The things we make have one supreme quality -- they live longer than us. We perish, they survive; we have one life, they have many lives, and in each life they can mean different things. Which means that, while we all have one biography, they have many.
Stvari koje pravimo savršenije su od nas; žive duže od nas. Mi nestajemo, one opstaju; mi imamo jedan život, one više njih, i u svakoj inkarnaciji mogu imati drugačiji značaj. Dakle, dok mi imamo jednu biografiju, one ih imaju više.
I want this morning to talk about the story, the biography -- or rather the biographies -- of one particular object, one remarkable thing. It doesn't, I agree, look very much. It's about the size of a rugby ball. It's made of clay, and it's been fashioned into a cylinder shape, covered with close writing and then baked dry in the sun. And as you can see, it's been knocked about a bit, which is not surprising because it was made two and a half thousand years ago and was dug up in 1879. But today, this thing is, I believe, a major player in the politics of the Middle East. And it's an object with fascinating stories and stories that are by no means over yet.
Želeo bih ovog jutra da vam ispričam priču, biografiju, odnosno biografije, jednog posebnog objekta, jedne izvanredne stvari. Složićemo se, ne liči baš na nešto. Veličine je lopte za ragbi. Napravljen je od gline, Izvajan je kao valjak, ispisan je gustim tekstom i onda ispečen na suncu. I kao što možete videti, prilično se ofucao, što baš i ne iznenađuje obzirom da je napravljen pre 2500 godina i iskopan 1879. godine Ali danas je, ova stvar, verujem, važan činilac u politici Bliskog istoka. I taj predmet je pun očaravajućih priča kojima se još ne nazire kraj.
The story begins in the Iran-Iraq war and that series of events that culminated in the invasion of Iraq by foreign forces, the removal of a despotic ruler and instant regime change. And I want to begin with one episode from that sequence of events that most of you would be very familiar with, Belshazzar's feast -- because we're talking about the Iran-Iraq war of 539 BC. And the parallels between the events of 539 BC and 2003 and in between are startling. What you're looking at is Rembrandt's painting, now in the National Gallery in London, illustrating the text from the prophet Daniel in the Hebrew scriptures. And you all know roughly the story.
Priča počinje Iransko- iračkim ratom, sledom događaja koji kulminiraju napadom na Irak od strane stranih vojski uklanjanjem despota i promenom režima preko noći. Želeo bih da počnem jednom epizodom iz tog sleda koja vam je većini poznata, Baltazarovom gozbom; jer pričamo o Iransko-iračkom ratu iz 539. pre Hrista A paralele između događaja iz 539. pre Hrista i 2003. su zapanjujuće. Vidite Rembrantovo platno, iz Nacionalne galerije u Londonu, koje prikazuje priču iz Knjige proroka Danila iz Starog zaveta. U grubim crtama, znate priču.
Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar who'd conquered Israel, sacked Jerusalem and captured the people and taken the Jews back to Babylon. Not only the Jews, he'd taken the temple vessels. He'd ransacked, desecrated the temple. And the great gold vessels of the temple in Jerusalem had been taken to Babylon. Belshazzar, his son, decides to have a feast. And in order to make it even more exciting, he added a bit of sacrilege to the rest of the fun, and he brings out the temple vessels. He's already at war with the Iranians, with the king of Persia.
Baltazar, sin Nabukodonosora, onog što je pokorio Judeju, opljačkao Jerusalim, porobio narod i odveo Jevreje u vavilonsko ropstvo. I ne samo ljude, već i posude iz hrama. Opljačkao je i oskrnavio hram. I velike zlatne posude iz jerusalimskog hrama su odnesene u Vavilon. Baltazar, njegov sin, reši da napravi gozbu. I da bi je učinio uzbudljivijom, dodao je malo blasfemije iznoseći gostima hramske posude. Već traje rat sa Iranom, sa persijskim carem.
