WEBVTT

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Bernardo Kliksberg

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talks to people

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who helped change the world.

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All of them

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Nobel Prize winners.

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Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

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was born on November 26, 1931,

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in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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Considered

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one of the leading

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figures in the fight

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for human rights

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in Latin America.

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In 1977,

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he was kidnapped and tortured

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by the Argentine civic-military dictatorship.

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When he gained

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conditional freedom,

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he launched a strong

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international campaign

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to expose

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the crimes against humanity

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committed in the region.

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In 1980,

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he received

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the Nobel Peace Prize.

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ETHICAL SCANDALS

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As everyone knows, there are five Argentines

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who, throughout our history, have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

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Three of them in medicine:

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Houssay, Milstein, Leloir.

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One of them many years ago,

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at the beginning of the last century:

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Saavedra Lamas, in international relations,

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for his fight for peace.

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Adolfo, you are

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a legend

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for our country and the entire world,

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because you have dedicated your entire life

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to the noblest causes on the planet.

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How did it all begin?

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How did your passion for justice and peace start?

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Well, honestly, I don’t know.

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I think from a very young age,
because I came from a very humble household.

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And I started working in parishes,
in local neighborhoods.

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And little by little, I became aware.
What really awakened my concern was

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when I began to understand this continent.

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Latin America is a continent
that lives between anguish and hope.

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Is a continent diverse,
with diverse cultures, thoughts, histories,

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but also with common challenges for its people.

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One thing, due to my own origin,

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is that I have to say I’m mixed-race,

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because my mother, my grandmother,
were Guarani.

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So one of the first things I faced was discrimination.

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In schools, they taught us
that indigenous people were lazy,

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that they didn’t contribute, that they didn’t want progress.

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I was always the kid punished at school,

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because I would say, “My grandmother was not like that.”

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My mother passed away when I was very young.

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And so

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I was always in conflict with this.

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And at times, I also felt

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ashamed, I could say, to bring friends

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to my grandmother’s house
so they wouldn’t see her as an indigenous woman.

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But when I began to reflect

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and gain awareness of other values,

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I started to discover fantastic things.

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My grandmother was illiterate,
but she was wise.

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Wisdom is not found
in those who read more books.

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Wisdom lies in those who understand
the deeper meaning of life.

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Based on that,

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for example, I saw my grandmother talking
to animals, to plants.

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Well, I have a crazy grandmother.

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How can she talk to plants? To animals,
if they don\'t understand?

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No, they understand her.

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Animals understand perfectly

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and maybe they are wise because they don\'t speak.

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One of the things my grandmother taught me was

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to listen to silence,

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to be open to signs, symbols,
to listen to the winds.

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And little by little, I started

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unfolding myself.

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I began traveling to neighboring countries,

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to learn about my grandmother\'s village.

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No, when she was around, I used to ask her,

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\"Grandma, what are you going to do when you grow up?\"

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My grandmother laughed at my childhood question...

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and she told me, “I’m going to tell you
the story of my people.”

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“Of your people.”

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Because she never saw me as something external,
not apart from her people, but part of it.

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And that’s when I understood
that all peoples have a memory,

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a tradition, an identity, a culture.

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When we lose those roots,

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we don’t know who we are.

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It’s like that old proverb that says,

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\"If you don’t know where you’re going,
go back to find out where you came from.\"

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It’s about discovering who we are.

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And then,

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understanding the conflicts,
mainly of indigenous peoples:

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issues of territory and identity.

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I also learned that we must be vigilant.

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How they survived
all forms of domination.

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They survived by preserving their language,
their words,

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their identity, their cultures.

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They survived all dominations

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through time,
otherwise, these peoples would not exist.

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And so, when you begin
to see the struggles of peoples worldwide,

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those who survive are the ones with
deep roots, like trees.

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Deep roots
that withstand all storms.

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I think it’s from there that I began
to understand many things.

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The Peace and Justice Service
started its work in the 1960s

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in Mexico and later
spread across the continent.

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In 1974, I was asked to organize it
on a continental level

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because it was like several small groups.

