The Secretary-General was awarded the Four Freedoms Medal “for his brilliant leadership of the United Nations, for his courage in sustaining the principles of collective action, and for his moral strength in heeding the voices of the oppressed and the needy”.
Mrs. Nane Annan accepted the Medal on behalf of her husband on 8 May 2004.
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On 6 January 1941, in the annual message to the United States Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlined his idea of four core freedoms that applied to people “everywhere” and “anywhere” in the world. He said: “The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings, which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.”
Every year, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, founded in 1987, recognizes outstanding individuals who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to these ideals. This year, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan was awarded the Four Freedoms Medal “for his brilliant leadership of the United Nations, for his courage in sustaining the principles of collective action, and for his moral strength in heeding the voices of the oppressed and the needy”. Roosevelt Institute Co-Chairman Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel presented the award to the Secretary-General—accepted on his behalf by his wife, Mrs. Nane Annan—in recognition of his leadership of the United Nations, the organization President Roosevelt had worked to establish.
In a video message broadcast on 8 May at the venue in the Abbey of Middleburg in The Netherlands, Secretary-General Annan said that it was President Roosevelt who had vowed to build a permanent global security system, which in the future would curb any tendencies towards aggression before they got out of hand. “He it was who, in the midst of the epic struggle against Nazi barbarism and aggression, determined that neither America nor the world should ever have to go through such a conflict again”, Mr. Annan said. “Nor should we forget Eleanor Roosevelt’s towering contribution to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which started the United Nations on its other great destiny, as the forum for setting worldwide norms and standards. The Four Freedoms that FDR had proclaimed are the very core of that Declaration, as they are of the United Nations Charter. Their importance for democracy, and for the world in general, cannot be denied.”
Along with the Secretary-General, four other persons were honoured with medals by the Roosevelt Institute for their work in furthering the four specific freedoms: Freedom of Speech and Expression, to author, filmmaker and former President of Estonia Lennart Meri; Freedom of Worship, to Palestinian professor of philosophy and President of Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem Dr. Sari Nusseibeh; Freedom from Want, to human rights advocate Marguerite Barankitse of Burundi; and Freedom from Fear, to Max Kohnstamm of The Netherlands, a pioneer of European unification. |
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