And that night, Daniel tells us, at the height of the festivities a hand appeared and wrote on the wall, "You are weighed in the balance and found wanting, and your kingdom is handed over to the Medes and the Persians." And that very night Cyrus, king of the Persians, entered Babylon and the whole regime of Belshazzar fell. It is, of course, a great moment in the history of the Jewish people. It's a great story. It's story we all know. "The writing on the wall" is part of our everyday language. What happened next was remarkable, and it's where our cylinder enters the story.
I te noći, priča nam Danilo, na vrhuncu zabave pojavljuje se ruka koja na zidu ispisuje: ˝ Izmeren si na merila, i našao si se lak, razdeljeno je carstvo tvoje, i dano Midijanima i Persijanima.˝ Iste noći Kir, persijski car, ulazi u Vavilon i Baltazarov režim se ruši. To je, naravno, važan trenutak u istoriji Jevrejskog naroda. Sjajna priča. Priča koju svi znamo. ˝Tako nam je zapisano˝ je svakodnevna fraza. Šta biva dalje je značajno, i tu naš valjak ulazi u priču.
Cyrus, king of the Persians, has entered Babylon without a fight -- the great empire of Babylon, which ran from central southern Iraq to the Mediterranean, falls to Cyrus. And Cyrus makes a declaration. And that is what this cylinder is, the declaration made by the ruler guided by God who had toppled the Iraqi despot and was going to bring freedom to the people. In ringing Babylonian -- it was written in Babylonian -- he says, "I am Cyrus, king of all the universe, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of the four quarters of the world." They're not shy of hyperbole as you can see. This is probably the first real press release by a victorious army that we've got. And it's written, as we'll see in due course, by very skilled P.R. consultants. So the hyperbole is not actually surprising.
Kir, persijski car, osvojio je Vavilon bez borbe, veliko vavilonsko carstvo, koje se protezalo od južnog Iraka do Mediterana, pada pred Kirom. I Kir izdaje proglas. To je u stvari valjak, proglas vladara, vođenog božijom rukom koji je srušio iračkog despota i doneo slobodu narodu. Na pompeznom vavilonskom, napisan je na vavilonskom, kaže: ˝Ja sam Kir, gospodar vaseljene, veliki i moćan kralj, kralj Vavilona, vladar četiri strane sveta.˝ Preterivanje im nije bilo strano, kao što vidite. Ovo je verovatno prva prava izjava za štampu pobedničke vojske koju posedujemo. I napisali su je, kao što ćemo videti, vrlo talentovani stručnjaci za marketing. Tako da preterivanje i ne treba da iznenadi.
And what is the great king, the powerful king, the king of the four quarters of the world going to do? He goes on to say that, having conquered Babylon, he will at once let all the peoples that the Babylonians -- Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar -- have captured and enslaved go free. He'll let them return to their countries. And more important, he will let them all recover the gods, the statues, the temple vessels that had been confiscated. All the peoples that the Babylonians had repressed and removed will go home, and they'll take with them their gods. And they'll be able to restore their altars and to worship their gods in their own way, in their own place. This is the decree, this object is the evidence for the fact that the Jews, after the exile in Babylon, the years they'd spent sitting by the waters of Babylon, weeping when they remembered Jerusalem, those Jews were allowed to go home. They were allowed to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple.
I šta će to veliki, moćni kralj, vladar četiri strane sveta da uradi? Objavljuje da će, pokorivši Vavilon, smesta, svi narodi koje su vavilonci, Nabukodonosor i Baltazar, pokorili i porobili postati slobodni. Dozvoliće im povratak u domovinu. I još važnije, dozvoliće im da preuzmu bogove, statue, hramske posude koje su im bile oduzete. Svi narodi koje su vavilonci tlačili i preseljavali, se vraćaju kući, i nose sa sobom svoje bogove. Moći će da obnove svoje oltare da se mole svojim bogovima na svoj način, u svojim hramovima. Ovo je onaj dekret, ovo je taj dokaz za to da su Jevreji, nakon vavilonskog ropstva, godina provedenih pored vavilonskih reka lijući suze za Jerusalimom, ti Jevreji su pušteni da se vrate kući. Dozvoljeno im je da se vrate u Jerusalim i obnove hram.
