Princess Leonor: “In you we reward the emotion contrary to skepticism or discouragement: the emotion of hope”

In Asturias, in Oviedo, every year and experiencing with all of you the enthusiasm that is breathed these days is impressive. It makes us feel welcomed and loved in this land to which I am linked, as you know, not only a title and everything that entails, but it is the land of my maternal family. It is a land in which I am very happy.

«Pels voltants de setembre, abans que el fred arrived, compen su tu ticket para el tren de l’esperança». This verse was written by Joan Manuel Serrat 60 years ago. It is in the song ‘Els veremadors’, ‘The grape harvesters’, written in Catalan and a tribute to those who were forced to leave their home to go harvesting far from home. In Spanish it says like this: “Around September, before the cold arrives, they buy their ticket for the train of hope.”

I mention it now because I like to think that the extraordinary people who sit today on this stage of the Campoamor theater offer with your work that we reward today the emotion contrary to skepticism or discouragement: the emotion of hope. It is the feeling that shows us that things can improve, that there is always a crack where the light enters. That is the hope that our award winners give us, women and men who combine effort, dedication and excellence in their lives.

I have read Ana Blandiana when she tells what was happening in the prisons of the communist dictatorship of her country, Romania. Prisoners transmitted verses from cell to cell using the Morse alphabet as a form of resistance to hatred and madness. For me, for my generation, This fact gives poetry a role that is difficult for us to imagine now.but we can understand that cry of hope. When Ana was my age, she was not allowed to enter university. And he has not stopped standing up to totalitarianism with his clean, clear, refined poetry. And with his activism in the defense of human rights and democracy.

It is what the Franco-Iranian filmmaker, cartoonist and painter Marjane Satrapi also dedicates her life to. In his best-known work, ‘Persepolis‘, narrates a childhood and adolescence of repression in his native Iran. Satrapi exposes in his creations the conditions he lived in those years with his impressive talent to capture the search for a more just and inclusive world, and that gives us hope. And it has dazzlingly reinvented the common language of art and communication.

That connection, that way of feeling that unites us and gives us awareness of humanity, is what the agency Magnum projects with his work of almost eight decades. In times of noise, rush and artifice, Magnum sharpens the gaze with its bold and truthful photojournalism, giving independence to its photographers and lending history the imprint of the events. Faced with the tumult of images, this pioneering photographic agency captures the key moment and gives us evidence for the understanding of the world, which should give us hope of being able to get closer to harmony. Because it is often not easy to understand what is happening.

Hence the Organization of Ibero-American States put your efforts into providing the most vulnerable with the necessary tools to better approach and understand life, to develop as full-fledged human beings. That is, to achieve social development through education, science and culture. The OEl makes what we hear so many times a reality: that only education can transform societies, consolidate democracy and promote respect for human rights. I don’t know if there is anything more hopeful than that… Cooperation and multilateralism are hallmarks of an organization that seeks the cohesion of the Ibero-American community of nations.

With Svetlana Mojsov, Daniel Drucker, Jeffrey Friedman, Joel Habener and Jens Holstscientific and technical research awards, it happens that they have found their way of cooperating in the field of endocrinology and have developed a tool that can be helpful to people with diabetes and obesity. In a world with almost 900 million people suffering from obesity and 540 million from diabetes, it would also be advisable to think about prevention as an essential public health strategy: here is great hope.

Carolina Marín has won everything and has been exemplary in everything. The most important thing is not that his years of effort, training and great performance have taken him to the top in a sport, badmintonwhich was very little known in Spain. The most relevant thing is that courage is not only in the medals – even gold – but it is the attitude in the face of adversity and triumph that defines a great athlete. She says that “I can because I think I can”. And I assure you that, for those of us who are about to leave adolescence, they are very valuable words.

If we are here it is because what our winners project is the courage necessary to overcome discouragement and hopelessness, a task in which Michael Ignatieff also works hard. It is not easy, taking into account the complexity of the social and political mechanisms behind coexistence and conflict. I thought about this phrase of yours: “There are those who use democracy to destroy it.” And I have seen that he has been studying the rule of law, public liberties and individual rights for four decades; also ideologies and nationalisms. For those of us who, like me, are coming of age for the first time, getting closer to Ignatieff’s thought is quite a challenge. A challenge that attracts us because it speaks to us about shared values ​​and the permanent challenge of coexistence.

I return at this point to Joan Manuel Serrat, because this musician and poet from Poble Sec is much more than an artistic reference for several generations whom he has made happy. He has also shown his commitment to democracy and tolerance. I have listened to many of his songs these days. And I have read his letters carefully. Serrat declares himself “a supporter of living because, from time to time, life refines with the brush; “Our skin crawls and there are no words to name what it offers to those who know how to use it.”

I hope that all of us, today, here, from the Campoamor theater, find reasons and opportunities and buy that ticket for the train of hope. And of course, you know, Fight for what you want and don’t despair if something isn’t right.. Today can be a great day and tomorrow too.