Peace
EMMA BONINO - 2018
Senateur - ITALY
To Emma Bonino for having dedicated her entire life to the values of freedom and social justice in defense of the fundamental rights of the human person. For having opposed those policies based exclusively on special interests and contrary to the Common Good. For having dedicated itself to the marginalized and the weakest throughout the world, making this action the center of its existence.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 24 november 2018
MADRE YVONNE REUNGOAT - 2017
General Superior of the institute Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice – Salesians of Don Bosco
“For the activities in favor of Peace and Concord among the Populations of the world conducted to the guide of Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice ( FMA), especially where raging war and poverty.
Exactly in these places, often, FMA rapresent the only anchor for men and women of different faiths. Mother Yvonne Reungoat thanks to her missionary experience, in the poorer places of African continent, is aware of the joy and simplicity in helping others and in feeling “ Family”. A place where, thank to the charisma of Don Bosco and to the model of Mother Mazzarello, is possible , everyday, give space to that “ Creativity of Love” which represent the instrument of salesian charisma; with humility and complicity and the hope in youth, authors of our future.”
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 09 november 2017
BARAK OBAMA - 2014
President of United States of America - USA
For his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples and for his continued support for the vision of a world free of weapons of mass destruction. Consistent with his previous stances, during his first mandate Barack Obama advocated dialogue and cooperation across national, ethnic, religious and political dividing lines. Most notably, he called for a new start to relations between the Muslim world and the West, based on common interests and mutual understanding and respect.
All along his mandate, President Obama has continued in his firm stand as strong spokesman for human rights and democracy as well as for the work being done to put effective measures in place to combat the Planet’s climate change. Today he continues to strongly support the Middle East Peace Process and in the greater Mediterranean area.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 13 january 2014
ERNESTO OLIVERO - 2014
Fondatore Sermig - ITALY
For creating the SERMIG, a place of peace and education of young people for peace. Because of his faith and his tenacity thousands of projects to help the weaker ones were made around the world.
It is an example of how one man can act with the strength of faith for the good of all mankind.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 2 october 2014
ISOLA DI LAMPEDUSA - 2013
ITALY
For the high symbolic value, integration and coexistence with thousands of dispossessed - in search of dignity, life and future - with which the inhabitants of Lampedusa have twisted relationships of solidarity and friendship, creating a great hybrid of civilization.
For the action taken in favor of human rights and the defense of the natural environment as a tool for dialogue and cooperation between peoples.
Awarding Ceremony
Lampedusa, 1 july 2013
MAJALLIE WHBEE - 2012
Vice President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean - ISRAEL
For his long-standing commitment to promoting dialogue between Israel and Palestine in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, and for his balanced vision in confronting the historical reality of old and new problems preventing the peace process, in the knowledge that this is the only possible way for two Peoples to live together in two States: it is their destiny to live on Earth side by side due to their geography and history.
Awarding Ceremony
Malta, 13 october 2012
TAYSSER QUBA'A - 2012
Vice President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean - PALESTINE
For his long-standing commitment to promoting dialogue between Israel and Palestine in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, and for his balanced vision in confronting the historical reality of old and new problems preventing the peace process, in the knowledge that this is the only possible way for two Peoples to live together in two States: it is their destiny to live on Earth side by side due to their geography and history.
Awarding Ceremony
Malta, 13 october 2012
S.E. CARDINALE CRESCENZIO SEPE - 2011
Archbishop of Naples - ITALY
For his commitment in promoting dialogue among cultures and civilisations involving youth. In particular he has been the promoter of the 21st Inter-faith International Peace Meeting entitled “For a world without violence, dialogue between religions and cultures”, held in Naples from 21st through 23rd October 2007. Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe has also the merit of instituting, in the year 2011, a “Special Jubilee” for Naples, involving all the citizens in the task for the renaissance of the city.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 20 may 2011
ANDRÉ AZOULAY - 2010
Advisor to the King of Morocco and President of the “Anna Lindh” Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures - MOROCCO
He has witnessed the importance of dialogue among cultures, mutual understanding and coexistence in social justice and democracy in a significant historical moment at the turn of the century. Today he continues his action in favour of peace in the Greater Mediterranean region carrying out activities aimed at defending freedom, testifying there is no peace and respect for the differences without claiming human rights. André Azoulay is one of the promoters of a true dialogue between the Arab-Islamic and the Western worlds, taking the role of protagonist in initiatives involving the main issues of the matter, such as Israel and Palestine, also in his role of president of “Anna Lindh” Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 13 june 2010
MAHMOUD DARWICH - 2009
Palestinian Poet - PALESTINE
Commonly considered as “the Poet of Peace”, “the Poet of the Palestinian cause” or of the Palestinian Resistance, Mahmoud Darwich avoided the slenderness of the thematic field offered by resistance poetry, transforming little by little the familiar objects of his lost land into myths, treating Palestine like a metaphor of the human condition. His poetry, already mightily lyrical, lives on an epic inspiration, dispensed essentially through a bright evocation of figures of speech or mythical figures drawn from all cultures. The clever work on the images and the incisive wording, allow Mahmoud Darwich to give back to himself and to Palestine the identity stolen with the promise of peace. His poetry develops, above all, a profound and painful thought on memory, on exile in all its dimensions, and digs deeply in the heart of rejection, of otherness and of death. Substitute of the confiscated native land, the writing is claimed as a principle of existence and even more as “out-life”. Poetry at this stage acquires completely his sense of dwell (bayt). Mahmoud Darwich, with his poetry, promoted peace in the world and in the Euro-Mediterranean area.
