Professor Anthony J. Frendo
Head, Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Studies, and Deputy Dean, Faculty of Arts

I would like to start by congratulating you students, who will be graduating today as well as your fellow students, who will be graduating during the coming days. I would also like to congratulate all the parents of this year's graduates.

We all know that the word graduation implies that one has taken a step forward; however, at times we might forget that the steps in life are far more numerous than this important - but not the only - step that you would have reached with success. You have spent some time at this University - a time that ought to have been very important to you and which is a unique experience. During this time you had the opportunity to study and reflect on your area of specialization. As you progressed from one year to another, you grew not only in time but also in knowledge. You learnt how to make choices besides learning that often - as in everyday life - there are no simple solutions;  indeed, at times there are no solutions to certain problems. The best thing that University has given you is the ability to learn how to learn.

And now I come to a crucial point. It would be a great pity - and also a terrible thing - if you were to think that you have come to the end of your long road of study. The step forward that you would have taken today has the aim of teaching you that you ought to continue learning. We all know that all areas of study are developing at a very fast pace, and therefore there is the need to continue learning throughout life. It would be terrible if the doctor, the architect, the engineer, the priest and the teacher - just to mention a few examples - do not continue studying, thereby keeping themselves abreast of advances. It is no wonder that in one of the Colleges at the University of Oxford, namely that of 'Christ Church', the professors, lecturers, and tutors are termed students.

So what have you acquired from here that is so precious? You have acquired tools that will help you progress in your studies and in your life.  You have acquired attitudes and values which are very important for our country - above all, at this moment when we are to decide about our future and that of our children with regards to our relation with the European Union. For whether or not we do join the European Union, we have to face the fact that we need to compete with a Union made up of many people and countries where it is not acceptable to act in a careless manner. And here is the crux of the matter. Our graduates are duty-bound to help the country to overcome the old mentality of laissez-faire.

No, it should not be all the same. One hears our school children already at a very young age, arguing with their teachers about detail. For example, when the teacher explains the importance of detail in punctuation a number of children answer: "Isnít it all the same, sir, or miss", according to the case. No, it is not the same, because our attitude of half measures will grow and end by breaking us up.  At first it is a question of punctuation, then of writing, and later on of computers, until we finally acquire a mentality of half measures even in the way we build our houses, our roads, and how we work in and for our country. The time that you have spent with us in this University had to be one where you rid yourself of the mentality that I have just mentioned. And so, now you are being called upon to live according to the attitudes and values that have been passed on to you.

Some of you may be staying on at University to pursue further studies, but the majority of you will leave to join the labour force.  In your profession you will come across a lot of people, many of whom will need your help in more than one way.  Obviously, it is essential that you are professional in your work and that you put what you learnt into practice effectively.  You must be good doctors, good architects, good engineers, and so on.., actually, you need to be the best you can possibly be.  Then there are other ways in which you can help others; you must consider the persons you deal with in their entirety.  You must try and understand and help them as best you can.  I once spoke to someone in a well-known London hospital who had tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose, but whom they got to in time and saved.  He told me that he had been treated as though he was a machine - nobody really took any notice of him.  I spoke to him for half an hour and he started to feel better.  He told me afterwards that he was glad to be alive.

It is essential that what you acquired at University, you take with you and put into practice for the good of the country, not by putting your personal interest first but by taking into account the well-being of all those whom you come across.  In short, as graduates, it is your duty to model your lives on the disinterested search for truth (through ongoing study and by keeping abreast of advances, no longer to take a credit but because you love truth for its own sake) and that you utilize your knowledge in the service of others.  If Mammon were to be the sole driving force that goads you on, then both you and the University would have failed miserably.

As graduates, your presence should be felt.  You should influence those you come across first and foremost by what you do.  Whoever meets you should recognize you as someone who carries out their work in a thorough and upright manner, who moves with the times, who keeps up to date with developments in their field through regular study, and who is always ready to place the common good before their own furtherance.  Above all, those around you should see in you people, who have once and for all divested yourselves of that mentality, which I call a laissez-faire attitude.  As graduates, you must demonstrate at every turn, that to be laissez-faire is not acceptable and that you have reached such a conclusion because you have been moulded around the diligent search for truth as an end in itself.  As a result of this experience, you can never act indifferently because otherwise you will be shirking your duty towards truth and towards yourselves.

In brief, University life changes our students.  When they graduate, they realize that they have become people for whom to be laissez-faire is no longer acceptable because it is the very truth itself, which they have learnt to recognize, that will indicate such a path to them.  Our society desperately needs people such as these.

This is precisely why government does well in encouraging more people to further their studies at University. But one has to bear in mind that University studies are not easy. Such a choice requires sacrifice and discipline, two things that are much needed in our country and which finally lead to much happiness and fulfilment. The more one learns, the better one is able to view problems from different perspectives and is therefore better equipped to understand others.

Studying is for life.  Today you have completed the first part of your studies, and it is precisely this first part that is so important because it provides you with the tools to proceed faster and more easily. But for this to happen, one needs to conduct long and careful research, because otherwise, as the wise Jew Qohelet said in the fourth century B.C. according to the translation of the Bible in Maltese:
 
The more you know, the more reason you have for being sad (Qohelet 1:18b)

Actually, the original Hebrew text deals with wisdom not with knowledge, because it says harbe hohma harbe ka`as, namely The multiplication of wisdom is the multiplication of affliction.  This means that for one to become wise, one needs to work hard, and that then the more wisdom one has acquired, the more aware of problems one becomes, and thereby the sadder.  But it is we who need to change this sadness into happiness and delve deeper into problems, by making good use of those tools that a University formation has given us, mainly by opening our hearts to truth in itself.  In this way, we will be able to solve difficulties and not allow them to overpower us. This is one of the more important lessons regarding the meaning of graduation.  You have much to be happy about. Congratulations.

Tal-Qroqq
18th November 2002