Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

10 O viedo | C ampoamor T heatre | Yet not all is lost and forgotten. Great men, as this same poet shows us, live on forever in the mind. And Valentín Fuster shall leave behind an indelible mark in the roster of distinguished researchers of Spanish science headed by Ramón y Cajal and Severo Ochoa, milestones in human culture and a permanent stimulus for our young people. The progress of man is inseparable from his struggle to excel himself, and sport is a specific manifestation of this aspiration. This is the sense of granting the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports to the American athlete Carl Lewis. Within him, that determination to excel oneself and to excel over others in fair combat is exceptionally enhanced. His victories, proven by nine gold medals in four Olympic Games and nearly as many again in world championships, make him a sportsman who will not be easily forgotten by future generations, to whom he also leaves his example of his combat against drugs, which impoverish and degrade so many lives, especially in young people and against which it is necessary to fight tirelessly. Carl Lewis’ vigorous career is the fruit of his personal faculties, but it is also the result of persistent exertion in his preparation and of exemplary and admirable discipline, all of which are virtues which, as in Classical Greece, are triumphant at the end of every one of his competitions. The exertion, the well-deserved triumphs and the medals attained by Carl Lewis should not hide from us what is really important, what shines out from behind every career which reaches giddy heights, every incredible jump, every brilliant demonstration of bodily control: the lesson of sacrifice, of the desire for physical and moral perfection which should form the basis and the enduring example of all sportsmen. In the mid–seventies, we Spaniards experienced a delicate and fundamental political transition process which brought with it a profound social transformation. It was necessary to combine harmoniously, without tensions or violence, two different periods in time in order to ensure peaceful coexistence on the road towards democracy. It was necessary to overcome the differences of the past and neutralise old apprehensions in order to open up a future full of shared hopes. A task of this kind demanded an effort towards reconciliation. A decisive contribution towards this was made by a man gifted with flexibility, the desire for dialogue and understanding, love of freedom, respect for the ideas of others, great courage and not a small amount of persuasive capacity. We needed someone who, as well as possessing all of these infrequent virtues, could pledge his life to the task. This was the work of Adolfo Suárez, who today has received the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord. By guiding the Spanish people’s yearning for freedom, with the generous and enthusiastic collaboration of other individuals and political groups and with the resolute encouragement of the Crown, Adolfo Suárez made possible what many political essayists, on the basis of their knowledge of Spain and of the experience of other countries, had considered impossible. He succeeded in uniting wills which seemed to be opposed, he directed, without violence, the latent energies of a society towards tolerance and dialogue; he closed distances and wounds and, in short, carried out from his Government the great mission of returning Spain to the Spaniards through the establishment of democracy, the form of government which Goethe considered to be the best, “the one which teaches us to govern ourselves”. Those who played a principal role in the transition, and most particularly, Adolfo Suárez, lived through the unique experience of rewriting their own history, freeing it from the ghosts of the past and opening up a horizon of hope. We Spaniards who live in reclaimed freedom can say of that generation that thanks to their yesterday there exists for us a peaceful today and also a tomorrow full of hope. Few political personalities of our time are so closely united to the new concept of Europe as “Those who played a principal role in the transition, and most particularly, Adolfo Suárez, lived through the unique experience of rewriting their own history, freeing it from the ghosts of the past and opening up a horizon of hope.” 8 th N ovember 1996