 Martin
Luther, Jr King (1929–1968)
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an African-American
clergyman who advocated social change through non-violent means. A powerful
speaker and a man of great spiritual strength, he shaped the American civil
rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. King was pastor of the Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama from 1954-59. There he led blacks in
the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56, an action inspired by the arrest of
Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat on a public bus. Racial
segregation on city buses was ruled unconstitutional in 1956; the boycott
ended in success, and King had become a national figure.
King returned to
his home town of Atlanta in 1959 and became co-pastor with his father of the
Ebenezer Baptist Church, a position he held until his death. On the 100th
anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1963, King
organized a march on Washington, D.C. that drew 200,000 people demanding
equal rights for minorities. King won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming
at the time the youngest recipient ever. His writings included Stride
Toward Freedom (1958, a history of the Montgomery bus boycott), Why
We Can't Wait (1963) and Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community
(1967). King was shot to death by James Earl Ray in 1968 while visiting
Memphis, Tennessee.
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Albert Einstein is one of the most notable and
influential scientists of the twentieth century. Although he became known as
a genius of science and gained considerable fame later in life, as a child
he was slow in learning to speak, and had a rebellious nature towards the
conventional styles of learning at school, which left many teachers to
believe he would amount to little. Inspired by a compass, his "sacred little
geometry book", and classical music, his interest in science and mathematics
grew and by the age of sixteen he was writing his first research science
paper, and attempting to skip the last few years of high school to enter the
Swiss institute of Technology. He failed the entrance exam but set a
precedent in his life for thinking outside of the box and challenging the
rules. His most famous discovery is the theory of relativity, E=MC2,
which overturned Isaac Newton's laws by explaining the relation of energy
and mass as a consequence of space and time. First introduced in a 3-page
paper in 1905, the theory was so revolutionary it couldn't be proven until
more advanced technology was available years later.
Born in Germany and raised in the Jewish faith, Einstein strongly opposed
injustices of race and religion and often lent himself to the American civil
rights movement and the efforts of the Zionist movement to preserve and
cultivate the Jewish faith. He was instrumental in setting up the Hebrew
University of Israel and was even invited to become Israel's second
president, which he declined. Above all else Einstein maintained a
non-nationalistic pacifist belief and urged for the disarmament of all
nations and the formation of a one-world government. Often credited as the
creator of the atom bomb, Einstein merely wrote a letter to President
Roosevelt warning of Germany's possible use of nuclear weapons and was
actually barred from participating in the United States' development of the
atom bomb.
Albert Einstein is not only a world-renowned scientist who left an indelible
mark on the world but also an icon of popular culture whose name and image
have come to represent genius and intellect.
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 Dame
Barbara (Mary), Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth Ward (1914–1981)
Barbara Ward was born in Heworth, Yorkshire on
23 May 1914, but her family soon moved to Felixstowe. Her father was a
solicitor with Quaker tendencies, while her mother was a devout Catholic.
Their daughter went to a convent school before studying in Paris: first at
a lycée, then for some months at the Sorbonne before going on to Germany.
Though she had once planned to study modern languages, her interest in
public affairs led to a degree course in politics, philosophy, and
economics at Somerville College, Oxford University, from which she
graduated in 1935.
In 1950 Barbara Ward married Australian Commander Robert Jackson, an
administrator for the UN. Their son Robert was born in 1956, the same year
that his father was knighted. Ward continued to use her own name
professionally and was not widely known as Lady Jackson. Over the next few
years they lived in West Africa and made various visits to India, and
these experiences helped form Ward's views on the need for Western nations
to contribute to the economic development of poorer countries. For the
next two decades both husband and wife travelled a great deal, and
eventually their marriage suffered from this. A legal separation was
arranged in the early 1970s though Ward, as a Catholic, did not want
divorce. In 1976 when she was given a life peerage she used her estranged
husband's surname for her title as Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth.
Ward had recovered from cancer in the late 1940s thanks, she believed,
to the spiritual support of Padre Pio. The illness recurred twenty years
later but surgery did not cure her. In 1973 she retired from Columbia
University where she had been Schweitzer Professor of Economic Development
for the previous five years and went to live in Lodsworth, Sussex. The
next year she was made a DBE, and in 1976 a life peer as Baroness Jackson
of Lodsworth, of Lodsworth in the County of West Sussex. She wrote her
last book, Progress for a Small Planet, despite her deteriorating health,
discussing the "planetary community", dwindling resources used up too fast
by wealthy countries, and the needs of poorer parts of the world. It was
published in 1979, two years before her death on 31 May 1981, aged 67.
