Myanmar has one of the most challenging environments for the practice of journalism in Asia.  With its history of military rule and weak civic institutions, the effort to build a strong, independent, and socially responsible press has to contend with draconian laws, rabid intolerance, repression and persecution.  It is an environment that calls for journalists of uncommon will, professional independence, and a strong sense of justice.

Such a journalist is forty-one-year-old KO SWE WIN.  Born to a poor family in Yangon, he grew up in politically turbulent times and fell victim to state repression early on.  In 1998, he was a university student when he was arrested with sixty-seven others for participating in a student demonstration and distributing propaganda materials against the ruling military junta.  Sentenced to twenty-one years in jail, he was tortured and starved but would turn prison into a learning experience.  He studied English, deepened his Buddhist faith, and did a lot of meditation.  Released after seven years in prison, he studied journalism, doing an online undergraduate program and with a scholarship, finished a master’s degree in journalism at Hong Kong University in 2009.   He worked for a magazine in Thailand, and then, intent on being “where the action was,” returned to Yangon in 2012.

In Yangon, he started as a stringer for Al Jazeera and New York Times and even set up a short-lived, self-financed internet news service. The first important opportunity came when Myanmar Now was launched in 2015, with seed financing from the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Myanmar Now is an independent online news service focused on long-form investigative reports in both Burmese and English, available for syndication.  With SWE WIN as editor-in-chief since 2016, the news service has built a strong reputation for well-researched, in-depth articles on critically selected, underreported human rights and social justice issues.

SWE WIN has continued to face daunting challenges. In 2017, he criticized a powerful, ultranationalist Buddhist monk, Ashin Wirathu, for purveying “hate speech” and publicly commending the killer of a Muslim human rights activist.  Wirathu, SWE WIN wrote, had desecrated Buddhism and should be punished for endorsing assassination and fomenting hate.  SWE WIN was sued for defamation, physically assaulted by Wirathu’s supporters, and briefly jailed on the trumped-up charge that he tried to leave the country while on bail.  Illustrating how the law can be bent by the powerful, the trial was held in a location that required SWE WIN to take a 780-mile road trip to and from the trial, which was purposely dragged out such that SWE WIN had to do a total of seventy-one trips at great personal inconvenience and cost.  A case of blatant harassment, the judge finally dropped the case on July 2, 2019 for the plaintiff’s protracted non-appearance at court hearings.

SWE WIN and Myanmar Now draw strength from the fact that they are making a difference.  With a current readership of 350,000, the news service is highly regarded for the quality, balance, and depth of its reporting on high-impact issues, including land grabbing, child labor, and abuse of domestic workers.  It exposed anomalies in the Myanmar Human Rights Commission; in a political indoctrination program ran by the army for civil servants; in the secret operation of some fifty prison labor camps where prisoners are made to work in quarries and mines; and in the activities of the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, a movement of xenophobic, anti-Muslim extremists.  SWE WIN is encouraged that public awareness has been raised and government has responded positively in a number of cases, punishing officials or changing policies.

A growing problem in Myanmar and the world, SWE WIN says, is “intolerance and hostility towards different races and nationalities being exploited as a political weapon.”  “Only the promotion of human rights,” he says, “can help us contain this deplorable trend.”

In electing KO SWE WIN to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his undaunted commitment to practice independent, ethical, and socially engaged journalism in Myanmar; his incorruptible sense of justice and unflinching pursuit of the truth in crucial but underreported issues; and his resolute insistence that it is in the quality and force of media’s truth-telling that we can convincingly protect human rights in the world.

First, I would like to thank Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for giving me this prestigious award in Asia.

But I feel deeply humbled by the fact that there are so many out there in our country and various parts of the world ”more selfless and more honest than I am but who have been never recognized for the services they render to their respective societies.

I am the seventh person from Myanmar ”and the second journalist ”to receive this award. The first Myanmar journalist and one of the earliest recipients of this award is Mr. Edward Michael Law-Yone, who founded the Nation newspaper in 1948. That was one of the most influential newspapers in Southeast Asia.

After the first military coup in 1962, Michael Law-Yone was jailed for five years and later forced to leave the country. Professional journalism had been lost in our country since then. The state of oppression, which forced Mr. Law-Yone to leave his beloved country, has relaxed to some extent following some democratic changes initiated since 2011.

According to the current constitution, however, the military remains the most dominant force, which controls key ministries and holds one quarter of seats in the legislature.

The predominance of the military’s role, combined with the continued armed clashes in a number of ethnic minorities and the rise of nationalism, is the major challenge facing the independent media in Myanmar.  This situation constantly instills a sense of threat into civil life and the news media circle.

But having passed through various political and social turbulences over the past decades, we have developed a great resilience and a tremendous amount of patience for the problems in our country. None of the people I know in Myanmar expect change to happen overnight, but we have a firm belief that we are not on the right path towards democracy and liberty as long as the supremacy of civilian rule has not come into fruition.

In this context, journalism plays a crucial role ”the kind of journalism that seeks the truth, that protects the fundamental rights of human beings, that is not colored by political and religious dogmas and, above all, that is driven not by animosities against anyone or any entity but by a great compassion for the most unfortunate communities and individuals in a society.

Even though an independent press or press freedom is mostly a by-product of a democratic political system, we are confident that the press can play a vibrant causal role for the growth of democracy and liberty in Myanmar and many other countries in Asia.

In a country known for its rich musical culture and blessed with a surfeit of musical talent, to stand out as singular and indispensable is truly outstanding.  In the Philippines today such a musical leader is RAYMUNDO “RYAN” PUJANTE CAYABYAB.

Born in Manila, one of four siblings, RYAN’s father was a government employee, his mother an opera singer and music teacher. Though the family’s circumstances were modest, theirs was a home filled with music, particularly since his mother took in music students as boarders.  Everyone in the house seemed to be either singing or playing an instrument, and RYAN grew up listening to classical music, opera arias, and traditional native songs.  Heeding his mother’s admonitions to shun the musician’s financially unrewarding career, RYAN took up a business management course, but to help pay for his university studies he took on side jobs as pianist or accompanist for musical artists. The parents of one such artist were so impressed with his talent that they gave RYAN a full scholarship to pursue a degree in music instead.  From this point on, music would be his life-work.

Versatile, a consummate professional, and universally liked, RYAN CAYABYAB is virtually omnipresent in the Philippine music industry today.  For over four decades, his contributions as a composer, arranger, music director, conductor, performer, and educator have been huge.  RYAN started to write music in the late 1970s, making his mark when his signature song “Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika” (How Beautiful is Our Music) won the grand prize in the first Metro Manila Popular Music Festival (Metropop) in 1978 and in an international song festival in South Korea in the same year.  He went on to win in other competitions and performed widely in the Philippines and abroad.  As head and artistic director of the San Miguel Foundation for the Performing Arts, he acted as conductor, arranger, and composer of its award-winning Philharmonic Orchestra and Master Chorale.  Subsequently, he would be involved in training singers and music groups that have won significant national and international recognition.

