As a new millennium begins, it will be up to your generation to develop a new set of values that will allow all people to live with dignity. I ask you today to discard the hatred, mistrust, and greed that have caused so much suffering and hardship in the past, and I ask you to embrace the principles of love, tolerance, and mutual respect. Such a dramatic change in values will be necessary to guarantee peace with justice in the twenty-first century. Then will our world know the blessings of peace. And in speaking of peace, I do not refer simply to the absence of war.
True peace requires more than the silence of guns.
Peace cannot truly be said to exist while children go hungry. It cannot be said to exist when countries invest in fighter jets and attack helicopters rather than schools and health clinics. It cannot be said to exist while hundreds of millions of people live in poverty. We must recognize that hunger, disease, and inequality are forms of violence, and we must commit ourselves to the struggle to overcome these obstacles to peace. It is not the product of a victory nor of a command.