This meeting has provided Member States with the opportunity to pool their wisdom in order to help the affected countries and reflects the human spirit of togetherness in times of difficulties and disasters.

Magris s novel is not only an important literary achievement it also has a deep connection to the dangers that we face now, particularly the wave of fanaticism, from Mumbai to Oslo, in the name of a holy war against the other. Are all the extremists searching for a new coherence, for a lost illusion of togetherness and a new hope of resurrection?

Our need for connection, our need for separateness, or our need for security and adventure, or our need for togetherness and for autonomy, and if you think about the little kid who sits on your lap and who is cozily nested here and very secure and comfortable, and at some point all of us need to go out into the world to discover and to explore.