At home in diverse genres and media—choral and orchestral works, musical theater, opera and ballet, television programs, film scores, commercial recordings of popular music—RYAN has influenced the shaping of Philippine music culture.  An instance is the role he has played in the Original Pilipino Music (OPM) movement to promote a culturally distinct, contemporary Filipino popular music.  The movement arose in the 1970s with the Metropop, continuing to this day with Philippine Pop Music Festival (Philpop).  RYAN has played a leading role in these and other festivals, which have been important in inspiring and promoting thousands of singers and songwriters in the country.

RYAN is driven by a passion to mentor, educate, and contribute to the flourishing of Filipino musical talent.  He has served in the music faculty of the University of the Philippines, runs a music studio with his wife, and has conducted free workshops for thousands of students all across the country. He is a moving force in the Philpop Musicfest Foundation and the Elements Music Camp, major initiatives dedicated to music training, promoting Filipino music abroad, and fostering Filipino cultural identity through music. Honored in 2018 as Philippine National Artist for Music, he was cited for his music that “extols the exuberance of life and human happiness, thus capturing the very essence of our Filipino soul.”

An inspiration and guiding light to many, RYAN says, “The next generation should be better than us for our country to move forward.  For this to happen we must teach them everything we know at every possible instance.  I like teaching, I like sharing what I know, and I like playing music.  When I’m doing all these, I’m very happy.”

In electing RAYMUNDO PUJANTE CAYABYAB to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his compositions and performances that have defined and inspired Filipino popular music across generations; his indomitable, undeterred confidence to selflessly seek, mentor and promote young Filipino musical genius for the global stage; and his showing us all that music can indeed instill pride and joy, and unify people across the many barriers that divide them.

The first song I ever wrote was based on a poem I found in the notebook of a school mate. I was twelve years old and a freshman in high school.  I had no idea that this was the start of a creative music writing career. And even if my mother, an opera singer, dissuaded all her children to take up a career in music, it was here that I found my calling. Songwriters are chroniclers who write about their happiness, their sorrows, their surroundings, their country, their aspirations and anxieties. They mirror everything that happens around them, including socio-political changes in society, and write personal stories in the context of their milieu, in a language that transcends time and barriers.

When I was starting out as a teacher at the U.P. College of Music in Diliman, I realized immediately that this was what I would like to do: spend my life teaching music. Teaching all I know, to young musicians. My wife and I even started to operate a small music school, teaching non-degree courses in music performance and creative music writing just to feed a simple desire. A professional musician once asked me, “Aren’t you afraid that by teaching everything you know you are actually divulging trade secrets?”  Because of this remark it became even clearer to me why I wanted to teach. There really are no trade secrets; but even if there were, I would divulge them anyway.

Teaching can transform lives. I want everyone I teach to discover their maximum potential. I also want them to be better than me. And because I think this was the basic track that I wanted to take, I was able to influence many of my younger colleagues in the music industry to adopt the same vision: to enable the new generation of songwriters to be better than our generation, so that our music community can to move forward, and thus bring the entire creative music industry to new heights, and hopefully help the country to move forward by becoming leaders and songwriters of new music for the world to hear.

Another very compelling vision I share with many of my colleagues is this goal to make the Filipino public aware that our original music is not only a form of entertainment but a living tradition. It is the binding ‘glue’ that forms, strengthens and positively moves the Filipino community, thus rendering it vital and essential to keep on making, promoting and supporting Filipino-made music.  Moreover, it contributes to the vibrant music movement happening in the entire Asian region affecting the lives of its people.

Thank you for this honor bestowed upon me. Thank you to the board of trustees. I share this award with all my colleagues in the music industry who tirelessly give their time to help accomplish our goal of discovering and training future generations of creative songwriters; and to writing new works to contribute to the music literature of our country and of the world.

South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates among the world’s developed countries.  The incidence of teenage suicides is particularly disturbing.  Official statistics indicated that in 2005 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the suicide rate among middle and high school students stood at 7.6 students per 100,000.  The causal factors are complex but what stands out is that more than half of the suicides were directly related to school bullying.

In 1995, KIM JONG-KI was a highly successful businessman handling market operations in China for a giant Korean electronics company.  Married, with a son and daughter, he was at the height of his career when tragedy struck.  He was traveling in China when he learned that his sixteen-year-old son, Dae-hyun, had committed suicide, leaving no clues as to the reason; JONG-KI would learn later from Dae-hyun’s friends that it was bullying in school that drove him to end his life.  The suicide devastated the family. It was no consolation to them that bullying and school violence were not recognized as life-threatening problems by the government or Korean society. Worse, those who repeatedly inflicted violence on his son continued to bully others. Heartbroken, JONG-KI knew he had to do something to channel his grief and to prevent similar youth tragedies.

In the year his son died, JONG-KI established the Foundation for Preventing Youth Violence (FPYV), the first organized effort in South Korea to address school violence as a systemic social problem affecting students, families, schools, and the community-at-large.  At that time, there were no means in the country for JONG-KI to complain and seek help.  There was little public awareness of the scale and seriousness of school violence—even the term was not recognized. School violence was regarded as mere fighting, normal among teenagers.  Government and schools did not want public attention on the issue; victims and their parents were afraid, or just did not want to speak out.  FPYV’s initial activity was to hold a press conference where JONG-KI spoke candidly about Dae-hyun’s suicide and the bullying that triggered it; this was the very first time the problem of youth violence and its destructive consequences was bravely acknowledged in public.

Over the next twenty-four years, JONG-KI and his staff painstakingly developed a holistic program of detection, protection, and management in youth violence.  Under JONG-KI’s committed leadership, FPYV carried out wide-ranging anti-bullying campaigns which included seminars, rallies, concerts and films; operated a hotline which now takes thirty to fifty calls daily, with the capacity to dispatch staff to respond to urgent cases, and lobbied for needed government policy and legislation.  After ten years, a law on the prevention and handling of school violence was finally enacted in 2004.  Today, FPYV offers counseling and mediation services nationwide in partnership with Korea’s Ministry of Education.  Its pioneering dispute mediation and reconciliation program pays as much attention to reforming bullies and healing families as it does to protecting victims. Its educational initiatives include a campaign against cyber bullying through a “digital citizenship” program.  In 2010, it started an institute offering both onsite and online certificate training programs on youth violence prevention, detection, and management that has since certified thousands of teachers, parents, counselors, police officers, and others.

The impact of JONG-KI and FPYV on Korean society has been profound, establishing a nationwide presence and creating collective action on a social problem hitherto neglected.  A 2018 survey showed that since FPYV started its campaign in 1995, the incidence of school violence has dropped from twenty percent to three percent. Yet JONG-KI knows that there is still much work to be done, even as he explains his work simply, “It was God’s command that I contribute my life to this cause.  It is my promise to my son.”  It is a promise he has fulfilled not only to his son but to the good of all of Korea’s youth.

