Bordeaux, Saturday, May 10, 2008

Thank you so much for coming out in such great numbers to add your voice to those seeking to promote intercultural dialogue, particularly on this day, which France has chosen to honour the memory of the millions of Africans deported and reduced to slavery.

Later, I will be participating in the commemorative ceremony on the quays of the Garonne River, and I invite you to join me. I would like for us to walk there together.

This is a wonderful opportunity for us to reflect on the meaning we want to give to this solemn chapter in our history and to our desire to move forward and embrace that great strength that represents our determination to live together.

Aimé Césaire, of whom we have been thinking a great deal these days, said that a people without memory has no future.

What that prophetic phrase says to me is that memory is not simply there for us to reflect upon, but rather for us to seek its wisdom so that we may reinvent ourselves, for the better and for the good of all.

The purpose of remembering is not to lay blame, nor make lists, nor calculate.

For as Serge Daget’s ethical question asked, [translation] “Is one any less a slave trader in deporting a single Black slave rather than a cargo of two hundred souls?”

The purpose of remembering, as I see it, is to make the forces of creation triumph over the forces of destruction.

This is what we have been invited to do, here in this converted warehouse that once held goods from the colonies, today magnificently dedicated to artistic expression in the heart of the city.

And I am delighted to see so many young people, from both sides of the Atlantic, interested in this intercultural dialogue.

In March 2007, at the governor general’s residence in Ottawa, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we organized a dialogue with youth, a student forum also attended by parliamentarians, members of Parliament, senators, ministers, and members of the diplomatic corps, along with various representatives of civil society, to mark the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in the British Empire.

March 2007 was therefore a vitally important anniversary because it commemorated the day that the slave trade and slavery became illegal in Canada and that such trade was recognized for what it unquestionably was: one of the most barbaric crimes in the history of humanity.

As the great-great-granddaughter of African and Amerindian slaves, I was reassured and impressed by the passionate discussions and the resolve of those youths to loosen the grip of prejudice and racism, to tear down the walls of injustice and every form of exclusion, and to fight for equal opportunity.

They recognized that decades of segregation and slavery have left behind a legacy of racism and intolerance that continues to be felt in our communities, at times openly, at times more insidiously.

But their vigilance is absolute, for they are determined to counter the lack of understanding by some that too often leads to the exclusion of others.

More than anything, these youths want Canada to maintain its reputation in the world as the ideal of a pluralist society, where every citizen has equal rights.

I know that the youth of this country share those convictions and fight those same battles.

I see in each of you a source of inspiration and a promise of hope.

No society is sheltered from racial discrimination, and I believe that we cannot address the challenges of the present without reflecting lucidly on the lessons of the past.

What we must emphasize on this day—on this very solemn day—is the need to stand together in spite of our differences and to believe in the strength of our shared solidarities.

This is the only way to ensure that every person, that every nation on earth has the opportunity to sing as one, as Édouard Glissant so beautifully expressed.

For me personally and in my role as governor general of Canada, this notion resonates as our dearest wish.

And now, dear friends, I open the floor to you.