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Why Us? |
News & Events
October 12, 2006
LSE and the Hellenic LSE Alumni Association Gala event 2006 in celebration of the Elias Paraskevas floor - Dimitris Paraskevas opening remarks
1. Please permit me to start by paying tribute, in accordance with the protocol, to:
The Former President of the Hellenic Rebublic, Judge Christos Sartzetakis, Government Ministers to include fellow alumnus Professor George Alogoskoufis, The Minister of Economy and a great supporter of our School, The Deputy Minister, Petros Doukas, 18 Ambassadors, The Former Prime-Minister Kostas Mitsotakis, Members of the Parliament to include Former Greece's Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou, the President of the Athens Bar Association, Dimitris Paxinos, the Governor of the Bank of Greece, Dr N Garganas, Chairman of the Hellenic Observatory's advisory board and extremely supportive fellow alumnus, the Chairman of the National Bank of Greece, Takis Arapoglou, General Secretaries of Ministries, Special Secretaries to include the Secretary for Privatisation, Loukas Papazoglou, distinguished academics, professionals, representatives of various authorities and bodies, many of the country's leaders in politics, business, academia and the arts, business associates, personal friends and -foremost- my beloved mother. Unfortunately, despite how much I would want, I can not name all of you our distinguished guests. Please excuse me for that.
2. It is a great privilege to be opening today's event and to be speaking about the Hellenic Elias Paraskevas floor at the New Academic Building of the London School of Economics in London. This privilege is accompanied by a sense of great responsibility as such a distinguished audience of approximately 1,150 people has gathered here today for the occasion. Thank you for being with us. For all you, especially for those of you who came from overseas, the United States, several European countries, and also from our neighbourhood here in the Balkans including HRH Crown Prince Alexander and HRH Crown Princess Katherine of Yugoslavia , representatives from many many of Turkey's leading law firms and many others. I would like to highlight that I wish this event to be not only for our School, our Alumni Association, and the memory of my father who passed away 15 years ago these days. This Hellenic Elias Paraskevas Floor and this event are about values, our values, the value of education, about our country whose flag will be waving in the very heart of London, on the top floor of an academic institution of such calibre. It is also about our justice system. This Floor and this event is a positive, strong enough, I hope, message that the majority of the people in this country are honest, ethical, hardworking and decent people of character. This is our strong collective answer to all those things that we have heard about in recent days.
3. I would like to congratulate warmly for what promises to be a wonderful event our speakers, our panellists who came from London for the event, my fellow board members, and each and everyone who worked hard for this evening to be the success it is. Especially, I would like to thank Nat, Jo and Mathew from LSE alumni relations and Angela and Niki from my office who worked day and night for the event to be a success. A special thank you to our sponsors EFG Private Banking, Easy Cruises, and its founder Sir Stelios Hadjioannou who came from London to be here with us tonight and the Onassis Foundation, all led by fellow alumni, DIAGEO who provided us the drinks and the newspapers BHMA and NEA, our media sponsors. Our sponsors are true social entrepreneurs and I am glad to see many others coming forward bringing a huge commitment and excitement to the task of helping our association to do what it is supposed to do, provide a platform for meaningful debate and development of strong personal and professional friendships.
4. Our honoured guests, it is by now apparent that our world has changed and that it is going to change even more dramatically than ever before. As leading economists predict, in just a few years (by the year 2040) China will be the largest Economy in the world, followed by a thin margin by the US (Now 1). Germany (now 3rd), Britain (now 5th) and France (now 6th) will be overtaken in the ranking of the world's top ten economies by that time. New countries with great, but to a large extent, different cultures like India (now not in the top 10), Mexico (now not top 10), Russia (now not in the top 10) and Brazil (now 10th) will overcome - at least financially - our European allies.
5. It is a universal belief that we seem to be moving towards the new global reality with uncertain steps that include uncontrollable conflicts. Dramatic changes in the way we live and work that relate to each other and the rest of the world threaten the values by which we use to live our lives. Leading intellectuals from around the world fear that cultural, economic and religious differences will widen and will lead to more instability around the world.
6. The only way for us Europeans to continue to flourish in this new different smaller and riskier world is to be united, competitive, to open up our borders and to not be afraid to trade with the rest of the world. In particular here in this country, we should not be afraid to welcome foreign investment and foreign talent, to seriously strengthen competition and break any state or private sector monopolies. We have nothing to fear as we are proven leaders wherever we compete on an international scale, for example in shipping. In addition, perhaps even more importantly, we should strive to bring values and ethics back to the top of our priorities. These values which were born here in this very city just around the corner 2,500 years ago in what is called the "cradle of western civilization.” This proud history we Greeks tend to sometimes overate but - more often - sadly totally forget.
7. In this changing environment, education should undoubtedly be the centre of economic policy making for the future. It is the only vision in many leaders' views that will work in the 21st century. The challenge is to link investment to reform not just more money but a fundamentally better education system accelerating the improvement in standards and opportunities and give all our young people the chance to succeed.
8. Today we are celebrating our School's New Academic Building but of course what is in a school is far more important than the buildings themselves. I greatly admire what the School is accomplishing under the directorship of Sir Howard Davies and have witnessed the material expansion of its capabilities not only in the School's general academic program but also in the program of the Hellenic Observatory, led by Professor Kevin Featherstone.
9. Working through the University all of you have applied truly extraordinary intelligence, energy and heart to improve the lives of fellow humans. You have done it without regard to colour, gender, religion, or geography.
10. I consider my self privileged to have had a father who was widely regarded as the "Dean of Greek Lawyers" and who spent much (almost all) of his time and energy in serving others. I can assure you it was not easy to have as a father, a man who entered university at the age of 14. As a young child I did not speak with him about Mickey Mouse or any other of the Walt Disney characters. We discussed complex matters, like philosophy, and comparative religious issues. When I talked to him about my heroes, he suggested that I should admire Mahatma Gandi. "Who, the guy with the funny dress" I asked. This huge intellectual gap sometimes led me to funny reactionary extremes. And it took me many years to abandon. I am proud of what my father did and I feel responsible to attempt -in my own way- to do the same. I am delighted, honoured and proud to add a tiny bit to the resources with which our School carries on this blessed work. I believe that we need to change our world. I believe that we need to keep our dreams alive. In order to do that all of us need to give something back to society. We may not realise it but simply because we live in Europe we are privileged. The world is not about each one of us - it is about all of us.
I hope that all of you will support the efforts of the School, the Hellenic Observatory and our Association. I hope that you will support the efforts of any organisation that plays a meaningful role in society and in the world. Thank you very much for sharing with me these special personal moments.
Dimitris Paraskevas
| © Elias Paraskevas Attorneys 1933 |
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