[ Mr Mayor ] [ Mr Diouf ] [ Dr Kissinger ] [ Mr De Klerk ] [ Mr Mandela ] [ Personalities ]

Mr President of the Republic of Senegal,
Distinguished Laureates,
Mr Chairman and Members of the Jury,
Ms Chairperson of the Executive Board,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased and proud to welcome you to UNESCO for the ceremony at which the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize is to be awarded for the first time. It is most gratifying that this occasion should be honoured by the presence on this platform and in this hall of so many distinguished guests.

Nobel prize-winner Nadine Gordimer, speaking at Cape Town University in 1979, said of the prospects for cultural reconciliation in South Africa:

"Any optimism is realistic only if we, black and white, can justify our presence, talking here, by regarding ourselves as apprentice(s) to freedom. Only in that capacity may we perhaps look out for, coming over the Hex River Mountains or the Drakensberg, that "guest from the future", the artist as prophet of the resolution of divided cultures."

Nadine Gordimer's observation seems to me applicable today to South African society as a whole. It is – I would venture to suggest – only through a collective apprenticeship to freedom that South Africa can move, with all the dangers that the exercise of freedom implies, towards a shared and interactive culture. Democracies are, of course, by their very nature in a permanent state of apprenticeship and learning. All are evolving; all face crises; all are at risk from the forces of poverty, ignorance, despair and fanaticism. If today in South Africa democracy is a real prospect and not a mere Utopia, it is in large measure due to the parallel endeavours of our distinguished guests, joint winners of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize.

The tides of freedom can rarely have flowed more strongly throughout the world than at present, accelerating it would seem the very pace of history. The events that have recently unfolded in such swift succession in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa underline how far the human spirit is indissociable from freedom. Ideologies and political systems that deny the primacy of individual freedom have had their foundations shaken or shattered by a force more elemental than themselves. We are living in an age that, in the scope of the political and social changes it is witnessing, calls to mind some of the great moments of liberation in human history – a springtime of peoples occurring this time on a virtually planetary scale.

The opportunities opened up by this stirring of the human spirit are great, but so too are the challenges it presents. The opportunities are those associated with the development of democracy, conceived of as the sum and reconciliation of individual freedoms; the fostering of human rights within an expanded framework of democracy; and the promotion of international peace and security, for which democracy offers surer guarantees than authoritarian regimes, whose unresolved internal tensions too often spill over into external conflict and aggression. The challenges are those presented precisely by the harmonization of individual freedoms, by the forging of an active citizenry, by the fashioning of a society based on the mutual recognition of freedoms. Learning to live together and the assertion of individual rights are inseparable aspects of the apprenticeship to freedom.

Few contemporary figures embody the struggle for freedom so powerfully as Nelson Mandela, President of the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC). The campaign he has waged for over 50 years in the name of equality, justice and dignity, and his courage, serenity and intelligence in the face of oppression and suffering, have made him the symbol of liberation not only in his own country but throughout the world. Perhaps I may be allowed here to quote from a poem I dedicated to Nelson Mandela on the occasion of his 70th birthday:

From your goal, Sir, you understood better than anybody that the cost of true democracy is always high and that, as José Marti said, one must either resign oneself to living without it or make up one's mind to pay the price. Nelson Mandela - a source of hope for millions of Africans, the expression of their struggle and aspirations – has by the force of his example given a universal dimension to the fight against apartheid.

If he has done so, it is because – in the tradition of a Simón Bolívar or a Martin Luther King – he exemplifies the commitment of the liberator who never loses sight of his ideals in the prosecution of his cause. As he wrote in 1980 in a speech accepting the Nehru Award for International Understanding: "The knowledge of shared suffering [...] keeps alive in us our oneness with mankind and our own global responsibilities that accrue there from. It [...] helps to strengthen our faith and belief in the future". Throughout the long years of struggle and imprisonment, in the face of cruel injustice to himself, his family and his people, he has remained faithful to his vision of a democratic and non-racial South Africa – one in which all citizens, without distinction or discrimination, will have their place and enjoy their political, economic and social rights within a united country. It is this wisdom and clear-sightedness, this constant search for the harmony and convergence on which social understanding and peace are built, this commitment to freedom in its broadest sense, that have enabled Nelson Mandela to play such a crucial role in laying down the bases for the construction of a new South Africa.

In the three years – almost to the day – since he assumed the leadership of the Nationalist Party and in the two and a half years of his presidency, President Frederik W. De Klerk has been instrumental in unlocking his country from an unjust and sterile past and opening it to a future, fraught with danger and difficulty certainly, but holding out the promise of reconciliation and renewal. Before coming to office, President De Klerk recognized that "the security of the whites can never be built on injustice to the other peoples of South Africa" and announced his intention to construct "a just constitutional, economic and social order". At his swearing-in ceremony as President he declared: "History, I believe, offers us a unique opportunity for peaceful solutions. I trust the people of South Africa will, in these times, show the courage and vision required to break the cycle of conflict, tension and isolation which has gripped us for so long - the courage and vision to work for a new, strong and just South Africa". He himself has provided the example of such courage and vision.

