3
P
rince
of
A
sturias
A
wards
1981-2014. S
peeches
Laureates. Excerpts
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, mankind believed it would regain an intellectual communion and
a common destiny, as well as its freedom. The major idea of the time, which still stands today, was
to reconcile the universal nature of values with the diverse nature of cultures. We believed in a
homeland for citizens of the world in a global village. It was to be the end of nationalisms and class
struggle. It was to be the end of ideologies that functioned like religions. Unfortunately, we very
quickly had to stop deluding ourselves and to witness exactly the opposite process. We now know
that when empires retreat, ethnic groups advance, and we also know that religions, for their part,
can function as ideologies.
The barbaric start to the twenty-first century is, curiously, the outcome of a major event of
emancipation: the end of Soviet totalitarianism. We thought that ideology had died. However, it
continues to flourish, particularly in its Islamic embodiment; a wayward turn of a great religion.
I have had two parallel roles: one as a man of the media, which consists of living history, and
the other as an observer, which consists of thinking about it. Both activities constantly feed off
each other, and have led me to a verification and a rule. The verification is that what we usually
call the human condition is a swing of a pendulum, a dialectic to-and-fro between uprooting
and putting down roots, between intensity and duration, between affirmation of difference and
nostalgia for similarity, between unity and multiplicity, homogeneity and heterogeneity, and
ultimately, between the desire to die for freedom and the fear of living in solitude; between reason,
according to Descartes, and life, according to Unamuno. Moderation, a concept we inherited from
the Greeks, consists in respecting opposites and stopping them becoming antagonists. That is the
verification.
As for the rule, I have learnt, as did Camus, that we should not add to human misfortune by
lying, and that we should call things for what they are. I have learnt to distrust all thoughts, all
texts and all acts that do not aim or manage to avoid antagonism between universal values and the
individuality of civilizations.
I began to mistrust those who favour the general to the detriment of the individual
and similarity to difference, those who try to find universality in their particular values and who
look down on the culture of others in their fascination with the universal. None of them contribute,
I believe, to a heritage of mankind that ranges from the Code of Hammurabi, the Tablets of the
Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount right down to the maxims of Kant, the great
revolutions and the Charter of Human Rights.
However, Your Highnesses, I do not want to forget that I live in a world of misfortune. When
this new evil we call terrorism —heir to the absolute evils of Nazism and Bolshevism— is spoken
about in my circles, I usually listen first to those who know what they are talking about and have
something to say, like the Spanish. They know that even though in principle you can vaguely see
the reasons why brother would kill brother, as soon as blood is spilt, it is always the same colour
and is unbearable everywhere. Next, you forget why you kill and why you die. Violence only fuels
violence. Once history was born of it. Today it devours its children.
Jean Daniel
—
Prince of Asturias Award
for Communication and
Humanities
2004
Excerpt from the speech given on the
occasion of receiving the Prince of
Asturias Award for Communication
and Humanities on 22/10/2004.
