The 1958 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts

RESPONSE of Mochtar Lubis

It is with a feeling of greatest inadequacy that I stand here for MOCHTAR LUBIS. MOCHTAR LUBIS is today a great man—and there can be no substitute for greatness.

A few days ago, there came from Indonesia the text of the response which MOCHTAR LUBIS had hoped to deliver before this assembly. Due to limitations of time, I can read to you only a few excerpts from MOCHTAR's address—an address that reflects a spirit still afire with freedom even after almost two years of confinement.

This is the message from MOCHTAR LUBIS:

"When I first met the late President Ramon Magsaysay at the headquarters of his presidential campaign, I asked him: 'How do you expect to win this election?'

"He put his hand on my shoulder, grinned and said: 'With the truth and with the people . . .'

"The task of working for the truth and for the people is not an easy one today in many countries in Asia. In our own time, and in our own specific countries, the task of discovering the truth, the task of serving the people . . . must become an unceasing and vigilant confrontation with the facts of our time.

"And what are these facts?

"The big facts are that despite hard-won freedom, our peoples are still very poor, hungry, ignorant and in some cases they are still exploited . . .

"Many honest and well-meaning people, faced with difficult and seemingly insurmountable problems have become persuaded that democratic reconstruction is impossible in Asia. And this attitude is being helped to grow by communist propaganda and subversion. That is why today in Asia we may find leaders, who yesterday were quite willing to die for democracy and human freedom, but are now easily beginning to say that, in order to achieve freedom from want, it is excusable to do away with freedom of expression, which is another way of saying that democracy and human freedom may be thrown away for the sake of filling the stomachs of the masses . . .

"We maintain that freedom from hunger and freedom of expression are one and indivisible, that democracy, human dignity and freedom are worth fighting for. We maintain that rice alone is not enough and that it is not by rice alone that we can promote and enrich human values, and so give our contribution to the building of a happier human life on our earth. We maintain that no nation can live by itself, but that a nation can only enrich its own life and happiness by living and working together with other nations . . .

"We all know that the voice of truth and the voice of the people can be suppressed: newspapers can be muzzled, journalists can be arrested or even killed, but the ideals of truth, the love for the people, the love for a better mankind and a better and happier world—all these will never die and can never be suppressed.

"Indeed, the challenge of our time is for man to express more fully, more truly, more bravely and honestly his own humanity.

"Ramon Magsaysay is no longer with us. We are here to pay tribute to his ideals, and because of his ideals, he is so much more with us today. Because Ramon Magsaysay understood the challenge of our time, because he responded honestly and bravely to this challenge, he became one of the driving forces of these universal values. In his own time, Ramon Magsaysay became the champion of the common people in the Philippines and the symbol of truth, honesty, courage and freedom in Asia…

"And it is because of this that I most sharply feel my own inadequacy to earn this honor, this Award. I accept it with the greatest humility, and my only hope is that I would be worthy of this great honor bestowed upon me."