THE REAL WORLD OF FREEDOM IS THE WORLD OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Addres by the president of the Republic of Slovenia Milan Kucan at the 33rd International meeting of writers

Bled, 4 May 2000



Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very happy to be meeting with you again after a year.

Your discussions here in Bled always bring new views to the spiritual landscape of both Slovenia and the world. They stir our awareness, and draw back the curtain with which the burden of our everyday lives closes our view from the point at which our lives have placed us.

The world of ideas about humankind, society, the state, the world community and about bold visions of a better world and a better life, has been alive ever since humans have been aware of their existence. And graveyards are indeed populated by visionaries who have tried to see beyond the surroundings in which they were placed. It is also true that many people forfeited their lives because visionaries of a certain kind acquired excessive power, and in order for their own ideas to prevail they abused this power against those who thought differently. Yet this does not mean that humans and humankind are capable of a worthy life without vision or visionaries. Nevertheless, the world of ideas, including those that stretch to the horizon, is a human-friendly world only when it is at the same time a world of real freedom, dialogue, tolerance, mutual respect, coexistence of diversity, and the permanent supervision of authority and politics by the free spirit.

The real world of freedom is the world of human rights, which is becoming increasingly extensive and at the same time interwoven. What significance is there for a person to have the right to say what they think, if they are deprived of good schools, if they cannot find work and therefore do not enjoy the right to be responsible for themselves and for their children; what freedom is it, if in the name of the nation and the state a person’s fundamental right is taken away, even the right to life? Yet this is still the case in many parts of the world.

The world, which is now already functioning as a global economy, is not yet a world of universal values, or of equal fundamental human rights provided for all. It is still a world of division into poor and rich, it is a world of division into people with high information technology and those whose circumstances have determined that they will live as they used to when the world was still a different place – closed up in small circles that were unable to cooperate with each other. We are reminded of this by Kosovo, Chechnya, the Kurds and Tibet, all deprived of the right to live in their own way, and by parts of Africa that are dying of starvation. And these are just the most visible manifestations of the many worlds into which today’s world is still divided.

In its rapid technological and economic development, the world of the global economy faces a choice: new divisions, or a world of individual and national identities that is friendly and equal for all, a world of peace and prosperity for all, but one which will not simply emerge of its own volition through unbridled economic and technological development.

A critical look at the world that with great strides is moving into our lives and establishing new relationships between nations and people, and to which you are also devoting a portion of your deliberations here in Bled, is therefore a look at the future of humanity. Will there be wars or peace, will some still die of starvation while others live in plenty, will we all be equal in our diversity or will some rule over others, will the gains of the information society be available to all, or will some be excluded and marginalised; these are the questions of our common future. So it is for the common good of all people that I desire your deliberations on these questions to reach everyone whose actions will determine the future.

May I wish you a warm welcome to Slovenia, and a very pleasant evening.