UN General Assembly
2013

individuals, nations and peoples of the world — whatever flag they pledge to honour, whatever god they worship and whatever ideas they embrace — can feel part of one big family, the human family. That requires many things of us, but none so important as holding an open, free and respectful dialogue among ourselves, a dialogue that, far from fearing dissent, values it and is nourished by it, because it understands that only when the various nations and cultures join forces will we also see our opportunities expand. We are living in a world that is very different from the one that witnessed the birth of the Organization and of other agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank after the end of the Second World War. This new world is not the result of war or of the ideological struggles waged during the second half of the twentieth century; rather, it is the child of a revolution in knowledge, science, technology and information that has been taking place for some time