Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni May 2006 ceremony in Delphi. Cultural Route of the Olive Tree

 

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 Dearest friends and colleagues

 

« Everywhere, stretching until infinity, massive, huge olive trees hollowed out with deep crevices, dented, twisted, crackled, disembowelled, grippingly evoking monstrous gnomes, the faces giggling and fixed with wooden expressions caught in these trees, like heroes transformed into plants and immobilised half-way through their metamorphosis. »

 « Partout, à l'infini, des oliviers massifs, énormes, ventrus ou creusés de fissures profondes, bosselés, tordus, craquelés, éventrés, évoquant de façon saisissante des gnomes monstrueux, la face ricanante et figée d'esprits des bois englués en ces arbres, comme des héros transformés en plantes et immobilisés à mi-chemin de leur métamorphose. »  

It is in this way that the French writer Jacques Lacarrière, this lover of Greece who recently passed away, evoked in his own rich and strange language the sea of olive trees, which stretch along the foot of Mount Parnassus. 

This wonderful image bears witness to the ambiguity of our imaginary perception of the Mediterranean and of the current complexity of this « first sea » that, as Predrag Matvejevic reminds us in several of his articles, is also a sea-border « stretching from East to West, a strait separating Europe from Africa and from Asia Minor ».

In effect, when we mention the olive tree, we are actually touching in the deepest sense upon a fundamental symbol of Mediterranean civilisations, something that has come to be known as a universal symbol of peace.

In this way, just as we would do with the vine or wheat, we are referring to an essential dietary constituent for these peoples, who settled upon its shores, and therefore to a substantial part of their daily routine that has become a symbol for life, exchange and sharing.

Nevertheless, we cannot forget that the olive tree, its fruit and above all the oil, which is extracted from it, are of sacred importance to the three monotheist religions. Manifested for over three millennia, the anointment ritual is one of the basic rites of consecration to God for Judaism and Christianity. The Koran (24:35) uses olive oil as a parable for the light that Allah provides in the form of a « lamp » lit with the « oil of a blessed tree, an olive tree that is neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil is so bright that it would alight, even if no fire were to touch it ».

However, if I am to believe in Greek mythology, the olive tree was also chosen by Zeus in his arbitration between Pallas Athena, symbol of wisdom and also Goddess of war, and Poseidon, God of the sea, to decide who should possess the Attic. On the one hand, the horse sprung from the foam of the sea, on the other the birth of a tree that Zeus considered the most useful gift bestowed upon mortals.

The symbol of peace that was chosen for the happiness of mankind was born from the symbol for war, the spear of Athena.

In the spirit of those promoting the Routes of the Olive Tree, a cultural itinerary that brings us together in a landscape that is just as magnificent 6000 years after the domestication of this wild tree, I cannot insist enough upon the fact that the spirit of dialogue and of peace between the countries of the Mediterranean is an essential pursuit.

When I reflect upon the journeys that started up in 1999 in the ancient town of Pylos, the location of the discovery of the tablets bearing the ideogram of the olive tree that has been adopted to mark these modern routes, I am impressed to see how many borders have been franchised along the thousands of kilometres travelled.

Borders that have recently been reopened between the Balkan countries, or conflicting borders – I am referring to Algeria or Morocco – that this symbol itself has helped to franchise, or even places marked by gestures of appeasement, such as the planting of an olive tree in the town of Ar-Rutbah in Iraq, a few days before the start of the conflict.

I cannot forget that the remarkable team who created this itinerary has also managed to carry out scientific identification all along the routes, as well as photographic coverage, the testimony and results of which can be seen in the publications that have been produced.  But this work has been accompanied by a sportive adventure and a strong will to open routes, all of which is in the spirit of the values held by the Council of Europe.

Behind this symbolic aspect of which we are all aware and this marvellous work, for which I must personally thank Mr Georges Karabatos, President of the Foundation, and Mrs Marinella Katsilieri, Scientific Director, we also, by means of a measure that intends to develop synergies between tourism and local sustainable development, touch upon the protection and development of heritage in all its dimensions.

There is an integral dimension with regards to landscape for all countries involved, from the Mediterranean coast to the Tuscan countryside, from the great plains of Castile-La Mancha to the region of Al-Andalus, countries that, in agreement with the European Landscape Convention, work together towards this « landscape intelligence » and to the practical implementation of a landscape democracy desired by all of the countries who signed the Convention.

There is also a tangible aspect that bears witness to the technology devised to extract oil, to conserve or transport it.

It is equally very important for us that this itinerary has been implemented from the beginning by harbour towns and chambers of commerce who were hoping that modern agricultural and commercial activity would win acclaim in the fields of heritage conservation: genetic heritage of ancient varieties of olive tree, cultural heritage of historical mills or oil mills, not forgetting the intangible heritage that is know-how, the necessity of which we should not lose sight of, festivals and traditions that continue to bring together villages and agricultural communities around this fundamental tree.

The programme of cultural itineraries of the Council of Europe, created by our organisation at the end of the eighties in a spirit of dialogue through travel, has continued for almost 20 years to fuel initiatives, which renew and enrich the subject. The Routes of the Olive Tree help us to « rethink the Mediterranean of two borders » as Fernand Braudel once said.

This « re-reading » of the landscapes which are written in history as of one of the cradles of Europe, a reading, which invites us to travel and to journey, compliments other initiatives already recognized in this programme, from those that reach the world of the Sefarade, to the history of the Phoenicians, they themselves propagators of the olive tree, to the dialogue initiated along the routes of Al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula, to Maghreb and even in Black Africa, or those that are currently being studied in the Byzantine world, the cultural corridors of southeast Europe, the river and maritime routes in the Balkans.

An itinerary that today receives an award is therefore not an isolated route. It contributes on the contrary to fulfilling the living tale of European history that Europeans, wishing to concretely display their identity, present to other Europeans who want to rediscover their common roots.

Such has rightly been the challenge of this programme from the beginning, and it also explains its continuity and ever-increasing success.

It therefore remains for me to express my thanks to the Managing Direction in charge of Education, Culture and Heritage, Young People and Sport, to all those who, together with the European Institute for Cultural Routes hosted by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, make it possible to accompany and to bring to fruition, with those groups suggesting new projects, increasingly rich and pertinent proposals with regards to the values upheld by our organisation. 

The complementary nature of regional projects that I brought to mind earlier is also realized through the active conservation of the memory of the programme, the analysis of all the initiatives that are followed on a day to day basis in Luxembourg and meetings organised by the Institute between those people proposing the projects.

The bestowal of an award of Grand Cultural Itinerary with a new theme not only establishes the dimension, ambition and quality thereof, but also the imagination and sometimes the immense boldness of those who proposed the projects.

If, for those who make it live and develop, it is a question of consecration, and also a starting point for the great adventure that ensues within the family of cultural routes of the Council of Europe.

I therefore have the great pleasure of handing over to you, on the very ground where your initiative was born and where it has since taken root, the award of « Grand Itinerary of the Council of Europe ».

Photos : Greek Ministry of Culture and MTP.