In electing KIM JONG-KI to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his quiet courage in transforming private grief into a mission to protect Korea’s youth from the scourge of bullying and violence, his unstinting dedication to the goal of instilling among the young the values of self-esteem, tolerance, and mutual respect, and his effectively mobilizing all sectors of the country in a nationwide drive that has transformed both policy and behaviors towards building a gentler, non-violent society.

I am so grateful to receive such an honorable and prestigious award. This award is the greatest comfort and reward in my life.

I used to be a businessman: someone who was tied to work and neglected his family. In my generation, everyone worked very hard. No one had time for their families, and I was like that, too.  Then, one day, I lost my beloved son. He ended up taking his own life, as he was unable to bear violence in school. Suddenly, I became the most miserable father in the world.  The shock and sorrow of losing my son drove my family to despair.

Wishing for forgiveness from my son and taking responsibility for my son’s death, I left my job and got into solving problems for the youth. I started with raising awareness on the reality of school violence and providing counseling for students and families who suffered from it. However, we faced huge challenges from the beginning—not only the absence of experts or studies on school violence but also the disapproval of education authorities made our work more difficult. But, I could not stop because it was the promise I made to my son.

Since then, I have never looked back and dedicated all my energies and fortune to changing the perception and responses toward school violence with unceasing determination. I led a nationwide campaign to gather signatures, receiving support from 470,000 citizens urging the law’s passage. This resulted in the Special Act on Preventing School Violence made into law in 2004. The law put strong pressure on government authorities and schools to take proper action. Finally, we were able to make positive changes, such as reducing school violence through various campaigns and legislation. Also, education authorities started to build nationwide measures and systems. I am very proud of these achievements. The work that started from my personal sorrow finally made a difference in the Korean education system and society.

Our organization is dedicated to providing counseling, educating teachers and police officers, leading non-violence campaigns, scholarship projects, and international activities. We started with only five people; now, we have 340 staff members nationwide. Also, the rate of school violence has dropped from 20% to 6% in the last twenty-four years. Our organization pursues the values of sincerity, professionalism, and transparency. As it grew to be a leading NGO specializing in youth problems, I am proud that we have contributed to Korean society.

I have gone through extreme hardships but poured out my passion, personal resources and connections to fulfill my goals. Management skills I obtained from my previous work also helped. To be honest, there were many times I wanted to give up, but it was my promise to my son. I finally found peace of mind, as I took this work as my destiny and mission from God. As society becomes more industrialized and materialistic, school violence perpetrators and victims are getting younger. And with the internet, incidents of cyber and sexual violence are on the rise. We have to gather our wisdom and efforts to protect our children.

Though this award is given to me, I would like to share the honor and prize with our dedicated staff and respectable supporters and volunteers. Taking this award as a stepping stone, I will dedicate myself to making a non-violent environment not only for students but also all human beings.

I thank every single person in the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation. Special thanks to my friends who came here with me all the way from Korea, the Board of Directors of my organization and my loving wife who has sacrificed everything for me.

I am sure my son is smiling at me from heaven. Thank you very much.

An important voice against these threats is television journalist RAVISH KUMAR. Raised in Jitwarpur village in Hindi-speaking Bihar, northeast India, RAVISH pursued his early interest in history and public affairs through postgraduate studies in history from Delhi University. In 1996, he joined New Delhi Television Network (NDTV), one of India’s leading TV networks and worked his way up from being a field reporter. After NDTV launched its 24-hour Hindi-language news channel—NDTV India—targeting the country’s 422 million native speakers of Hindi, he was given his own daily show, “Prime Time.”  Today, as NDTV India’s managing editor, RAVISH is one of India’s most influential TV journalists.

His more important distinction, however, comes from the kind of journalism he represents.  In a media environment threatened by an interventionist state, toxic with jingoist partisans, trolls and purveyors of “fake news,” and where the competition for market ratings has put the premium on “media personalities,” “tabloidization,” and audience-pandering sensationalism, RAVISH has been most vocal on insisting that the professional values of sober, balanced, fact-based reporting be upheld in practice.  His “Prime Time” program on NDTV India takes up current social issues; does serious background research; and presents issues in well-rounded discussions that can run up to twenty or more episodes.  The program deals with real-life, under-reported problems of ordinary people — from the lives of manual scavengers and rickshaw-pullers to the plight of government employees and displaced farmers, to underfunded state schools and the inefficient railway system.  RAVISH interacts easily with the poor, travels extensively, and uses social media to stay in touch with his audience, generating from them the stories for his program.  Striving for a people-based journalism, he calls his newsroom “the people’s newsroom.”

RAVISH is not above engaging in some theatrics himself if he feels it effective, as in an innovative show he did in 2016 to dramatize how debased the discourse had become on TV news programs.  The show opens with RAVISH coming on screen to talk to the viewers about how TV news programs had descended into a “dark world” of angry, strident voices.  The screen then goes dark and, for the next hour, there is nothing but a cacophonous audio of sound bites from actual TV programs, venomous threats, hysterical rants, the sounds of a mob baying for the blood of enemies. For RAVISH, it is always about the message, dispassionately delivered.

As an anchor, RAVISH is sober, incisive, and well-informed.  He does not dominate his guests but affords them the chance to express themselves.  He does not balk, however, at calling the highest officials to account or criticizing media and the state of public discourse in the country; for this reason, he has been harassed and threatened by rabid partisans of one kind or another. Through all the perils and aggravations, RAVISH has remained consistent in his effort to preserve and widen the space for a critical, socially responsible media.  Keeping faith with a journalism that puts service to the people at its center, RAVISH sums up what he believes a journalist is in the most basic terms: “If you have become the voice of the people, you are a journalist.”

In electing RAVISH KUMAR to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his unfaltering commitment to a professional, ethical journalism of the highest standards; his moral courage in standing up for truth, integrity, and independence; and his principled belief that it is in giving full and respectful voice to the voiceless, in speaking truth bravely yet soberly to power, that journalism fulfills its noblest aims to advance democracy.

Inequality is mostly measured in terms of health and economy, but the time has come for us to take cognizance of knowledge inequality as well. When resources for quality knowledge have become confined to a few cities, we cannot even begin to imagine what are the repercussions of this inequality in smaller towns and villages. Clearly, the source of knowledge for a vast multitude is the propaganda machine of WhatsApp university. One cannot entirely blame today’s youth since they have been denied quality education and information. It becomes all the more important to evaluate the crisis of the media in this context. If media too begins to function like the WhatsApp university with fake news and fake knowledge, what then would be the consequences for society?  It is a good sign that India’s citizens have begun to understand this. That is why the congratulatory messages that I am receiving are also replete with worries on how the media has turned rogue.

Therefore, while I am happy for myself today I am also filled with sadness looking at the state of the profession I represent.