Pope John Paul II sent a Cardinal to represent him at Ward's requiem
service. At her own request, she was buried in the graveyard of the local
Anglican parish church.
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 Don
Lorenzo Milani Comparetti (1923-1967)
Lorenzo
Milani Comparetti was the second son of Albano Milani and Alice Weiss.
Lorenzo was a friendly and good-natured child. In his youth he was not a
good student, but between 1941 and the 1943 he studied painting in Milan. In
the summer of 1942, during a holiday in Gigliola (Montespertoli), Lorenzo
re-decorated a chapel; he came across an old book in the chapel, took great
interest in it, and started to study Christianity. Lorenzo was born in a
family which gave little importance to religion; and his grandfather and
great-grandfather had anti-clerical views, while his mother was a
non-practicing Jew. Lorenzo's parents only baptized their children to avoid
trouble in the fascist era. Lorenzo always called it his "fascist baptism".
In June of 1943 Lorenzo became a Christian. Don Raffaele Bensi, a priest,
became a close friend of Lorenzo and his spiritual director. On 12 June 1943
Lorenzo was confirmed by cardinal Elia Dalla Costa. On 9 November 1943
Lorenzo entered the seminary of Cestellano in Oltrarno, and quickly got into
trouble because he questioned many of the rules and practices that he found
very different from the fresh sincerity of the Gospel.
Milani became a priest on 12 July 1947 in the Duomo di Firenze, the
cathedral of Florence, and was sent to the Church of Calenzano as an
assistant priest. He worked in a school for working class children, and
became a close friend of other priests - Danilo Cubattoli, Bruno Borghi and
Renzo Rossi - as well as the author Agostino Ammannati. During his work at
the church of Calenzano he wrote a book called "Esperienze Pastorali"
(Pastoral Experiences); when Pope John XXIII read it, he said that the
author must be "a madman who has escaped from the asylum." In December of
1954, due to conflicts with the Florence curia, Milani was sent to the small
village of Barbiana (Vicchio, Firenze). Barbiana was a very small farming
community, and Milani spent the rest of his life in exile over there. In
Barbiana Lorenzo set up the first "full-time school" just for the
working-class children, who often used to work on the farm with their
parents. In May of 1966, at the School of Barbiana, Milani and the students
wrote a "Lettera ad una professoressa" ("Letter to a teacher"), which
discussed the problems with ordinary schools, that educated the rich while
leaving poor people illiterate. Many former students of this school are now
active in politics, trade unions, or consumer rights campaigns.
Because of some of his expressed beliefs (such as "I affirm the right of the
poor to oppose the rich") some people wrongly considered Milani to be a
"Catholic Communist". He also wrote in favour of conscientious objection,
and against war and military force, once more distancing himself from
Catholic tradition and teaching. He was prosecuted for this by the state,
and acquitted; the prosecutors appealed, but he died before the judgment
was passed.
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 Albert
John Luthuli (1898–1967)
Albert
John Mvumbi (Zulu: “Continuous Rain”) Luthuli was born in Rhodesia, where
his father, John Bunyan Luthuli, a missionary interpreter, had gone from
Zululand. After his father's death, the 10-year-old Albert returned to South
Africa and learned Zulu traditions and duties in the household of his uncle,
the chief of Groutville, a community associated with an American
Congregational mission in
Natal's sugar lands. Educated through his mother's earnings as a
washerwoman and by a scholarship, he graduated from the American Board
Mission's teacher-training college at Adams, near Durban, and became one of
its first three African instructors. In 1927 Luthuli married Nokukhanya
Bhengu, a teacher and granddaughter of a clan chief.
Luthuli was elected president
of the Natal African National Congress. Since its founding in 1912 the ANC's
efforts to achieve human rights by deputation, petition, or mass protests
had met with increasing repression. In 1952, stimulated by young black
intellectuals, the ANC joined the South African Indian Congress in a
countrywide campaign to defy what were deemed unjust laws; 8,500 men and
women went voluntarily to prison. As a result of Luthuli's leadership in
Natal, the government demanded that he resign from the ANC or from
chieftainship. He refused to do either, stating, “the road to freedom is via
the cross.” The government deposed him. Not only did he continue to be
affectionately regarded as “chief ” but his reputation spread. In that same
year, 1952, the ANC elected him president general. Henceforth, between
repeated bans (under the Suppression of Communism Act), he attended
gatherings, visited towns, and toured the country to address mass meetings
(despite a serious illness in 1954).
