My fellow citizens, dear friends,

We have gone through another holy month of Ramadan. We reinforced our spiritual values; remembered to empathize with the “have-nots,” some of whom are deprived of even most basic necessities; proved, first and foremost to ourselves, that we had the will power to conquer ourselves and sought God’s blessing by contemplation and self-reflection.  We did our annual self-reckoning and are ready to celebrate yet another Feast of Ramadan which gives us the opportunity to refresh our sentiments of love, mutual understanding, brotherhood, friendship, peace, and most important of all, forgiveness.

Personally, I am highly excited in anticipation to be able to celebrate, together with you, the Feast of Ramadan for the first time in this country that embraces us with its beautiful nature and warm people.

The Feast of Ramadan is one of the most important occasions to remember, embrace our family and human values and instil them in the next generation. In the same time, this Feast provides for reinforcement of social peace, ending of petty resentments and silly arguments over insignificant matters and for strengthening our social, family and neighbourly ties.  It would be such a blessing if this Feast of Ramadan, imbued with human and spiritual meaning, were an occasion for us to realize the superficiality of the differences setting us apart, for us to remember that all of us are identified with the same soil and for us to embrace and never forget that we all are, before, after and above everything else, human.

I firmly believe that this Feast, which you may be celebrating alone or with your loved ones, far away from our motherland, will give us reason to beckon a brighter future, in solidarity, unison and brotherhood, with all our compatriots who belong to the same land.

With these sentiments, I felicitate our Feast of Ramadan and wish to celebrate, together, in health, peace and happiness many more feasts, with brotherhood reborn, peace prevailed, joyful or not, colourful or bland, still jolly, still full of hope and despite everything, full of love.