Heeding the call of justice and the voice of the international community, he has initiated a series of actions that testify to the intention to break with the past: the ending of the state of emergency, the release of political prisoners, the unbanning of opposition parties, the repeal or amendment of many of the legal bases of apartheid, and - more recently - certain moves towards power sharing. The decisive step remains, of course, to be taken: the preparation and adoption of a constitution that will usher in a genuinely democratic and non-racial South Africa. However, it is to the very great credit of President De Klerk that he should have recognized that the freedom of the people of South Africa is ultimately indivisible and that he should have had the courage and will to act in accordance with this perception.

Thus Nelson Mandela and President De Klerk have arrived, by different paths and from different directions, at an area of common ground where dialogue - based on the mutual recognition of freedoms – can take place. They have set in motion a dynamic of democracy that, if it can be sustained, could ultimately derive enrichment from the very diversity of its sources. They have wagered on freedom when decades of history and ingrained habit could have condemned them to a continuum of violent conflict. History is not predictable precisely because people like Nelson Mandela and President De Klerk exercise their freedom to challenge the past in order to construct the future.

Their historic undertaking – as we all know – remains not without hazard. Both must contend with those on opposing sides who would deny to others what they claim for themselves. In this way, Nelson Mandela and President De Klerk are united both by their shared hopes for the future and by their common rejection of the extremes that would preclude the realization of those hopes. The road ahead will inevitably be difficult, for as Nelson Mandela has emphasized, quoting Nehru, "there is no easy walk to freedom". But in this alliance, in this joint apprenticeship to freedom, lies the best - doubtless the only – prospect of a united and democratic South Africa.

No, the walk to freedom is never easy. And it is long, as long, in the words of the poet, as impatience is violent... In our haste to see desired and long awaited changes become tangible realities, we often underestimate the importance of time. The apprenticeship to freedom, the apprenticeship to democracy, are processes and, as such, they are part and parcel of time – which Bergson, who so finely plotted its workings in our minds, described as "process and indeed at the root of all process". Things that depend on mental attitudes and on culture in general are slow to change.

Decision-makers, people of action and the young want to move fast. And often it is necessary to move fast. In politics, it is possible to act by decree. But if a decision concerns cultural phenomena it remains without immediate effect – since that to which it applies is embedded in time, and time will not be hurried along. Conversely, when the time is ripe for freedom, no barrier, no decree can resist it. An apparently unforeseen, sudden and even inexplicable change in the political sphere is often the culmination of slow processes, long making themselves felt beneath the surface in other areas. What occurred recently in the former Soviet Union is, it is true, the result of the vision and courage of one man, but it is also the culmination of many years of invisible maturation.

Now, as we come to the end of the twentieth century, the old order is being overturned, the blocs are breaking up, the aspiration to democracy is demonstrating its universality. Shall we remain spectators, placid travellers seated before recording machines, unruffled orchestrators of a calendar governed by routine? No, we cannot, nor do we want to, for we know how rare and precious such a conjunction is. The "old" democracies cannot be content to marvel or to congratulate themselves: history is carrying them away from the beaten track. Political and social reality is being expressed in new ways; the young democracies whose foundations are still so fragile need help to survive, inventive help; hatred and fanaticism, the eternal foes of democracy, are lying in wait for the right moment to sprout. We must therefore be at once confident, bold, generous, creative, watchful and ruthless. And to achieve all this uncommon energy is needed. Peace, freedom and the building of democracy call for at least as much energy as war, resistance and refusal.

What is more, no recipe or model is available here. Admittedly, democracy is based on universal principles which should shape in every citizen attitudes instinct with understanding, justice and equity. But the ways in which freedoms interweave vary from one country to another, since they hinge on the history and cultural essence of each nation. Each country must then find its own form of democracy in accordance with its own particular features. It would no doubt be easier to impose a universal pattern. It would also be terribly reductive – and probably ineffective. We must on the contrary look in every case for the complex solution that will reflect the complexity of reality, work out – if need be, empirically – how to strike a balance between individual freedoms and collective freedoms, and invent the means for this new democracy of constantly reshaping in the crucible of the national community the individualism it begets, thereby making it firm and durable. That UNESCO is interested in this quest and is making every effort to contribute to it is because the extension and consolidation of democracy throughout the world are linked to the realization of its fundamental mission, namely the maintenance of peace and security. Of all the forms of social organization, democracy alone, by virtue of its institutions founded on equity and harmonious coexistence, creates the necessary conditions for civil peace.

