Bruges: Jan Olaf Hausotter remembered and the UN honoured

I went to the College of Europe in Bruges this afternoon for a special commemorative event in memory of Jan Olaf Hausotter, one of my former students and a UN political affairs officer, who died on 12 January in the catastrophic Haitian earthquake. We were accompanied in the audience (composed, inter alia, of many of his contemporaries) by his parents and sister, Lilli, Dieter and Carola, and by his fiancée, Caroline, who was also in Port au Prince and herself only narrowly escaped disaster. It was my honour and privilege to make a few opening remarks and then introduce two remarkable guest speakers; Antonio Vigilante, Director of the UN and UNDP offices in Brussels, and Jack Christofides, Team Leader for Sudan in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations who had worked with Jan and, in a remarkable gesture, had flown from America to be present at the ceremony. The theme of the event was ‘Not a life like any other: international careers and personal sacrifice.’ For Vigilante, who has spent 26 of his 29 UN years working in the field, the United Nations is the institutional representation of a dream, ‘the best of dreams’. I am posting his speaking notes below. If you want to know why people like Jan give up comfortable lives and risk life and limb to help realise that dream, then you should please read Vigilante’s speech. It cannot impart, as he did, the idealistic passion that clearly courses through his veins and those of Christofides, but it will give you the sense of what it is that drives these people. The phrase that stuck in my mind was his rhetorical question about poverty in the world. If 2 billion people living in poverty and inhuman conditions through the accident of birth is not an emergency, then what is? He hoped that mankind would find the same resolve that had abolished slavery to abolish poverty. Jack Christofides began with some shocking statistics. In 35 seconds Haiti had lost 120 per cent of its GDP and  at least 170,000 of its people and over 40,000 orphans had been created. Such a shock to a country, any country, was without precedent. Christofides focussed on the risk side of the UN equation. Jan had been killed in a natural disaster but, Christofides pointed out, after the Baghdad bombing of August 2003, the UN and its officials, volunteers and operations came to be considered a legitimate target for many terrorists. Ever since then, Christofides argued, the UN had had to weigh in the balance ‘risk against rôle.’ He gave a graphic example of how (implicitly at great risk to himself) he had gone to negotiate with warlords in Mogadishu, ‘some of the vilest and most disgusting people you can imagine’, indeed, who had recently kidnapped several of his colleagues, in order to extract from them a commitment that they would not fire on UN volunteers distributing food aid to the starving population. The risk, Christofides felt, had been worth it because scores of thousands of lives had been saved. But the experience contrasted with a previous world in which no such negotiations would have been necessary. He finished with Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken. I am sure that everybody listening in that lecture room in Bruges (where, coincidentally, Jan and Caroline had sat their oral exams in front of me), was profoundly impressed by the compassion and commitment of these two keepers of the flame of the UN’s humanitarian mission. It was a fitting tribute for Jan, RIP.

– The UN is the institutional representation of a dream of humankind. It was established by a group of states under the impulse of a group of inspired statesmen and women that had in their eyes and had fresh in their memory the expression of where uncontrolled evil impulses could lead human kind.

The world had seen a massacre of unprecented proportions and witnessed ideologies guided by lucid madness which had a planetary distructive potential. From the rubble, the dream of a world of peace – by decision, by diplomacy or even by force – took shape.

– The highest expression of that dream is probably the most inspired document produced to this date: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which promises to every inhabitant of the planet a variety of indispensable and universal rights, conferred to them for the very simple reason that they existed and that they belonged to the human race. This was the dream of justice, the dream of human dignity for all.

– The European Union is also a manifestation of the same dream, at regional level. From the core of the rubble, post-war Europe, the dream took the shape according to which more intense relationships among European states, the force of joint economic interests, the attractiveness of speeding up progress for European citizen, could lead to a shared vision, a unitary sense of purpose and direction to be pursued in peace.

– Today those institutions continue to struggle to make what I call the best of dreams real. They face severe obstacles such as the fallacy of collective historic memory which tends to fade away so allowing the repetition of crimes that had been repelled universally, as we have seen for instance in Rwnda, in DRC or in the Balkans in recent years.

