After one year without the voice of José Saramago, MPPM recalls with emotion his ever present legacy

A year ago we were hit - the MPPM and, above all, its great cause and reason for being, Palestine - by the physical loss of the voice of the most eminent of our founders, José Saramago.

This is an evocation and a felt tribute to his memory.

Saramago's voice - with a global reach through the art of the word, the clarity of the thought and the boldness of the positions - has been heard for long in favour of two of the greatest causes of humanity: liberation and peace.

Saramago always wanted to join his lucid, warm, firm voice to that of other portuguese in initiatives that paved the way for MPPM - Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and Peace in the Middle East - and especially in defence of the life and the future of the heroic and martyr Palestinian people.

It was so with the petition "No to Sharon's Wall" (2004); with the founding document of the MPPM (2005), which condemned "the imposition, by force, of unilateral solutions, of all forms of terrorism, both state terrorism and any other, of all the illegitimate military occupation "; with the appeal against the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and the war (2006); with the motion of repudiation of 40 years of occupation of the West Bank after the Six Days War (2007); with the denounce of Israeli invasion of Gaza (2008) and many other initiatives.

With real emotion we evoke those, among many contributions of a life so full of solidarity and creativity as was that of José Saramago, so that, in Portugal and in the World, was better defended and had the widest projection, the very just cause of the inalienable rights of Palestinian people and peace in the Middle East.

Today, more than ever, the example, the lesson, the work and the legacy of José Saramago is extremely topical and demanding. He lives and will live in the continuity of his - and our - struggle for the liberation of the Palestinian people, for a humanity freed from oppression, for a world at peace.