It's a central document in Jewish history. And the Book of Chronicles, the Book of Ezra in the Hebrew scriptures reported in ringing terms. This is the Jewish version of the same story. "Thus said Cyrus, king of Persia, 'All the kingdoms of the earth have the Lord God of heaven given thee, and he has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem. Who is there among you of his people? The Lord God be with him, and let him go up.'" "Go up" -- aaleh. The central element, still, of the notion of return, a central part of the life of Judaism. As you all know, that return from exile, the second temple, reshaped Judaism. And that change, that great historic moment, was made possible by Cyrus, the king of Persia, reported for us in Hebrew in scripture and in Babylonian in clay.
To je ključni dokument jevrejske istorije. I Knjige dnevnika i Jezdra u Starom zavetu su nas izvestile o njemu. Ovo je jevrejska verzija iste priče. ˝Ovako veli Kir, car persijski: Sva carstva zemaljska dao mi je Gospod Bog nebeski, On mi je zapovedio da Mu sazidam dom u Jerusalimu u Judeji. Ko je između vas od svega naroda Njegovog? Bog nebeski neka bude s njim, pa nek ide (gore) u Jerusalim u Judeji.˝ ˝...nek ide gore...˝ -- aaleh Još uvek središnja tema predstave o povratku, centralni deo života Judaizma. Kao što znate, povratak iz izgnanstva, drugi hram, preoblikuje veru. Tu promenu, taj važan istorijski trenutak, je učinio Kir, persijski car, što nas izveštavaju svete knjige na hebrejskom i ispis na vavilonskom u glini.
Two great texts, what about the politics? What was going on was the fundamental shift in Middle Eastern history. The empire of Iran, the Medes and the Persians, united under Cyrus, became the first great world empire. Cyrus begins in the 530s BC. And by the time of his son Darius, the whole of the eastern Mediterranean is under Persian control. This empire is, in fact, the Middle East as we now know it, and it's what shapes the Middle East as we now know it. It was the largest empire the world had known until then. Much more important, it was the first multicultural, multifaith state on a huge scale. And it had to be run in a quite new way. It had to be run in different languages. The fact that this decree is in Babylonian says one thing. And it had to recognize their different habits, different peoples, different religions, different faiths. All of those are respected by Cyrus.
Dva značajna teksta, a šta sa politikom? Šta se događalo je da je to bio korenit pomak u istoriji Bliskog istoka. Imperije na teritoriji Irana, Medija i Persija, ujedinjene pod Kirom, postaju prva velika svetska imperija. Kir započinje, 530-ih pre Hrista da bi za vladavine njegovog sina Darija, ceo istočni Mediteran bio pod persijskom vlašću. Imperija je, de fakto, Bliski istok kakvim ga danas znamo, i ona mu daje današnji oblik. To je bila najveća imperija koju je svet do tada video, i važnije, to je prva multikulturalna i multiverska država velikih razmera. I moralo se upravljati na novi način. Moralo se upravljati na više jezika. To što je ovaj dekret na vavilonskom nam dosta govori. Morale su se priznati drugačije navike, drugačiji narodi, religije, drugačija verovanja. Sve njih Kir poštuje.
Cyrus sets up a model of how you run a great multinational, multifaith, multicultural society. And the result of that was an empire that included the areas you see on the screen, and which survived for 200 years of stability until it was shattered by Alexander. It left a dream of the Middle East as a unit, and a unit where people of different faiths could live together. The Greek invasions ended that. And of course, Alexander couldn't sustain a government and it fragmented. But what Cyrus represented remained absolutely central.
Kir postavlja model kako upravljati velikim multinacionalnim, verskim i kulturalnim društvom. Rezutat toga beše imperija koja je obuhvatala regije koje vidite na ekranu, koja se održala 200 stabilnih godina dok ju nije razbio Aleksandar Makedonski. Ostavila je san o Bliskom istoku, kao celini gde ljudi različitih vera mogu živeti zajedno. Grčka invazija je to okončala. Naravno, Aleksandar nije mogao da održi vlast i imperija se raspala. Ali ono što je Kir predstavljao ostaje jako bitno.
