The 1987 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service

RESPONSE of Hans Bague Jassin
Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
31 August 1987 Manila, Philippines

The world has taught us to be useful, even in the most simple way. What I have done in the last fifty years is very simple, very easy. It very easy. It could have been done and can be done by anyone else, man or woman, r woman, adult or child. I have only been collecting other people's works, keeping, keeping them and, as far as I am able, sharing my perceptions of them.

Literary documentation, according to me, is a kind of album, a collection of thoughts, aspirations of human conscience. I have spent almost all of my life happily collecting such, rather like a small child gathering different kinds of leaves in a beautiful forest, before they are blown away by the wind.

A journalist asked me one day "Can a pretty petal make the whole flower beautiful?" My answer was that everything under the sun has its place in the degrees of beauty. As for me, even though not all seems to me beautiful, I have no heart to discard anything I always see a pearl somewhere. Literary pearls touch human souls and help us to understand one another. As long as I can collect them, keep them and write about them, I will continue to do so.

Today the work that has made me happy for years has been acclaimed a valuable asset and it has enabled me to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award. This award is an honor, recognized by those who love simplicity, freedom and peace, especially in Asia.

I have said that literary documentation is collecting human aspirations. By bestowing this prize for such work, the Foundation, in the name of the noble Ramon Magsaysay, has honored human aspirations.

The Center for Literary Documentation which I established is not my personal possession. It is for everyone, especially for lovers of literature.

Like leaves which can not be differentiated politically, literature as human conscience is the universal language of mankind. It should not be labelled by nationality or political view.

So, on behalf of all lovers of literature, on behalf of all writers and poets whose works now fill the H.B. Jassin Center for Literary Documentation and who have thus enabled me to be honored as a public servant, I herewith accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award, humbly and gratefully.

I believe that the Award will help people realize that the world of literature is very rich and includes the literature of Indonesia