Indian media is in a state of crisis and this crisis is not accidental or random but systemic and structural. Being a journalist has become a solitary endeavor as uncompromising journalists find themselves being forced out of their jobs by news organizations. Nevertheless, it is heartening to see that there are still some who continue to put their lives and careers at risk to practice honest and meaningful journalism. Some women journalists are speaking out and managing to survive on freelance earning. With the internet still shut down in Kashmir, most major news channels went along with government’s stand. Yet, there are some who have dared to report from within that shutdown and face the wrath of the army of trolls.  While institutional journalism is facing a crisis, individual journalists are struggling to survive and question authority.

Can we restore the sanctity of the news? I do hope audiences will once again realize the value of truthfulness in reporting, and the diversity of voices and opinions.  Because a democracy can thrive only as long as its news is truthful. I accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award; I accept it on behalf of all those readers and viewers who continue to live in areas of knowledge inequality but have a thirst for good and truthful information and knowledge. Many young journalists realize this challenge. I am confident that in times to come, they will be able to restore the meaning of true journalism. It is possible that they may lose the battle, but sometimes resistance is not a matter of choice. Not all battles are fought for victory—some are fought simply to tell the world that someone was there on the battlefield. I accept this award on behalf of all such journalists.

A predominantly Muslim region in a staunchly Buddhist country, southern Thailand has struggled with religious and ethnic conflict since a separatist insurgency rocked the region in 1948.  Insurgency and militarization have exacted a heavy toll: it is reported that of the more than 6,000 people killed in the conflict since 2004, some ninety percent of these were civilians. These deaths have included the unsolved killings of more than thirty civil society and human rights activists.  One of the more sensational of these killings was the “enforced disappearance” in 2004 of noted human rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, who was abducted in Bangkok the day after he had publicly accused the military of torturing detainees in southern Thailand.

Somchai’s enforced disappearance and subsequent death was a tragic blow to the cause of human rights in the country, and a devastating personal nightmare for his family.  But it would also be the beginning of a remarkable journey for Somchai’s widow, ANGKHANA NEELAPAIJIT, herself a Muslim Thai of humble origins. When her husband “disappeared” ANGKHANA was a housewife looking after their five young children and a small business. Thrust into a dangerous and public controversy, she valiantly worked to bring the police officers involved to trial, but due to a flawed justice system they were acquitted.  Despite the death threats she received, ANGKHANA continued to seek justice for her husband and other human rights victims.  She applied herself to learning the laws, filing legal appeals, and navigating the Thai legal system.  She bonded with other victims, and worked with civil society groups in and outside Thailand.

In 2009, with the help of non-government organizations and her own family, ANGKHANA founded Justice for Peace Foundation (JPF), a network of human rights and peace advocates that has done important work in documenting the human rights situation in southern Thailand, thus raising public awareness and putting pressure on government to act on human rights cases; providing legal assistance to victims; and training women on human rights and the peace process.  In a vital initiative, JPF and other groups pushed for laws that will criminalize torture and enforced disappearances (current Thai law recognizes murder only if the body could be found). Their steadfast lobbying succeeded in getting the Thai government to sign and ratify the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 2007, and the Convention to Protect All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in 2012—already major victories even though the implementing rules have yet to be issued.

In 2015, ANGKHANA was named commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, the only commission member with grassroots human rights experience.  Despite the skepticism of government critics, ANGKHANA has taken her appointment seriously, firmly committed to taking the peaceful, legal approach to fighting human rights abuses and to doing what she can in “pushing the limits.”  Quietly non-confrontational, she does not waver in speaking her mind against injustice. As commissioner, she has successfully interceded with the authorities for detainees to have access to lawyers and their families, and for victims to get financial compensation.  She firmly took action on cases of arbitrary arrest and detention and the exercise of freedom of expression and assembly.  She has widened her advocacy to address problems like forced child marriages, trafficking of women, and the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.  ANGKHANA’s term as commissioner ended in July 2019, but there is no doubt she will remain involved in human rights advocacy.  This is for her a deeply personal advocacy.

People have marveled at the transformation of this self-effacing housewife into a leading human rights defender.  But ANGKHANA herself is not surprised.  In her soft-spoken and measured tone she asserts: “Most women experience conflict and violence in a different way than men.  They also develop unique skills for resisting, addressing and preventing conflict.  The work on justice and peace cannot afford to neglect the constructive contributions of women.”

In electing ANGKHANA NEELAPAIJIT to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her unwavering courage in seeking justice for her husband and many other victims of violence and conflict in southern Thailand; her systematic, unflagging work to reform a flawed and unfair legal system, and the shining she is proof that the humblest ordinary person can achieve national impact in deterring human rights abuses.

Today is one of the biggest days of my life. I am truly humbled and proud to stand before such honorable guests to accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award. I would like to express my sincerest appreciation and thanks to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this honor.

For me, the honor I receive today is not a symbol of victory, or the end of my and other survivors’ struggles for rights and justice. It represents a recognition of the continuing struggle for human rights, justice, freedom, democracy and the rule of law of all survivors of human rights abuses in my country and in our region. Also, it means that the voice of victims should be heard.

As a survivor of a human rights violation and a woman human rights defender, I realize that rights, dignity and human values are very important to all human beings. The continuation of the culture of impunity, militarization, failure of the justice system and the social acceptance of those violations are crucial contexts that have kept many victims live in suffering and fear.

While leading a civil society organization, I had the opportunity to work with many vulnerable groups, especially the vulnerable of the vulnerable such as victims of human rights violations in Southern Thailand, most of whom are women, refugees and asylum seekers or grievous women who are victims of gender-based violence. As a former human rights commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, I had the opportunity to work mostly on civil and political rights and women’s rights. I found that many human rights challenges faced by Thailand and other Asian countries—such as violent extremism, poverty, refugee crisis, absence or lack of freedom of expression—are only the tip of the iceberg.

Colleagues, history tells us again and again of the impact that ordinary heroes bring. Extraordinary in their courage, determination and commitment they serve as evidence that every one of us can make a difference to stand for what is right and just. Each and every one of us has a choice to work to promote the upside rather than the downside of humanity. We all have a sense of responsibility towards each other to respect our diversities while protecting our equality. All of us have a hero inside us that is able to recognize the beauty in all of humanity.

Again, I would like to thank the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation for this prestigious award. Thank you, too, to my colleagues and friends who have always supported me in my work as a WHRDs and a human rights commissioner. Last but not least, special thanks to my family, my father and my children who always stand by me and trust in everything I do.

My honor today as Magsaysay awardee has shown the story of an ordinary woman’s struggle for justice, democracy and the rule of law and—this is a big change for women, for families and for the nation.

In many places in the world today, citizens are engaged in a historic struggle to democratize their societies, often under conditions of extreme difficulty and danger. One such place is Cambodia. The country was traumatized by decades of war and the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge, which left 1.7 million Cambodians dead. The country took its first step to establishing a “multi-party liberal democracy” when it proclaimed a new constitution and embarked on its first democratic elections in 1993. Cambodians have gone through five national and local elections since then. But democracy’s progress has been slow and turbulent, and elections have been undermined by factionalism, fraud, violence, and the threat of a return to authoritarian rule. Many know that the central challenge is for Cambodians to claim the electoral process as their own, by protecting it as an instrument for building a democracy. One of those who have bravely stepped up to this challenge is a Cambodian engineer named KOUL PANHA.