In December 1956 Luthuli and
155 others were dramatically rounded up and charged with high treason. His
long trial failed to prove treason, a Communist conspiracy, or violence, and
in 1957 he was released. During this time Luthuli's quiet authority and his
inspiration to others profoundly impressed distinguished foreign observers,
leading to his nomination for the Nobel Prize. Nonwhite people responded in
large numbers to his call for a stay-at-home strike in 1957; later, whites
also began attending his mass meetings. In 1959 the government confined him
to his rural neighbourhood and banned him from gatherings—this time for five
years—for “promoting feelings of hostility” between the races.
In 1960, when police shot
down Africans demonstrating against the pass laws at Sharpeville, Luthuli
called for national mourning, and he himself burned his pass. (Too ill to
serve the resulting prison sentence, he paid a fine.) The government
outlawed the ANC and its rival offshoot, the Pan-Africanist Congress.
In December 1961 Luthuli was
allowed to leave Groutville briefly when, with his wife, he flew to Oslo to
receive the Nobel Prize. His acceptance address paid tribute to his people's
nonviolence and rejection of racism despite adverse treatment, and he noted
how far from freedom they remained despite their long struggle. A week
later, throughout South Africa, a sabotage group called the Spear of the
Nation attacked installations; the policy of nonviolence had at last been
abandoned, and Luthuli, back in enforced isolation, was an honoured elder
statesman, dictating his autobiography and receiving only those visitors
permitted by the police.
On July 21, 1967, as he made a habitual crossing
of a railway bridge near his small farm, Chief Luthuli was struck by a train
and died.
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Born into an Alsatian family
which for generations had been devoted to religion, music, and education.
His father and maternal grandfather were ministers; both of his grandfathers
were talented organists; many of his relatives were persons of scholarly
attainments.
Schweitzer entered into his intensive theological studies in 1893 at the
University of Strasbourg where he obtained a doctorate in philosophy in
1899, with a dissertation on the religious philosophy of Kant, and received
his licentiate in theology in 1900. He began preaching at St. Nicholas
Church in Strasbourg in 1899; he served in various high ranking
administrative posts from 1901 to 1912 in the Theological College of
St.Thomas, the college he had attended at the University of Strasbourg. In
1906 he published The Quest of the Historical Jesus, a book on which
much of his fame as a theological scholar rests.
Meanwhile he continued with a distinguished musical career initiated at an
early age with piano and organ lessons. Only nine when he first performed in
his father's church, he was, from his young manhood to his middle eighties,
recognized as a concert organist, internationally known. From his
professional engagements he earned funds for his education, particularly his
later medical schooling, and for his African hospital. Musicologist as well
as performer, Schweitzer wrote a biography of Bach in 1905 in French,
published a book on organ building and playing in 1906, and rewrote the Bach
book in German in 1908.
Having decided to go to Africa as a medical missionary rather than as a
pastor, Schweitzer in 1905 began the study of medicine at the University of
Strasbourg. In 1913, having obtained his M.D. degree, he founded his
hospital at Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa, but in 1917 he and his
wife were sent to a French internment camp as prisoners of war. Released in
1918, Schweitzer spent the next six years in Europe, preaching in his old
church, giving lectures and concerts, taking medical courses, writing On
the Edge of the Primeval Forest, The Decay and Restoration of Civilization,
Civilization and Ethics, and Christianity and the Religions of the
World.
Schweitzer returned to Lambaréné in 1924 and except for relatively short
periods of time, spent the remainder of his life there. With the funds
earned from his own royalties and personal appearance fees and with those
donated from all parts of the world, he expanded the hospital to seventy
buildings which by the early 1960's could take care of over 500 patients in
residence at any one time.