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And little by little, what we know today

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as the Peace and Justice Service emerged.

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We are present in 15 Latin American countries

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for more than 40 years now,

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and we continue working.

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That’s why it’s a service.

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We are servants of the people.

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We are neither ahead nor behind.

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We are together.

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That’s what defines us.

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We are servants,

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which is why we do not accept
official positions or anything.

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Because when we accept official positions,
we end up being the ones who direct, right?

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No. We are servants.

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Tell me, Adolfo:

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In 1980, after enduring torture, detentions,

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barely escaping being on one of the death flights,

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after all that,
you received the Nobel Prize.

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How did that recognition,
which the world deeply respects, move you?

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The Nobel Peace Prize.

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How was your experience with that?

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I never sought awards,

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so it was a surprise for me. Yes,

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I didn’t expect it.

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But when I was in prison,
two women from Northern Ireland,

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Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams,

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nominated me... but then the Quakers,

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churches, communities...

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A movement began worldwide for my release.

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One day during that time,

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to recall that era,
some things were very important.

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There were no cell phones,
very few public phones.

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I occasionally called home
from a public phone

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due to security reasons.

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I had just left prison after
14 months

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under conditional freedom,
with surveillance everywhere.

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And one day, I called.

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On October 13th,
I called home.

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My wife said, \"Look, they’re calling you

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from the Norwegian embassy;
you must go immediately.\"

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We were distributing reports

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to embassies about
what was happening in Argentina.

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She said, \"Drop everything and go there.\"

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\"They’re desperately looking for you.\"

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I got to the embassy,
and the ambassador said, \"Finally!\"

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\"I was looking for you everywhere.\"

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I said: Alright, tell me
what’s happening, and I’ll leave,

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because I could see you
were preparing a party here.

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There were many glasses of champagne,
people, decorations.

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\"I don’t want to bother you, so just tell me.\"

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And the ambassador
kept looking at his watch and said:

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\"Wait a minute.\"

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At 12,

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he gave me the news.

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And the first thing I said was:

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\"I can’t accept this as a personal title,

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because my work
is not individual work.\"

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\"I work with thousands of people
across the continent.\"

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Indigenous people, peasants, religious men,

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nuns, grassroots communities.

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So, yes, If i accept it,
I do so on behalf of all of them,

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the peoples of Latin America,

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because it’s not fair to think
that this is the work of one person.

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It’s not the work of one person.

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Well, and then chaos followed.

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It was all about

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the Nobel Prize, which I always,
to this day,

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I always say I accept,
not only the Nobel Prize,

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but all other distinctions, on behalf
of the peoples of Latin America.

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So much so that currently

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with the University of Buenos Aires,

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the old headquarters
that was the center of resistance

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on Mexico and Bolívar streets,
will now become

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the House of Latin American Nobel Laureates.

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And there will go all the decorations,
everything, including the Nobel Prize,

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wich has always been a concern.

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Who would inherit all this?

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And I believe the most important thing
is that the University of Buenos Aires,

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the research and study centers,
and the people can have this as a reference

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and also know what the Nobel Laureates have done.

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So, this legacy
must remain for Argentina,

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but also for all the peoples
of Latin America and the world.

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We know that peace is only possible

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when it is the fruit of justice.

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The truth about peace

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is a profound transformation
through the power of nonviolence,

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which is the power of love.

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Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Oslo, Norway.

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1980

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After that, after receiving the Nobel Prize
and already in the era of democracy,

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you became a strong advocate of the methods of Gandhi,
Martin Luther King, and Hélder Câmara.

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You carried out several
hunger strikes each time

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the Amnesty Law was enforced.

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You went on hunger strikes and directly confronted
Menem in the 1990s,

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when Menem enacted
the pardons and other measures.

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In other words, your fight continued
to demand justice.

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What does the hunger strike of over ten days
you carried out mean to you?

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Rather than calling it a hunger strike,
I would call it fasting and prayer.

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It’s different, isn’t it?

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A hunger strike is against something,
to gain recognition... No.