In establishing an international prize to promote the cause of peace in the world, UNESCO's General Conference wished to reaffirm its attachment to the principles that had guided the Organization's founders and to demonstrate once again its awareness of their relevance to the world of today. In naming this prize after Mr Félix Houphouët-Boigny it paid tribute to a distinguished son of Africa, a champion of co-operation and dialogue between peoples and cultures. It wished to honour one of the fathers of African independence. It wished to honour a sage who has always worked for the peaceful settlement of conflicts in Africa, including those in the southern part of the continent.

We were delighted at this decision. Today when the Prize is being awarded for the first time, we are doubly delighted, since the vision exemplified by the joint laureates clearly coincides both with the objectives of the Prize and with the ideals of UNESCO. For this coincidence I wish to thank the eminent members of the international Jury and its Chairman, Dr Henry A. Kissinger, whose fruitful efforts on behalf of the maintenance or re-establishment of peace – I am thinking in particular of Zimbabwe – are present in everyone's memories. I also thank the Jury for having united in honour two men who not long ago were still adversaries. I thank it lastly for having done more than pay tribute, for having indeed wished, through the award of the Prize, to consolidate a hope, reinforce a line of action and encourage these two leaders to continue together the dialogue they have already initiated, so as to bring about in South Africa the changes so fervently desired by the whole world.

I am happy to welcome here Mr Abdou Diouf, President of the Republic of Senegal, a leader whose opinions are always valued and who took the historic decision to inaugurate the march of the African States towards democracy by making his country a land of pluralism and tolerance. I have not forgotten that in 1987 he authorized the holding of a meeting in Dakar for South Africans of the interior and representatives of ANC, which was a major turning-point inasmuch as it triggered, so I believe, a salutary change in the collective consciousness. The speech he delivered on that occasion testifies to his clear-sightedness and to his courage.

UNESCO takes pride in the presence of these heads of State and eminent persons who have striven unceasingly to advance the cause of peace, equality of rights, justice, freedom and, in particular, the establishment in South Africa of an apartheid-free society.

Through studies carried out under its social science research programme on the effects of apartheid, through meetings held on this subject for the purpose of generating public awareness, facilitating the flow of information and mobilizing the intellectual and academic community and the media, through technical and material assistance in developing educational structures and programmes for refugees and through assistance to liberation movements, UNESCO has for decades been striving to eliminate apartheid. And it still is. But the special project it launched in 1989 also has a broader objective, which is to facilitate, stimulate and promote the South African people's search to organize itself into an apartheid-free democratic society. Is there for UNESCO any task more exciting, more consonant with its intellectual and ethical mandate, more relevant and more necessary at the present time than that of associating itself to the best of its ability with the transition in progress in South Africa, in the hope that one day that country, cured of its stigma, justly proud and at peace, will rejoin the community of its Member States?

Let us be fully aware of the challenge facing the South Africa that is being built. It has to realize the long-flouted hopes of an entire people, develop an unprecedented form of community life and serve a collective apprenticeship to freedom in its national institutions. It must also, while having regard to the equal dignity of cultures, embody the universality of human rights as proclaimed by the international community in the Universal Declaration and the two international Covenants. What is at stake is the dignity of a whole continent, for it is being watched by the whole of Africa. Just as the "Mandela effect" on urban youth in Africa was undoubtedly one of the causes of the democratic upsurge on the African scene during the 1980s, so the "post-apartheid effect" will be decisive for the political coming-of-age, economic development and moral well-being of the whole of Africa. Both a driving force and a source of stability at the sub-regional and regional levels, a non-racial, democratic South Africa, at peace with itself, would be the finest proof that sometimes Utopias are realized, that the ideals constituting UNESCO's raison d'être, sometimes find tangible expression.

I am moreover convinced that in the new age which is approaching, the age of necessary cohabitation between peoples on an increasingly small, increasingly fragile and increasingly media-linked planet, UNESCO will be playing a role whose full importance has not yet been grasped. It is the only intergovernmental body where cultures, in other words the heart and the mind, find expression on an equal footing. Mutual understanding, respect for cultural differences, free expression of collective identities and individual talents-such are the foundations of our future. Not everyone has yet admitted this self-evident truth, but eventually everyone will, and will ultimately be gladdened by it, recognizing that "the only taint that can afflict a human group and prevent it from fully realizing its nature is that of being alone."¹

1 Claude Levi-Strauss, Anthropologie Structurale II.

[ Mr Mayor ] [ Mr Diouf ] [ Dr Kissinger ] [ Mr De Klerk ] [ Mr Mandela ] [ Personalities ]