When I was a child growing up in Britain, we had a phrase.
“Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.”
Now, that might've cooled down some tempers for kids who were being teased or bullied
but of course it's utter nonsense.
Words are far more powerful than sticks and stones because words transmit ideas.
Words transmit change. Words threaten people.
And for me of course, as a journalist, words are my medium.
Now I've been a journalist for about 30 years
and for 20 years of that time I was an editor with various papers
with The Sunday Times, with the Mail, with The Independent for 12 years
and then in 2010 I went back on the road
and since then I've reported probably from about 50 countries
from Azerbaijan to Iraq to Zimbabwe and it's great privilege to do that job.
And this is me a few weeks ago in Iraq
talking with some of the Christian and Yazidi refugees fleeing ISIS.
And more recently that's me in my protective gear covering Ebola
and I am just out of quarantine in case anyone's wondering.
And of course what I do, I hope I'm not one of those foreign journalists
who as Mac-Jordan says flies into a place, stays in a posh hotel
and only speaks to the elite. I think a lot of my journalism
I hope a lot of my journalism, is informed by human rights.
Whether it's arguing for the rights of the disabled in Britain
and even within human rights groups, it's noticeable how low the profile is of disability.
Or whether it's arguing and working with activists abroad
in trying to challenge despotism and dictators.
And I guess that's what I've spent a lot of my time.
Now when I do that, I'm working always with activists and in fact I feel a bit of a fraud
standing here before a lot of the people given the stories we've heard
of people fleeing from North Korea or being jailed or being attacked
when all I do is fly in for a few days and talk to these people
and then try and write up some of their stories and tell their stories.
And I'm just gonna mention three people very quickly
who I've worked with over recent years, over the last three years.
The first of them was in Azerbaijan, which is Rasul Jafarov
I was there for the ludicrous Eurovision song contest
but that was an excuse for people to go into the country
and people like him launched something called Song For Democracy
and it was a very clever attempt to use this festival
to try and focus on the failings of that country.
The second person is Yara Sallam who took me around Cairo in 2011
when the Arab Spring broke out there, and taught me so much about the Arab Spring
about the motivations of people seeking dignity and about the views
of young women towards things like the Muslim Brotherhood.
And the third person is Bheki Makhubu who is an incredible journalist in Swaziland
who is so outspoken against the absolute monarchy in a place where
you're not allowed political parties, you're not allowed to challenge the monarch.
And the reason I mention those three, is because all three of them are now behind bars.
All three of them are facing long jail sentences and it shows the dangers
that these sorts of people who help me with my work, and help us tell the world
about what's going on in their countries so bravely face.
So in many ways you know, as I said, I stand here as a fraud.
Like a pygmy on the shoulder of these sorts of giants.
But I'm gonna tell you about three other people and cases and scenarios.
Now I doubt anyone recognizes this person.
Does anyone recognize him? No. He's one of the pivotal figures in history.
This is the guy who started, inadvertently, the Syrian revolution.
He was a 15 year old teenager and he'd been playing football with some friends
one night in a town called Daraa down in the south.
And they were playing football and afterwards they were laughing around,
telling jokes, drinking soft-drinks and they put the television on
there was events in Egypt in Tahrir Square going on and they joked and said
"Hey, we should have a revolution. We should do something like this."
And then they forgot about it. But a few of them went into school that night
including this gentleman Bashir Abazid and they sprayed graffiti on the school wall
kids do this sort of thing sometimes.
And he sprayed "It's your turn dictator" on his school wall.
They thought it was a lark, they went home.
The next morning they came to school and the secret police were there.
The headmaster had called the secret police.
They rounded up some of the kids, some of the kids who had been involved
some of the kids who hadn't been involved and took them away.
And of course they tortured them horribly.
It's unbelievable, his story.
This was a 15 year old kid who had rubber tubing put over his head for days on end
was crouched up inside a tire, was beaten on the back
was beaten on the toes day after day after day, along with 14 year olds
and 16 year olds, and they rounded up his family.
And when his family outside went with the local imam to the president's cousin
who was running that area of the country they said
"Please give us back our children" and he said to them
"Forget your children, you will never see them again."
And that was really what was the fulcrum, the catalyst for the events
that we've since seen in Syria.
And it's a sign to me of how words have such power.
Just those four words on a school wall sparked something.
Obviously the mood, the desire, everything was building up there
and if that hadn't happened something else would've sparked it.
But it does show the power words can have.
Now the second person, that of course is you know, what we know has happened in Syria
and the cataclysm which has resulted. Now the second person is Paul Kagame.
Who, as I started traveling around Africa a lot, I also run a music project
with Baaba Maal and Damon Albarn called Africa Express
so I've travelled a lot through Africa through that.