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Fasting and prayer
are about purification.

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It’s about internal purification as a person,

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but also
about the purification of the people.

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Even those who do wrong.

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It’s a completely different perspective.

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If we reduce everything

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to the political arena alone
and don’t seek purification,

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we change nothing, do we?
It’s something else.

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Gandhi,

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when he marched for salt,

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when he fasted...

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Or Luther King.

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They did it as an act of redemption
and purification, even for the oppressor.

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Even for the oppressor.

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It is an act of

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human dignity.

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Because if we lack the ability
to transform,

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we remain trapped
in the same problem.

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And there,

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there is hatred, revenge,

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the force of

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\"if I defeat this,\" and so on.

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Fasting and prayer
have a much deeper meaning,

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and it is this that can lead us to

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overcome all these things

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in life and to deliver a message
as well to society,

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a message that must be

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transformative, liberating,

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liberating.

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I always say no one can give what they do not have.

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Because we need to free ourselves first.

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I cannot achieve peace

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if I do not have peace within me.

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And fasting, prayer,

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the struggle, and resistance are tied to all this.

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Well, I believe the struggle continues.

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Today we must keep working
because democracy is not given freely.

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Democracy is built, just like peace.

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Peace is not freely given,
and it is not the absence of conflict,

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but rather a constant dynamic
of human relationships,

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among people and nations.

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How can we live in diversity

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and not in uniformity?

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Not this, but being able
to build within diversity.

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I think the great wealth of peoples is this,

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diversity, not uniformity.

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But I always bring up an example
about monocultures.

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In monocultures, there are no birds;
there are no birds because they have nothing to eat,

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because of agrochemicals; on the contrary,
they are killed by them.

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Mother Nature has always created diversity.

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And the diversity of humanity and peoples is

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the great wealth of humankind.

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It is this, and we must learn from it to

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learn to walk, to walk together.

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The youth villages are interesting.

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Tell us about them.

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Well,

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during the dictatorship,
we saw so much poverty,

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children on the streets,
and we began to work and support them.

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We have teams working
with children living on the streets.

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I always, never say

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\"street children.\"

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Children are not on the streets because they want to be...

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They are there because society

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has expelled them, mistreated them...

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and so, after doing this work
with children living on the streets,

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we began to ask ourselves... What else?

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So, we established two villages
called \"Youth for Peace,\"

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We don\'t do charity, we provide assistance.

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It\'s different, isn\'t it?

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So in these Youth for Peace villages,

00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:33.440
we offer vocational training.

00:18:34.440 --> 00:18:36.800
One village has 19 workshops,

00:18:36.840 --> 00:18:38.880
the other has 15 workshops,

00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:42.960
which are both agricultural and technical,

00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:48.000
but primarily, we provide them
with a sense of life,

00:18:48.320 --> 00:18:53.320
of human relationships,
and of discovering themselves as individuals.

00:18:54.720 --> 00:19:00.480
They discover themselves when they recognize in others an equal, a person, right?

00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:04.160
And that\'s where we started.

00:19:04.560 --> 00:19:08.760
Some have resumed their education,

00:19:08.760 --> 00:19:13.600
we encounter many functional illiterates

00:19:13.600 --> 00:19:16.440
who learned something at some point
but then forgot it.

00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:19.640
So, recovering their voice,

00:19:19.640 --> 00:19:22.600
recovering their education.

00:19:23.600 --> 00:19:28.560
That\'s why I always remember
what José Saramago told me, right?

00:19:28.560 --> 00:19:31.960
In a meeting we had in Barcelona, he said:

00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:36.640
\"Schools do not educate.\"

00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:43.320
Who educates? Families educate,
communities educate. Schools instruct and inform.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:46.520
That\'s why I disagree with this idea

00:19:46.520 --> 00:19:50.800
that parents delegate their children\'s education to schools.

00:19:50.800 --> 00:19:55.080
This is not true,
because children will repeat

00:19:55.520 --> 00:19:58.560
the behaviors of their parents.