KOUL knows firsthand what brutalities are possible in the absence of a true democracy. He was eight years old when his father and relatives were killed by the Khmer Rouge. The indescribable trauma impelled him to dedicate himself to changing his society. He finished his university degree, taught in Phnom Penh, and was already involved in the human rights movement even in the time of the dictatorship. When Cambodia embarked on its first free elections in 1993, he joined the non-partisan Task Force on Cambodian Elections, and was one of the organizers when this task force became the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (COMFREL) in 1997. KOUL assumed the role of COMFREL executive director in 1998; returning home after earning a master’s degree in the Politics of Alternative Development, he threw himself full-time into COMFREL’s mission of assuring that Cambodian elections are free and fair.

Under KOUL’s leadership, COMFREL has become the country’s leading independent organization on electoral issues. It aggressively campaigns for responsible voting and electoral reforms, using all available media. In protecting the 2008 electoral process, COMFREL and its partners trained and deployed over ten thousand volunteers, covering 60 percent of the country’s polling stations. For the first time in Cambodia, a citizens’ parallel “quick count,” initiated by COMFREL, helped forestall the manipulation of results by establishing voting trends three days after the elections. They have also proactively campaigned for the wider political participation of women, who constitute half of Cambodia’s population, a campaign that has seen a subsequent increase of women in public office.

Based in Phnom Penh, COMFREL maintains a nationwide network of partners and has mobilized, since its inception, over fifty thousand election volunteers; more than 150,000 Cambodians have participated in COMFREL’s training programs, workshops and other activities. This is an impressive show of civic participation in a democracy still so young. Even more significant is how COMFREL has gone beyond elections—into post-election issues of governance. It actively lobbies for reforms in matters like election campaign finance and the national budget. In 2003 it initiated Parliamentary Watch, which monitors the performance of legislators and officials using benchmarks and concrete indicators in grading government performance at both local and national levels. COMFREL’s monitoring reports are publicly disseminated.

Democracy in Cambodia remains fragile, and the situation complex and dangerous. KOUL has experienced harassment, and he knows he has to walk a tightrope for COMFREL to continue doing its work. But despite the legitimate fears of friends and family, he remains committed to using every inch of democratic space to empower his people in building a homeland that is democratic and free. Recalling the tragic experience of millions of Cambodians and his own family, the soft-spoken KOUL says: “I think Cambodia has suffered enough. This pushes me to do something as a citizen of Cambodia, to make sure the suffering does not happen again.”

In electing KOUL PANHA to receive the 2011 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his determined and courageous leadership of the sustained campaign to build an enlightened, organized and vigilant citizenry who will ensure fair and free elections—as well as demand accountable governance by their elected officials—in Cambodia’s nascent democracy.

First of all, I would like to thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for granting me such a prestigious award. I am very much honored for myself, my family and my country Cambodia.

Before the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was established, along with other former prisoners of conscience I initiated the first human rights movement to prevent Cambodia’s return to civil war, the genocide, the brutality of human rights abuses, oppression and disasters.

After UNTAC finished its mission, I, along with other leaders of civil society organizations realized that as Cambodian citizens we have the responsibility and obligation to continue to promote democracy and citizen participation. We set up two mission goals. Our first core mission goal was to help create an informed and favorable climate for free and fair elections. The second mission goal was to strengthen the meaningfulness of post-election periods by encouraging citizens to participate in democratic governance and decision making. This is in order to implement reforms and increase the accountability of elected officials.

We believe that a fragile democracy like Cambodia is not just about elections; it is about the sustained work to aggressively campaign for free, fair and meaningful elections, which are necessary in order to promote democracy. This is why we have devoted great efforts to strengthen citizen participation in genuine democratic elections.

Although these mission goals have been partly implemented and fulfilled, Cambodia currently is facing challenges, limiting the democratic space that allows citizens to freely express and engage in democracy and human rights activities. For me personally, this is a frustrating situation.

This award is a new source of energy that gives me strength to work harder and to reinforce the courageousness of the organizations that I work for and engage with.

On this very special occasion, I would like to thank my family, friends and the organizations that I work for and engage with, as well as donor organizations. They have given me enormous support, trust and encouragement. I would also like to express my appreciation for colleagues, stakeholders, and the leaders of national and regional organizations, including the Asian Network For Free Election (ANFREL), for their collaboration and strong solidarity with us, that strengthens our work for the democratic cause in Cambodia and Asia.

I would like to acknowledge in a special way the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, or COMFREL. I owe this achievement to the COMFREL staff, board members, our huge network of activists and volunteers. In particular I am grateful to our member-organizations including the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC), who work unceasingly so that we might attain the goal of a truly free, democratic society in Cambodia.

On August 6, 1945, a single atomic bomb reduced the Japanese city of Hiroshima to ashes, taking tens of thousands of precious lives. In its aftermath, the world’s first atomic bomb killed an estimated 140,000 more through radiation and other sicknesses. The bombing’s survivors, called the hibakusha, continue to suffer even to this day. This unprecedented act in the second World War became the defining image of man’s capacity for mass destruction in modern times. Hiroshima’s horror spurred major efforts at nuclear disarmament after the war. 

Amid the cry of “No More Hiroshima!” the United Nations adopted the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which came into force in 1970. But the politics of the Cold War and today’s “War on Terror” have set back efforts for full disarmament. In 1970 there were already five nuclear-weapons states; four more countries have since acquired nuclear- weapons capability. Other countries and non-state groups may have already acquired or developed nuclear weapons. Technology has made these weapons not only more available, but also vastly deadlier. A 1980 UN report said there were then close to fifty thousand nuclear weapons in the world, with destructive power equivalent to a million Hiroshima-type A-bombs. 

TADATOSHI AKIBA, the three-term mayor of Hiroshima, is an acknowledged leader in the global campaign for complete nuclear disarmament. He first became active in the anti-nuclear movement as a student in the ’60s; his efforts intensified while teaching in a US university, after earning his doctorate in mathematics. Realizing that the world seemed to have forgotten Hiroshima’s tragedy, he resolved to do all he could so its lessons would be remembered — and heeded. 

In 1979, AKIBA began by launching the Hibakusha Travel Grants Program, through which American and other journalists visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and listened to atomic bomb survivors tell, and re-tell, their horrific story to the world. He pursued his peace advocacy further when elected to the Japanese House of Representatives in 1990, and after assuming office as Hiroshima’s mayor in 1999. 

AKIBA painfully recognized that Hiroshima, as history’s first victim of nuclear warfare, has the moral obligation to warn the world of the nuclear danger. Thus, he placed himself and his city at the forefront of the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. Building on the work of his predecessors, he developed Hiroshima as the “International Peace Culture City,” with its civic facilities, exhibitions, commemorations, and educational activities—all these raising peace consciousness in Japan and throughout the world. 