Awarding Ceremony
Gaeta, 27 march 2009
CARMINE NARDONE - 2008
President of the Province of Benevento - ITALY
For his political and scientific action in favour of Peace, which made possible the elevation of the territory of Benevento into a centre of excellence in the Euro-Mediterranean sphere. Through the creation of an international school of environmental diagnostics, he realised a real laboratory of peace in which youth coming from 30 Countries of the Great Mediterranean met in a new dimension of advanced technologies in which the satellite services from space attend upon humanity.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 4 january 2008
SHIRIN EBADI - 2007
Nobel Prize for Peace - IRAN
First jurist woman in Iran, Nobel Prize for Peace, she stands out for her commitment in favour of human rights, democracy, respect for women and children. Her strong opposition to a patriarchal culture, which across the world and in the Mediterranean denies women’s rights, represents a firm point for a future of peace founded on gender equality. Her action is especially oriented in favour of children, who are the hope of mankind, so as they can grow in a relational, emotional and affective universe without violence or oppression. Her figure of practising Muslim is the emblem of the ancient tradition of welcome and respect of the Other, typical of Islamic culture, and is in contrast with stereotyped images created and circulated by media. Her commitment for the construction of a dialogue through the search for shared values is a warning and a guide towards the common action for the creation of a Greater Mediterranean of peace and prosperity.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 5 march 2007
Parish Church of S. GIORGIO MAGGIORE - 2006
Parish Church of S. MARIA DELLA SANITÀ - 2006
Parish Church RESURREZIONE DEL SIGNORE - 2006
ITALY
For their undertaking carried out in favour of Peace and Social Solidarity into the excluded areas of a great metropolis, such as the city of Naples, where the conflicts due to poverty and soocial inequality are more evident.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 4 january 2007
ASSOCIAZIONE "MARSEILLE ESPERANCE" - 2004
President Jean Claude Gaudin - FRANCE
The originality and the exemplariness of activities promoting interfaith dialogue without boundaries and bringing together representatives of different cultures and beliefs practiced by people of Marseille, constitute the merit action of this Association.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 28 may 2004
padre ELIAS CHACOUR - 2003
Melkite Archbishop of Galilee and writer - ISRAEL
Priest at Ibillin, a small village in Palestine, Elias Chacour, Christian, Arab and Israeli citizen, is one of the few living witnesses of a coexistence, nowadays impossible, in the Middle East. He’s a man who, despite the bitterness that the story of his People might cause to him, courageously fights for the reconciliation of the two “blood brothers”: Israeli and Palestinian peoples. One of his challenges is to construct peace never giving up to those who constantly destroy it. His work starts from a school he founded at Ibillin, where 4500 Palestinian, either Muslim or Christian, and Israeli-Jewish children and students learn together. It is in this school that Elias Chacour’s mission takes shape: to construct a land of peace where the sons of God – brothers who today are tearing each other to pieces – can live peacefully together. It is a message of love and an impassioned address In favour of peace that Chacour sends to his Palestinian and Israeli brothers, not to convert them to his religion, but to show them a concrete and tangible possibility to share peace and life. Chacour is “another man of Galilee” who speaks from the depths of his suffering and of his wise experience.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 14 march 2003
alla memoria di MARIAGRAZIA CUTULI E JULIO FUENTES - 2002
Journalists killed in Afghanistan - ITALY / SPAIN
War. Tangle of wrongs and passions, of infamy and greatness. Like a tear in the fabric that – millennium after millennium since the first ancestors at the beginning of the reflection and consciousness which established rules and laws to curb instinct, repress egoism, find a conception of good, link people in mutual aid with general and shared values and made us less transient in the large sea of being, thanks to the persisting trace – hardly renews in the present, perpetuates in the future and marks an identity higher than the biological one. A tear in which, in the struggle of a force against another, the tragically constructed civilization becomes somehow uncertain and sometimes wavering. And there they were, without hatred or partisanship, to witness courage and cowardice, examples of compassion or abuses, of generosity and baseness, without prejudice in search of the truth that each fighter distorts. There, to found on that truth a better understanding of both parts, of the suffering of both, to challenge the opposing beliefs and lay the foundations of a new agreement so as to put an end to hostilities and establish a new, possibly fairer, peace. For this understanding, for this better and more human future, they were there: determined, sparing no pains, without escaping risk. Without any support, except for the distant support from their newspapers which had entrusted them with a mission more difficult than fighting, almost always more obscure. There, unarmed among armed people, serene among passions, courageous without boldness, more determined than fighters. There, always ahead where the battle is raging, convinced and determined. Until the sacrifice, just like Maria Grazia Cutuli and Julio Fuentes whose mutilated bodies and broken mobile phone were brought back to us. But their voice we gather here and their message we repeat in their name are not broken.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 4 january 2002