At Lambaréné, Schweitzer was doctor and surgeon in the hospital, pastor of a
congregation, administrator of a village, superintendent of buildings and
grounds, writer of scholarly books, commentator on contemporary history,
musician, host to countless visitors. The honors he received were numerous,
including the Goethe Prize of Frankfurt and honorary doctorates from many
universities emphasizing one or another of his achievements. The Nobel Peace
Prize for 1952, having been withheld in that year, was given to him on
December 10, 1953. With the $33,000 prize money, he started the leprosarium
at Lambaréné.
Albert Schweitzer died on September 4, 1965, and was buried at Lambaréné.
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Mother Teresa was born Agnes
Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje*, Macedonia, on August 26,
1910. Her family was of Albanian descent. At the age of twelve, she felt
strongly the call of God. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the
love of Christ. At the age of eighteen she left her parental home in Skopje
and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions
in India. After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India,
where on May 24, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun. From 1931 to 1948
Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the
suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a
deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her
superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among
the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Although she had no funds,
she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum
children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support
was also forthcoming. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of
her work.
On October 7, 1950, Mother
Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, "The
Missionaries of Charity", whose primary task was to love and care for those
persons nobody was prepared to look after. In 1965 the Society became an
International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI.
Today the order comprises
Active and Contemplative branches of Sisters and Brothers in many countries.
In 1963 both the Contemplative branch of the Sisters and the Active branch
of the Brothers was founded. In 1979 the Contemplative branch of the
Brothers was added, and in 1984 the Priest branch was established.
The Society of Missionaries
has spread all over the world, including the former Soviet Union and Eastern
European countries. They provide effective help to the poorest of the poor
in a number of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and they
undertake relief work in the wake of natural catastrophes such as floods,
epidemics, and famine, and for refugees. The order also has houses in North
America, Europe and Australia, where they take care of the shut-ins,
alcoholics, homeless, and AIDS sufferers.
The Missionaries of Charity
throughout the world are aided and assisted by Co-Workers who became an
official International Association on March 29, 1969. By the 1990s there
were over one million Co-Workers in more than 40 countries. Along with the
Co-Workers, the lay Missionaries of Charity try to follow Mother Teresa's
spirit and charism in their families.
Mother Teresa's work has been
recognised and acclaimed throughout the world and she has received a number
of awards and distinctions, including the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971)
and the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and
understanding (1972). She also received the Balzan Prize (1979) and the
Templeton and Magsaysay awards.
Mother Teresa died on
September 5, 1997.
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Folke Bernadotte was born in
Stockholm, Sweden, on January 2, 1895. A descendent of the Napoleonic
marshal Jean Bernadotte, who in 1810 was elected crown prince of Sweden, and
in 1818 succeeded to the throne as Charles XIV, Count Bernadotte was also a
grandson of King Oscar II of Sweden and a nephew of King Gustav V. After
graduating from the military school of Karlberg, he studied horsemanship at
the Stromsholm military riding school and became cavalry office in the Royal
Horse Guards. On December 1, 1928, he married Estelle Romaine Manville, of
New York. He represented Sweden in 1933 at the Chicago Century of Progress
Exposition, and in 1939-1940 was Swedish commissioner general at New York
World's Fair. At the beginning of World War II, as head of the Sveriges
Scoutforbund (the Swedish Boy Scouts), he integrated that organization into
Sweden's defense system, training the scouts in anti-aircraft work and as
medical assistants. His most important war work, however, was as vice
chairman of the Swedish Red Cross, supervising the exchange of disabled
British and German war prisoners. This work necessitated frequent trips to
London and Berlin involving conferences with high officials of both
countries. Just before the end of the war, he led a rescue operation
transporting interned Norwegians, Danes and western European inmates from
German concentration camps to hospitals in Sweden. Around 15,000 people were
taken to safety in the "White Buses of the Bernadotte expedition among them
few thousand Jews.
In the spring of 1945, while
working in the Swedish legation's temporary headquarters at Friedrichsruh,
Germany, he was summoned by Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo and
commander-in-chief of the German home front. They met at Lübeck, Germany, on
April 24. Asserting that Hitler was dying and that he was in authority,
Himmler offered the complete surrender of Germany to Britain and the United
States, provided Germany was allowed to continue resistance against Russia.
The Swedish foreign office transmitted Himmler's offer to Prime Minister
Churchill and President Truman. They in turn notified Premier Stalin,
advising him at the same time of the British-American decision to accept
only an unconditional surrender to the three Allied governments. A
translation of the count's book describing his negotiations was published in
the United States under the title The Curtain Falls (1945).