AKIBA spearheaded Mayors for Peace, a movement launched in 1982 on the premise that the world’s mayors are best positioned to mobilize citizen action in vigorous advocacy for global peace. As its president since 1999, he led the movement on an anti-nuclear campaign and expanded its reach. In 1999, Mayors for Peace had 461 member-cities; it now has 4,069 member-cities from 144 countries and regions worldwide. Its sustained campaign includes educational events, anti-nuclear demonstrations, active participation in the cyclical NPT review conferences, and aggressive lobbying with governments and international bodies.

In 2003, Mayors for Peace launched their 2020 Vision campaign to escalate pressure on governments to abolish all nuclear weapons by 2020, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings. And in 2008, they issued the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol, setting forth a roadmap to guide national governments towards the total abolition of nuclear weapons. AKIBA recognizes that nuclear disarmament is an exceedingly complex issue caught up in the volatile realities of global realpolitik. Yet he remains steadfast, believing that the world’s citizens can change the course of the global community—when they are able to act in concert. 

Disarmingly mild-mannered, he nonetheless asserts: “We shall do everything in our power to break the chain of hatred and violence, to bravely set out on the road to reconciliation, and to ensure that the world abolishes all nuclear weapons without delay.” 

In electing TADATOSHI AKIBA to receive the 2010 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his principled and determined leadership in a sustained global campaign to mobilize citizens, pressure governments, and build the political will to create a world free from the perils of nuclear war.

The Honorable Benigno S. Aquino III, Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow Awardees and friends. I am profoundly honored to be one of the recipients of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award. I am grateful to the trustees for the personal honor they have bestowed on me, but more importantly, for their attention to the cause for which I have been working. 

I hereby express my glad acceptance on behalf of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the A-bomb survivors in those cities whose voices I represent, and the more than four thousand members of our campaigning NGO Mayors for Peace. I believe the problem of nuclear weapons will prove to be the decisive issue of our times. I do not claim that it is more important than any of the myriad other global problems we face. Certainly, our environmental problems are equally urgent and threatening. However, our success in solving those other problems will be determined by our handling of nuclear weapons. I am sure I need not expound here on the dire consequences of allowing nuclear weapons to spin out of control; the worst case scenario is the extinction of the human race. 

However, many tend to overlook the positive benefits that would derive from a global effort to eliminate them. If the international community were to sign a nuclear weapons convention and initiate the process of finding and eliminating all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade fissile materials, we would be saying, in effect, “We will cooperate to assure our collective survival.” 

This very process would be both the cause and effect of a dramatic change in international relations, signaling a major paradigm shift that would then open the door to cooperation in other spheres. To me, nothing is more important than this shift from the dominance paradigm to a partnership paradigm. I am convinced that we must accomplish this shift if we are to keep our planet hospitable to human life. 

In this context, I am more than gratified that our campaign to liberate humanity from the threat of nuclear annihilation has been recognized by the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, and I am thankful for the recognition this award will bring to us from a wider public and for the new creative energy it will generate, especially here in Asia. In sum, this award will strengthen our determination and unite us all, for a nuclear weapon free world by 2020. 

Thank you very much.

China boasts of a staggering eighty-five thousand dams throughout the country, or 46 percent of all such structures in the world. Clearly, hydropower is a key requirement for China?s economic development. Yet dams have led as well to the displacement of over fifteen million Chinese and incalculable damage to the natural environment. A leading figure in the debate on dams and their social impact is YU XIAOGANG. 

YU fell in love with nature early on, having been raised in Yunnan, a province of amazing beauty and home to three of the largest rivers in the world: Nu, Yangtze, and Mekong. His interest in the environment was cultivated during a stint in the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, and was further deepened when he attended the Asian Institute of Technology, where he earned a master’s degree in watershed management. 

His graduate research on the social impact of China’s Manwan hydroelectric project documented its negative impact on local communities. Dissemination of his findings stirred controversy and led then Premier Zhu Rongji to order the conduct of an investigation; additionally, the Yunnan government was instructed to release funds to mitigate the dam’s adverse effects. 

In 2002, YU established the nonprofit organization Green Watershed, which developed an integrated watershed management program in the Lashi Lake area, in Yunnan. Lashi was seriously affected by a dam project that had diverted 40 percent of the lake’s water, flooded farmlands, and devastated the livelihood of people in the dammed area. Using participatory approaches, Green Watershed helped the affected communities organize a multisectoral Watershed Management Committee, and mobilized village associations for irrigation, fishery, and other purposes. The communities undertook other activities as well, including microcredit and training in watershed forest protection and biodiversity conservation. 

These initiatives proved so successful that new, ecologically-friendly, and profitable enterprises flourished in the area. The first of its kind in China, the Lashi project became a model for participatory watershed management, and was cited by government as one of the top ten cases of sustainable development in the country. The Lashi project became the springboard for YU’s advocacy in other dam sites. Green Watershed conducted research and forums and used mass media to promote the cause of people’s participation in the planning and development of dams. 

When the local government announced plans to build thirteen new dams on the Nu River, plans that threatened to displace fifty thousand people and negatively impact a UNESCO-designated “World Heritage” nature site, Green Watershed and other environmental NGOs mounted a public debate. The controversy occasioned Premier Wen Jiabao’s decision to put the planned dams on hold, requiring a more scientific study. 

Still, it has been an uphill challenge. YU has met with opposition and even harassment in the course of his work, including a ban on travel outside the country. His position, however, is not simply adversarial. In 2008, he initiated Green Banking, a network of eight major environmental NGOs that gives the “Green Banking Innovation Award” to banks and financial institutions that have contributed to environmental protection in their financing and corporate practices. 

YU recognizes that large-scale infrastructure projects like dams will go on. He is not against dams per se; however, he and his fellow environmentalists will persist in showing that local communities and ecosystems need not be sacrificed in the process of development. Thus, he advocates that a true social impact assessment, in which the people themselves are actively involved, should be a precondition in all dam building programs. For YU, their initial successes “are only the first steps in the Long March. To realize true sustainable development and build a harmonious society throughout China, we need the full participation of all Chinese citizens.” 

In electing YU XIAOGANG to receive the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his fusing social science knowledge with a deep sense of social justice, in assisting dam-affected communities in China to shape the development projects that impact their natural environment and their lives.

It is a great honor for me to be elected as 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee. I would like to thank the Board of Trustees and the people of the Philippines. 

I come from southwest China, home to Lijiang, a small ancient city which is both a World Cultural Heritage Site and World Natural Heritage Site. Lijiang also has the Internationally Important Wetlands of Lashi Lake and the Naxi minority group who use pictographs to recount the stories of nature and humankind. 

The NGO Green Watershed was originally founded in this region in 2002 to improve local environmental protection. But now half of the organization’s time is spent on community disaster relief programs and disaster prevention education. Why has this change occurred? To explain this refocusing of objectives I will borrow from the Naxi story of nature and humankind. This story was written in religious text and is central to Naxi culture. 

