Paris, 23 November {No. 96-210} - The conference held today at UNESCO to observe the 20th anniversary of André Malraux’s death and the transfer of his ashes to the Pantheon featured tributes to a writer and statesman who saw culture not only as a heritage but above all a volition.

The writers Jorge Semprun, Régis Debray and Jean d’Ormesson delivered the three main statements at this event, organized by France and UNESCO at the initiative of the French permanent delegation to UNESCO and moderated by Mr D’Ormesson. About 1,400 spectators filled the conference hall including numerous foreign personages and ministers of culture as well as the author’s daughter, Florence Malraux, and his widow.

The meeting began with the broadcast of a speech to UNESCO in March 1960 by Mr Malraux, who served as France’s state minister in charge of cultural affairs from 1959 to 1969, on the occasion of the launch of UNESCO’s Nubian Campaign to safeguard the Egyptian monuments of Abu Simbel and Philae. Mr Malraux, who praised the “act by which man snatches something from death,” formulated for the first time the concept of the universality of cultural heritage, which thereafter would stand at the heart of UNESCO’s actions in the field of culture.

“Since 1936, in his speech on cultural heritage, André Malraux in a sense had anticipated UNESCO’s creation of the concept of a common heritage of humanity -- a notion that was to be consecrated through the magical power of his eloquence in his famous appeal to safeguard the temples of Nubia,” declared UNESCO Assistant Director-General Daniel Janicot. For Malraux, “the value given to the past, to the common heritage of humanity, to cultural heritage, never implies an adherence to any sort of mentality of a ‘temple’s guardian.’ The exaltation of heritage does not impugn but rathers affirms, in the words of Malraux, ‘the infinite possibility of destiny.’ ”

“By entering the Pantheon, he leaves the 20th Century and moves on to the next,” Mr Janicot said. “What better programme for the next millennium, what better symbol for UNESCO’s work for peace and development, than to be placed under the aegis of Malraux’s quest: to make freedom prevail over destiny?”

Francoise de Panafieu, France’s ambassador and permanent delegate to UNESCO, welcomed participants with a tribute to a “model man” whose vision was able to “lead humanity to a dream worthy of humankind; the dialogue of cultures appeared, he said, as the most powerful protector in the world against the demons of these dreams.”

Saluting Malraux’s commitment to safeguard works of civilisation that belong to no one in particular, France’s Minister of Culture Philippe Douste-Blazy declared that “a decisive stage was thus crossed in the history of the mind (....) this battle led by UNESCO over the past half-century bears witness to the importance of culture as a factor of peace and rapprochement among peoples.”

“In the face of intolerance and fanaticism, André Malraux proposed the motto, ‘culture and courage,” Mr Douste-Blazy recalled. “That is the motto I wish to pass on in my turn to this conference, particularly to the many young people present in this room.”

Paying tribute to “the most intelligent writer of his generation,” Mr D’Ormesson held that Malraux “understood one decisive thing: that by being used in books and official speeches, words had lost their force. He replaced them by images and action, by art and revolution. This is what attracted millions of young people to him.” Malraux is “in our century a man of contrasts and a lively paradox (...) but our century itself is full of contrasts and so paradoxical that no one can describe or embody it better than he. Malraux is a great writer because the world, all of a sudden, with its violence and contradictions, has come to resemble his books,” he added.

The writer Jorge Semprun spoke of both the ruptures and continuity in Malraux’s commitment: “Malraux engaged his body and soul, blending his life and his work, in the historical experience.” Mr Semprun retraced Malraux’s engagement in the anti-fascist struggle of the 1930’s, his combat alongside the communists and subsequent break from them, the French Resistance, his meeting with General de Gaulle, and his rediscovery of democratic and national values. “It is an engagement that is spiritual and existential, theoretical and practical. But it is not one that is partisan,” he said. “Malraux never merely called on others to join in the fight. He himself fought, offering actions instead of just words. André Malraux both wrote the words written on the banners and also carried the banners to the front lines of the struggle.” In the metamorphoses of Malraux’s engagement, Mr Semprun noted that the writer was always motivated by “the values of fraternity, courage and the universality of culture.”

In a speech about Malraux and the image, the writer Régis Debray highlighted Malraux’s prescience. “He predicted two major events that are not at all contradictory: the renaissance of that very obscure and very tenacious thing we still call nations, and that which was not yet known as globalization. At a time when the latter most certainly signifies the homogenization of culture through subordination of the weak by the strong (...), Malraux bore witness to an entirely different mode of world unity: globalization as the circulation of differences -- in the words of De Gaulle “human unity is born only from the spirit” -- and not through the abolition of differences by reducing them to the homogeneous; globalization as a dialogue and not as a monologue by one superpower which becomes the only source of images, news and dreams.” For Mr Debray, Malraux was “one among the most rare western minds, who without renouncing his own values, without betraying his European identity -- as a son of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, of Rembrandt and Goya -- loved passionately the light other civilisations could cast on his own.”

The tributes were punctuated by audio-visual presentations about Malraux and were followed by an exchange between panellists and the students present in the audience.

“What worries me today for Malraux, is not the proverbial purgatory of forgotten writers, but the air-conditioned paradise which produces our lassitude,” concluded Mr. D’Ormesson. At the moment when we are inundated with his speeches and photographs, “let us bear within us the image of that grandeur which restored freedom and honour to an enslaved people and a threatened world.”