The Greek historian Xenophon wrote his book "Cyropaedia" promoting Cyrus as the great ruler. And throughout European culture afterward, Cyrus remained the model. This is a 16th century image to show you how widespread his veneration actually was. And Xenophon's book on Cyrus on how you ran a diverse society was one of the great textbooks that inspired the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution. Jefferson was a great admirer -- the ideals of Cyrus obviously speaking to those 18th century ideals of how you create religious tolerance in a new state.
Grčki istoričar Ksenofont je napisao knjigu ˝Kirovo vaspitanje˝ gde prikazuje Kira kao velikog vladara. I kasnije kroz istoriju evropske kulture, Kir ostaje primer. Ovo je slika iz 16-og veka samo da vam pokažem koliko je bio poštovan. Ksenofontova knjiga o tome kako upravljati raznolim društvom bila je odličan udžbenik osnivačima nacije u američkoj revoluciji. Džeferson je bio veliki poštovalac, Kirovi ideali utiču na ideale 18-og veka o uspostavljanju verske tolerancije u novoj državi.
Meanwhile, back in Babylon, things had not been going well. After Alexander, the other empires, Babylon declines, falls into ruins, and all the traces of the great Babylonian empire are lost -- until 1879 when the cylinder is discovered by a British Museum exhibition digging in Babylon. And it enters now another story. It enters that great debate in the middle of the 19th century: Are the scriptures reliable? Can we trust them? We only knew about the return of the Jews and the decree of Cyrus from the Hebrew scriptures. No other evidence. Suddenly, this appeared. And great excitement to a world where those who believed in the scriptures had had their faith in creation shaken by evolution, by geology, here was evidence that the scriptures were historically true. It's a great 19th century moment.
Za to vreme, u Vavilonu, stvari ne idu baš dobro. Nakon Aleksandra, i sledećih imperija, Vavilon slabi, urušava se, i svi tragovi velikog vavilonskog carstva se gube, do 1879. kada valjak otkriva ekspedicija Britanskog muzeja kopajući u Vavilonu. Tad počinje svoju sledeću priču. Upada u sred rasprave iz sredine 19-og veka: Da li je Biblija pouzdana? Može li joj se verovati? Bilo nam je poznato samo ono o povratku iz ropstva, što piše u Starom zavetu. Nije bilo drugih dokaza. Odjednom, ovo. Nastaje veliko uzbuđenje među ljudima kojima je vera uzdrmana teorijom evolucije, geologijom; pojavljuje se dokaz da je Biblija istorijski tačna. Značajan trenutak 19-og veka.
But -- and this, of course, is where it becomes complicated -- the facts were true, hurrah for archeology, but the interpretation was rather more complicated. Because the cylinder account and the Hebrew Bible account differ in one key respect. The Babylonian cylinder is written by the priests of the great god of Bablyon, Marduk. And, not surprisingly, they tell you that all this was done by Marduk. "Marduk, we hold, called Cyrus by his name." Marduk takes Cyrus by the hand, calls him to shepherd his people and gives him the rule of Babylon. Marduk tells Cyrus that he will do these great, generous things of setting the people free. And this is why we should all be grateful to and worship Marduk.
Ali, sad postaje komplikovano, činjenice su tačne, ura! za arheologiju, tumačenje se ispostavlja složenije. Jer se priča sa valjka i priča iz Biblje razlikuju u jednoj bitnoj stvari. Vavilonski cilindar ispisan rukom sveštenika velikog boga Vavilona, Marduka. I, ništa čudno, kažu nam da je sve Mardukovo delo. ˝Marduk, pozva Kira po imenu˝ Marduk uzima Kira pod ruku, poziva ga da bude pastir svom narodu i daje mu vlast nad Vavilonom. Marduk govori Kiru da će činiti velika, plemenita dela oslobađajući narode. I zbog toga svi moramo biti zahvalni i obožavati Marduka.
