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George Steiner, who has received the Award for Communication and the Humanities, is one
such example.
His work represents very well this harmonious fusion of different peoples, ethnic groups and
cultures that can prove so enriching. He has striven to encompass different fields of knowledge,
such as literature, history, science, theology and anthropology. He has made such efforts with a
sense of responsibility, deep thought and knowledge of different languages and cultures, whereby
his words have acquired the status of exemplary authority.
He has written fascinating pages on such issues as the worrying relinquishing of excellence
by populist democracies, the increasing tendency of the mass media to target the easy segment of
the market, the underlying violence that beats at the heart of developed societies, the misuse and
abuse of science and technology, a certain spiritual weariness, widespread hunger or disease, the
unending unfairness of wars or the special suffering felt by women and children.
George Steiner affords us intelligent, practical reflections to confront and banish such ills; he
sometimes attributes their causes to the deficiencies of education in stopping wrong triumphing
over sensibility and knowledge, and to the risks of an artistic and cultural elite existing alongside
humanity’s age-old stigmas, “the gloomy paradox”, as he describes the phenomenon that he
dedicated a large part of his life to.
We thank George Steiner for the clarity of his thoughts and the intellectual honesty he has
transmitted it with, just as we likewise thank and honour the discreet, patient work carried out in
laboratories and research centres in the United States, France and England by the Technical and
Scientific Research Laureates, world leaders in research into the human genome.
They are represented here in the figures of Francis Collins, Hamilton Smith, John Sulston,
Craig Venter and Jean Weissenbach. The teams they lead exemplify the multidisciplinary as well as
the mutually supportive nature of scientific research. Their unswerving efforts dignify humanity
in general, and the outcome of their research opens new roads to knowledge, for the steps already
taken in the study of the human genome are but the starting point towards new, promising horizons
in science.
Besides the scientific importance of genetic mapping, such access to what has come to be called
“the book of life” has once and for all demonstrated the error of those who used to uphold the
belief in qualitative differences between human beings and once based their discriminatory, racist
theories on this rationale.
It is very encouraging to observe once again how the noblest efforts of scientists lead to such
major advances in our knowledge about the basic structure of living species and the fight against
disease. We are convinced that this will also be of benefit to all mankind.
The Award for Social Sciences has gone to the Colegio de México and to the Spanish jurist Juan
Iglesias. The cultures of our two countries, Mexico and Spain, merge once more in the form of our
Awards.
The unfortunate exodus of a great number of Spanish writers, intellectuals and teachers as
a result of the Civil War led to the founding of the Casa de España, the original name of today’s
Colegio de México. However, the exodus provided an example of dignity, as the painful leaving
of the homeland quickly became a case of serenely spreading knowledge and culture, thanks to
which Spain became a prodigious, generous seed for culture. Those Spanish intellectuals of the
highest order, both men and women, understood how to sow, grow and then reap the fruits for
their second country, who welcomed them with open generosity and showed that, however sad
that uprooting may be, it is not an insurmountable impediment to the flowering of culture, and
that integration overcomes the suffering and tragedies of history.
Yet let us not forget the difficult task of rising above a time of confrontation and grief also occurred
within Spain. The list of intellectuals who struggled in difficult circumstances and with enormous
dignity here to save Spanish culture would be interminable. Juan Iglesias, Professor of Roman Law,
did so in difficult times from within the Spanish university; first from Oviedo, Salamanca and
Barcelona, and then fromMadrid Complutense, and his work acquired an international standing.
26
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2001