They face the obstacles of resurgent national or even sub-national selfishness, which is particularly energetic at times of crisis, as the ongoing financial and economic crisis. They face the obstacles of imperfect, not fully legitimate and representative governance, which constrains decision making in the interest of humanity. They face obstacles due to the institutional and political incapacity of transforming crisis into opportunities.

– Still the world is not short of crisis or emergencies which should constitute the powerful incentive for a common will and for decisions prioritizing global interest.

The existence of inhuman conditions in which almost 2 billion people try to live, the chilling numbers of children that die for preventable causes (10 million a year), the number of our fellow human beings which do no have easy access to safe drinking water, to sufficient food (1 billion), to shelter, to education, to health care, to electricity (1,6 bln), the number of refugees and IDPs (45 M), the number of people living with HIV/AIDS and no access to drugs (almost 30 M.), the persistence of child labor, of street children, the violation of the rights of girls, the denial of equality to women, all this should represent in the eyes of public opinion and policy makers an emergency of the same kind of the one who made our best dream emerge at the end of the second world war II.

The fact that hundreds of million people are denied freedom, are denied life options, are denied the pursuit of happiness, should be seen as intolerable by the rest of humanity. And all this is not happening on a planet different from ours, it is happening “Close to your eyes” (which is the title of a documentary film which will be shown in world premiere in Brussels on 21 June)

– The realization of that dream that does not discriminate among human beings according to the accidental place where they happen to have been born, that does not recognize borders to human rights and that is reflected in the UDHR, should be pursued with the same resolve which brought to the end of slavery, 2 centuries ago.

But policy makers and the average public opinion are not prompted to action, are not constantly reminded of the dream in a way that compell perseveration in the application of the solemn international declarations against poverty, hunger, injustice and inequalities that are adopted “regularly”

– The economic crisis and the consequences of climate change have put the clock back in the progress that was being made to reduce the number of people denied their human rights and human dignity. Today some 100 million people more are suffering hunger and poverty that just 3 years ago.

The potential distructivness of climate change and the aggravation of the hardship brought about by the financial crisis could have had the potential to resurrect the best dream of humanity. Particularly climate change is a defining challenge for our generation and an announced emergency for future generations. Still protracted political negotiations are suffocating the sence of urgency and “normalizing” the threat.

 – But the best Dream is alive, perhaps a bit “dormant” but it is there. Who is dreaming the Dream today? Who decides to dedicate his/her life to try to making it happen?

– I think that individuals have several identities and belong to several categories, frequently at the same time. There are many that feel a special vocation to trascend their lives and use their time on earth also to work to improve the collective lot, and for whom the pursuit of their individual happiness include trying to help others do the same. Many people have in themselves a form of altruistic vocation, a sense of mission. I do not know if one is born with it or gradually recognizes or cultivates his vocation. I do not know if one has a sudden revelation of it. Possibly different people get there though different paths. Still I think that many doctors, teachers, religiously engaged people, even some genuine politicians may belong to the category of people with a mission. This is much more evident in humanitarian workers, in civil volunteers, human rights defenders, civil society activists.

Why that person and not another? Why chosing that career and not another? Maybe Erik Orsenna provides an answer in his latest book, where he says “We are made of water. And like water, we follow our steepest slope”.

– The reason why I am not a pessimist is because in my almost 30 years in the UN I have met many many colleagues and have recognized in the overwhelming majority of them a common feature, the sense of mission. This is also why I have today the same conviction and the same faith in the UN ideals and in our work as when I started.Working for the UN is not any job.

Without the inner flame, without the vocation, the sense of mission, it could end up being in some cases just another burocratic job.

And yet, in the colleagues I have met the world over I have hardly ever recognized the burocrat in them. I saw men and women for whom the suffering of wars, conflicts, of material and spiritual deprivation were perceived as their own humiliation, their own mortification. I have met in the UN people who would not be deterred in the pursuit of the great human dream by inefficiencies or weaknesses that they may have perceived in their organization, people who never have question for what they were working: they know well. I have met people who aborr indifference and mediocrity. Like the torch-bearer who carry the olimpic flame, these colleagues keep the best dream alive daily.