The Hebrew writers in the Old Testament, you will not be surprised to learn, take a rather different view of this. For them, of course, it can't possibly by Marduk that made all this happen. It can only be Jehovah. And so in Isaiah, we have the wonderful texts giving all the credit of this, not to Marduk but to the Lord God of Israel -- the Lord God of Israel who also called Cyrus by name, also takes Cyrus by the hand and talks of him shepherding his people. It's a remarkable example of two different priestly appropriations of the same event, two different religious takeovers of a political fact.
Jevrejski pisci Starog zaveta, opet ništa čudno, gledaju na stvari malo drugačije. Za njih, naravno, to nikako ne biva Mardukovo delo. To može biti samo Jehova. I tako u Isaiji, imamo divne pasaže gde se sve zasluge pripisuju, ne Marduku već Gospodu bogu Izrailja, bogu Izrailja koji takođe proziva Kira, takođe hvata Kira pod ruku i govori mu o vođstvu. Ovo je odličan primer kako dva sveštenstva prisvajaju isti događaj, dva različita verska preuzimanja političkih zasluga.
God, we know, is usually on the side of the big battalions. The question is, which god was it? And the debate unsettles everybody in the 19th century to realize that the Hebrew scriptures are part of a much wider world of religion. And it's quite clear the cylinder is older than the text of Isaiah, and yet, Jehovah is speaking in words very similar to those used by Marduk. And there's a slight sense that Isaiah knows this, because he says, this is God speaking, of course, "I have called thee by thy name though thou hast not known me." I think it's recognized that Cyrus doesn't realize that he's acting under orders from Jehovah. And equally, he'd have been surprised that he was acting under orders from Marduk. Because interestingly, of course, Cyrus is a good Iranian with a totally different set of gods who are not mentioned in any of these texts.
Bog je, znamo, obično na strani jačeg. Pitanje je, koji je bog to bio? Ta rasprava onespokojava svakoga u 19-om veku ko shvata da je Biblija samo deo mnogo šireg sveta duhovnosti. I prilično je jasno da je valjak stariji od teksta Isaije, a opet, Jehova govori rečima jako sličnim onima koje je koristio Marduk. Postoji naznaka da je ovo poznato Isaiji, jer kaže, ovo bog govori, naravno: ˝...prozvah te imenom tvojim i prezimenom, premda me ne znaš.˝ Mislim da priznaje da Kir ne shvata da mu naređuje Jehova. Iznenadio bi se i da mu naređuje Marduk. Jer, interesantno, Kir je bio Iranac sa potpuno drugačijim panteonom bogova koji se nigde ne pominju.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
That's 1879. 40 years on and we're in 1917, and the cylinder enters a different world. This time, the real politics of the contemporary world -- the year of the Balfour Declaration, the year when the new imperial power in the Middle East, Britain, decides that it will declare a Jewish national home, it will allow the Jews to return. And the response to this by the Jewish population in Eastern Europe is rhapsodic. And across Eastern Europe, Jews display pictures of Cyrus and of George V side by side -- the two great rulers who have allowed the return to Jerusalem. And the Cyrus cylinder comes back into public view and the text of this as a demonstration of why what is going to happen after the war is over in 1918 is part of a divine plan. You all know what happened. The state of Israel is setup, and 50 years later, in the late 60s, it's clear that Britain's role as the imperial power is over. And another story of the cylinder begins.
To je 1879. 40 godina kasnije nalazimo se u 1917. i naš cilindar izranja u drugačiji svet. Real-politika tadašnjeg sveta, godina Balfurove deklaracije, godina kada nova imperijalna sila na Bliskom istoku, Britanija, odlučuje da proglasi domovinu za Jevreje, i dozvoli im povratak. Jevrejsko stanovništvo širom istočne Evrope je ushićeno. Širom istočne Evrope, Jevreji ističu slike Kira i Džordža Petog jednog uz drugog; dva velika vladara koja su im dozvolila povratak u Jerusalim. Kirov valjak se vraća u žižu javnosti i njegov tekst predstavlja dokaz da ono što se sprema posle okončanja rata 1918. predstavlja deo božijeg plana. Znate šta se desilo. Postavlja se temelj Izraela, i 50 godina kasnije, kasnih 60-ih, jasno je da je britanska imperijalna moć gotova. I nova priča počinje.
