Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

Your Excellency President Kibaki,Your Excellency President Kagame,Mr. Fritz,Mr. Kiboro,Ladies and Gentlemen:My thanks to you, Mr. Kiboro, for your kind words and to the International Press Institute for your warm welcome. Twenty-four years ago I had the honour of addressing this organisation at its 30th annual conference, also held here in Nairobi. Twenty-one years before that, in 1960, I established the Nation newspapers here.

President Waterbury,
Honoured Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am most grateful to the American University of Beirut for this award. I accept it with much happiness and humility, cognisant of the great distinction and achievements of fellow recipients whom the University is also honouring.

Presiding OfficerFirst Minister
My Lords and Ladies
Fellow Recipients
Ladies and Gentlemen

My sincere thanks to the Scottish Parliament for welcoming us here today in this magnificent building, in the homeland of Andrew Carnegie.

Dr. Robinson, thank you for your most generous remarks. It is especially humbling to hear these kind words from an individual of such great accomplishment, who has served not only her own country with distinction, but also the global cause of human rights.

Canada has successfully constructed a public sphere predicated on the ethic of respect for human dignity. It recognizes and builds on difference, enables a spirit of compromise and consensus in public and legislative policies, and marks out a healthy space for the role of civil society as a sound (indeed, essential) bulwark for democratic processes.

Ladies and Gentlemen
It is a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity to address this inaugural session of the World Mountain Forum.
I am especially happy that the Ismaili Imamat has been given the opportunity to participate in a Forum organised by and for all those concerned with the difficulties facing the populations of mountain regions, and to share lessons that have been learnt, to exchange mutual experience and advice, to better identify the problems that exist, and to try, as part of a joint effort, to propose new and more efficient solutions.

Madame Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen I thank the Government of Norway and Minister Johnson for the invitation to speak here this morning and for her generous words of introduction. Madame Minister, the exchanges we have enjoyed since we met yesterday has been highly constructive. I am particularly honoured to be speaking at the Nobel Institute, respected worldwide for its promotion and recognition of exceptional endeavours to reduce human conflict.

Your Excellency, President Mwai Kibaki,Honourable Minister for Industry, Mukisa Kituyi
Honourable Ministers,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen

Mr. Chairman, Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

We express our sincere gratitude to the UK Government for organising the London Conference which has called upon the Afghan Government and the International Community at this critical time to review and prioritise policy directions for Afghanistan.

Human beings don't have an elephant's memory and most of you have forgotten me.

My name was Plai Petch and I was shot dead by police one year ago - on Sunday, Dec 29, 1996 to be exact - shortly after breaking loose from a chain which kept me tied to a tree for 20 years at Wat Puet Udon, Pathum Thani.

The metal ring was biting into my leg and the pain was excruciating, yet I always let men take me back to my tree and never hurt anyone or caused any damage during the few times when I released myself in the past.

There is a well-known story that after preaching at St. Paul’s Knightsbridge, Tom Corbishley could not resist joining the Protestant congregation in taking Holy Communion. This impulsive act, which typified Tom Corbishley’s commitment to and enthusiasm for the Ecumenical movement, inevitably invited a reprimand from Cardinal Heenan; his letter to Father Corbishley began "I write neither in sorrow nor anger, BUT..."

So the economic paradise promised by unlimited, uninhibited, inescapable global free trade has proved illusory. President Clinton acknowledges that world finance is in the worst shape since the Depression. The International Monetary Fund doesn't have enough money to keep bailing out nations hit by the crisis. In Asia, the backlash is getting ugly as people who were promised riches suddenly find themselves poor--and turn on the nearest targets at hand to vent their anger. We've seen violence against the Chinese in Indonesia and political turmoil in Malaysia.

The Bellerive Foundation is an officially recognised N.G.O. presided by Prince Sadrudin Aga Khan involved in numerous public interest projects. The Bellerive Foundation has made it's presence felt in many parts of the world. One such project is the "Conservation of the Alps". The following are edited remarks made by Prince Sadrudin at a meeting of leaders from international organisations, governments, industry, tourism and N.G.O. with scientists, media and students in Geneva, 28/2/89.

"The last of fools is he who indifferently asserts and denies...", prophetically wrote Dante, who probed all man's afflictions, at the dawn of the XIVth Century. Modern society is imbued with a tragic lack of self-confidence and afraid of appearing moralizing or oppressive. In this climate, absolute truth is seldom taken seriously.

Professor Gilbert Murray OM, was of the founder members of the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief and one of its trustees in 1942. In 1950 he made the first Weeks's Good Cause Appeal for the Committee, which raised jus under $18,000.

My father, the late Aga Khan, was born 100 years ago on 2nd November. Though he died in 1957 at the turn of what Winston Churchill aptly termed "this tormented half century", few today can separate reality from myth when looking back on his long and active life.

To many in the West, he remains the religious leader who was weighed against precious stones, the race horse owner who won five Derbies or the man whose eldest son, Aly Khan, once married Rita Hayworth.

On May 14, 1987, my mother, Rita Hayworth, died. The cause of death was Alzheimer's Disease. I recall how utterly lost and confused I felt when I first heard the name, Alzheimer's Disease. I had no idea what Alzheimer's was or what to expect.

This speech was delivered at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Hyderabad by H.R.H. The Agakhan in December, 1964.

I am grateful and honoured by your kind invitation to me to-night, and I am sincerely thankful to you for having given me this occasion to meet the industrial and business elite of this historical and beautiful city.

"Very few modern African leaders fail to recognise the advantages of continued association with the Commonwealth or in the case of the former French African territories with the French Community. The Commonwealth may well become one of the principal means of fulfilling the very justifiable ambition of nearly all African leaders to remain outside the cold war."

Mr. Chairman, Chief Minister, Your Worship the Mayor, Sheriff of Bombay, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I would like to begin by thanking the Chairman and Members of the Maharashtra Friendship Society for their very kind address and reception. My visit to Bombay is short and I am, therefore, all the more appreciative that this reception should be on my day of arrival.

It has given me the wonderful opportunity to meet once again the many friends whom I have not seen since my last visit here.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies & Gentlemen:

If I had been the president I would have fined the sergeant-at-arms for being a treacherous feminist and not fining the ladies present today.

May I first say how much I enjoy being back in Mombasa again - a town which I always remember for its friendliness and hospitality, for its welcome and also to the police who have escorted me so faithfully and so resistedly - indeed when I went to Bamburi Beach yesterday afternoon, I had a notion that they might be joining me for a swim.