In ancient times humankind and nature were two brothers, and the brothers divided and reigned over different parts of the earth. Big Brother oversaw the forests, lakes, wildlife, and the weather. Little Brother looked over the fields, crops, livestock, and the happiness of humankind. The two brothers established an agreement of mutual non-aggression and they existed harmoniously. Hundreds of years passed, the weather was good for growing crops, people were well fed and well clothed, and humankind prospered. However, over time Little Brother’s human descendants forgot the original agreement and began to attack Big Brother’s natural world, destroying pristine lands, causing immense deforestation, damming once-free rivers, and rapidly killing off wildlife. Big Brother called upon the natural world to bring floods, storms, droughts, swarms of insects, and plagues. Little Brother’s humankind lost their happiness and prosperity under the punishment of Big Brother. In the end, Little Brother realized his errors and overcame the greed and destruction, once again reuniting with Big Brother and existing in harmony. 

This story comes out of an old agricultural society, and may seem rather distant. However, the two brothers are currently in a time of industrialization, and Little Brother’s vision does not consider the forests, lakes, wildlife, or natural ecosystems. Little Brother’s eyes only have visions of resources and methods that he can use to accumulate personal wealth, thus plundering and polluting the environment at an ever growing intensity. Big Brother may react with opposition to this behavior, bringing more serious and intense natural disasters. China has already become the world’s third highest country suffering from natural disasters. 

This confirms Green Watershed’s investment in community-based disaster management. Last year alone, we provided training for over one hundred NGOs and over sixty communities. In the future we will place more resources and efforts to promote community disaster management capacities. 

Naxi culture has given us this inspiration: to respect and love nature, and to exercise restraint over greed and vanity. Otherwise, our pride in our GDP will change into GDD, Gross Domestic Disaster. 

What I am doing is only “a drop in the bigger water.” I believe the effort will someday become as big as the Pacific Ocean. I highly appreciate that the Board of Trustees has given me this honor. I am very glad to accept it and will continue my efforts to contribute to human society. Thank you.

Behind Japan’s famous facade of social harmony and homogeneity lie complicated realities. Often hidden from view are troubling elements of the country’s social life involving stigmatized communities such as the burakumin and minority ethnic groups like the Ainu or the many Koreans, Filipinos, and other foreigners living in Japan today. Also hidden, and often denied, are troubling accounts of Japan’s past role as an imperial power. Discrimination, exploitation, predatory colonialism, war crimes: these subjects are taboo, especially in print. AKIO ISHII thinks it should be otherwise. As head of Akashi Shoten, a publishing house, he is exposing the underside of Japan?s smooth social surface and bringing difficult subjects to light. 

In premodern times, the buraku were social outcastes and reviled as dirty. Despite official emancipation over a century ago, this stigma lingered. Ishii himself experienced it as a boy. He was five years old when the end of World War II ushered in Japan’s postimperial era. As a politicized youth in the 1960s, he agitated against injustices in Japanese society and also opposed the renewal of Japan’s security ties with the United States. In the 1970s, he joined a study group dedicated to eliminating discrimination against the buraku and became editor of its magazine. This led to Akashi Shoten in 1978, a publishing company of his own. ISHII determined to build his company as “a bastion for the movement to eliminate discrimination in thought and culture.” 

At first, ISHII concentrated on the buraku issue itself and on other beleaguered Japanese minorities. But he soon expanded to other human rights issues. Koreans had been colonized by Japan and compelled into forced labor during World War II. Ishii published accounts of this brutal episode and also of the plight of Koreans living in Japan, where they were discriminated against in housing, employment, and marriage. Similar forms of discrimination faced a new wave of foreign workers who flocked to Japan in the 1990s. Ishii exposed their dilemma to readers in a stream of new books. He published a Human Rights Handbook for Foreigners in Japan in Urdu, Vietnamese, Persian, and fifteen other languages, to guide migrants through Japan’s vexing laws and procedures and to steer them to services and support groups. In a similar spirit, Ishii published a book in Japanese on the 1990 United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which Japan declined to ratify. 

Over time, ISHII’s books drew attention to the “comfort women” of World War II; to Filipino women trapped in Japan’s exploitative entertainment industry; to the physically and mentally disabled, abused children, and victims of domestic violence-to everyone, in fact, who was invisible behind Japan’s curtain of respectable normality. Ishii also published books that countered right-wing efforts to exaggerate the beneficial influence of Japanese colonialism, to cover up Japan’s war crimes, and to depict its former military leaders as heroes. 

In recent years, many of Akashi Shoten‘s books have introduced Japanese readers to human rights issues outside Japan, including the caste system in India and the struggles of other oppressed groups around the world. In the twenty-first century, says ISHII, “We must create an era where the human rights of individuals are truly respected.”

Ishii is not a public figure but his influence is large. Some 2,800 Akashi Shoten books are in print. They sell well among intellectuals, scholars, university students, and civil society activists. Ishii is content. What is important for a publisher, he says, is “how often he can publish books of universal and permanent impact. These books,” he says, “are my real assets.” 

In electing AKIO ISHII to receive the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the board of trustees recognizes his principled career as a publisher, placing discrimination, human rights, and other difficult subjects squarely in Japan?s public discourse.

The Honorable Chief Justice, Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow Awardees and dear friends. 

It is a great honor for me to have been selected as recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award this year. I really wonder if one like me deserves such a prestigious award. I would like to express my gratitude to the Foundation’s Trustees. 

2008 is a commemorative year for my publishing company, Akashi Shoten, for it is the 30th anniversary since its founding. Since then, we have published over 3,000 books on human rights and other social issues. I understand the Foundation is presenting me this award in recognition of the importance of the books we have published. For this I am truly honored and express my heartfelt thanks. 

I was born in 1940, one year before Japan surged ahead into the Pacific War. I was just five years old in 1945 when Japan surrendered, and my childhood overlaps with the years when Japan was rebuilding itself as a war-torn country. Catching a glimpse of the horrors of war, I remember wondering where in the world Japan was headed. Because of these childhood experiences, one of my main themes in life has been to rid ourselves of war and to build a society filled with happiness. 

Another life theme based on my childhood experiences is that of overcoming prejudices found in Japanese society, prejudice directed towards the burakumin, one of Japan’s cultural minorities, which has continued for over the last 400 years, and prejudice towards Korean residents rooted in Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea. I have again and again asked myself, why does such prejudice persist? 

In 1960 when the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty was signed, I was a college student. All over Japan citizens and students took to the streets against the strengthening of Japan-U.S. military ties. I actively participated in this anti-war student movement and the social movement to eliminate discrimination. Based on my involvement in the peace, labor and the buraku liberation movements, I founded Akashi Shoten in 1978 as a publisher of books on human rights in Japan and the world over. Our first publications focused on the buraku liberation movement. Then our books moved to a wider range of human rights issues including discrimination within Japan, and then on to social problems found in other parts of Asia. 