– This is the category of people to which Jan recognized to belong. Because he felt the sense of mission in his life. Because he believed that human rights were not to be denied to anyone. No matter how long the sequence of misery and mistakes Haiti had seen, no matter that even before the earthquake Haiti was already witnessing the perfect storm, every Haitian also needed and was entitled to all human rights. All the people who had a chance to meet Jan remember especially his smile, capable of “lightening up a room”;

his genuine enthusiasm for new ideaa; his passion about his work, and his dedication to the UN. He believed that the best place where the UN could make a difference in people’s lives was in the field and he was enthusiastic about peacekeeping.

– For people who decide that they are made for the UN, the organization that more than any other owns its existence to the best Dream, where to serve is not a primary concern. This is why so many colleagues accept to go to the toughest places, to the places with the highest hardship, to remote or isolated or dangerous places, wherever there is a need for human solidarity and work to improve lives. The dream must be made true everywhere.

– Several of my colleagues of dream have lost their lives pursuing their vocation.

I have lost many colleagues and friends in the most diverse circumstances. Falling in this line of duty, in the service of the best Dream, does not change the sorrow and the pain for their lives too soon taken away, but it leaves the sense of admiration and gratitude for the special human being that those colleagues prematurely passed away have been.

Honor and gratitude to Jan Hausoffen and to the UN colleagues who died in Haiti. May Jan rest in peace.

 – The UN is the institutional representation of a dream of humankind. It was established by a group of states under the impulse of a group of inspired statesmen and women that had in their eyes and had fresh in their memory the expression of where uncontrolled evil impulses could lead human kind.

 The world had seen a massacre of unprecented proportions and witnessed ideologies guided by lucid madness which had a planetary distructive potential. From the rubble, the dream of a world of peace – by decision, by diplomacy or even by force – took shape.

 – The highest expression of that dream is probably the most inspired document produced to this date: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which promises to every inhabitant of the planet  a variety of indispensable and universal rights, conferred to them for the very simple reason that they existed and that they belonged to the human race. This was the dream of justice, the dream of human dignity for all. 

 – The European Union is also a manifestation of the same dream, at regional level. From the core of the rubble, post-war Europe, the dream took the shape according to which more intense relationships among European states, the force of joint economic interests, the attractiveness of speeding up progress for European citizen, could lead to a shared vision, a unitary sense of purpose and direction to be pursued in peace.

 – Today those institutions continue to struggle to make what I call the best of dreams real. They face severe obstacles such as the fallacy of collective  historic memory which tends to fade away so allowing the repetition of crimes that had been repelled universally, as we have seen for instance in Rwnda, in DRC or in the Balkans in recent years.

They face the obstacles of resurgent national or even sub-national selfishness, which is particularly energetic at times of crisis,  as the ongoing financial and economic crisis. They face the obstacles of imperfect, not fully legitimate and representative governance, which constrains decision making in the interest of humanity. They face obstacles due to the institutional and political incapacity of transforming crisis into opportunities.

– Still the world is not short of crisis or emergencies which should constitute the powerful incentive for a common will and for decisions  prioritizing global interest.

 The existence of  inhuman conditions in which almost 2 billion people try to live, the chilling numbers of children that die for preventable causes (10 million a year), the number of our fellow human beings which do no have easy access to safe drinking water, to sufficient food (1 billion), to shelter, to education, to health care, to electricity (1,6 bln), the number of refugees and IDPs (45 M), the number of people living with HIV/AIDS and no access to drugs (almost 30 M.), the persistence of child labor, of street children, the violation of the rights of girls, the denial of equality to women, all this should represent in the eyes of public opinion and policy makers an emergency of the same kind of the one who made our best dream emerge at the end of the second world war II.

 The fact that hundreds of million people are denied freedom, are denied life options, are denied the pursuit of happiness, should be seen as intolerable by the rest of humanity. And all this is not happening on a planet different from ours, it is happening “Close to your eyes”  (which is the title of a documentary film which will be shown in world premiere in Brussels on 21 June)

 –  The realization of that dream that does not discriminate among human beings according to the accidental place where they happen to have been born, that does not recognize borders to human rights and that is reflected in the UDHR, should be pursued with the same resolve which brought to the end of slavery, 2 centuries ago.

