Excerpts from the full speech of President al-Assad following the ceremony of awarding Dr. Al-Attar the Umayyad Medal of Honor

Excerpts from the full speech of President Bashar al-Assad following the ceremony of awarding Dr. Najah al-Attar, Vice President of the Republic, the Umayyad Medal of Honor

Ladies and gentlemen.. Distinguished attendees.. Granting a medal for national stature is a national event and not a personal one. Talking about it comes within the same national context,. Patriotism as a feeling, belonging and thought is built on the principles and concepts of the society that is formed of its individual persons, and because we cannot deal with the concept of patriotism separately from individuals, so we cannot separate the national aspect from the personal aspect of the national stature, as it merges with it and in the public’s view of it with the same logic.

When I speak today about the Vice-President of the Republic, Dr. Najah Al-Attar, I proceed from a mixture of a private vision far in time before I was a member in the field of public affairs, and from a public vision that is relatively close after I assumed responsibility and worked closely with her for more than two decades, including sixteen years in her current position..and I did not start from the seventies when she assumed her duties as a minister at the time, but from the eighties in the years of university studies, which is a stage in which thought, national awareness and national belonging among young people..that stage in which we were preoccupied with major titles such as steadfastness in the face of the siege…the siege of the eighties and the launch of resistance in the face of the Zionist invasion of Lebanon and addressing the signs of Arab political collapse before “Israel” and the West after Camp David, the peace agreement in Lebanon and its later fall, and the Golan uprisings against the occupier, and other topics that occupied our thinking and established our dialogues and formed the thought of our generation.

And if our interest in the internal situation was from the beginning, it was limited to titles and their details without the names of those concerned with them and those in charge of them.. It was not curious for us to know the name of an official, his role or his duties despite our knowledge of the roles of institutions, and their relationship to public issues of popular concern, but we knew that there is a Minister of Culture who earned the respect of Syrian society, contrary to what was prevalent at that time, and at this time, and perhaps at all times, a state of doubt and mistrust towards any official until proven otherwise.. no trust in him until proven otherwise.. This means that gaining respect does not come for free and does not come by merely avoiding mistakes as necessary…or by virtue of personal qualities alone despite their importance.. Rather, it is the result of great efforts, tangible achievements and continuous initiatives.. Gaining respect comes as a cumulative result of continuous actions that are not interrupted and are a continuous upward path that is not punctuated by a decline.

This path, which continued from the mid-seventies until the end of the duties of the Vice President of the Republic in March of the year 2000, did not change its direction, nor did its momentum recede, nor did it fade.. During the years that separated two national missions as Minister of Culture and Vice President of the Republic, we used to meet regularly on a continuous and frequent basis.. We have dialogue and consultation, and we discuss many topics and issues in various fields and interruptions without exception.. Six years outside positions did not discourage her from working and did not diminish from the abundance of her ideas, or curb her impulse to achieve and devote her time, thought and effort to the national public interest.. In this comparison, transient and indirect between the different stages lies the difference between the one who takes the position .. and the one who adds to it .. between the one who changes the position and the one who imposes his ideals and values on that position .. between the one who grows up in the position and the one who increases the position.

Here arises the question that may seem out of context or out of place, did the Vice President deserve the Medal for her professional and national career and for her cultural and political path… Some may be surprised by this question, which seems self-evident and say: If not all of these reasons, motives and justifications, then what would it be.. The medal is usually awarded on the basis of the achievements a person has made towards his country and society.. but the achievements are in themselves medals that the holder holds and Dr. Najah Al-Attar already holds many medals that embody many achievements during her national career.. The medals, that are made by a person himself, are more valuable and higher than any medals granted to him.

I conclude my speech, dear audience, by saying: Today, the medal is not awarded to Dr. Najah Al-Attar, Vice President of the Republic, to give her a prestige or respect that she already possessed, but rather for the medal to resource itself with the more of Dr. Al-Attar values, prestige and respect.. Thank you.