Address by President Mandela at the Seoul University
South African History Online 
Address by President Mandela at the Seoul University
Seoul, 6 July 1995
President of the Seoul National University;
Distinguished staff and
students;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is barely three hours since we landed in the Republic of Korea, and
already, we can feel the ground swell of goodwill among Koreans for our country.
Distant as our delegation may be from home, we feel really at home in your
country.
The moving ceremony at the National Cemetery has appropriately reminded me of
what the past should not have been. Now here, among the doyen of South Korea's
intellectuals, we are reminded of what the future holds out for all of us and
coming generations.
I thank you most profoundly - the Council, the staff and the students of your
distinguished institution, for this honour bestowed on me and the people of our
country.
Seoul National University stands out within this country and further afield
as a centre of academic excellence. Indeed, your day-to-day activities capture
succinctly the motto inscribed in your constitution; and this is to "cultivate
human resources that are needed in society, to promote academic research; to
enable students to achieve self-realisation and to contribute to national
development and human prosperity.'
If this your motto was meant to describe the modest activities in this
institution, it finds resonance in our hears because the ideals you cherish are
the goal-posts of all who are thirsty for knowledge throughout the world. Mr.
President; The honour you bestow on me, naturally brings gushing back the
memories of my own youth from a humble village, in search of a meaningful
education.
The vagaries of our circumstances then, meant that we had to trudge valleys
and cross rivers to attain the mountain-tops of our academic desires.
Yet if we were to live true to your motto to contribute to national
development and human prosperity, we had to challenge the system that made
education a privilege for the majority and a right for the minority.
Thus, to our generation, education became a key to unlock the gates of
oppression, a tool against the warped logic of the slave-mater Institutions of
learning became centre to challenge colonial domination and injustice, for this,
the thorny gown and cap f achievement were detention, death, exile and long
terms of imprisonment.
For many years, such was the experience of the Seoul National University and
its legend of intellectuals and students. And it is precisely this common
pilgrimage through the blast furnace of struggle, which lends poignancy to this
august occasion.
But today, in both South Korea and South Africa, the motto of Seoul National
University assumes a different meaning in a different setting. Our countries are
free from colonial domination and repression.
Our encounter today is therefore a celebration of creation and development
rather than protest and conflict. It is an injunction to the youth to apply
themselves to their studies, confident that their knowledge will stand them and
their country in good stead.
This is the spirit driving the youth of South Africa today, now that the
doors of learning have been opened. Our Government has started to phase in free
and compulsory education; to assist university students who cannot afford the
high fees; to develop especially the technical colleges which are crucial for
the training of skilled workers.
Mr. President;
We concur with Seoul National University that higher institutions of learning
such as this one are not merely production houses of uncaring and
one-dimensional graduates. We are at one with you that they are not ivory towers
of self-fulfilling excellence. Rather they are, and should be, the fertile soil
out of which the seed of democracy and human rights can sprout and flourish.
In our own country, with the demoncratisation process, universities have been
freed to play a central role not only with regard to socio-economic matters, but
also in deepening the culture of openness, democracy and justice. They are
playing an important role in the debates around the new constitution that is
being formulated; around foreign policy matters; the judiciary; and so on.
This honorary doctorate will not only help to cement the bonds of friendship
between our peoples; but also help give concrete expression to the co-operation
that South Korea and South Africa are establishing in scientific, cultural and
other fields.
Again, Mr. President, I wish to thank you for this honour; an honour to the
people of our country, which I accept on their behalf with all humanity.
May Seoul National University grow from strength to strength; may it serve as
a tower of knowledge, may it always be a prime example of excellence, and a
fountain head of theory and practice.
I thank you.
