E ERYWHERE
IN THE WORLE
In this special bilingual issue of the Zeeuws
Tijdschrift about the Four Freedoms Awards the
focus is on the organizations and individuals who
received the awards in 2007 in New York and in
2008 in Middelburg. The annual awards, given
on an alternating basis in the United States and
in the Netherlands - in the province of Zeeland,
the Roosevelts' ancestral home - are presented to
national and world citizens of extraordinary achieve
ment whose words and deeds best exemplify the
ideals, proclaimed by President Roosevelt in 1941 in
his speech to Congress, necessary for democracy to
flourish everywhere in the world.
'In future days, which we seek to make secure,
we look forward to a world founded upon four essen
tial human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech
and expression - everywhere in the world. The sec
ond is freedom of every person to worship God in his
own way - everywhere in the world. The third is free
dom from want - which, translated into world terms,
means economic understandings which will secure to
every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabit
ants - everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom
from fear, which, translated in world terms, means a
world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point
and such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in
the position to commit an act of physical aggression
against any neighbor - anywhere in the world.' These
Four Freedoms were incorporated in the preamble
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the
United Nations.
The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
in New York presented their first Four Freedoms
Awards in 1950. This event was created in order
to keep alive the importance of the Four Freedoms
issued by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. Since 1982,
the presentation of these Awards has been organized
in cooperation with the Roosevelt Foundation in
Middelburg. Among the more than one hundred lau
reates of the past 25 years we find H.R.H. Princess
Juliana, John F. Kennedy, Harold Macmillan, Olof
Palme, Helmut Schmidt, Vaclav Havel, Arthur Miller,
Paul Newman, Bill Clinton, Walter R. Cronkite, Nasr
H. Abu Zayd, Jacques Delors, Simon Wiesenthal, J.
William Fulbright, Robert S. McNamara, Javier Pérez
de Cuéllar, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Kofi
Anan and Mohamed ElBaradei.
Dr. Richard von Weiszacker received the
International Four Freedoms Award during a ceremo
ny on the 24th of May 2008 in Middelburg. The other
awards winners were: Lalchdar Brahimi (Freedom
of Speech and Expression); Dr. Karen Armstrong
(Freedom of Worship); Jan Egeland (Freedom from
Want); and Willemijn Verloop on behalf of War Child
(Freedom from Fear).
During the awards ceremony on 6 November
2007 in New York Senator Carl Levin and Senator
Richard G. Lugar received the Four Freedoms Medal.
Joining them in receiving medals reflecting specif
ic freedoms were: Bill Moyers (Freedom of Speech
and Expression); The Reverend Peter J. Gomes
(Freedom of Worship); Barbara Ehrenreich (Freedom
from Want); and Lieutenant-General Brent Sowcroft
(Freedom from Fear). With the exception of Levin and
Lugar, who due to pressing business on the Hill were
not present at the award ceremony, all the 2007 and
2008 laureates have been interviewed for this special
issue of the Zeeuws Tijdschrift.
Paul van der Velde
5 Zeeuws Tijdschrift 2008 I 5-6