On May 20, 1948, the five big
powers of the United Nations Security Council agreed in the choice of Count
Bernadotte as mediator to seek peace in the Arab-Jewish conflict in
Palestine. Ten days later he initiated conferences with Arab and Jewish
leaders in Palestine and Arab leaders in Cairo, Egypt, and Amman, Jordan. He
succeeded in obtaining agreement to a four-week truce commencing June 11. On
June 28 he submitted to the Arab League and the Israeli government a peace
plan that both sides rejected in part. On July 12 he made a report to the
United Nations Security Council, in session in New York, and shortly
thereafter returned to Palestine.
On September 17, Count
Bernadotte and Colonel Andre P. Serot of the French air force were
assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the Stern group, an organization of
radical Zionists who had committed numerous attacks over a period of years
against the British and Arabs. Three days after his death, Count
Bernadotte's final report on his peace efforts was published in Paris. It
gave the United Nations General Assembly his suggested terms for a peace
that was to be imposed by the United Nations, and won the immediate support
of the United States and Britain.
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Dag Hammarskjöld was born in
Jönköping, although he lived most of his childhood in Uppsala. He was the
fourth and youngest son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, Prime Minister of Sweden
(1914–1917), and Agnes Almquist. His ancestors had served the Swedish Crown
since the 17th century. He studied at Uppsala University where he graduated
with a Master's degree in political economy and a Bachelor of Law degree. He
then moved to Stockholm.
From 1930 to 1934, he was a
secretary of a governmental committee on unemployment. He also wrote his
economics thesis Konjunkturspridningen (The Spread of the Business Cycle)
and received his Doctorate from Stockholm University in 1933. In 1936,
Hammarskjöld became a secretary in the Bank of Sweden and soon he was an
undersecretary of finance. From 1941 to 1948, he served as a chairman of the
Bank of Sweden.
Early in 1945, he was
appointed as adviser to the cabinet on financial and economic problems, and
coordinated government plans to alleviate the economic problems of the
post-war period.
In 1947, Hammarskjöld was
appointed to Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and in 1949 he became
the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He was a delegate in the Paris
conference that established the Marshall Plan. In 1948, he was again in
Paris to attend conference for the Organisation for European Economic
Co-operation. In 1950, he became a head of Sweden delegation to UNISCAN. In
1951, he became a cabinet minister without portfolio and in effect Deputy
Foreign Minister. Although Hammarskjöld served with a cabinet dominated by
the Social Democrats, he never officially joined any political party. On
December 20, 1954, he was elected to take his father's vacated seat in the
Swedish Academy. In 1951, Hammarskjöld became vice chairman of the Swedish
delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in Paris. He became the
chairman of the Swedish delegation to the General Assembly in New York in
1952.
Hammarskjöld outside the UN
headquarters in New York City. When Trygve Lie resigned from his post as UN
Secretary General in 1953, the Security Council decided to recommend
Hammarskjöld to the post. It came as a surprise to him. He was selected on
March 31 with the majority of 10 out of eleven states. The UN General
Assembly elected him in the April 7–10 session, by 57 votes out of 60. In
1957, he was re-elected.
Hammarskjöld started his term
by establishing his own secretariat of 4,000 administrators. He set up
regulations that defined their responsibilities. He insisted that the
secretary-general be able to take emergency action without the prior
approval of either the Security Council or General Assembly.
During his term, Hammarskjöld
tried to soothe relations between Israel and the Arab states. In 1955, he
went to mainland China to negotiate the release of 15 US pilots who had
served in the Korean War and been captured by the Chinese. In 1956, he
established the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF). In 1957, he
intervened in the Suez Crisis.
In 1960, the former Belgian
colony and now newly-independent Congo asked for UN aid in defusing the
escalating civil strife. (See Congo Crisis). Hammarskjöld made four trips to
the Congo. His efforts towards the decolonisation of Africa were considered
insufficient by the USSR; in September 1960, they denounced his decision to
send a UN emergency force to keep the peace. They demanded his resignation,
and the replacement of the office of secretary-general by a three-man
directorate with a built-in veto, the “troika”. The objective was, citing
the memoirs of the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, to “equally represent
interests of three groups of countries: capitalist, socialist and recently
independent.”[2] Hammarskjöld denied Patrice Lumumba's request to help force
Katanga to rejoin the Congo, causing Lumumba to turn to the Soviets for
help.
