UN General Assembly
2012

﻿It is always a great honour for me to address the General Assembly. The Assembly gives us a unique opportunity to debate the key challenges of our world and time, and to identify and confront the problems that our nations are facing. It is a moment of collective ref lection and it should be a moment of truth. Today, 20 months after the act of despair of a young Tunisian citizen that strongly shook the world and generated so many hopes around the globe, many people have doubts. Some are telling us that the images of liberation and joy seen around the world have been replaced by broken promises, despair and chaos, that the world was better off when fewer people were free, and that the international system was more stable when fewer societies were open. I have come here today to make the opposite argument. I have come here today to make the case for open societies. After the horrible attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi and the death of Ambassador