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Prior to the contemporary age, the world had never been stage to such intense circulation of the
peoples who inhabit it, or of so many encounters between citizens of different countries. The
reasons for this movement of peoples and individuals are many. The celerity of communications
boosts the prestige of artists and of the learned, of sportsmen and women and of activists for peace
and justice, placing them within the reach of men and women from all continents. The current
speed and ease of travelling nowadays invites the inhabitants of the rich countries to practise mass
tourism, while globalization of the economy obliges the elite to be present in every corner of the
planet and workers to move wherever they can find work. The population of poor countries tries
by whatever means possible to access what it considers the paradise of industrial countries, in
search of decent living conditions. Others flee from the violence that ravages their countries: wars,
dictatorships, persecution, terrorist acts... For a number of years now, to all these reasons which
motivate the displacement of populations have been added the effects of global warming and the
droughts and cyclones it entails. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees,
a million people will be displaced in the world for each centimetre that the ocean rises. The 21st
century presents itself as one in which numerous men and women shall have to abandon their
country of origin and adopt —either permanently or provisionally— foreign status.
All countries establish differences between their citizens and those who are not: that is to
say, foreigners. They do not enjoy the same rights, or have the same duties. Foreigners have the
duty to subject themselves to the laws of the country in which they live, even though they do not
participate in its management. Laws, however, do not tell the whole story: the framework they
define includes thousands of daily acts and gestures that determine the flavour existence will have.
The inhabitants of a country shall always treat those close to them with more attention and love
than they do those whom they do not know. The latter, however, do not cease to be men and
women like the rest. They are driven by the same ambitions and suffer the same needs; only that
they are more prey to neglect than the former and plead for our help. This concerns us all, because
the foreigner is not only the other; we were once the foreigner —or we will be—, running the odds
of an uncertain fate: each one of us is a potential foreigner.
Tzvetan Todorov
—
Prince of Asturias Award
for Social Sciences
2008
Excerpt from the speech given on the
occasion of receiving the Prince of
Asturias Award for Social Sciences on
24/10/2008.
24
th
O
ctober
2008
