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We do not forget, nor will we ever forget, the victims of terrorist madness that spreads pain and cuts
down lives throughout our country. They are, in the words of José Angel Valente, “the resounding
blood of freedom”.
Let us now talk about our Laureates:
It fills me with pleasure to know that the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and
Humanities has been conferred on a representative of the highest level of international culture, the
lecturer and writer Umberto Eco.
Professor of History and Medieval Culture, holder of honorary degrees from twenty-five
universities, outstanding semiotician and critical analyst, exemplary reader and extraordinarily
perceptive writer, his list of merits is nevertheless unending.
Umberto Eco has brought together tradition and modernity knowledgeably. He has
encyclopaedic knowledge and a rigorous academic training, with which he has created worlds
of fiction where beauty, intelligence and insatiable curiosity prevail. Works such as
Apocalittici e
integrati
,
The Name of the Rose
and
Foucault’s Pendulum
are in the minds of readers worldwide
and have had the virtue of reaching a surprising majority of people. His treatises on semiotics, on
the other hand, have influenced students and specialists for many years, and have modernised the
study and analysis of human communication processes.
However, his thoughts and work are not restricted to the
fields of academia and the novel; they deal with the latest,
most conflictive questions of human coexistence. Umberto
Eco invites us to lift our vision and thoughts upwards, because
neither mystery nor proof —he tells us— are easy.
At a time when a mistaken over-evaluation of what is useful
has led to a drop in the level of humanistic training of our citizens
in many countries, Umberto Eco’s example shows us that true
progress can only be achieved when the sciences and humanities
each occupy their rightful place in mankind’s education.
The virologists Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier, upon whom the Prince of Asturias Award for
Technical and Scientific Research has been conferred, also work with tenacity and wisdom.
These two great scientists have adopted the role of being in productive competition to confront
one of our century’s major biomedical challenges: the study of AIDS and the virus that causes
it. We hope that their research efforts and selfless commitment to eradicating an illness that has
rocked mankind in the last twenty years of this century will soon lead to further promising results.
Dr Gallo and Dr Montagnier have broadcast a dramatic message we wish to echo here today:
there is a pressing need to increase financial and scientific efforts to find a vaccine that will slow
down the alarming worldwide growth rate of the disease. They have also condemned the shortage
of resources to attend victims who still suffer in subhuman conditions in many parts of the world,
especially in the poorest countries.
Medicine plays a momentous role in the fight for a fairer, more mutually supportive world.
However, recent outstanding breakthroughs in medical research are cause for concern as well as
admiration: the concern that the high price of some therapies may widen the social gap, for while
some citizens can acquire treatment effortlessly, they will be unattainable for others. It is worrying
for us, as it is for our Laureates, to see how the gap between rich and poor countries may well
become deeper and broader because of this. We back them in the efforts to raise the voice of alarm
as to the gravity of the problem in the most important world forums.
The Award granted to these two great scientists brings to mind the work of all those who fight
to save lives and to provide health and hope where there is only suffering and death from the
silence of their laboratories or by their exemplary commitment.
Let us return to Italy, to its time-honoured wisdom and culture, to exalt Cardinal Carlo María
Martini, Archbishop of Milan, illustrious son of our Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who has been
honoured with the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences.
“Spain continues along the road to freedom
and progress; it is a journey our nation is
undertaking with hope and determination,
free at last from the burden of pessimism.”
27
th
O
ctober
2000