Flight path of Hammarskjöld's
aircraft and the decoy, September 1961In September 1961, Hammarskjöld found
out about the fighting between non-combatant UN forces and Katanga troops of
Moise Tshombe. He was en route to negotiate a cease-fire on the night of
September 17-18 when his DC-6B plane (SE-BDY) crashed near Ndola, Northern
Rhodesia (now Zambia). The crew had filed no flight plan (for security
reasons), and a decoy aircraft (OO-RIC) went (via a different route) ahead
of Hammarskjöld's aircraft. He and fifteen others perished.
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Dun Karm Psaila born in
Żebbuġ, (18 October 1871 — 13 October 1961) was a Maltese writer and poet,
sometimes called 'the bard of Malta' [1]
Dun Karm, painted by Caruana
Dingli. He was educated at the Seminary between the years 1885 and
1894 and then proceeded to study philosophy in 1888 and theology in 1890 the
University of Malta. He was ordained priest in 1894. From 1895 to 1921 he
taught various subjects at the Seminary: Italian, Latin, English,
arithmetic, geography, cosmography, ecclesiastical history and Christian
archaeology. In 1921 he was appointed assistant librarian at the National
Library of Malta and in 1923 directory of circulating libraries, a post he
held till his retirement in 1936.
In 1921, Albert Laferla, the
director of education, asked Dun Karm to compose some verses to a music
score by Robert Samut. The Innu Malti was sung for the first time in 1923.
In 1941 it was officially designated the national anthem, a status confirmed
by the Constitution at independence in 1964.
In 1921 Dun Karm was one of
the founding members of the Għaqda tal-Kittieba tal-Malti and on the death
of Ġużè Muscat Azzopardi in 1927, he was elected president of the Għaqda and
later editor of the official organ, Il-Malti. He carried out these functions
till 1942 when he was nominated honorary president of the ghaqda for life.
In recognition of his contribution to Maltese literature, he was granted a
D. Litt (honoris causa) by the Royal University of Malta in 1945 - the first
time the University granted such an honour. A year later he was awarded the
Ġużè Muscat Azzopardi gold medal. Queen Elizabeth II decorated him with the
Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956. In 1957 the Maltese
government issued him an ex-gratia pension in recognition of his services to
Maltese literature. During his lifetime he was also honoured as the National
Poet of Malta.
Before 1912 Dun Karm wrote
only in Italian. His first known published poem is La Dignità Episcopale
(1889) after which he published Foglie d'Allora (1896) and Versi (1903)
another collection of Italian poems.
Dun Karm wrote Quddiem Xbieha
tal-Madonna his first poem in Maltese, which appeared in the first issue of
the Maltese periodical Il-Ħabib, published by Mgr. Pawl Galea and Ġużè
Muscat Azzopardi. His best poems include Il-Musbieħ tal-Mużew (1920).
Dun Karm often found poetic
expression in his solitude, which was eventually accompanied by a high
degree of spiritual balance. His poetry reflects a background of village
life crowned with an atmosphere of family feelings and it also portrays the
Maltese countryside with a perspective imagination. It synthesises the
popular culture of the Maltese people, which is quite evident from the rural
characteristics that furnish its local identity with the literary culture
based largely on Italian romanticism.
His first works in Italian
reveal an early life of peace and calm; after the death of his mother,
solitude became his companion. When he decided to make Maltese the medium of
his creativity he poetically explored the history of Malta to confirm its
cultural and national identity. At the same time some of his best poems
illustrate an inner journey of sentimental and more experience. His poetry
exhibits great subjectivity but it also expresses his country collective
aspirations. Both the personal and the national sentiments are treated from
a deep religious viewpoint that discusses existentialism The spiritual
crisis in Il-Jien u lil hinn Minnu is analyzed in universal human terms that
illuminate man's existence and insist on the inexplicability of the
relations between God and man, except for the latter's absolute acceptance
of the formers hidden power.
A.J. Arberry translated about
37 of Dun Karm's poems into English, Guze Delia translated Il-Vjatku into
Spanish and Laurent Ropa translated Il-Jien u lil hinn Minnu into French.
