Your Majesty,
Mr. President, Royal Highness,
Distinguished Heads of State and Delegations,
Mr. Director-General,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I come from Estonia, a small state on the shores of the Baltic, to express my great affection and respect for UNESCO and affirm that the world needs you today more than ever.

Estonia was not here half a century ago when this organisation was founded for the protection of education, science and culture. Half a century ago our language could not be heard in your midst. In nineteen forty-five we were still fighting, behind the Iron Curtain, that horrible thing that today we call ethnic cleansing.

Disarmed and enslaved, we were attacked at the very roots that sustained us: Estonian education, science and culture, Estonian song, Estonian literature and the Estonian language.

We learned the ultimate lesson. Just as we all take air for granted until we suddenly can't breathe, we Estonians only realised how priceless our native language was when we were on the verge of losing it.

While it may seem that Estonia has not been in these ranks for fifty years, in fact we've been here all along. Invisible, yes - but not mute. You might even say I have a sort of fatherly love for UNESCO. As many of you may know, Estonia is where, in 1925, the concept of cultural autonomy was coined. This small state was the first in the world history to implement legislation on cultural autonomy for minorities.

Last week, I was deeply moved by the visit to Estonia of a well-known Russian academic, professor Lihhatshov (Likhachov). He remembered that interwar Estonia gave Russian poets asylum when the hand of Soviet totalitarianism was clamped over their mouths - that Estonia printed Dostoevsky and Berdjajev when the regime destroyed their books.

The Estonian experience speaks volumes about the fact that the more colours, languages, and ways of thought there are in culture, the stronger it is.

Man, as I understand him, is born into this world twice. The first time is biological. The second birth is through culture. Only thereafter he joins humanity as a Homo Sapiens.

Culture is the highest form of democracy and tolerance. There are no big and small cultures. There are only different cultures, each priceless because of its uniqueness. Between diverse poles of a cultural force field, the divine spark of creativeness is born.

This is why I am greatly troubled by the fact that every year about 300 living languages die. Small nations simply cannot manage to create sovereign states and are left woefully exposed. Small states account for most of the world population, but their majority is a silent majority. However when McLuhan spoke about the global village, he did not have in mind global standardisation, but an opportunity for diversifying cultures.

UNESCO has dealt with this problem for a long time. We declare that there is no such thing as a small culture, but in actuality it is clear that the voice of small cultures is too weak, and most difficult of all, it speaks in tongues.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that is the communications revolution. Have we realized that today the small cultures can communicate is a totally new way? Are we able to utilize the possibilities afforded by an information society and implement them to strengthen linguistic and cultural diversity.

This, to my mind, is UNESCO's agenda for its future. On behalf of the Republic of Estonia, I wish you all much progress and success on this day, as we take inventory and plan a future in which all cultures are valued equally.

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