Transcript of Text (slightly edited):
Interviewer: Professor Charny, It’s an honor. Thank you so much for being here. We would like a brief summary of your speech that you have prepared for the conference.
My speech is a dream of action for the future. All of our peoples have to remember our own past deeply, but the fuller meaning lies in the question when are we human beings, all of us, going to put a stop to this ugly madness of people killing endlessly?
My speech is about a Worldwide Campaign for Life, a campaign that should take place over many years, all over the world, in the different languages, in the languages of the different cultures where the TV programs and the performances will take place. The program that I have in mind begins with bringing together the religious leaders of many faiths. This has been done in a number of 1, 2, or 3 day conferences which were very beautiful, where you see an imam from Iran and a rabbi from Israel and a Catholic priest literally end up dancing together affirming the preciousness and the holiness of life, but nobody knows about these wonderful events. I would like to have programs on television, where all over the world leaders of the different faiths appear together, convey that they are fellow human beings, respect one another, care about the lives of all of us, and I would like them joined by all sorts of additional culture heroes. I’d like the football heroes to come — I am waiting to invite Messi and Ronaldo. I want the health heroes to come. I want the industrial giant heroes to come. I want the surgeons who just created the best surgery for an illness that we haven’t been able to treat. I’d like the people of different colors and different appearances.
These will be the leaders in our world who are well known, and they divide roughly into two groups: One group is those who have international identities and that’s terrific because their images are known through much of the world, but also I want the program to bring in the local leaders who are present in every culture, and first of all, for all these leaders to stand together and be together and speak of the dignity and preciousness of human life.
And then I want the musicians to create songs about life until we will get the musicians who create the hit songs that people all over the world will be singing. And I’d like the advertisers to create a motto, a name, like Coca Cola. Drink Coca Cola sells the drink everywhere. We want the motto, Respect Life, Protect Life to sell a new reverence for human life.. We have clever artists in all fields.
This project is not a one time thing. It’s not for one year. It’s not for five years. It’s not for ten years. It is for many many decades. It will need a very proud leadership. It will need funding from international sources such as the United Nations, such as international health agencies, such as international businesses. We have major businesses now that are valued in billions of dollars and a number of them have leaders who really wish to devote some of their incredible profits to the betterment of man’s situation on Earth.
We need a leadership, a sponsorship that will take on the job of organizing it. It will take a few years. What I am proposing tomorrow is that Greece take on the task of being a leader in creating such a worldwide campaign for all peoples. This is the Greece that gave us the concept of democracy. This is the Greece that gave us the fundamentals of thinking and philosophy. It would be a wonderful further development for Greece to give us leadership in a Worldwide Campaign for Life. That’s what I’m speaking about tomorrow.
Interviewer: Do you think this conference is a step towards what you just mentioned?
Yes, I’ve been to many conferences. This one has been unusual from the very beginning. I sensed it in the correspondence to me. I’ve heard it now in person since I arrived in Athens. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to hear it from the voice of the Prime Minister of Greece. Namely, this is a conference dedicated to the memory of the 100th anniversary of the genocide of the Pontian Greeks, clearly heartfelt and moving and important. And at the same time from what your people have suffered, it is a conference dedicated to a Greek contribution to making this a world that is free of a good deal of the genocide that takes place all the time to so many different peoples. Genocide continues and continues.
And now I have a very painful comment to make. I am Jewish, originally an American and I still am an American citizen, but I moved to Israel and I am also an Israeli citizen. I love my Jewishness and Israel. I love my cultural heritage. I believed and prayed that Israel would be the leader for helping the world move to an anti-genocide position in favor of Life. Israel has failed in that respect. Israel has gotten trapped in the belief that the memorial of the Holocaust, which is precious and holy, should draw almost all energy, and there is little energy devoted collectively, by the government, and by the institutions, to the caring about stopping genocide in the world. So, I am inviting Greece to take on the leadership of this task.
Interviewer: And we shall respond. Thank you very, very much, and do you believe that – we spoke about Israel and Greece – should Turkey just take up and finally recognize the crimes held in the past, for everyone’s sake?
That is hardly a question. What is obvious is obvious. The wrongness of what Turkey is doing and has done for 100 years is overwhelming. It is an enormous task for them to free themselves, and an enormous task for all of us to move forward as human beings because we are all in the same boat.
Interviewer: Thank you very much.