A man needs some time for relaxation in the relentless struggle for survival. By withdrawing briefly from the struggle he replenishes the energy required to face the battle of life. This is what celebrated French pop singer Nana Mouskouri did when she felt exhausted after years of battling in the arena of art and music.
Further, she was suffering from a serious illness. This wonderful woman of Greek origin has sold 200 million copies of her albums in the past 40 years. She then severed all her links with the world and went to a place to lead a solitary life so that she could forget her physical pain and mental anguish.
Nana’s struggle with disease began on Oct. 25, 1993, the same day UNICEF nominated her as cultural ambassador to succeed the late actress, Audrey Hepburn. Since then she has been a mother to all children everywhere in the world who suffer from poverty, the horrors of war and the ravages of disease.
Nana has never viewed her UNICEF assignment as an honorary title; she has spent her time traveling from Vietnam to Colombia, from Yugoslavia to Africa, wherever children are suffering. She fights poverty and injustice with the full support of her artist friends around the world. She supports musical programs in aid of humanitarian programs sponsored by the UNICEF for poor children. A single musical event in New York in 1998 raised $1 million.
One may wonder where this extraordinary woman gets the willpower to fight her own terrible illness. Maybe its source is the painful memories of her own childhood in Crete and Athens, a childhood filled with fear, hunger and poverty. At the age of six, she and her family were forced to flee into the mountains and later to France to escape the Nazi occupiers of Greece. The young Greek girl eventually became a celebrated French pop singer known as Nana.
Despite her fame, success and luxurious life, she did not forget the suffering, hunger and disease which haunt the children of the world. She has struggled with her own illness while she bears the burden of the diseases of the whole world on her back. Let us pray for her.
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A young reader introduced himself as an unemployed man in a letter he wrote to me recently: "I know that you are very busy and I don’t want you to waste your time by reading a letter from an unemployed young man.
"Not long ago, however, I read a letter from a young woman who was also having trouble finding a job. I particularly noticed her introduction of herself as a member of ‘the party of the unemployed.’ I don’t think this is the right name for the multitudes of jobless people in our country because the problem of unemployment has grown beyond all proportions. I think it would be more fitting to call the unemployed community a corporation or society of the unemployed. Old members of this society should be ranked as senior unemployed while some others might be called working members or non-working members depending on their status, just as the members of a club are graded and given titles.
"I passed the secondary school examination with outstanding grades. With great ambitions and dreams, I applied for admission to an institute of higher education. I was refused enrollment in the university because I submitted the application too late. I was disappointed and wept over my broken dreams. My next move was to look for a job. I knocked on several doors but no one gave me a job. At last, I have decided to be a writer.
"Please let me know your honest opinion of my literary style in this letter? Do you think I could become a good writer? Or should I abandon the idea without wasting any more time? I am sorry to bother you but I trust your judgment and advice. That is why I am writing to you."
If this young man is really serious about becoming a writer, he will have to struggle patiently for at least 10 more years. Literary skill can be mastered only after continuing and painful toil, and there is no guarantee that he will finally achieve his goal. I wrote to him: "My advice to you is to take the writing as a hobby with another job to earn your daily bread. Moreover, you alone are to be blamed for missing your opportunity to go to the university. In this world of competition, you should strive very hard to get another opportunity for more education or employment. I agree, of course, with your plan to found a party for the unemployed which is sure to surpass the influence of the traditional parties of labor or conservatives. I might also join the new party in the near future because I am tired of working. It is a great irony of life that while some people search for work, others dream of stopping."
