Tim Soutphommasane

Graduates, distinguished guests, it’s a real honour to join you today on this very happy occasion, and to those graduating, my warmest congratulations to you all. I hope you enjoy today and tonight, and celebrating with your families and friends.

In America, they refer to graduation as a commencement ceremony, the idea being that the occasion wasn’t so much about marking the end of your studies but the commencement of your life beyond your years in education. I rather like this way of looking at things, because graduates, while you are entitled to be proud of your achievement and accomplishment today, you should also regard your graduation from here as only the beginning and not the end, themes already reinforced by others. Having a university degree or, in some of your cases, two, doesn’t mean that you’ve exhausted your quest for knowledge and wisdom.

Whenever I reflect on my own experience, I’m struck by how so many of the things I’ve learned happened outside my studies. This isn’t for a moment to disparage universities or the idea of a university education. I say this as someone who spent almost nine years, after all, studying at university, and a further three as an academic. Let me give you an example: no amount of training as a political philosopher equipped me for one encounter I had some years ago with Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Duke was visiting Australia along with the Queen; at a state reception, we had a conversation. The Duke asked me, ‘What do you do?’ I replied that I was a political philosopher. The Duke then asked, ‘So what do you do?’

I told the Duke that I researched questions of national identity and patriotism. The Duke responded again, ‘So what do you do?’ I paused, I reflected and I said, ‘Do you mean what do I do every day?’ And then after the Duke said yes, I said back to him, ‘Well, I sit, I read, I think and I write.’ To which the Duke said, ‘And they pay you?’

A lesson, if you will, about the importance of clarity or simplicity. Having a university degree means little if you can’t actually explain what you can to a layperson, or in my case, a duke.

Many of you graduating today are of course graduates in communications and education, so I don’t think I need to remind you at all of the importance of getting your point across clearly. There is power in clarity. It helps to have clarity of purpose, to know what you want to do, to know what you believe in. Yet this can be elusive. People don’t always admit it, but you can spend years or even a lifetime in search of meaning and purpose. In life, there are some things you cannot rush; sometimes, you have to let things come to you, in time.

This isn’t always easy. You’ll need patience and perseverance, and most important, you’ll need courage. Courage is something you can’t be taught through a degree. It emerges from experience, it emerges from adversity. And by courage, I don’t mean physical courage. Rather I mean courage of the moral kind. Robert Kennedy said, and I quote: ‘For every 10 men who are willing to face the guns of an enemy, there is only one willing to brave the disapproval of his fellow, the censure of his colleagues, the wrath of his society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence.’ Kennedy here refers to a certain type of courage – that of conviction. This is the strength of being able to hold your ground. The courageous are those who don’t buckle under pressure. They withstand scrutiny, they defy position, they have thick skins.

There is another type of courage. People are courageous when they do things, knowing there’s no guarantee of success and assurance of safety. They take action, even when they know they might well fail or even when they know they might come to some harm. In my own work encountering racism, it is a challenge to get people to have the courage to speak out against prejudice or stand up against discrimination, not because people don’t know that racism is wrong, but because acting against racism can come with consequences that hurt. There’s a third type of courage: it’s the courage of humility. Being courageous isn’t always about being strong. It can sometimes be about admitting your weakness. However, most of us – let’s face it – are rather proud. We don’t find it easy to say we are wrong or to say we don’t know. That’s why, for example, we often get half sincere apologies these days, and you hear this all the time in the media. People tend to say, ‘I’m sorry for any offense I may have caused, or that you may have taken,’ rather than saying, ‘I’m sorry I did wrong.’ So even when we say sorry, quite often we turn the blame on others.

Again, even when I reflect on my own work, I can see how hard it is for some people to be humble. I’m struck, for example, by the certainty with which many people make pronouncements about racism when they may not necessarily have experienced racism themselves. Or the confidence with which many would say that our society finds race invisible, without realising that not everyone gets to live their life without being reminded constantly of their visible racial difference. One reason we still have some way to go in combating racism is too many people remain too arrogant to listen to the lived experience of those who are different. As with any virtue, courage is something we get better at with practice. To know courage, it’s not enough for you to read or think about it. You must exercise it. You must do it. This is true, not only for us as individuals but also as a society.

When you contemplate the big questions of our time, how we give expression to equality and dignity, how we deal with the catastrophic threat of climate change, how we educate our children and our citizens, or how we define the boundaries of our society. It’s not always the case that the answers aren’t there; sometimes it’s just that we don’t have the will or resolve to act on the answers that are there. So, to the graduates, as you now commence or continue your careers in education, in media, or the law, or business, or government or in civil society, remember that your real examination is yet to come. You have of course passed some of your early examinations here at UTS, but as you now step outside the university or return to life outside the university, I hope that you will be able to find that clarity of purpose, though remember, for some, it could take a while.

In the meantime, be courageous. Don’t be afraid to back your conviction and judgement, don’t be afraid of making mistakes or even failing. And don’t be afraid to admit to your imperfect humanity, but always remember that your most compelling qualification in life is never your education – it’s your honesty, your honour, your integrity and your compassion.