The 1995 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts

RESPONSE of Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
Manila, Philippines

It is a great honor to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award; moreover, my family and I consider it a great personal privilege. This award has also helped to illuminate the fate of hundreds and thousands of people like myself.

The winds of global change continue to blow on a global level as well as regionally within our own shores. Indeed, the dream for a better society rarely comes true smoothly and easily; the challenges to our human creativity and our resilience are great and manifold. Still, we discern the pulse of progress. The people of the Philippines, as also the people of Indonesia, through their own history, are very much aware of this.

I salute the Magsaysay Foundation, which is playing an active role in, and making an invaluable contribution to, this process of change.

The 1995 award more especially commends us all; it highly commends the Foundation. To me, this award is a sign of moral courage and support, as it is to all those who sincerely endeavor to uphold human dignity and human rights, who serve truth and justice, and who earnestly strive for the emancipation of all, at home and in the whole wide world. I am proud to receive this award and shall always hold it in high esteem. I will do my best to keep it with dignity and gratitude, fully aware of my calling as a writer and as a human person, and, most importantly, as an Indonesian citizen in this year of my beloved country’s golden anniversary, Indonesia Emas.

May this award help to bring about a historical shift in the journey of humankind in order to reduce and even to do away with whatever difficulties or obstacles there may be.

I am convinced that this award will broaden the road of friendship between the Indonesian people and the Filipino people, the people of Japan, Pakistan, and Taiwan—indeed, of all the peoples of Asia.

May God in God’s mercy grant that only the very best will happen to us all.