From about fifteen years ago, as if guided by our authors and publications, I began to travel extensively throughout Asia to get a firsthand look at poverty and the real situation of “development” happening all over Asia. I visited people living in garbage dump slums and those suffering under a severe caste system. Through our books we have been able to expose the suffering of many people; at the same time, these books introduce the strength of so many who have overcome great hardships with courage and enthusiasm. We have been careful not only to publish books which focus on suffering and poverty, but also to introduce the rich and diverse societies and cultures found throughout Asia. Through the publishing business, it is our great hope that we can help our Japanese readership to overcome its belittling of our Asian neighbors. 

As a foster parent for an abused child, I have also researched and published books dealing with child abuse and child welfare. Something I learned through my recent publications concerning children is that they cannot choose their parents. My personal experiences, my involvement in social movements and the things I have learned through publishing books have all brought me to this realization. For this reason, we now provide assistance to a shelter in Japan for abused children. This is one of our company’s contributions to society. We have also recently published books on the present state of child prostitution in Asia in the hope that by making people aware of this reality we can help bring about change. Through the medium of print I hope I can continue to contribute towards creating societies and a world free of discrimination and war. This award is encouragement for me and my colleagues to continue in our efforts to publish good books.

In Islam, authority rests in knowledge. In times of crisis and for guidance in day-to-day life, Muslims turn to scholars. It is their role to apply the truth of the Holy Qur’an and the lessons of the Prophet Muhammad to human life in matters large and small. Yet, Islam’s religious scholars-who these days may be teachers or preachers or public intellectuals, and are often all three-do not always see eye-to-eye. Their debates over the centuries have produced the heterogeneous world of Islam today, with its various sects and schools of law. In such debates, the authority of individual thinkers weighs heavily. And in countries like Indonesia, with vast Muslim majorities, intellectuals such as AHMAD SYAFII MAARIF can influence millions and shape the character of national life. 

SYAFII MAARIF was born in West Sumatra in 1935. Through his family and early schooling, he was exposed to the teachings of reform Islam as espoused by Muhammadiyah, one of two mass organizations that dominate Muslim life in Indonesia. After university, he shifted naturally into teaching and later earned his doctorate in Islamic thought at the University of Chicago under the eminent scholar of Islam, Fazlur Rahman. By the 1980s, he was an intellectual of serious reputation and a rising leader in Muhammadiyah. 

The Indonesian nationalists who declared their country independent in 1945 created a secular state. They chose not to enshrine the Shari’a, Islamic law, as the law of the land for Muslims. Instead, befitting Indonesia’s extraordinary diversity, the new nation’s creed became Panca Sila, whose ecumenical five principles began with “belief in one God” and otherwise spoke to the ideals of a just and civilized humanity, national unity, democracy, and social justice. This decision became a matter of bitter dispute among Indonesian Muslims that lingered under the thirty-year-long dictatorship of Suharto. His downfall in 1998 brought a new era of openness, reform, and democratizaton to Indonesia but also tumultuous sectarian conflict. It was at exactly this time that SYAFII MAARIF assumed leadership of Muhammadiyah and its thirty million members and sympathizers. 

SYAFII MAARIF embraced his country’s fresh hopes for democracy and good governance and, in the stormy seas ahead, became a force for calm and moderation. When violence erupted between Indonesian Muslims and Christians, he reminded Muslims that Islam teaches the equality of all people; he took the lead in interfaith dialogues and warned against provocateurs who fanned fear and hate. When activists revived the call for an Islamic state and pressed urgently for implementation of the Shari’a, he opposed them; the nonsectarian principles of Panca Sila, he said, were the right ones for Indonesia?s plural society. And when the impact of 9/11 and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq reached Indonesia, and when terrorism struck home in Bali and Jakarta, he stressed that “Terrorism is not the authentic face of Islam.” In concert with other moderate leaders, he denounced it as a “crime against humanity.” He said much the same about the new American wars but urged Indonesian Muslims to reject spurious calls to Holy War and to make their protests peacefully. He did so himself. 

As Muhammadiyah‘s president, SYAFII MAARIF spurned the trappings of power and resisted the call to politics. Today, at seventy-three and retired, he relishes his role as an independent thinker and mentor to the young. We must learn to look beyond our individual nations, he says, and see the world from a global perspective — “from a human perspective and from a justice perspective.” Indeed, justice is the key to “global wisdom.” Without it, he says, “I think the world will go astray forever.”

In electing AHMAD SYAFII MAARIF to receive the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding, the board of trustees recognizes his guiding Muslims to embrace tolerance and pluralism as the basis for justice and harmony in Indonesia and in the world at large.

The Honorable Chief Justice, Chairman, President and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Distinguished Guests, Fellow Awardees, Ladies and Gentlemen. 

I cannot find the right words to express my humble and sincere gratitude to the President and Trustees of the Foundation for having selected me as winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding. What I have actually done so far, particularly through my religio-cultural activities for years in my country, is insignificant compared to this great honor bestowed on me. 

The Award itself outweighs my contribution to promoting peace, awakening the ideas of democracy, pluralism, and the spirit of interfaith dialogue that, from time to time, are lively and promising in Indonesia. By opening the window of democracy in 1998, the new forces of the nation, under a reform movement, immediately took the opportunity to recover and revive the democratic tradition bequeathed by our political philosophy enshrined in Panca Sila. Before that, during the era of long-term dictatorship, democracy in practice was non-existent, though in theory, for the regime’s political rhetoric, it was still oft mentioned. 

The political transformation to resolidify democracy was certainly not easy. During this dramatic transitional period, Indonesia seriously lacked experienced democratic leaders to deal with the new realities. A culture of mutual distrust among the elite prevailed, while the old and decadent political order still worked hard to reverse the situation. Political and socio-religious conflicts, therefore, were difficult to avoid. The national leadership was dramatically split apart. Because the nation’s economic fundamentals were brittle in the midst of the East Asian monetary crisis, it was as though Indonesia at that time had no future. Beyond that, as the heritage of the New Order, corruption was rampant, and people lost confidence in the government’s ability to cure the situation. It was in these turbulent and confusing circumstances that I was entrusted to lead the Muhammadiyah Movement, one of the most influential Islamic socio-cultural mainstreams in my country, though I felt I lacked the necessary background and experiences to cope with this critical and dangerous political uncertainty. 

Soon after, Muhammadiyah and Nahdhatul Ulama, together with prominent interfaith leaders (Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianist), took the initiative to consolidate the nation?s socio-cultural forces in an effort to save the future. Fortunately, our endeavors were highly appreciated and supported by almost all societal segments in Indonesia. My philosophy is simple: not only believers have the right to live and prosper in Indonesia, but non-believers-even atheists-have the right to coexist with believers, on the condition that they respect and honor each other peacefully. Peace is always costly, but without peace, life becomes irrelevant and meaningless! 

The Ramon Magsaysay Award has surely confirmed what I have done and will do to honor peace and understanding, and spurn enmity and hate.