Santiago Castellà congratulates the Nobel Peace prize for the prime minister of Ethiopia
Senator Santiago Castellà, full academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) and general secretary of the Pro-Royal European Academy of Doctors Foundation, published in the October 12 edition of the Catalan newspaper “Diari de Tarragona” the article “África llama a tu puerta” (Africa knocks on your door), in which he praises the decision of the Swedish Academy to award the Nobel Peace prize to the young prime minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed Ali, for promoting the peace agreement between his country and the neighboring Eritrea.
“After the independence of Eritrea in 1993 and the first armed conflicts, a latent tension made us predict that we would live another humanitarian crisis at any time. And against the damn predestinations that always speak to us in Africa of failures and impossible, we learn that curses they are defeated, and that the histories of history don’t always end badly”, he points out in relation to a ruler who, bypassing all the conventions of African geopolitics and history, has succeeded in having these two countries finally live in peace.
An award that, for Castellà, has also gone against the tide, since all the bets of the experts pointed towards the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and her crusade against climate change. “I don’t know if the British bookmakers -a certain statistical indicator of global mood- had bets on the subject: but if 2018 was just feminist -to reward Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and Kurdyazidi Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence-, this year 2019 all seemed to indicate that it touched sustainability; this year it smelled of climate change and had the name of those new generations that will come”, he says in the article.
Dr. Santiago Castellà
In this competition of media trends, Castellà congratulates on the attention that the new call from Africa has deserved, a young and diverse continent that has much to say in the future of the planet. “Stealthily Africa knocks on the door of the global world with much to contribute. When we have to rethink in depth our relationship with the planet and our relationships with ourselves, the call from Africa, which is reborn from post-colonial ashes, returns us to know that we are the authors of the story that is about to be written. Welcome this Nobel and welcome Africa and Peace”, he concludes.
Doctor in Public International Law from the University of Barcelona, Castellà has worked for 25 years as a professor in the Department of Public Law of the Rovira y Virgili University, a university where he has also been dean of the Faculty of Legal Sciences, vicechancellor for External and International Relations, director of the Master in Environmental Law, the Master in Global Immigration Management, the Master in International Development Cooperation and the Master in International Criminal Justice. He currently combines his responsibility as director of the Chair Tarragona Smart Mediterranean City with the direction of the Master in Smart City Managenent of Zigurat-University of Barcelona.
