HUMAN RIGHTS COMMON LANGUAGE OF HUMANITY, SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS IN MESSAGE LAUNCHING SEASON OF NON-VIOLENCE
Press Release
SG/SM/6450
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMON LANGUAGE OF HUMANITY, SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS IN MESSAGE LAUNCHING SEASON OF NON-VIOLENCE
19980130 Following is the text of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's message, delivered today by the Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations, Gillian Martin Sorensen, at the launching of "a season of non-violence":"Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed." Thus Mahatma Gandhi summed up his defence when charged with agitation against the State in 1922. Thus Gandhi himself embodied the movement we are here to celebrate today.
And this season of non-violence, which we are launching here, sums up the continuing legacy of Mohandas Gandhi. It sums up what I like to think of as the passing of the torch.
It is a moving fact that the two deaths whose anniversaries open and close this season occurred 50 and 30 years ago this year. Martin Luther King received the torch from Mahatma Gandhi, before his assassination in 1948, and held it high until his own three decades later.
The torch was carried by many hands. They included Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, the Principal of Morehouse College, who returned from India as one of the growing number of African-American disciples of Mahatma Gandhi. When Dr. King entered Morehouse at the age of 15, Mays became one of the great influences in his life. And there, the torch was passed on. It was kept burning by the civil rights movement here.
Who will carry it for future generations? Part of the answer can be found before us right here today.
Over the next 64 days, you will honour those who have championed non-violence as a way of life and struggle; you will bring together communities, groups and individuals who are making non-violent choices in meeting challenges; you will use media, education and dialogue to spread the message; you will light hundreds and thousands of new torches along the way.
This year also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We in the United Nations will be using a strategy very like your own to bring home the message that human rights are the common language of humanity.
- 2 - Press Release SG/SM/6450 30 January 1998
I believe that our two messages are voices that will speak in unison. I believe this is one of the best tributes we can pay to Mahatma Gandhi, and to those who followed him.
The torch is ours now to hold high. This is our way of ensuring that their deaths were not in vain. Let us begin, for we have many miles to go, and many torches still to light. Thank you.
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