The following are excerpts from an advance text of this afternoon's address by Carlos Fuentes:

Some time ago, I was travelling in the state of Morelos in Central Mexico, looking for the birthplace of Emiliano Zapata, the village of Anenecuilco.

I stopped on the way and asked a Campexino, a laborer of the fields, how far it was to that village.

He answered me: "If you had left at daybreak, you would be there now."

This man had an internal clock which marked the time of his own personality and of his own culture.

For the clocks of all men and women, of all civilizations, of all histories, are not set at the same hour.

One of the wonders of our menaced globe is the variety of its experiences, its memories and its desires.

Any attempt to impose a uniformed politics on this diversity is like a prelude to death.

Lech Walesa is a man who started out a day-break, (at the hour) when the history of Poland demanded that the people of Poland act to solve the problems that a repressive government and a hollow party no longer knew how to solve.

We in Latin America who have practiced solidarity with Solidarity salute Lech Walesa today.

The honor done to me by this great center of learning. Harvard University, is augmented by the circumstances in which I receive it.

I accept this honor as a citizen of Mexico, and as a writer from Latin America.

Let me speak to you as such.

As a Mexican first:

The daybreak of a movement of social and political renewal cannot be set by calendars other than those of the people involved.