When I was young, I remember my grandfather taking me to listen to great minds. I was about seven years old, and a bit fidgety, but the power and passion with which the speakers spoke enthralled me. On the way home, my grandfather would explain the key points to me in simpler language. I remember with great pleasure an evening when poems by Tagore were read out. Listening to those beautiful words, with those rich images flying through my mind, and repeating some lines over and over and savouring the new words felt good.
Much later, when I lived in England with my parents, we used to go to musicals and come home singing fragments of the songs. The words were great, the tunes memorable.
In 2006, at the General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I was privileged to hear three Nobel Peace laureates speak on what was closest to their hearts and mine: peace, justice, hope and love.
Overcoming fear
The first of the speakers was Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize laureate of 1980. I heard him speak of his years of imprisonment and brutal torture. There were moments of silence, when he recollected his and his country’s suffering with emotion. His most passionate speech was about the capacity of people to change what seems like impossible violent situations through non-violence. “The greatest thing to overcome is fear, and we overcome fear with unity and solidarity,” he said.
The colourful and controversial Rigoberta Menchu, the Nobel Peace winner of 1992 from Guatemala, spoke movingly of the plight of indigenous Guatemalan people and the terrible violence meted out to them. Complete lack of human rights and endless suffering was thrust on communities of some of the gentlest people on earth. The challenge was not only to speak up against violence against the powerless but also to “see” them as forgotten people.
Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace winner of 1982, in his royal purple cassock, with his famous, brilliant smile and twinkling eyes, did not have to speak. He was the message of pure love. His vibrant voice, great heart, and ice breaking humour deliver a liberating message, “We can only be human together.” It sounds simple and easy, but it is the toughest message I have heard.
Each night when I went to bed, my little notebook was full of jotted down writing; my mind filled with new and challenging thoughts. My heart felt overwhelmingly full of hope. And it wasn’t just me who felt this way. Almost everyone I met in Porto Allegre spoke about how enriched they were after listening to the many speakers there.
Our busy schedules and materialistic culture leave no time to listen to great minds. We rarely acknowledge great minds.
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