Jordan Times
Thursday, May 19, 2005
King urges Nobel
laureates to reach out to youth of Mideast
By Mahmoud Al Abed
PETRA — His Majesty King Abdullah on Wednesday urged Nobel laureates gathering
here to reach out to the Middle East's youth and guide them to a future of
opportunities, peace and security.
“In the Middle East, more than half the population is 18 or younger. They have
no memory of a time without regional conflict. They see a huge global gap
between rich and poor. They see diseases that wealthy nations have wiped out,
that are still crippling people in the developing world,” King Abdullah said at
the opening of the two-day Petra Conference of Nobel Laureates (see
the full text of the Monarch's remarks).
“They won't accept empty words and promises. They want to make a difference. To
share in the fruits of modern knowledge. To help create a positive and generous
future — a future in which they, and all people, live in freedom and respect. It
is up to us to give them the tools they need. And we must make a beginning
now...”
During the conference, around 29 Nobel Prize winners and other leaders will
examine and try to find solutions to issues like terror and peace, economic
development and poverty, health and environment, and education and media.
“Today, humanity is at a critical crossroad,” the King said.
“Ours can be an open world of expanded horizons and new opportunities. Or it can
be a closed world, of endemic crises, and lost chances.”
King Abdullah, however, highlighted reform plans across the region and “an
unprecedented opportunity to succeed” in achieving justice for the Palestinians
and security for the Israelis.
“The vast majority, East and West, North and South, reject the cause and call of
extremism,” he said.
The gathering, co-hosted by the King Abdullah II Fund for Human Development and
the New York-based Eli Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, comes just ahead of a
World Economic Forum summit on the banks of the Dead Sea. The summit will
provide the Nobel laureates with “a platform” to present their vision, according
to Minister of Finance Bassem Awadallah.
Eli Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who co-sponsored a similar conference in
1988 when French President Francois Mitterrand hosted some 75 Nobel laureates,
said that “at the dawn of the 21st century, the planet is already in peril. The
world is thirsty for stability.”
“Will wars persist, will disarmament remain utopia? Terrorism, particularly
suicide attacks, are preaching a culture of death. What can we do to stop that?”
added Wiesel, who is also a writer.
Other attendees include the Dalai Lama, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon
Peres, who won the 1994 peace prize along with slain Israeli prime minister
Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, former Northern
Ireland Protestant leader David Trimble, a 1998 peace laureate, and Nigerian
author Wole Soyinka, who won the 1986 literature prize, as well as Hollywood
actor Richard Gere. Former US president Bill Clinton was to join the gathering
on Thursday.
On the sidelines of the meeting, King Abdullah held separate talks with
Singapore's Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Peres.
The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious international award given every year,
since 1901, in recognition of remarkable achievements in literature, economics,
physics, chemistry, medicine and peace. Swedish chemist Alfred Bernhart Nobel
(1833-1896) left the bulk of his fortune to the Nobel Foundation to bestow
awards to those who have made “the greatest benefit on mankind.”