Dun Karm's writings include
Żewġ Anġli: Inez u Emilia (translated in 1934 from an Italian novel by D
Caprile) Besides these he wrote a few critical works. He also compiled a
dictionary between 1947 and 1955 in three volumes, Dizzjunarju Ingliż u
Malti.
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Born in Geneva on 8 May 1828,
came from a devout and charitable Calvinist family. After incomplete
secondary schooling, he was apprenticed to a Geneva bank. In 1853, he
travelled to Algeria to take charge of the Swiss colony of Sétif. He started
construction of a wheat mill, but could not obtain the land concession that
was essential for its operation. After travelling to Tunisia he returned to
Geneva, where he decided to approach Napoleon III to obtain the business
document he needed.
At the time, the Emperor was commanding the Franco-Sardinian troops fighting
the Austrians in northern Italy, and it was there that Henry Dunant decided
to seek him out. This was how he came to be present at the end of the battle
of Solferino, in Lombardy.
Returning to Geneva, he wrote A Memory of Solferino, which eventually led to
the creation of the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, the
future International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Dunant was a member
and acted as secretary. He was now famous and was received by heads of
State, kings and princes of the European courts. But his financial affairs
were floundering and he was declared bankrupt in 1867. Completely ruined, he
was in debt for almost a million Swiss francs (1860s value).
As a result of the scandal which this bankruptcy caused in Geneva, he
resigned from his post as secretary of the International Committee. On 8
September 1867 the Committee decided to accept his resignation not only as
secretary but also as a member. Dunant left for Paris, where he was reduced
to sleeping on public benches. At the same time, however, the Empress
Eugénie summoned him to the Tuileries Palace in order to consult him on
extending the Geneva Convention to naval warfare. Dunant was made an
honorary member of the national Red Cross societies of Austria, Holland,
Sweden, Prussia and Spain.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, he visited and comforted the wounded
brought to Paris and introduced the wearing of a badge so that the dead
could be identified.
When peace returned, Dunant travelled to London, where he endeavoured to
organize a diplomatic conference on the problem of prisoners of war; the
Tsar encouraged him but England was hostile to the plan.
An international congress for the "complete and final abolition of the
traffic in Negroes and the slave trade" opened in London on 1 February 1875,
on Dunant's initiative. There followed years of wandering and utter poverty
for Dunant: he travelled on foot in Alsace, Germany and Italy, living on
charity and the hospitality of a few friends.
Finally, in 1887, he ended up in the Swiss village of Heiden, overlooking
Lake Constance, where he fell ill. He found refuge in the local hospice, and
it was there that he was discovered in 1895 by a journalist, Georg
Baumberger, who wrote an article about him which, within a few days, was
reprinted in the press throughout Europe. Messages of sympathy reached
Dunant from all over the world; overnight he was once more famous and
honoured. In 1901, he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Henry Dunant died on 30 October 1910. The date of his birth, 8 May, is
celebrated as World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day.
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Giorgio La Pira (January 4,
1904- November 5, 1977) was an Italian politician who served as mayor of
Florence twice (1950-1956, 1960-1964). He also served as deputy of the
Christian Democratic Party and participated in the assembly that wrote the
Constitution of Italy after World War II. In his public and private life, La
Pira was a tireless champion of peace and human rights who worked for the
betterment of the poor and disenfranchised.
The son of a Sicilian
packing-house worker, La Pira was born in Pozzallo to a family of modest
means. His Catholic upbringing, especially the teachings of St. Francis of
Assisi, played a big role in shaping his political and philosophical
beliefs. He saw everything he did and every position he took as an
expression of his spiritual beliefs.
After studying accounting in
Messina, La Pira received a law degree from the University of Florence in
1925. He became professor of Roman Law there in 1933. His openness helped
him achieve a cordial relationship with his students.
On the eve of World War II,
La Pira founded the review Principles, which promoted human rights and
openly criticized fascism. During the war he continued his outspoken
campaign against the fascists. After his offices were raided by the Italian
police, La Pira escaped to Siena, then Rome. After the war, La Pira set
about rebuilding Florence, which like most Italian cities at the time, was
struggling to recover from the destruction and misery of war. As mayor he
steered Florence away from the haphazard reconstruction typical of other
Italian recovery efforts. He believed the focus of rebuilding should be
self-sufficient neighbourhoods. As La Pira was fond of saying, "Towns, not
houses."
