Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-12-Speech-3-260"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20011212.13.3-260"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
". – Madam President, distinguished Members of the European Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends: It is with great emotion and excitement I receive this recognition today. This prize is an act of faith in the ability of the world to promote a sustained dialogue of tolerance and understanding. It only made my commitment towards a nobler future for the conflict in our region stronger and more persistent than ever.
It is high time now to see that tremendous spiritual past as a part of a human culture. It is important to see it as a part of a human culture and not a divine call for a holy land that eats up its children. Man is holy. Nothing else is holy if man is humiliated and deprived of his rights to live in dignity.
There will be no reason for a detailed map with the human heart being broken in our area at the edge of hope and despair. We are fed up with the illusion of victory. No nation can be defeated if it insists on the meaning of life as a value in itself. Our isolation and anxiety is beyond any proportion, but our faith in the future is also great. We will always need your support for a sustained peace process, and a support for the peace camps that lit the candles for all those who lost their lives in the ignorant battle.
Once more, with deep gratitude, I thank you for awarding me, together with my partners, this prestigious prize, but it is also with all the anxiety I have in my heart for the future of Palestine and Israel, and the admiration I express for all the men and women who are there now and who have the dream and the vision.
There are so many events that I would like to tell you about here, but the time I am given is limited. From my prison, for almost three years I wrote a book called 'Letters Underway' where I asked myself during the bleakest moment the following question: could it be possible for me to address in my book an Israeli figure who is an artist, a father, a real human soul, a man or a woman who would abolish the image of a soldier guarding my solitary cell? When the answer was yes, I proceeded with my writing. As soon as I was out of prison, I took part in a writers' meeting in Oslo where a few intellectuals from both sides met to discuss how they could contribute to peace. During ten days of ebbs and flows, the Israelis talked much about the historic distress that befell the Jewish nation and people. The Palestinians talked about their daily suffering under occupation.
But finally, after ten days, we were able to understand each other's needs. I could not forget one comment by an Israeli writer. During this meeting, on the tenth day, he said, 'I always thought that man is evil... now I am not sure'. In that same year, 1993, my son fell dead to the bullets of the soldiers in his school. The event changed the taste of everything in my life, but I knew that a good human being is a living one.
Suffering, if we so decide, can be used as a power to heal rather than a blind struggle for revenge and hatred. The principle of an eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind. I knew how to use understatement as a means of compromise in my literature.
It is true, however, that the conflict of man with his heart is the noblest sort of struggle. It is a pity that the conflict of today is between nations and cultures. Left to the generals of war and enmity, they will make it a bloody history of terror. Left to them, we will accept it for a fact that our world is either bad or mad. But those who have read history in a tolerant way, understand that what is needed is a mutual moral commitment towards the facts of existence and the human obligation towards life as the only valuable gift.
Abnormalities of all kinds do not have a race, or a religion, or a certain home. Only civilisation has its own religion and faith and home. That is because there has been no unique civilisation as a creation of its own: all through history civilisations borrowed from each other and excelled most when they were able to share their merits and values.
However, the recent fear of a clash between cultures is not groundless. There is an amazing imbalance between the rich and the poor, and there are a great deal of injustices that threaten the very principle of tolerance in our globe.
Yet, our insistence on dialogue between cultures is at its highest now, because we have to search into the roots of terror. As a writer living in an exceptionally troubled area, I must look at this issue of intercultural discourse as a story of attraction and excitement. Whatever happens in our region is doomed to affect the whole world.
That is not because we are the centre of the world. It is only because the spiritual roots sprang from here to transmit their force among every and each one of us. Both attraction and excitement arise from this tremendous past."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"Ghazzawi,"1
"Sakharov Prize laureate"1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples