Istungi stenogramm

Teisipäev, 22. oktoober 2013 - Strasbourg

7. Sahharovi auhinna üleandmine (pidulik istung)

  Der Präsident. − (Die Mitglieder des Parlaments erheben sich und spenden anhaltenden Beifall.)

Meine sehr geehrten Damen und Herren, liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen, verehrte Gäste! Ihr Willkommensgruß hat es gezeigt: Es ist für uns ein außergewöhnlicher Tag. Ein außergewöhnlicher Moment, in dem wir Sie, Frau Aung San Suu Kyi, als die Preisträgerin des Sacharow-Preises 1990 23 Jahre später hier bei uns im Europäischen Parlament begrüßen dürfen. Das ist ein großer Moment, ein Moment, auf den eine ganze Generation in Ihrem Land, aber auch hier in Europa gewartet hat!

Als Sie diesen Preis nicht entgegennehmen konnten, den wir Ihnen im Jahr 1990 verliehen haben, waren Sie im Gefängnis, und in Ihrer Vertretung war Ihr Sohn im Europäischen Parlament. Vielleicht haben wir einen Augenblick Zeit, noch einmal zurückzuschauen zu der Verleihung des Jahres 1990.

(Das Video der Zeremonie aus dem Jahr 1990 wird abgespielt.)

(Beifall)

Die Rede, liebe Aung San Suu Kyi, die ich eigentlich hier halten sollte, ist 1990 gehalten worden. Dem, was der Präsident des Europäischen Parlaments, Enrique Baron Crespo, damals gesagt hat, habe ich heute nichts hinzuzufügen, mit einer Ausnahme: Zwischen der Preisverleihung, die in diesem Jahr stattfinden sollte, und heute liegen 23 Jahre. Das sind 23 Jahre Leid, das sind 23 Jahre Unterdrückung. Das sind 23 Jahre Momente, wie Sie das oft selbst ausgedrückt haben, wo Sie das Gefühl hatten, nicht mehr Teil einer realen Welt zu sein, sondern eingeschlossen zu sein, abgekoppelt zu sein von der Entwicklung Ihres Landes, von der Entwicklung der Welt draußen, 23 Jahre, in denen Sie kämpfen mussten, um die Kraft zu behalten, die Sie aber am Ende behalten haben, die man braucht, wenn man einen Gedanken nicht aufgibt: Dass, egal, was auch immer passiert, die Diktatur irgendwann besiegt wird. Sie sind als die Frau mit einer Blume im Haar ein Symbol für eines: Dass, egal wie lange es dauert, die Menschen, die die Kraft aufbringen, für die Demokratie zu kämpfen, sich am Ende durchsetzen werden.

Dass Sie heute hier sind, ist nicht nur ein großer Sieg für die Demokratie, es ist ein großes Beispiel einer großen Frau für die Beharrlichkeit, für die Freiheit des eigenen Volkes, für die eigene Freiheit, sich nicht brechen zu lassen in dem Kampf, den Sie gewonnen haben.

Sie haben gekämpft! Sie haben gelitten! Aber das Allerwichtigste ist, Sie haben gewonnen! Und deshalb ist es mir eine große Ehre, im Namen des Europäischen Parlaments mit 23-jähriger Verspätung, aber real, hier Ihnen den Sacharowpreis des Jahres 1990 überreichen zu dürfen. Ich gratuliere Ihnen dazu von ganzem Herzen, und ich danke Ihnen im Namen – wie ich glaube – aller Menschen in der freien Welt. Sie sind ein großes Symbol für Freiheit und Demokratie!

(Anhaltender Beifall)

  Aung San Suu Kyi, Winner of the 1990 Sakharov Prize. − Mr President, this is for me a joyous and a deeply meaningful occasion: a joyous one because I have been given the opportunity to thank all of you for the support that you have given me and my party and all those who believe in democracy in Burma for over two decades. It is deeply meaningful because the Sakharov Prize was very meaningful. It was given to me in 1990. That was a year of great significance in the history of Burmese politics. That was the year in which the first democratic elections in over two decades were held in my country. In these elections my party, the National League for Democracy, won over 82 % of the seats that were contested, but we were never allowed to take office; we were never allowed to even call Parliament; we were never allowed to implement the wishes of the people, as had been expressed through those elections. Instead, our party was repressed. Our people were persecuted, and we had to struggle on for a couple more decades before reaching this stage.

Where are we now? I think we have to look at this in a very practical way. We have made progress since 1990, but we have not made sufficient progress. But before I talk about this, I would like to say a few words about what the prize meant to me at that time.

I had become familiar with Professor Sakharov through the writings of others, as well as through his own writings. I was sent a copy of his memoirs while I was under house arrest, and I remember the day when I received it, because whenever I received books from my family at that time, it was always a very exciting moment for me – this was my contact with the outside world, and I got into the habit of always smelling the books before I read them. There is something very nice about the smell of fresh printer’s ink. This was for me the beginning of a very pleasurable few hours reading a new book.

When I read Professor Sakharov’s book, I was struck by the fact that he was so down to earth and so practical and scientific in his approach to politics. I have to confess that I did not quite understand some of his scientific comments, but it made me feel very good simply to be reading them. I remember reading them on a very sunny day – sunny like today here in Strasbourg (but of course we have many more sunny days in Burma), and thinking that this was a happy occasion for me – even though I was under house arrest – to be able to read something by a man whom I admired, a man whom I saw as a great champion of human rights and freedom of thought.

(Applause)

Freedom of thought is essential to human progress. If we stop freedom of thought, we stop progress in our world. Because of this, it is so important that we teach our children – our young people – the importance of freedom of thought. Freedom of thought begins with the right to ask questions, and our people in Burma have not had this right for so long that some of our young people do not quite know how to ask questions. One of the tasks we have set ourselves in my party, the National League for Democracy, is to teach our young people to ask questions and not to accept everything that is done to them without asking why. ‘Why?’ is one of the most important words in any language. You have to know why the world is the way it is, or you have to want to know. If you do not have this curiosity, and if you do not have the intelligence to be able to express this curiosity in terms that others can understand, then we will not be able to contribute towards progress in our world.

How many of our people over these past few decades ever asked themselves why they had to submit to the authority of people who did not have the mandate of the general public? I do not think very many did. It was taken for granted that those who had power and authority could do exactly as they pleased.

This was something that we could not accept. During the years of repression, many of our people were arrested almost on a daily basis, and we had to teach them to ask those who came to arrest them: ‘Why?’ We had to teach them their basic rights, and we had to say to them that, if somebody came to arrest them in the middle of the night, they had the right to ask: ‘Do you have a warrant?’ Even that many of our people did not know. I have to confess that one of those who took our teachings very seriously and asked those had come to arrest him if they had a warrant, received the reply: ‘Don’t be silly. We have already decided how many years you are going to be imprisoned for’. So this is the kind of society in which we had to live for many years.

But we have made progress. That, I think we admit, we recognise. Not sufficient progress. Our people are just beginning to learn that freedom of thought is possible, but we want to make sure that their right to think freely and to live in accordance with their conscience is preserved. This right is not yet 100 % guaranteed. We still have to work very hard before the basic law of the land – which is the Constitution – will guarantee us the right to live in accordance with our conscience. That is why we insist that the present constitution must be changed into a truly democratic one. I think Professor Sakharov would agree that, if we are to be firmly on the road to democracy – that is to say, if we are to adopt a system that respects the will of the people – it would not do to have a constitution that subjects the people to the authority of one particular organisation – an unelected organisation, which is the military.

I have often said – sometimes to the annoyance of many of my colleagues – that I have a great fondness for the Burmese military. This is very natural, because my father was a founder of the army, and I was brought up to love it and to look upon it as our family. And one of the great aims – the main aims – of our democratic movement was to bring about national reconciliation, which means reconciliation between the then ruling army and the civilians who wanted democracy.

We are still trying to achieve such a reconciliation but, in order to achieve this reconciliation, we need the help of all our friends all over the world. I accept – and I am very proud to accept – that it is the people of my country who must do most, who must work hardest and who will ultimately be responsible for the democratisation of our country. But, at the same time, in this day and age, we cannot ignore the fact that the weight of international opinion is immense and that the world has great power over any particular society anywhere. We are in the age of globalisation, which has its drawbacks and problems, but it also has great advantages in that nowhere in the world can people ignore what other people think.

(Applause)

This brings me back to freedom of thought. Because you are in a position to be able to think freely and to be able to live in accordance with your conscience, you have great power, you have great strength in your endeavours to help our people to engage in freedom of thought and to be able to live in accordance with their conscience. When the European Parliament, the European Union, the European Commission, the free world recognised our Movement for Democracy in Burma, it gave us the strength to go on, despite great odds. There were those who told us that we should give up because we were trying to achieve the unachievable, but I have never thought that anything that human beings wanted to achieve for the society in which we live was beyond reach. We only have to have the will and the determination to pursue our goals.

Our goals are very simple. Our people simply want to live in dignity and in peace. We want to be free from want and free from fear. These are the freedoms that are recognised as most important by the Community of Nations, as reflected in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights. Because we wish to live free from want and free from fear, we have had to face want and we have had to face our own fears and overcome them. This we have managed to do because of the solidarity, not just of our own people, but of the world at large.

Solidarity is a beautiful word because it means that you reach out to those who are different from you and who have to cope with different circumstances, because we recognise that we all share the same human needs and the same values. It is the values that count most of all: the value of freedom of thought, the value of democratic practices, the value of respect for your fellow human beings. I have never claimed that democracy was the perfect system, because we human beings are not perfect. We are not capable of producing a system that is perfect. But I think there is something rather nice and challenging about imperfection. If we were all perfect, I think it would be a very boring world but, as it is – because we have to cope every day with our imperfections – every day can become a day of excitement. You wake up and say to yourself: ‘Now, which one of my many imperfections shall I work on today?’ And that makes it very interesting and very challenging.

But it is more important that we work on the imperfections of societies and of laws and practices that truly hurt us as human beings and that erode the foundation of human dignity. It is because of this that we feel that our quest for democracy is not yet at an end. We will not achieve perfection, as I said earlier, but we do want to get to the point where we can say that the laws of the land and the institutions of our society guarantee that our people can live in human dignity as far as it is possible for human beings to do so.

We all have to be responsible for ourselves. I accept the concept that respect for yourself must be at the foundation of respect for others. It is only if you respect yourself as a human being and have faith in your ability to achieve what should be achieved that you will be able to help others. You in the European Union are fortunate to have been born in countries – well perhaps you were not born in those countries, but you have made those countries the kind of countries – where you could live as dignified human beings. There are many countries in the European Union now which, at the time when we started our Movement for Democracy in 1988, did not yet enjoy the fruits of a democratic society.

It is sad – but I am proud and sad at the same time – to say that the democratic revolution started in Burma before it started in the Czech Republic or Slovakia or Romania or ... I can name a great number of countries which only started getting onto the road to democracy in 1989 – a whole year after we had started.

(Applause)

But they outstripped us; they went forward and we were left behind. But now we are on the road towards democracy. We have not got there yet, and we would like you to be aware of the fact that we still need your help and support, and your understanding that we still need to make a lot more progress before we can say we are where Professor Sakharov would have wished us to be – and he would have wished us to be in a place where freedom of thought was the birthright of every single citizen of our country.

To achieve this position of a society which would have had the approval of Professor Sakharov, we will have to work a lot harder. Our people will have to do the greater part of the work, but I believe that all of you can help us in our endeavours. I have always said that there is no hope without endeavour. Hope has no meaning unless we are prepared to work to realise our hopes and dreams, but in order to do that we need to have friends. We need those who believe in us. Friends ultimately are those who believe in us enough to want to help us in whatever it is that we are trying to achieve. So I would like to take this opportunity, as I thank you for the Sakharov Prize, to say that I hope you will be our friends in our continuing endeavour to achieve democratic rights for our people.

I hope you will give us the understanding that we need to resolve the many problems that our country is having to face today. I hope we will have your help in freeing our people from want and fear, because it is a fact that fear is still very much part of our society. Unless we are free from fear, we will not be able to give our children the kind of future that we would like them to have. The future of our country is in our young people, as the future of the world is in the hands of our young people.

We would like you to understand that we need help with education, health and inclusive development, so that the future of our country might be safe and the future of our children and our young people assured. But in order to achieve progress in those areas, we need basically the kind of political system that will give our people the right to shape their own destiny.

When the fathers of the independence movement were working to free our country from colonial rule, they said: ‘We want the right to shape our own destiny’. This is still what we need in Burma: the right of our people to shape our own destiny. We want to be able to decide what we think is best for ourselves. We want to be able to learn to sort out our differences; we want to be able to reach a united position in spite of our differences, because Burma is a country of many peoples, opinions, religions and races. We all have to come together and create unity out of diversity so that the destiny that we build may be one that is right not just for now but for generations to come. And as we work to achieve such an end, we hope that you will be with us to point out our mistakes whenever we need to know that we have made mistakes; to help us when you think we are doing the right thing; and always to remember that, ultimately, we are one, whether we are Europeans or Asians, or whether we are Africans, Australians or Americans. We are all one because of our shared, common human values, based on the belief that we have the right to the birthright of every human being, which is a dignified and secure existence.

Security, freedom, dignity: if we had these three, we could say that it has been worthwhile being born into this world, and I would like all the young people of Burma and all over the world to be able to feel that it was right that they have been born into this world. I would not like our young people to ask this question: ‘Why were we born at all?’ I want them to ask every kind of question; but for them to question why they have been born into a situation which does not assure them of their right to dignity and to freedom from want and from fear – that is not the kind of question I would wish anybody to ask.

So may I conclude by saying once again how much I appreciate all that you have done to support our people in their endeavours to live with their conscience freely and proudly. I would like to say that there will come a time when our people too can make our own contribution to the world. I am confident that the young people of Burma now will one day be valued citizens of the world, helping to promote those rights and those achievements of which Professor Sakharov would have approved.

(The House accorded the speaker a standing ovation)

  Der Präsident. − Meine Damen und Herren! Wir hören zum Abschluss dieser Zeremonie die Europa-Hymne, zu Ehren von Frau Aung San Suu Kyi.

(Die Europa-Hymne wird gespielt.)

(Anhaltender Beifall)

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