The region, the U.K. and the U.S. decide, has to be kept safe from communism, and the superpower that will be created to do this would be Iran, the Shah. And so the Shah invents an Iranian history, or a return to Iranian history, that puts him in the center of a great tradition and produces coins showing himself with the Cyrus cylinder. When he has his great celebrations in Persepolis, he summons the cylinder and the cylinder is lent by the British Museum, goes to Tehran, and is part of those great celebrations of the Pahlavi dynasty. Cyrus cylinder: guarantor of the Shah.
Britanija i SAD odlučuju da se region mora osigurati od komunizma, i supersila koju kreiraju za taj zadatak postaje Iran, šah. I tako šah izmišlja iransku istoriju, odnosno, povratak istoriji, postavlja sebe u središte velike tradicije kuje novac prikazujući sebe sa Kirovim valjkom. Kada pravi veliko slavlje u Persepolisu, traži Kirov valjak i Britanski muzej ga pozajmljuje, dospeva u Teheran, i biva deo veličanja dinastije Pahlavi. Kirov valjak garantuje za šaha.
10 years later, another story: Iranian Revolution, 1979. Islamic revolution, no more Cyrus; we're not interested in that history, we're interested in Islamic Iran -- until Iraq, the new superpower that we've all decided should be in the region, attacks. Then another Iran-Iraq war. And it becomes critical for the Iranians to remember their great past, their great past when they fought Iraq and won. It becomes critical to find a symbol that will pull together all Iranians -- Muslims and non-Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians, Jews living in Iran, people who are devout, not devout. And the obvious emblem is Cyrus.
10 godina kasnije, druga priča: Iranska revolucija, 1979. Islamska revolucija, nema više Kira; ne interesuje nas više ta istorija, interesuje nas islamski Iran; dok Irak, nova supersila koju smo postavili u region, napada. A onda novi Iransko-irački rat. Irancima postaje presudno da obnove sećanje na svoju veliku prošlost, svoju prošlost kada su se borili sa Irakom i pobedili. Postaje presudno da se pronađe simbol koji će okupiti sve Irance; Muslimane i one koji to nisu, Hrišćane, Zoroastrijance, iranske Jevreje, vernike i nevernike. Očigledan simbol je Kir.
So when the British Museum and Tehran National Musuem cooperate and work together, as we've been doing, the Iranians ask for one thing only as a loan. It's the only object they want. They want to borrow the Cyrus cylinder. And last year, the Cyrus cylinder went to Tehran for the second time. It's shown being presented here, put into its case by the director of the National Museum of Tehran, one of the many women in Iran in very senior positions, Mrs. Ardakani. It was a huge event. This is the other side of that same picture. It's seen in Tehran by between one and two million people in the space of a few months. This is beyond any blockbuster exhibition in the West. And it's the subject of a huge debate about what this cylinder means, what Cyrus means, but above all, Cyrus as articulated through this cylinder -- Cyrus as the defender of the homeland, the champion, of course, of Iranian identity and of the Iranian peoples, tolerant of all faiths. And in the current Iran, Zoroastrians and Christians have guaranteed places in the Iranian parliament, something to be very, very proud of.
I tako, kad Britanski muzej i teheranski Nacionalni muzej sarađuju, Iranci traže samo jednu stvar na zajam. To je jedini predmet koji žele. Traže na zajam Kirov valjak. Prošle godine, Kirov valjak odlazi u Teheran po drugi put. Vidimo kako ga postavlja na mesto direktor Nacionalnog muzeja, jedna od mnogih Iranki na važnim položajima, gospođa Ardakani. Bio je to ogroman događaj. Ovo je druga strana iste slike. U Teheranu ga je videlo nešto manje od 2 miliona ljudi u razmaku od nekoliko meseci. Ovo nadmašuje bilo koju hit izložbu na zapadu. Predmet je velike rasprave o značaju valjka i samog Kira, o Kiru kakvog nam opisuje valjak, Kiru kao braniocu domovine, predstavniku iranskog identiteta i iranskih naroda, tolerantnom prema svim verovanjima. U današnjem Iranu, Zoroastrijanci i Hrišćani imaju garantovana mesta u iranskom parlamentu, na šta su veoma ponosni.
