UNESCO Pays Tribute After Death of Levi-Strauss
New York, Nov 3 2009 4:10PM
The world has lost one of its greatest thinkers with the death of (http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41819&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html) Claude Lévi-Strauss, the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=29008&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html) said today, as he paid tribute to the renowned anthropologist.
Mr. Lévi-Strauss was “one of the
giants of the 20th century,” said Koïchiro Matsuura,
UNESCO Director-General, in a statement issued from the
agency’s headquarters in Paris following the announcement
of the Frenchman’s death at the age of 100.
“His
thoughts changed the way people perceived each other,
striking down such divisive concepts as race and opening the
way for a new vision based on recognition of the common bond
of humanity.
“We mourn his passing, which is a loss
to the whole world. But we celebrate his life, which was
devoted to enlightenment and understanding through
knowledge, built largely out of his insatiable curiosity
about his fellow human beings, which took him to some of the
most remote corners of the world and definitively changed
modern anthropology.”
Mr. Lévi-Strauss had worked
closely with UNESCO since its creation and his last public
appearance was for an event in Paris to mark the agency’s
60th anniversary in 2005.
“It was UNESCO’s great
privilege to have worked with this great man over many
decades,” Mr. Matsuura said.
Last year, the UNESCO
Courier devoted a special
edition to Mr. Lévi-Strauss in honour of his 100th
birthday, drawing on audiovisual archives, articles and
other publications written by the anthropologist over five
and a half
decades.
ENDS