Academic work, social commitment.

Your Highness, recipients of the Prince of Asturias Prize, esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen:

AI stand before you, filled with pride and gratitude, representing a university whose origins date to middle of the sixteenth century, and which has been an enclave of culture and knowledge informing our national consciousness.

Millions of students, teachers and workers have passed through our halls during the twentieth century and on. Their efforts and commitment have built the National Autonomous University of Mexico, our beloved UNAM.

And in their name, on behalf of this vast community, on behalf of previous rectors and university authorities, I offer my deep gratitude to the Prince of Asturias Foundation and the prize jury for recognizing the academic work and social commitment of our institution. Your Highness Prince of Asturias, and all those in attendance, it is my honor to express the great significance this occasion holds for the UNAM.

I would also like to recognize the persons and organizations that supported our candidature, especially His Excellency, the Spanish Ambassador to Mexico, who submitted our candidature, always with the conviction that the UNAM was a deserving option. Thanks to everyone who believed in UNAM’s essential prerequisites of possessing exemplary merit and of having international influence.

I share this distinction with members of UNAM community in attendance, and especially with the thousands of students, professors and workers who, thanks to the miracle of telecommunications, are watching this ceremony in Mexico. This prize is for all of them and those generations of the past, which included extraordinary Spaniards in exile, who enriched the UNAM in the decade of the 70s.

Likewise, it belongs to Mexican society at large, which deposits its trust in the National University, and to the community of institutions of higher learning in Spain and Latin America. I congratulate them all.

This award provides the University with renewed motivation to reassert our commitment to education and social causes. Knowledge has always been important for humanity, but now it is fundamental. There is no walk of life untouched by knowledge, and this is why we are so concerned with the apparent lack of interest in learning, the low priority it rates in society and the way in which education is constantly strapped for resources.

Without in-house scientific research or a vigorous, quality system of higher learning, society is condemned to mediocrity and to serve merely as an in-bond appendage economy.

As such, it is vital to assert the right to education. It is vital to insist on it and return to it time and again. Education is the road to human achievement, both collective and individual. Conceiving it as a fundamental right is one of the most significant ethical advances in history.

As a public and social benefit, higher education, under criteria of quality and equality, must be made available to all. That is why it is so painful to countenance the more than 800 million people worldwide who are unable to read and write.

Some may say that to speak of humanism is an anachronism, belonging rather to the Renaissance or the nineteenth century. They are wrong. This matter is central to the present and the future. In the face of short-lived success, egotism, corruption and indifference, the best antidotes are the secular values of yesterday and always.

For this reason, the crisis faced by the people of the world requires us to review the values we are teaching to young people. In light of the inequality and backward conditions prevailing around the world, this task must be undertaken. Modernity must offer better conditions for those segments habitually excluded. Genuine knowledge is not neutral. It must be imbued with social commitment.

Let’s exploit the circumstance of the recent collapse of the financial system to propose new development schemes that allow young people to recover hope for a better future. The great challenge consists of achieving progress in which the human and social spheres are afforded genuine value.

I would like to close by expressing my gratitude again for this high distinction. It is, I insist, an inspiration that strengthens our commitment to pursue quality education and the causes that meet the needs of society.

“Por mi raza hablará el espíritu”.