To see this object in Tehran, thousands of Jews living in Iran came to Tehran to see it. It became a great emblem, a great subject of debate about what Iran is at home and abroad. Is Iran still to be the defender of the oppressed? Will Iran set free the people that the tyrants have enslaved and expropriated? This is heady national rhetoric, and it was all put together in a great pageant launching the return. Here you see this out-sized Cyrus cylinder on the stage with great figures from Iranian history gathering to take their place in the heritage of Iran. It was a narrative presented by the president himself.
Da bi videli ovaj predmet, hiljade iranskih Jevreja došlo je u Teheran. Postao je veliki simbol, predmet debate o tome šta je Iran danas. Da li je Iran još uvek branilac potlačenih? Hoće li Iran osloboditi narode koje su tirani porobili i opljačkali? Ovo je opojna nacionalistička retorika, i prikazana je u velikoj predstavi u čast povratka valjka. Vidite ovaj preveliki Kirov valjak na sceni sa značajnim ličnostima iz iranske istorije okupljenim da zauzmu svoja mesta u iranskoj tradiciji. Taj narativ gura sam predsednik.
And for me, to take this object to Iran, to be allowed to take this object to Iran was to be allowed to be part of an extraordinary debate led at the highest levels about what Iran is, what different Irans there are and how the different histories of Iran might shape the world today. It's a debate that's still continuing, and it will continue to rumble, because this object is one of the great declarations of a human aspiration. It stands with the American constitution. It certainly says far more about real freedoms than Magna Carta. It is a document that can mean so many things, for Iran and for the region.
Za mene, da odnesem ovaj predmet u Iran, prilika da to učinim znači da sam postao deo izvanredne rasprave vođene na najvišim nivoima o biću Irana, o različitostima Irana, i kako različite iranske istorije mogu oblikovati svet danas. Debata još traje, i nastaviće da bruji, jer ovaj predmet predstavlja jednu od velikih objava čovekovih stremljenja. Rame uz rame stoji sa američkim ustavom. Zaista govori daleko više o pravim slobodama od Magna Karte. To je dokument koji može značiti toliko mnogo stvari za Iran i region.
A replica of this is at the United Nations. In New York this autumn, it will be present when the great debates about the future of the Middle East take place. And I want to finish by asking you what the next story will be in which this object figures. It will appear, certainly, in many more Middle Eastern stories. And what story of the Middle East, what story of the world, do you want to see reflecting what is said, what is expressed in this cylinder? The right of peoples to live together in the same state, worshiping differently, freely -- a Middle East, a world, in which religion is not the subject of division or of debate.
Replika se nalazi u Ujedinjenim nacijama. Biće prisutan ove jeseni u Njujorku kad započnu rasprave o budućnosti Bliskog istoka. Želeo bih da završim upitavši vas koja je sledeća priča u kojoj će se pojaviti ovaj valjak. Pojaviće se, sigurno, u još mnogo bliskoistočnih priča. I koju priču o Bliskom istoku koju priču o svetu biste želeli da odrazi ono što je rečeno, što je zapisano na valjku? Pravo naroda na suživot u istoj zemlji, različito verujući, slobodno. Bliski istok, svet, u kome vera nije predmet podele ili rasprave.
In the world of the Middle East at the moment, the debates are, as you know, shrill. But I think it's possible that the most powerful and the wisest voice of all of them may well be the voice of this mute thing, the Cyrus cylinder.
Na Bliskom istoku su trenutno, rasprave zaglušujuće. Ali moguće je da je najmoćniji i najmudriji glas od svih ipak glas ove neme stvari. Kirovog valjka.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)