LEAH RABIN - 2001
ISRAEL
Leah Rabin was a great woman from Israel: a woman who fought for peace, with clear and sincere thoughts, with her hope for a better future and her contagious optimism.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 4 janaury 2001
in memory of S.M. HASSAN II - 2000
King of MOROCCO
Morocco, though having most of its coasts on the Atlantic, is truly Mediterranean. Not only because the Moroccan coast facing the Mediterranean extends from Tangier to Oujda, but also because Moroccan culture is founded on that humanism which has made man the measure of the world: a universal humanism, as emphasized by many thinkers and artists. From the high of Tangier a blue line separates the waters of the Ocean from those of the Mediterranean; and the latter seem to venture to the Atlantic in search of other continents to be fecundated by Mediterranean culture and ancient traditions. This line of demarcation – in the Koran Marajou AI Bahrein – is the strong representation of the attitude of Mediterranean genius to transmit our ancient immortal culture to the whole world: an attitude that H.M. Hassan II has constantly nourished, since His accession to the throne, continuing the action for national unity started by His father Mohammed V. His great merit was to support the democratization process towards which he wisely oriented His Country: this achievement will remain in history the main pillar in His political career. By accepting this challenge, He belied all those who argued that there was an absolute structural incompatibility between Islam and Democracy. By instituting for the first time in the Arab world and on the Southern shore of the Mediterranean the system of alternating democracy, H.M. Hassan II offered an example of pride and hope not only to the Moroccan people but also to all Arab and Muslim peoples. “Your Majesty, in a moment when the highest minds of the Mediterranean give You this Award, we join them, being sure that this high acknowledgement is not only conferred on the most important representative of Maghreb world but also on all Maghreb peoples who, thanks to Your action, may hope in a future founded on peace and on the respect of different identities – Michele Capasso”.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 5 january 2000
LAMBERTO DINI - 1999
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic - ITALY
Minister Dini guided the Italian action aimed at preparing and holding the Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial meeting on 3rd and 4th June 1998 in Palermo, which restored confidence in the principles and intervention programme set forth in the Barcelona Declaration of 28th November 1995. While reaffirming the absolute priority of Euro-Mediterranean Partnership for the regional promotion of an area of peace and shared prosperity, the message coming from Palermo showed, as guideline, the supportive commitment to contrast and remove the causes of instability of political, economic, social and cultural nature. Minister Dini, by asserting the concept of global stability, contributed to the acceptation of this guideline in an action able to accelerate the efforts for a rapid conclusion of a Euro-Mediterranean Charter for peace and stability. Strictly in accordance with this objective, he supported, as a protagonist, the re-launching of dialogue with Libya also in view of favouring the conditions for revoking the sanctions adopted by the Security Council against this Country. It is important for the dialogue to be carried on patiently by all Parties and deepened with the highest mutual comprehension, wishing to fully involve Libya in the efforts to strengthen peace and stability in the region. In the same spirit as in Palermo and in support of the search for a general pacification of the Mediterranean, the visit made in July 1998 to Algiers gave an important contribution, by testifying the existence of a dialogue for a closer cooperation with a Country so hardly affected by a tragic terrorist violence.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 5 january 1999
KIRO GLIGOROV - 1998
President of the Republic of MACEDONIA
A great figure of European anti-fascism and of the war of liberation in the Balkans, Gligorov is the political man who, by his action and prestige within the Yugoslav Federation, has managed to contain a tragic downfall of other similar regimes in Europe. In his acts and writings he has always defended the principles of human rights, of the equality of citizens, of a democratic expression even when these points of view were absolutely a minority. Under his leadership, Macedonia has fully participated in the spirit and practice of European agreement becoming the cornerstone of a policy aiming at the integration of South-Eastern Europe into the framework of European Union. This Award is meant to acknowledge the clear views, the political consistency and determination, as well as the courage always shown by Gligorov, since the constitution of the new post-war Yugoslav situation, in affirming the same fundamental ideas even when they were not in accordance with current policy. Ideas and principles of which he and his Country have become an example.
Awarding Ceremony
Naples, 5 january 1998