ARLINGTON, VA.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accepted the 2012 Distinguished Public Service Award of the Brigham Young University Management Society's Washington D.C. Chapter April 14 in Arlington, Va. The gala at the Crystal Gateway Marriott brought together more than 700 guests from Washington's government and business communities as well as ambassadors and diplomats from India, Macedonia, Morocco, Nicaragua, South Africa and Ukraine.
"Every individual life is worthy," she said, pointing out that no one is trapped by station or circumstance. When she couldn't get a hamburger at a Woolworth's lunch counter as a young girl in Birmingham, Ala., she learned that even if she couldn't control her circumstances, she could control her response to those circumstances.
"When you believe that, you are empowered. I work for a world not as it is but as it should be," she added.
A professor of political economy at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Dr. Rice focused her remarks on the role of stable democracies in preventing tyranny, the importance of ensuring the rights of citizens and the responsibility of the strong to lift the weak. She also highlighted the role of citizens as compassionate, philanthropic members of a democratic society.
Each year the Washington D.C. Chapter of the BYU Management Society honors outstanding public servants and business leaders. Grammy-nominated violinist Jenny Oaks Baker opened this year's award ceremony with a performance of "Amazing Grace" that prompted Dr. Rice, an accomplished pianist, to remark that her heart was moved by the "wonderful rendition."
Former U.S. Senators Gordon H. Smith and Robert F. Bennett, both of whom are LDS, presented the award to Dr. Rice.
Praising his government colleague as "a magnificent representative of the very best values of America," Brother Smith called Dr. Rice a woman of enormous substance and honesty. Brother Bennett noted her skills as a teacher and "superb diplomat," adding that the evening was an opportunity for the Church to repay a debt to the U.S. State Department, whose efforts help LDS missionaries around the world.
Dr. Rice said she was honored by the award and then recalled a recent visit to BYU where she enjoyed meeting the students. She said she feels their integrity and faith, plus the mentoring they receive from their professors help make them ready for the world.
"BYU does a very fine job of preparing leaders," she added.
Although she has been out of government service for more than three years, Dr. Rice called the present "a trying time" as people continue to adjust to three great shocks: the events and aftermath of 9-11, the 2008 economic crisis, and the Arab Spring, which still rocks the streets of the Middle East as citizens demand more freedom. "The desire for freedom is not an American value," she said. "It's not a western value. It's a universal value."
She cautioned that freedom and democracy are not the same thing, explaining that "freedom has to be institutionalized in democracy." This includes protecting the rights of speech, worship and conscience, as well as protecting the right to be free of the arbitrary power of the state. "Those who govern must ask for your consent," she stressed, adding that the institutions of government are critical to ensuring such rights are protected.
Dr. Rice observed how she herself has benefited from a Constitution where rights are enshrined. Although the country's Founding Fathers considered each of her ancestors "three-fifths of a man," Dr. Rice said that Martin Luther King could eventually argue that segregation was wrong because of Constitutional guarantees.
Truly stable democracies, she said, do not allow the tyranny of the majority.
"They recognize that the strong cannot exploit the weak," she said. "A really stable democracy is only as strong as its weakest link."
Reinforcing the concept of individual worth, Dr. Rice also talked about compassion and service, noting that Americans are some of the most individualistic people on earth as well as some of the most philanthropic. Although government can protect rights, she said, when it comes to compassion, Americans turn to each other, and that true compassion is the work of the citizen or groups of citizens.
"That has very much been the tradition of your wonderful church," she noted, referring especially to humanitarian service efforts and missionaries who are out "teaching people that faith is a wonderful wellspring of compassion."
The BYU Management Society is the global alumni organization for the Marriott School of Management, friends of BYU, and business and government professionals. The BYU chapter annually awards scholarships to students of the school. Scholarship recipients for 2012 are Tyson Bills; Devon Dickson; Douglas Hervey, Jr.; Marianne Prignano; Nancy Waterbury; Matthew Walsman and Laura Rothlisberger.
