Krauze quoted Spanish philosopher and humanist José Ortega y Gasset when he described dis-cordialike a heart that splits in two: “When dissension is radical, everything is annihilated. Nothing is common between the contenders. The State is destroyed, and with it all validity of ideas, of norms, of structures on which to rely.”

On the other hand, the opposite of dis-cordia is con-cordia. Quoting a passage in Cicero’s life in which, faced with the crumbling of the republic in the year 50 B.C., he exclaimed: “Concord is lacking”. Enrique went on to say that: “That is also, it seems to me, the sign of our times: ‘Concord is lacking’. We are living in the Age of discord.”

Enrique Krauze and other of our speakers reminded us about the importance of the “Trinity of freedoms”: the freedoms of expression, to publish and to read.

Global human rights defender from Ukraine, who is founder and head of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Center for Civil Liberties, Oleksandra Matviichuk, was another of our keynote speakers.

She was born in the Soviet Union, where freedom to publish was severely restricted. After the Soviet Empire collapsed, she had the chance to meet some Soviet dissidents who had been released from prison. “These intellectuals had no other tools, but just their own words […]. They were jailed, killed, tortured, subjected to forcible psychological treatment. But they never gave up.”

Enrique Krauze affirmed that “…the planet is mired in discord. Liberal democracy and republican legality are by principle the only historical institutions that believe in basic concord and live for and from concord. Will they survive in Europe? Ukraine carries the torch.”

Oleksandra Matviichuk asserted that “Authoritarian countries [in which, according to Swedish think tank V-Dem Institute, 75% of world’s population live] consider people as objects of control and deny them rights and freedoms. Democracies consider people, their rights and freedoms to be of the highest value. There is no way to negotiate this. The existence of the free world always threatens dictatorships with the loss of power.”

But what is the importance of books and reading, of the freedoms of expression, to publish and to read in this difficult context? It is crucial, and therefore publishers have a significant mission to fulfill.

Slovenian professor Miha Kovač was also a speaker at the congress, and he affirmed that: “Higher-level reading is our most powerful tool for analytic and critical thinking. It exercises metacognition and cognitive patience, expands our conceptual capacities, trains cognitive empathy and perspective-taking – social skills which are indispensable for informed citizens in a democratic society.”

One of the ways autocracies maintain their dominance is by controlling the narrative. Remember Orwell’s “newspeak”? There is only one way of thinking, and any trace of dissent has to be eradicated. That is also why governments, in a concerning trend all over the world, seek to control the content of basic education textbooks, implementing a single textbook policy, which has had catastrophic results.

What can we do? Enrique Krauze suggests that we need to publish books. “So, the lesson is clear. The world remains a sad spectacle of discord. And in the face of it, the power of reason is limited. But we have no other recourse than reason to understand the old and new passions and thus free ourselves from them. Reason is a universal therapy, though it works slowly, with a gradual effect. We must adhere to it. And we must defend individual freedom against the barbarism of our age.”

Oleksandra Matviichuk remains optimistic, in spite of the harsh circumstances she has to confront: “Nevertheless, these dramatic times provide us an opportunity to reveal the best in us – to be courageous, to fight for freedom, to take the burden of responsibility, to make difficult but right choices, to help each other. Now more than ever, we keenly feel what does it mean to be human.”

“And I still have hope. Hope it is not confidence that everything will be fine, but a deep understanding that all our efforts have a meaning.”

Let us join Enrique and Oleksandra in maintaining hope while we continue to fight for our freedoms. It is definitely worth it.