00:19:59.040 --> 00:20:00.560
If there are violent parents,

00:20:00.560 --> 00:20:05.000
the child, the information,
if society creates

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.000
a culture of violence,
this is terrible.

00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:11.480
It is what we are experiencing
in many cases.

00:20:11.480 --> 00:20:14.760
So we need to recover
the sense of community,

00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:18.560
of dialogue, of participation.

00:20:19.280 --> 00:20:24.760
The villages are this,
these spaces of life, of communication,

00:20:24.760 --> 00:20:34.040
and some have even gone on to pursue
university studies, continuing to visit the villages.

00:20:34.840 --> 00:20:41.240
They are centers of learning, but
fundamentally places for a sense of life.

00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:43.920
Education must be vital.

00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:47.040
Adolfo, my last question,
because I know you have

00:20:47.040 --> 00:20:50.560
to keep fighting
for countless causes.

00:20:51.240 --> 00:20:56.200
You recently received a three-page letter
from President Obama.

00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:00.000
You meet with Pope Francis,
the reference

00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:02.280
of all humankind today

00:21:02.280 --> 00:21:05.520
so often...
Your grandson was there

00:21:05.520 --> 00:21:09.080
with the Pope, showing him
a San Lorenzo jersey he wore.

00:21:11.040 --> 00:21:13.520
You are among the greats of humankind,

00:21:13.960 --> 00:21:17.960
and with such a low and quiet profile
that people in Argentina

00:21:17.960 --> 00:21:20.880
don’t even realize what you mean
to all humankind.

00:21:21.760 --> 00:21:23.920
At this point in life,

00:21:23.920 --> 00:21:27.120
what message would you give to the youth

00:21:27.120 --> 00:21:31.440
after your long life dedicated
to fighting for others?

00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:34.840
If you had to summarize, in this world

00:21:34.840 --> 00:21:38.160
as it is, what message
would you give to the youth?

00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:43.480
Well, to the youth I’m in daily contact with,

00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:48.440
I’d tell them
not to stop smiling at life,

00:21:49.600 --> 00:21:53.680
even in the darkest, hardest moments.

00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:58.080
There’s an old proverb that says,

00:21:59.680 --> 00:22:06.840
“The darkest hour is when
dawn begins.”

00:22:06.840 --> 00:22:10.080
Always look for possibilities,
for a dawn.

00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:15.480
And above all,
never stop smiling at life.

00:22:17.440 --> 00:22:21.480
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel,
what can I say?

00:22:21.720 --> 00:22:26.720
How can I put it?
I say it from the roots of my own people.

00:22:27.280 --> 00:22:29.800
In the Bible and in Hebrew,

00:22:29.800 --> 00:22:34.640
there is an expression that can only be used
on very special occasions.

00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:39.080
When one encounters an absolutely
exceptional human being.

00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:44.120
The expression is “Kol Hakavod”
in biblical Hebrew.

00:22:44.120 --> 00:22:49.080
“Kol Hakavod” means all honors.
All honors, Adolfo.

00:22:49.320 --> 00:22:51.480
Thank you.

00:22:58.320 --> 00:22:59.720
Beautiful.

00:23:00.200 --> 00:23:01.280
A treasure.

00:23:01.280 --> 00:23:02.400
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:06.760
has received fifteen honorary doctorates

00:23:06.760 --> 00:23:10.760
in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru,
Brazil, the United States, Spain, and Japan.

00:23:10.760 --> 00:23:12.760
He continues his relentless fight

00:23:12.760 --> 00:23:14.640
for Human Rights

00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:16.600
through the Peace and Justice Service

00:23:16.600 --> 00:23:20.360
and the educational project:
Village of Youth for Peace.

00:23:20.360 --> 00:23:22.360
With more than half a century of struggle,

00:23:22.360 --> 00:23:24.960
he maintains:

00:23:24.960 --> 00:23:27.680
“Memory is not
to remain in the past,

00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:31.160
but to illuminate the present
and rebuild hope.”

00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:40.680
Any moment is a good time
to start changing the world.