Unveiling of the Easter Island Moai
On May the first this year, during his official visit to the Republic of Singapore, His Excellency Ricardo Lagos, President of the Republic of Chile, visited the Executive Secretariat of APEC and its premises.
On that opportunity, President Lagos officially presented to the APEC Secretariat a sculpture inspired in the archetype of the moai, the most famous theme in the Rapa Nui culture.
The sculpture has arrived and to day it will be unveiled during this ceremony.
This sculpture is faithful to the essentials of the moai archetype. But it is not a reproduction or copy. It is an original creation by a prestigious Chilean artist, Mr. Alejandro Pakarati, himself a member of the Rapa Nui people, sculpted in stone found in quarries of the Chilean central valley.
This sculpture is then a work of art. There is an aesthetically value-added component to it, which enhances its more generically cultural connotations. That is to say, the fact that it is typical of the traditional Rapa Nui culture.
Very briefly, I would like this afternoon to underline some of the symbolic connotations of this donation.
Why a moai ?. Why not a different work of art?
Firstly, it connotes a homage to the Rapa Nui people. One hundred years ago, they were almost extinguished: a handful of men and women living in conditions of misery and destitution.
Everything pointed to a people that were passing away and that would last in the historical memory only through the ruins of what had been once an instance of a tiny insular civilization.
Today, they have been able to rebuild themselves as a viable human group, they have become an active actor of our national society, and through the recovery of the legacy inherited from their ancestors, they have conquered a deeply felt sense of identity, of self-esteem and pride.
The Rapa Nui people are today a vigorous present anchored in an extraordinary past, looking forward towards a future full of promises.
Secondly, we think that the island itself and the history of its people have a strong symbolic connotation in terms of the present and the future of the APEC countries and the peoples of the Pacific.
The surface of Isla de Pascua-Easter Island, Rapa Nui-is one hundred and eighty square kilometers. Its distance from continental Chile is three thousand and seven hundred kilometers, and from Tahiti four thousand and fifty kilometers. The nearest habitable place is tiny Pitcairn, about two thousand kilometers to the West.
One could say that the island is in the middle of nowhere. If you visit the island, there is really a feeling of physical and psychological solitude, which is perhaps one of its charms.
Most probably, the original settlers came from the Marquesas Islands or from Mangareva fourteen centuries ago, bringing with them, in their fragile canoes, food, plants, tools and animals.
It was quite an extraordinary feat, to sail across such distances, lacking any intermediate points that could be used as stations for logistic support.
We do not know what triggered this sea-wandering people into such an adventure. But I think it is safe to assume that, besides quite outstanding sea faring capabilities and a very high propensity to risk, there must have been a project: the project to build something new out of almost nothing.
I would like to name such a kind of project a civilizing project: the goal of setting the foundations for building and imposing upon geographical and physical realities a new order of things, giving so birth to a new human reality.
Now, in these initial years of the century, the situation of the APEC countries is perhaps quite similar to the situation that was faced by those original settlers of the island.
The main motivational force underlying the efforts of the APEC countries is the project to transform a geographical and physical reality into a new human reality, a new and better order of things.
I think that this is neatly expressed in the phrase chosen by President Lagos as the theme for APEC 2004: ONE COMMUNITY, OUR FUTURE.
This type of projects demands from its actors a very special mindset: the kind of mindset that must have characterized those audacious Polynesians who were the first humans to put their feet on Easter Island.
The APEC countries will not only be in the necessity of coping with important uncertainties and risks. I think that they also need to build up confidence to face new emerging realities that, if you allow me to borrow from the terminology used in maps from old, I would like to label as terra incognita. That is to say, new realities that we are aware that may exist, but have not yet been explored.
And perhaps we tend to overlook too easily this very basic need of developing the mindsets that are the adequate ones in terms of the magnitude of the goals we share.
I hope that this sculpture, that on behalf of His Excellency the President of Chile, Ricardo Lagos, I have the honour of physically presenting today to the Executive Secretary of APEC, His Excellency Ambassador Mario Artaza, will also be a symbol and a remainder of that challenge.