|
Prince Aly Khan
Permanent
Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations.
 We are gathered here
today to pay our last respects to Ahmed Shah Bokhari. A voice which
spoke with unsurpassed eloquence for the inalienable rights of men and
nations has been stilled. A heart that led him to strive for the
enlargement of human freedom beats no more.
You, Mr. Secretary -
General, have said that Ahmed Shah Bokhari reflected in his personality
the possibility of synthesis of great traditions on which it is the task
of our generation to build one world.
His whole life and work
reflected his passion for erasing barriers which unhappily divide our
world. He strove against barriers of prejudice which estrange man from
man and barriers of domination which divide nation from nation. With his
favourite Urdu poet Ghalib, Professor Bokhari believed that humanity
could be united by true faith of universal brotherhood.1
Having drunk at the
fountain of spiritual and poetical culture of the East he had opened his
heart to the civilization of the West. In him two elements were so fused
as to form one unified integrated personality. Nothing, therefore, could
have been more fitting than that in the final phase of his career it
should have been given to him to playa role in the United Nations - a
role for which he was so naturally qualified and to which he so deeply
aspired.
It was on this world
stage that he aided so eloquently with what a great poet has called the
liberation war of humanity. It was here that his vibrant voice rang for
the highest aspirations of free men.
Pakistan takes pride in
her gifted son and rejoices in his work. It says to him as he is about
to take his last journey on earth: "Well done, thou good and faithful
servant."
Like all things mortal
Ahmed Shah Bokhari has passed away. As the Holy Quran says: "There
remaineth but the shining countenance of the exalted and glorious God.”
May his soul rest in
peace.
Dag Hammarskjold
Secretary - General, United Nations.
"This is what we are
seeking: a new comradeship, a universal fellowship, a world communion, a
deeper understanding, and, if, I may say so the peace that passeth all
understanding."
Those are the words with
which Ahmed Bokhari ended a speech on the relations between East and
West. Those are words in which he crystallized his dreams about a
happier life for all mankind. He was a shy and reticent man. His words
were carefully chosen as a precise and truthful expression of his
deepest feelings.
In the same speech he
painted also his own portrait in words as eloquent in their restraint as
those I just quoted. He said: "I cannot shut my eyes entirely to the
light that I received from the skies, the rather distant skies, under
which I was born. Much less, however, can I deny the many benedictions
that have fallen upon me from other skies during the rest of my life
when I strove and struggled for maturity."
Thus he characterized
himself as spiritually coming of age in the Western world but as still
being lighted by the skies of his homeland. To everybody who got to know
him, it became apparent that his heart always remained close to the
world where he was born and where his forefathers had guided the
destinies of their people for centuries. But his friends likewise
realized that his mind mastered the subtlest shades of western
civilization and thought.
Ahmed Bokhari’s
personality, as described by himself and as known to us all, gave him a
unique capacity to see and live and master many of the great problems of
our time. When he turned from the world of humane letters to diplomacy,
he was from the very beginning equipped with the most essential of its
instruments, a broad and deep human understanding and the tolerance
which is born out of such understanding. I wish on this occasion to let
us hear his own voice and therefore I would, with your permission, quote
what he wrote about the problems of the service to which he devoted the
last four years of his life:
Below
every political tussle there seems to be a lurking sense of geography or
colour or race adding to the temperature of the conflict. Such
collisions can mean nothing but loss to the world heritage. In order to
forge a new synthesis - something that emergent peoples have been
attempting on their own for many decades - the United Nations can and
must provide the great alchemy. This requires still further enlargement
of our concept of the world organization; regarding it, to put it in
other words, not merely as a step forward in our political thinking but
as a step forward in the great human adventure of which politics, even
international politics, is but a part. It is by no means rare to find
people in the United Nations who carry this concept with them and
evaluate their own labors and the achievement of others by this
touchstone.
I wish that, in his
optimism, he was right in saying that it is not rare to find people who
carry this concept and are guided by it, but I know that, in truth and
spirit, he was one of them. For that reason he will be remembered among
us as a man in the front line in the efforts to "create a new
comradeship, a universal fellowship, a world communion" and the deeper
understanding of which he spoke.
May he
rest in "the peace that passeth all understanding." |
