2004 Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award
Acceptance
speech: Mr Joesoef Isak
April, 2003
Friends and all my dear
soul-mates,
Thank you for your
expressions of congratulations.
I am pleased to have received
the Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award, not because any recognition of my role, but because it
contains an implicit recognition that there has filthy and dark pages in the
recent history of our Republic. This award also gives recognition to the fact
that there was always the will and those elements in society that were
resisting repression and struggling to bring about freedom. For too long now
the so-called free world has held up the military regime of general Suharto
for praise as some kind of democracy.
The struggle for democratic
rights and human dignity is a long struggle, but we all know that arbitrary
power never rules forever.
The 2004 Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award is
also an award to Indonesia itself, to its youth and students, the little book
shops and the housewives that dared to risk read and circulate books that had
been banned by those in power.
I must also state my
gratitude for the spirit of international solidarity shown by friends and
colleagues around the world, including by all those refugees scattered in exile
outside their homeland.
Salam & terimakasih!
Joesoef Isak