And more and more I kept hearing stories from people about actually this guy
Paul Kagame, who we were told was almost like a saint who had saved his country
from genocide, and transformed the country, and was the pin-up of the West
and beloved by Republicans and Democrats in America and in my country
by Conservatives and Labour alike.
Actually, that wasn't the story.
The story was that he was running a pretty brutal dictatorship, an ethnic military dictatorship
within his country. That he was eliminating dissidents.
That he goes around the world, as we now know, it's much clearer, killing people.
And I actually ended up having a Twitter row with Paul Kagame.
In 2011 I saw something in the Financial Times and just tweeted off something saying
quoting what he's saying and calling him "despotic and deluded" and I went for a walk
and I came back and there was Paul Kagame having a go at me.
So I thought ok so, what do you do when Paul Kagame is having a go at you on Twitter?
You get tweeting back. So I got tweeting back
and I sent him copies of human rights reports, and he was attacking me
and I suppose to one extent it was very good that he was engaging with a critic
but as I pointed out he doesn't engage with his own critics in his own country,
he just kills them.
And this became a big sort of story and it was the first time a president
had engaged with a critic, a journalist, on Twitter.
Now of course the interesting thing about what's happening in Rwanda is
again the power of words and the way we have a sort of warfare over words
because Paul Kagame has taken the word "genocide" which his country went through
as we all know, the most appalling genocide, but he's used that to close down debate.
Anyone who criticizes him, any opposition leader, any foreigner
any dissident within his own party, is accused of being either a terrorist
or a supporter of genocide. And they end up being jailed
like this opposition leader here and it does again show the way words are manipulated.
They've become a form of modern warfare,
That you take words and you twist them and you use them to stifle debate
and you use them to subvert the very things which you're meant to be standing up for
like democracy or freedom.
We see it also in Ethiopia, which jails more journalists than any other country.
Where they use the language of the war on terror
and is such a vital supporter of America and the West and the war on terror
and they use that to jail and drive out independent journalism.
Then the third story I'm gonna talk about is the thing we've all heard a lot about here
which is Ukraine. I wasn't familiar with the Ukraine until I went there earlier this year
and I got there the day before the shootings at Maidan.
And so I saw the shootings in Maidan and then I stayed there for the next few days
saw some of the houses being liberated, heard the speech when Yulia Tymoshenko
was released and then I ended up going down to Crimea for the next month
and spent the month watching the whole process in Crimea.
And it was amazing to watch.
I was in with, I don't know if people are familiar with Colonel Yuri Mar
but I was in with him for 2 days, he was really the one person who stood up
to the Russian invasion. And incredibly, had a wedding
when there were tanks in the hills all around him about to come down
and take over his army base, and was the coolest person I think I've ever seen.
And he held this wedding of two officers and then minutes later
the tanks came smashing through the walls and guns were firing
and they were all rounded up. And that's him saluting.
But it was tragic to see this place and then later on to go up to Donetsk
and see a country which only really wanted a simple thing
which is a very pure vision of Europe, in terms of democracy and freedom
being willfully torn apart by a foreign power for fear of what might happen in their own lands
because of a repressive autocrat not wanting this sort of demonstration on his doorstep.
And again you see the manipulation of words
the way that the people involved in it were "fascists"
when actually the fascists or the far right in Ukraine
got a smaller share of the vote than they did in Britain in the last election in 2011.
And you see the way that you talk about freedom and a referendum
when the referendum was held with four different paramilitary groups on the streets in Crimea
a really nasty atmosphere. And of course it was completely bogus
organized by a group called Russian Unity led by this man, Sergey Askyonov
who got 4% of the vote at the last election, when they actually stood for it.
And again you see the way that words are manipulated and misused.
And I think in a way that's the challenge that we have, weather as journalists or as activists.
Which is not just to fight for human rights, and not just to fight for power and for democracy
and freedom, but also we must never forget really the key thing
when you're up against people like this, is to fight for truth
because truth is often the thing that gets lost in these debates and that's where
words are so important in the battle in which everyone here is engaged with.
Words get lost in it, they get misused, they get manipulated and that's the struggle
that I think we all face. I face as a journalist in my trips to places
which are involved in cataclysmic change and lots of you face as activists which
is to strive and hold on to that truth.
And so that's really my message such as it is.
And I'm gonna leave you, Britain has had a lot of exports
I was gonna mention Tony Blair but I thought I wouldn't blow the tone here
but I apologize for exporting him around the world but we don't want him back.
But also we have had people like Shakespeare and more recently George Orwell.
And to me George Orwell is an utter hero and so much of what he says
remains so pertinent. And it was fascinating to hear yesterday that even in North Korea
George Orwell, a man who was writing almost a century ago
was writing about things that are still pertinent to today's world
and to a place like North Korea.
But I leave you with this quote which I think is incredibly true
and sort of is something I've seen in my travels around the world.
Thank you very much. It's been an honor a a privilege to be with you.