Bill Clinton: “If they work at it I think it will get better. But I think you will, first of all, people will always tend to show a…”

“If they work at it I think it will get better. But I think you will, first of all, people will always tend to show a certain affinity to organize their living patterns around people who are more like them. But some people will seek a more integrated life. That's my experience in the South; that's my experience in America. I mean, I was amazed when I traveled around in other parts of America that a lot of people that I knew in other parts of the country lived a more segregated existence than I did, for whatever reason, maybe just the nature of the population of their communities. But I think there will always be a certain amount of cohesion of people of the same race or ethnic group or religious group, particularly if they have strong religious convictions. You see that all over the world. You see that here. To a certain extent, there's nothing wrong with that and it's not unhelpful. What is unhelpful is if that is used as a way to divide people and if it leads to some sort of legal or practical discrimination. And I think what Mr. Lewis is saying is absolutely right. We still have too much of that in America. We had a meeting here this morning, just for example, we had a meeting this morning; we had a couple of hundred people in the Rose Garden to talk about how we could better immunize all of our children in America. And it's appalling that a country as wealthy as we are only immunizes about two-thirds of our kids, about 64 percent of our children under 2 with all the recommended childhood immunizations. And it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that one of the reasons is that children under 2 are more likely to be children of color and more likely to be poor than adults over 50 who tend to make the decisions that control public policy in this country. That's one reason. That's not the only reason, but it's one reason. So we had a meeting today to celebrate trying to organize ourselves with some discipline at the community level to eradicate not only a health problem but a problem of discrimination against the young, the poor, and often, children of color. But I think you see this played out over and over and over again in every society. But I do believe you can make it better. And what I think is going to happen in this country is that increasingly we will come to understand that the fact that we are a multiracial society is an enormous asset in a global economy, but only if we take advantage of it, only if we educate all our children, keep them healthy, and teach people to live together in ways that permit them all to succeed. Otherwise, this potential asset becomes an enormous problem. South Africa has an enormous asset now. You have a biracial society; you have some other ethnic groups, too, I know, and mixed race, but you have essentially two great large ethnic groups of people, each of whom have different experiences, different backgrounds, different contacts throughout the world now. It can be a terrific asset for you that you are different, but only if you use it. It has been a terrible handicap. You can now turn it into an asset. So I guess my answer to Tony is, some places it will be better; some places it will be worse throughout the world. But if you look at the way the world is going, you basically are going to have two kinds of societies that will do well, it seems to me: highly homogeneous, coherent societies that think they can operate with great discipline by their own sets of cultural rules which are widely accepted within the society, who will then attempt to do well in the global economy by having high rates of savings, investment, and exporting to others but keeping their own life; or open, multiethnic societies which welcome the whole world and try to find a way to make strength out of diversity. And what you're going to see is each of those societies will be dealing with the conflicts that any course of action dictates. You've got a great reform movement going on in Japan, fighting great opposition, because they're saying, ``We need to be more open; we need to appreciate diversity more. But we don't want to be so open we don't have any discipline or control or direction,'' or whatever. And you have America saying, ``This diversity is a great asset for us, but not if we have so little discipline our crime rates are too high, our education systems are too poor,'' or whatever. So you have these two great models, each of them trying to find the strengths of one another. You have a chance to do that in South Africa. And it's a unique opportunity, at least in that part of the African Continent. And I think it's an extraordinary thing. And I think the world will come beating a path to your doorstep. It won't just be the United States; the whole world will start showing up down there when you pull this election off, because they will be so exhilarated by the moral and the practical potential of what it is you're engaged in. That's what I believe. [An interviewer cited the concern expressed by a white South African journalist about possible human rights abuses by the new government.]”