SECRETARY-GENERAL SENDS MESSAGE TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY SPECIAL MEETING TO OBSERVE CLOSE OF UNITED NATIONS YEAR OF TOLERANCE
States Organization Should Continue To Show Prevailing Openness in World Offers Formidable Opportunity for Future
Following is the text of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's message to the special meeting of the General Assembly on 20 November, marking the end of the United Nations Year for Tolerance:
By solemnly deciding to declare 1995 the "United Nations Year for Tolerance", the United Nations sought to demonstrate -- by that very declaration -- its commitment and resolve in the service of the rights of the human person.
Fifty years ago, the founding fathers of the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women. This is the commitment that we sought to renew together in 1995.
This mobilization in support of tolerance is even more important today, since the hazards of the contemporary world have often led to a decline in social values and in shared beliefs. Uncertainty about tomorrow gives rise to a diffuse fear. At such times, fear of others and the temptation to become self-absorbed are great.
It is therefore all the more necessary to give peoples and nations, men and women of all countries, concrete reasons to hope and to believe in the future.
We also know that the troubled time in which we live is conducive to the rise of all kinds of fundamentalism and all sorts of fanaticism that sow violence and death. We have, alas, recently seen examples of this.
The year which is drawing to a close therefore does not mark the end of our effort in support of tolerance. Quite the contrary. On behalf of the noble objectives of the Charter, on behalf of the principles of the United Nations, and in memory of those who gave their lives for their ideal, we must now, more than ever, say: "'No' to intolerance! 'No' to fanaticism! 'No' to all kinds of micro-nationalism!"
The United Nations must tirelessly continue to demonstrate to the men and women of this era that the prevailing openness in the world offers a formidable opportunity for the future, an unexpected chance to transcend our differences in order to attain what I once referred to as "the irreducible human element", that is, the quintessence of the values by which we define ourselves as a single human community.
May this final celebration of the United Nations Year for Tolerance therefore also serve as the occasion on which we call for the redoubling of our efforts to close the apparent divides between us and overcome our momentary differences, our ideological and cultural barriers.
Let all of us therefore continue together, well beyond this special year, to work within the United Nations to instil the spirit of tolerance in the heart of the human community.
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