Last December, Bettina B. Cenerelli, President and CEO of the Foundation, along with three of our alumni Robert Huish (2004 Scholar), Alexandra Lysova (2011 Scholar) et Charlie Wall-Andrews (2020 Scholar) took part in the Global Fellowship Forum, organized by the Mandela Rhodes Foundation in Cape Town. The GFF brought together a total of eight foundations: Rhodes Trust, Knight-Hennesy Scholars, The McCall MacBain Foundation, Loran Scholars Foundation, The Posse Foundation, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, Schwarzman Scholar, as well as the Mandela Rhodes Foundation. 

The theme of this edition “Leading in a polarised world” invited participants to reflect on the leadership challenges we face today, whether political, social, economic, or cultural. And what better place to explore these issues than South Africa, whose history powerfully illustrates the transformative potential of reconciliation and moral leadership in times of division. 

This event, marked by the presence of Mrs. Graça Machel and numerous guests, presidents, and alumni, was a unique opportunity for rich dialogue, and sharing best practices among committed leaders from around the world. 

Among the highlights, Robert Huish (2004 Scholar) delivered the closing speech and shared an inspiring reflection: “And perhaps the universe itself is made up of stories?” 

READ HIS FULL SPEECH 

“Many scientists say that we are made up of atoms and DNA. 

But Eduardo Galeano suggested, and it has been reinforced during this week, that we are also made up of stories.  

 And perhaps the universe itself is made up of stories? 

There are stories that celebrate those whose statues sit encased in bronze in city parks and didactive buildings around the world.  But the stories we hear repeated of great figures in history are not stories of nations or of peoples.  

 The real stories of any nation are written quietly.   

They are written by anonymous hands on anonymous walls.  Our artists paint our favourite corners of a city with stories.  It is the stories of the defeated, the forgotten, those whom others wish to remain silent, that is where the deep magic of humanity comes together.  

 The official stories of history that echo through halls of power may be things that we should be less concerned with.  For example, the history of Christopher Columbus paints a picture of the inevitability of European civility spreading across the world. It is a constructed one meant to authorize a great power, but also to legitimize a horrid injustice in the world today.  The story of Bartolomé de Las Casas, who chronicled Columbus in the Caribbean, tells how horrific and inhumane Columbus was.  And how the whole period of first contact was based on wanton cruelty that would rightly shock any human being, then or now. 

Stories of the “nobodies,” those who history condemns to being forgotten, matter more than ever before in a polarized world.   

Because the very act of remembering – and remembering truth – is in itself an act of defiance and an act of refusal.   

Remembering, celebrating, and even protecting our own stories is not an invitation to live in the past; it is to inform our futures.  

If we have heard anything this week, it is that polarization takes place within systems – and often within systems of tremendous inequality. And it is why the captains of those systems attempt so furiously to spread their stories over our own. Renaming mountains and seas is part of it, but so too is demonizing those with different stories, and turning spaces of dialogue into gladiator arenas, where people are fearful of curiosity, and inquiry is scolded with stigma and shame. 

If we record, share and even protect the stories of ourselves and others, then we will find commonality for dialogue.  And it may often be that the deepest systems of inequality ultimately serve nobody.   

So by protecting our stories, our real stories,  I don’t mean protecting someone’s right to spout nonsense, hatred or indifference.  But to work to help those who would cause such harm to see their own story within in that system of inequity.   

To see that not being able to afford rent or make ends meet, can occur in New York or West Virginia.  

I’m convinced that if we protect our stories, we will find moments, and there are so many, as Howard Zinn said, when people behaved magnificently to create spaces of compassion, to fight against injustice, and to demand better.   

As social justice has never been a gift of government, it arises from people fighting for it.  

To speak personally, in the fire service, when there is a call, no one cares about our differences. The only concern is whether the team can take care of each other. Can I rescue you, and can you rescue me?  I will do all I can to ensure that you go home to your family, even if it means I don’t go home to mine.  There is a shared purpose, there are changing objectives, things go fantastically wrong, but the top priority is that we take care of each other.    

This is a story of compassionate governance, and it works on a fire truck.  Can it work beyond that?    

So many times, we see movements and governments aim towards fairness.  But is this even possible?  Has a system ever produced fairness?  It may be a false illusion.    

What if, like the fire truck, the goal is not fairness, but service?  Service to protect, service to ensure, and service to be present.   

We serve each other to help and heal the physical body as first responders, but can we serve each other in a way to ferociously protect each other’s stories, and to defend against the forces that aim to silence our stories?  Service and respect for stories are what we hear from Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.  And to borrow inspiration from Eduardo Galeano, to challenge the system that: 

polarizes us and creates inequalities.  

That system where history teaches us to forget.  

That system that measures the quality of life by the quantity of things  

That system where we are driven by cars, programmed by computers, bought by bankers, and watched by screens  

That system where education is reserved for those who can pay  

That system where people who refuse to go to war go to jail, rather than those who seek to make war.  

Today, or even tomorrow, through our own stories we may not change that system, but we can refuse to let that system change us into it…and that in itself is a marvellous victory.” 

Prof. Robert Huish 

Cape Town, South Africa, 

December 4, 2025