 But policy makers and the average public opinion are not prompted to action, are not constantly reminded of the dream in a way that compell perseveration in the application of the solemn international declarations against poverty, hunger, injustice and inequalities that are adopted “regularly”

– The economic crisis and the consequences of climate change have put the clock back in the progress that was being made to reduce the number of people denied their human rights and human dignity. Today some 100 million people more are suffering hunger and poverty that just 3 years ago.

The potential distructivness of climate change and the aggravation of the hardship brought about by the financial crisis could have had the potential to resurrect the best dream of humanity. Particularly climate change is a defining challenge for our generation and an announced emergency for future generations. Still protracted political negotiations are suffocating the sence of urgency and “normalizing” the threat.

 – But the best Dream is alive, perhaps a bit “dormant” but it is there.  Who is dreaming the Dream today? Who decides to dedicate his/her life to try to making it happen?

 – I think that individuals have several identities and belong to several categories, frequently at the same time. There are many that feel a special vocation to trascend their lives and use their time on earth also to work to improve the collective lot, and for whom the pursuit of their individual happiness include trying to help others do the same. Many people have in themselves a form of altruistic vocation, a sense of mission. I do not know if one is born with it or gradually recognizes or cultivates his vocation. I do not know if one has a sudden revelation of it. Possibly different people get there though different paths. Still I think that many doctors, teachers, religiously engaged people, even some genuine politicians may belong to the category of people with a mission. This is much more evident in humanitarian workers, in civil volunteers, human rights defenders, civil society activists.

Why that person and not another? Why chosing that career and not another? Maybe Erik Orsenna provides an answer in his latest book, where he says “We are made of water. And like water, we follow our steepest slope”.

 – The reason why I am not a pessimist is because in my almost 30 years in the UN I have met many many colleagues and have recognized in the overwhelming majority of them a common feature, the sense of mission. This is also why I have today the same conviction and the same faith in the UN ideals and in our work as when I started.Working for the UN is not any job.

Without the inner flame, without the vocation, the sense of mission, it could end up being in some cases just another burocratic job.

And yet, in the colleagues I have met the world over I have hardly ever recognized the burocrat in them. I saw men and women for whom the suffering of wars, conflicts, of material and spiritual deprivation were perceived as their own humiliation, their own mortification. I have met in the UN people who would not be deterred in the pursuit of the great human dream by inefficiencies or weaknesses that they may have perceived in their organization, people who never have question for what they were working: they know well. I have met people who aborr indifference and mediocrity. Like the torch-bearer who carry the olimpic flame, these colleagues keep the best dream alive daily.

 – This is the category of people to which Jan recognized to belong. Because he felt the sense of mission in his life. Because he believed that human rights were not to be denied to anyone. No matter how long the sequence of misery and mistakes Haiti had seen, no matter that even before the earthquake Haiti was already witnessing the perfect storm, every Haitian also needed and was entitled to all human rights. All the people who had a chance to meet Jan remember especially his smile, capable of  “lightening up a room”;

his genuine enthusiasm for new ideaa; his passion about his work, and his dedication to the UN. He believed that the best place where the UN could make a difference in people’s lives was in the field and he was enthusiastic about peacekeeping.

 – For people who decide that they are made for the UN,  the organization that more than any other owns its existence to the best Dream, where to serve is not a primary concern. This is why so many colleagues accept to go to the toughest places, to the places with the highest hardship, to remote or isolated or dangerous places, wherever there is a need for human solidarity and work to improve lives.  The dream must be made true everywhere.

 – Several of  my colleagues of dream have lost their lives pursuing their vocation.

I have lost many colleagues and friends in the most diverse circumstances. Falling in this line of duty, in the service of the best Dream, does not change the sorrow and the pain for their lives too soon taken away, but it leaves the sense of admiration and gratitude for the special human being that those colleagues prematurely passed away have been.

 Honor and gratitude to Jan Hausoffen and to the UN colleagues who died in Haiti. May Jan rest in peace.