Speeches
Remarks by Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen at 12th Munich Young Leaders Roundtable on “Building Consensus In A Divided World”
16 February 2020
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Introduction
Thank you very much Ms von Hammerstein. Thank you Ms Nora Müller and Dr Thomas Paulsen. It is a delight to be here. It is a beautiful Munich day. It is not like that every year.
For the Munich Security Conference, I must say that one of my highlights is the Young Leaders Roundtable. I do not know how they do it, but the Köber Foundation does a stellar job of just selecting the most vibrant CVs that I have seen. I will not ask you to share your secrets but it is quite uplifting. And that is the reason why you keep inviting me and I keep coming back. It fills me with a sense of hope, because many of you will go on to leadership positions, or already are in leadership positions, and as long as there are people who are open-minded and inclusive, it makes for a better future for everyone.
A Rules-Based International Order for Peace and Prosperity
By way of style, I have started these meetings trying to pontificate. I thought that with such an outstanding group, it is better to tap your minds, because you are the future. I wanted to start by saying that we should be clear-eyed about how our world has shifted. And the template is this: I will frame a particular topic and then ask for your views. I will start by saying that we have to be clear-eyed, and what we plan and our actions need to be relevant to the current challenges, take the world as it is, not as what we want it to be. And particularly, to be in sync with the zeitgeist of a new generation. And I am very conscious that I -- and probably myself, and not the others -- come from a different generation and different perspective: more post World War II, so on and so forth.
So let me frame this issue about how to get consensus in global peace. I thought I would start with lines crafted by an Irish poet. Well, you would have heard of him, his name is William Butler Yates. I will read it:
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
It is a sad and cynical poem. It was written in 1919, in a post-apocalyptic world, after World War I. 20 million dead, four empires decimated and millions more suffering and with the seeds sown for the Second World War. Some of you would have read the book, "The Sleepwalker", and how many thought that it would be a six-week war. Lasted four years, four empires decimated. I start with that poem even though our world today is a far cry from that. But I thought if we have to learn the lessons of history, the first two questions that I would put to this group and elicit some answers will be these two questions. I want to focus on Yates' line that "the centre cannot hold".
Table caption
What forces are pulling our socio-political centre apart, both within your countries and globally? I think we should use the fact that there is enormous diversity, both geographic and experience: What is it that holds your country's and your region's socio-political centre? It is a very deep question, not easy to define. But to the nub of it, if "the centre cannot hold" then "things fall apart". So what is it that holds the centre of your countries and your regions together? |
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The questions relate to your countries and globally. I will then share what my thoughts are in this exchange of views.
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