionate”……sounds a lot like parenting. Love it. This is what life is all about.
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ro.watson October 13, 2012
Wonderful woman.Wonderful work. I did hear in another interview(life matters~abc radio national) she did have to consider a change of style in hair and clothes when she was about to become the president of Ireland. And she kept a light on in her kitchen window for all the irish out of Ireland~most touching…notion of “home”….
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ro.watson October 14, 2012
Women are intimately related to inter-generational change~ Mary Robinson is doing by broadcasting,and doing, what is important for us and our next generations..
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ro.watson October 14, 2012
Meanwhile~ thinking about the young woman(14) in Pakistan~promoting girls involvement in education~ shot in the head by some bloke~allegedly from the Taliban~still critically injured in hospital…and all the young and older women saying YES to our human rights..
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ro.watson October 14, 2012
Malala Yousafzai (14 yeas old)
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ro.watson October 14, 2012
whoops~ another spelling error~ contrives to be creative~ yeas to all those years…
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Katherine Basher October 14, 2012
Malala Yousafzai’s courage defies one word description…
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MemKate October 23, 2012
What an inspiration she is. I admire her. Wonderful woman. But could she do more to create a cleaner world through pushing for change on emissions? The science is simple enough – the poisonous agent is carbon MON oxide, not carbon dioxide. Don’t tax the people on carbon dioxide. Tax the multi-nationals who create the fuels. Force them to find/fund a non-toxic fuel. Like hemp for example.
