The “Conquering freedom” award was awarded for the jubilee 20th time by the Foundation “Maja Maršićević Tasić“ to Vesna Rakić Vodinelić
“Anyone who receives such an award today must ask themselves if they deserved it. We have often heard and read that freedom is just an illusion, that it is only extremely accessible. Maybe. However, the feeling of freedom is real. We have all inhaled it, lived it. The feeling of freedom is important. Because it makes the individual happy, and the society capable of hope and building its utopia. There is no recipe, no roadmap for winning freedom. I followed the narrow path of trying to win the rule of law. I am convinced that the rule of law frees the state, and to a certain extent the society, from despotic arbitrariness. An impersonal law equal for all is freedom from tyrannical arrogance, which is never equal for all and it never pays attention to pre-existing rules. It plays its’ game, being the only one who knows the rules. That is no freedom. With many of my colleagues, I spoke and wrote about the rule of law as freedom. Today, there is no rule of law here. There is even less of it than there has ever been during my long professional life. I did not succeed, I did not win, I did not experience the rule of law. I will not experience it; I don’t have that much time in front of me anymore. If there is anything that makes me deserve this high recognition for freedom, it is my boring persistence. Annoying persistence, which will not calm down in the future, “said Vesna Rakić Vodinelić on the occasion of winning the award.
The “Conquering Freedom” award, which is given to women deserving of the affirmation of democracy, human rights and tolerance in political communication, gathers the winners of the award every year, including Olja Bećković, Goranka Matić, Biljana Srbljanović, Ružica Đinđić, Borka Pavićević, Mirjana Karanović, Verica Baracć, Aida Ćorović, Brankica Stanković and Danica Vučenić.
The “Conquering Freedom” award is given every year on September 24th – the day of the election victory over Milošević in 2000. The “Maja Maršićević Tasić” Foundation was founded in 2001 with the idea of preserving the memory of the reform journalist and politician who won freedom, and to promote the efforts of all women who still do that today.
