It is my special honour and pleasure, on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia and on my own behalf, to bid you welcome and wish you a pleasant stay in the ancient city of Ohrid, the cultural treasure of Macedonia and part of the UNESCO world heritage. It gives me particular pleasure that we can share this spirit of openness and hospitality, which has always marked Ohrid and Macedonia, with all of you on this forum with a profoundly humane and noble mission, deepening the always present and living dialogue of civilizations as the only way to secure the most precious values of human kind: peace, mutual understanding and tolerance. I believe that Macedonia and Ohrid are in many ways the true venue for such an exchange of opinions, which perhaps deviates from classic political issues treated at international gatherings, but it is an exchange of opinions which involves the entire weight of the problems that the world is facing today and will be facing in future. Your presence on this gathering testifies to that and, in that respect, I would like to express the gratitude of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia for your active contribution to the success of this forum. Special gratitude, naturally, goes to UNESCO, the home of the world's cultural heritage.
One feels that at the millennium threshold all of us live between the prematurely promised and unattainable "end of history", on one hand, and the heralded "clash of civilizations", on the other. The hopes and enthusiasm of the free world have been awakened with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and they were replaced with astonishment, disbelief and concern before the somber images of September 11 tho Historically speaking, for a brief period of time, we, on the Balkans, also lived through our part of the Golgotha. These regions, which are the cradle of European culture and civilization, witnessed wars, destruction, and ethnic cleansing; confinement in narrow national and religious frameworks where fear of the other is the first step towards hatred. At that time, many predicted that the clash of civilizations had already started here, at our gates, on the Balkans.
However, such apocalyptic predictions did not come true. The spirit of our people resisted being involved in the trap which, disguised behind the veil of belonging to different civilizations, makes deadly enemies out of ancient neighbours. Of course, it is an unforgivable political mistake to neglect the possible threats and dangers and believe that the forces of destruction are forever locked in Pandora' s box.
The Ohrid gathering is yet another message that people in this part of Europe wish to, know how to and can live together, cooperate, and exchange the precious knowledge that their everyday life in the cultural and civilization environment they belong to provides them with abundantly. That is our great mission -to show that our region can turn from a potential zone of conflict of civilizations into a world leader in the process of rediscovering the wealth of differences, cultural exchange and intertwining. In fact, respecting and revering the culture of the other is the best way to confirm the receptiveness and wealth of one's own culture.
The continuous process of deepening and intensifying regional cooperation is yet another proof of the necessity of comprehensive communication. It is the right path. And it is the choice of my government which will continue all the necessary activities and initiatives in that direction. There is an obvious need to include all the segments of civil society in the joint cooperation. The Balkans have gone through a lot of tribulations in history, however, it is a wrong thesis that we have been divided by everything throughout history. We must underline the aspects of our past that have brought us together and left an essential mark on the culture of mutual respect. Of course, we are not speaking of historical amnesia or reshaping grim historical episodes; it is simply liberation from the shackles of unproductive historicism which always sees itself as the victim and the other as the executioner.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
The Republic of Macedonia, in addition to its historical past, the authentic and everyday experience of shared life and tolerance and its modem position of a respectable member of the international community, provides its full contribution to mutual understanding, dialogue and intertwining of different civilizations and cultures. We neither know, nor can, nor wish any different; there are churches and mosques, and synagogues and ancient sites standing side by side under this same sky. This is where the main roads connecting the East and the West went through. We understand our life on the crossroads of civilizations as an advantage and a treasure rather than as a curse and wretched fate. Thanks to such understanding, our people have managed, in spite of all differences and attempts to manipulate national or religions feelings, to build permanent relationships of joint life and respect. The way in which the Republic of Macedonia faced the challenge in 2001 showed that there is only one solution to problems -dialogue. The culture of dialogue in our country is one of our most genuine values. In that spirit of dialogue and understanding, the Government of the Republic of Macedonia has undertaken all necessary measures not only to pave the way for the future in the shared homeland of all its citizens, but also to heal the wounds from the past, where a special place is given to the programme for renewing and reconstructing monuments of Christian and Islam provenance damaged in the military actions of 2001.
The Republic of Macedonia is part of the big family of free and democratic countries which see the future of the world in the mutual intermingling of different civilizations and cultures and their material and spiritual values. We shall not accept mechanical joining, assimilation or cultural uniformity; however, we also shall not accept a world with walls and borders between different civilizations for the simple reason that those walls would go through the live tissue of our memory, our present and the future of our children. No man is an island, says the poet; and different civilizations are even less capable of living and existing as islands, separated from one another by the seas of ignorance, fear and hatred. We, in Macedonia and on the Balkans, know something about this. It is the knowledge of the inevitability of intermingling and mutual enriching of civilizations that must be the joint and recognizable signature of all of us in this region in the creation of United Europe, but also in the shaping of a new world where justice, equal development and eliminating poverty will reduce the possibilities for abusing civilization differences and turning them into a propellant of destructive activities.
The twenty-first century, which Andre Malraux predicted as the "age of spirituality", poses enormous commitments for all of us, individually and together. With all due respect and recognition for all the civilizations inextricably incorporated into the common code of humanity, we are faced with an obligation to help a relatively new civilization that all of us share. This civilization is genuinely syncretic and includes all the cultural horizons, and it shares the value systems shaping the future of society and of each individual. It is the civilization of freedom, democracy and human rights. Only in such a system can any spirituality, religion, cultural and civilization affiliation, fully develop and live together and in harmony, away from the winds driving them towards the forces of conflict and self-destruction.
Let this gathering in Ohrid add impetus to our mission for bringing together our nations and cultures in the name of the eternal tenets of humanism, a mission which fills us with pride and faith in the future.
Thank you.
