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Address
by Mr Jean-Daniel Muehlethaler (SUI)
on behalf of the participants
Yassou, dear friends, buenos dias, ciao a tutti, bonjour à tous les amis francophones,
a salam maleikum, konichiwa, nin-auh, privet, namate, and last but not
least, liebe Freunde.
Those are only eleven of many different languages spoken all over the Academy,
all of which I unfortunately cannot speak at a very high level. But I can tell
you that for me personally, it is already enough and I think that it is very important
as well that we would be able to say just hello in five, ten or more languages. In
that way, people coming from 83 different countries will realize that at least people
speaking to them are trying to understand each other. Not only the language but
also - at least - different culture, political opinion, hitherto unfamiliar religion and
actually the human being him- or herself.
How boring would it be if everybody all over the world spoke the same language,
how boring would it be if everybody ate the same food, had the same education
system, the same way of building houses and, last but not least, the same
way of thinking about Olympism, the Olympic Movement and the subject we know
or better we knew best up to now - the so-called Olympic Games. Or wouldn't we
have any problems if we all thought about Olympism in the same way? Not easy to
answer. I am sure that we all have the same ideas and ideals, but probably not the
same final conclusions, especially on matters other than the Games.
It was interesting to hear, especially in our discussion-groups, the different opinions
about the future of Olympism - even when the questions were not always
framed in that way. It was interesting to hear about our wishes, the more realistic
and the less realistic, the dreams, the hopes, the rational thinking and also the irrational
thinking. Many people are said to be rational-thinking and I can tell you,
most of them are in a certain way of life - also me. But I think it should also be
possible to think irrationally, at least on certain subjects. And one of those subjects
could be the Olympic Spirit, Olympism itself.
We were talking in the last few days about, I would say, ideals, Olympic Ideals,
and we were sometimes brought back to reality by a smart Irishman called Brandon.
I think everybody knows that those ideals would be very hard to reach,
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