Embassy hosts exhibition on Roger Casement in Abuja

On 21 November, Ambassador Seán Hoy opened an exhibition about Roger Casement in the thought Pyramid Art Centre, Abuja. Casement spent some of his early working life living in Old Calabar, present-day Nigeria. The engrossing exhibition, prepared by Kerry County Museum tells the story of Casement's fascinating life as an important early human rights advocate in the Congo, the Amazon and Ireland.

At the event, Ambassador Hoy announced the establishment of a Casement fellowship which will fund a Nigerian student going to Ireland to study human rights. The Ambassador's speech opening this exhibition follows below.

Ambassador Hoy's Address

We have brought the Roger Casement exhibit to Nigeria today, as Casement, one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, had a very special relationship with Africa. He built his reputation as a humanitarian in the Congo when he revealed the gross injustices used by the private sector against the indigenous population. What is less known, is that Casement began his African journey in West Africa and served for a number fo years as a diplomat in Calabar, Nigeria.

Casement was in many ways typical of the Victorian travellers of his time. He left his home in Ireland at 15 and travelled from Liverpool to West Africa. It was a journey made possible through a family contact. On his bedroom wall, he had a map of Africa na consumed books on travel and adventure. This was his motivation. He did not travel to make money or become rich. He absorbed the environment he lived in and he came to respect the people amongst whom he lived.

The maps which we have added to tonight's exhibition are copies of the originals which are kept in the Kew Archives outside London. From the little we know of Casement in Nigeria, he travelled throughout Calabar collecting information without an armed escort. From the very start, he stood apart from his peers putting his trust in his own ability to get on with local people.

St. Patrick's Missionaries in Calabar have also informed is of the two large water tanks, still in place and known locally as The Casement Tanks. These were apparently the first public utilities put in place for the use of the local population.

One can only imagine the difficulties  for Casement as a public official in trying to raise the voice  of local people in a world where white men, and they were almost entirely men, were crudely divided into either missionaries or mercenaries. While Casement never doubted the need for trade or the search for raw materials, he was one of the first believers in the concept of mutual trade. He believed in sharing the benefits of trade with the rightful owners of the resources.

Casement's biographers describe a man who struggled all his life. His humanitarian drive to support the poor and voiceless in Nigeria, Congo, the Amazon and Ireland would cost him dearly. He resigned from his position in the British Foreign Service where he was knighted as an outstanding if unorthodox diplomatic officer. He became deeply aware of the poverty in Ireland and supported school to promote the Irish language which he felt was under threat at the time.

He gained the trust of the leaders of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 and committed treason by making contact with the German forces in an effort to send both prisoners of war and guns to Dublin. I will leave it to you to view the exhibition and reflect on the life of this complex and conflicted man.

Perhaps as you read through the various slides, it is worth reflecting on how Casement might see the world today, one hundred years after his death. In Ireland he would see great changes. The Dublin of 1916 had a higher child mortality rate than Calcutta, but so had many other industralised cities. We have made great progress in reducing inequality in Europe. But, if I may borrow from President Higgins in his address earlier this year in New York. We are all developing countries for no country has reached a point where the development process is ever satisfactorily completed. We need to develop new responses to new challenges. The Sustainable Development Goals involve all nations as playing their part to meet the targets.

Casement today would certainly welcome the warm and ever closer relationship between Britain and Ireland. But, we might wonder what he would he think if he was to return to the Delta in Nigeria? When I travelled to Bayelsa last year with Fr Kevin O Hara, I remarked to him that I felt I was walking in the footsteps of Roger Casement. To present the issues in the Niger Delta today as a conflict between external investors and indigenous people is to over simplify a very serious crisis. As I look around the room, I see many colleagues who are working for a better Nigeria. Some of you I know are working in the Niger Delta.

The one thing that Casement has shown us, is that one person can make a difference. He was ahead of his time for sure, but we also need many more Roger Casements today. People who can rise above what is expected of them to work for a better world. In Nigeria, I would single out Dr Stella Ameyo Adadevoh who made the ultimate sacrifice in giving her life to protect the citizens of Lagos, Nigeria and the World from the Ebola Virus.

Casement is remembered in some of the best literature on Africa and Ireland. He was an acknowledged influence on Joseph Conrad author of the Heart fo Darkness, and is referenced in the greatest book on Ireland, Ulysses by James Joyce in the Cyclops chapter.

In his Amazon diaries, he described the atrocities committed against the Putamayo Indians as 'a crime against humanity', one of the earliest recorded usages of this phrase, which later attained legal status in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and again in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Finally, I am also pleased to announce tonight that the Embassy will support a Roger Casement Fellowship for a Nigerian citizen to study Human Rights at postgraduate level in Ireland.

I now invite you to take some time to learn about this extraordinary and complex man and I hope in some way that you will be inspired and pass on the message to other to come and visit the exhibition throughout the week.