These neighbourhoods centred
around local shops, public gardens, markets, churches, schools, and
tree-lined streets. The most well-known of these is Isolotto, or "little
island." These revitalized neighborhoods became the heart and soul of
post-war Florence and continue to thrive to this day. Additionally La Pira
lead the reconstruction of bridges, such as the famous Santa Trinita Bridge.
Other important public works projects included such job creating projects as
the expansion of the water works, a waste system, and public transportation
systems.
At times La Pira took an even
more active role in job creation. When Florence’s oldest industrial plant "Pignone"
threatened to close due to a slump in demand, La Pira persuaded Enrico
Mattei, President and CEO of the public energy conglomerate ENI to take it
over, thus saving more than a thousand jobs. The company, later renamed
Nuovo Pignone, is still in operation currently as a division of General
Electric.
La Pira was a Dominican
tertiary, i.e. a lay member of the Dominican order, who took his Christian
faith quite literally. In the years following the war, it was not uncommon
to see him in public barefoot, having given away his shoes, clothing, and
most of his salary. He was also active in national and international
politics. In 1946 he was elected to the Italian Constitutional Assembly
where he played a major role in drafting the Italian Constitution. Despite
sometimes intense criticism, La Pira paid many visits to Moscow, China and
even Hanoi, throughout the Cold War era. La Pira also worked to move Arabs
and Israelis forward in the peace process. Until his death in 1977, La Pira
promoted issues such as disarmament, the importance of third world
development, and tolerance among world religions.
In 1986, the Catholic Church
began the process of Giorgio La Pira's beatification. On the occasion of the
100th anniversary of the birth of Giorgio La Pira, John Paul II praised "the
holy mayor": "Before the powerful of the earth, La Pira expressed with
firmness his ideas as believer and as a man who loved peace, inviting his
interlocutors to a common effort to promote the fundamental good in
different ambits: in society, politics, the economy, cultures, and among
religions."
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Nobel was the third son of
Immanuel Nobel (1801-1872) and Andriette Ahlsell Nobel (1805-1889). Born in
Stockholm on October 21, 1833, he went with his family in 1842 to St.
Petersburg, where his father (who had invented modern plywood) started a
"torpedo" works. Alfred studied chemistry with Professor Nikolay Nikolaevich
Zinin. In 1859, the factory was left to the care of the second son, Ludvig
Nobel (1831-1888), who greatly enlarged it. Alfred, returning to Sweden with
his father after the bankruptcy of their family business, devoted himself to
the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of
nitroglycerine (discovered in 1847 by Ascanio Sobrero, one of his fellow
students under Théophile-Jules Pelouze at the University of Torino). Several
explosions occurred at their family-owned factory in Heleneborg; one
disastrous one killed Alfred's younger brother Emil and several other
workers in 1864.
Nobel found that when
nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like
kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) it became safer and more convenient to
handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as dynamite. Nobel demonstrated
his explosive for the first time that year, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey,
England.
Nobel later on combined
nitroglycerin with another explosive, gun-cotton, and obtained a
transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a more powerful explosive than
dynamite. Gelignite, or blasting gelatin as it was branded, was patented in
1876, and was followed by a host of similar combinations, modified by the
addition of potassium nitrate and various other substances.
The foundations of the Nobel
Prize were laid in 1895 when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much
of his wealth for its establishment. Since 1901, the prize has honored men
and women for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine,
literature, and for work in peace.
In 1876 Bertha von Suttner
became Alfred Nobel's secretary but after only a brief stay, left and
married Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Though her personal contact with
Alfred Nobel had been brief, she corresponded with him until his death in
1896, and it is believed that she was a major influence in his decision to
include a peace prize among those prizes provided in his will, which she won
in 1905.
Nobel also wrote Nemesis, a
prose tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci, partly inspired by Percy
Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci, was printed while he was dying. The entire stock
except for three copies was destroyed immediately after his death, being
regarded as scandalous and blasphemous. The first surviving edition
(bilingual Swedish-Esperanto) was published in Sweden in 2003. The play has
been translated to Slovenian via the Esperanto version.
Alfred Nobel is buried in
Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.
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2008 Peace Lab.
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Pope
John XXIII 
San
Ġorġ Preca
Oscar
(Arnulfo) Romero (y Galdames)