Super star Shah Rukh was at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday where he was honoured with the WEF’s 24th Crystal Award. He, along with actor Cate Blanchett and singer-songwriter Elton John, received the trophy for the efforts they put into raising awareness on human rights issues.
Super star Shah Rukh was at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday where he was honoured with the WEF’s 24th Crystal Award. He, along with actor Cate Blanchett and singer-songwriter Elton John, received the trophy for the efforts they put into raising awareness on human rights issues.
The actor, who has been working for the cause through his non-profitable Meer Foundation, took to Twitter to share the news with fans and followers.
“Honoured to receive the WEF’s 24th Crystal Award, together with Elton John and Cate Blanchett. My fan moment!” he tweeted.
However, it was his heartfelt speech at the event, in which he talked about women and child rights that had the world’s top policy makers and executives cheering for the actor.
“I am genuinely and deeply grateful for this honour,” he began. “It is indeed a privilege to be in the company of two phenomenal and extraordinary human beings and talent, Cate Blanchett and Sir Elton John.”
He went on to say, “Actors are renowned narcissists. No matter how much we pretend not to believe in external beauty, we tend to be obsessed by it one way or the other. And perhaps being surrounded by this obsession of beauty, a few years ago I came across a lady who had been brutalized by an acid attack. It kind of changed my life or my perspective of it, at least. To disfigure a woman by throwing acid on her face, to me, is one of the basest, crudest acts of subjugation imaginable. At the source of it lies the view that a woman does not have the right to assert her choice, say no to the advances of a man or a group of people. And yet, each of the women I met, I found within them the courage to move on with their lives and reject the idea of victimhood. What struck me most about them was this – what was done to them only made them braver, stronger and able to free themselves, to make the choices everyone around them was telling them they could not make or should not make. From them I have learnt how courage can catalyze victimhood into heroism, how solidarity – rather than charity – enables the human will to overcome, how equality is not a concept but a truth that encompasses all living beings, how service of others is not a choice anymore for any of us but it is a duty that all of us must fulfill in the name of humankind.”
The actor also reflected on his journey through Meer Foundation and what he learnt from the lives of these heroic women over the years. Towards the end of his speech he thanked his sister, his wife and his little daughter for bringing him up well and teaching him the value of requesting, sometimes imploring and begging a yes from a woman, instead of forcing it upon her.
