Yesterday morning the world watched as our American President reached out his hand and asked for peace. Saying he came to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, President Obama told the audience at Cairo University that the cycle of suspicion and discord that has defined, deluded and destroyed the relationship for so long must end.
The President asked for a new beginning — “one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles, principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
“There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground,” the President said. “So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.”
There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, and while directed at them, the President sounded the call for peace in all corners of the globe.
The President said that problems the United States and Muslims worldwide confront must be dealt with through partnership and progress, and must be shared. Sources of tension must be addressed directly — and plainly.
He rightly asserted that America will confront violent extremists who pose a threat to U.S. national security because we “reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women and children.”
“None of us should tolerate these extremists,” he said.
But, then the President went further and acknowledged to the world that military power alone will not solve problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To that end, Congress has approved the investment of billions of dollars each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build hospitals, schools, roads and businesses, and help those who have been displaced by the war.
Then the President took on the 800-pound gorilla that so many before him have ignored — the difficult, if not near impossible, task of finding a peaceful and just end to the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. “The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security,” he said. “I will personally pursue this outcome. For peace to come, it is time for them — and all of us — to live up to our responsibilities.”
I was proud to hear balance and nuance in the voice of an American President. He acknowledged our unbreakable bond with Israel — one forged by President Truman and born of a need for a Jewish homeland that is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.
Today, the President is visiting Buchenwald, which was part of the Third Reich’s final solution for the Jews of Europe. Six million Jews were killed. As the President said, “denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful.”
He went on to turn to the equally legitimate needs of the Palestinians who have also suffered in pursuit of a homeland. He said, “ So, let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”
The President said we can both be for democracy and still respect every nation’s sovereign right. He said that, while no form of government should be imposed on any nation by another, he believes strongly in a system of government that gives voice to the people, and that respects the rule of law and the rights of all.
“Governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure,” he said. “Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.”
In an audience of students, he called for greater religious freedom as necessary for peoples of the world to be able to live together and said, “a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.”
I watched the President in Cairo, yesterday, express the feelings so many Americans have wished to express to the world. He concluded by quoting simply from each of the three great religions’ holy writs and said:
“We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.
The Holy Koran tells us: "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."
The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."
The Holy Bible tells us: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."
The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.”
Amen.
Please take a moment this weekend to read the full text of the speech. It can be found here>>
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Friday, June 05, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
“So help me God”
Every once in a while a day comes along you never thought you would see. A few come to my mind like James Meredith’s first day of school at Ole Miss, the assassination of President Kennedy, Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy back-to-back-to-back, the first steps of Neil Armstrong on the moon and one September morning two airplanes crashed into the Twin Towers.
These are events, both of joy and woe that we all remember where we were when we heard the news, saw the pictures and felt their impact. They become part of our language, reference points by which other events are judged, and pivot points from which we are collectively never the same.
We come upon one of these common shared moments in history next Tuesday, a moment I never believed I would see in my lifetime. The world’s eyes will share a singular spectacle. A man will place his brown hand on the bible used by Abraham Lincoln and swear to uphold, defend and protect the Constitution as President of the United States of America.
With that, our great American experiment will take another step forward.
The founders devised a nation of laws that could grow and change like a living organism. We are a nation where every day is a new day and each unique and often flawed experiment in democracy is judged and weighed separately to be either woven into our fabric or discarded. They were brilliant in their certainty that they did not know all the answers.
But it was these geniuses of Liberty that stained our nation with its original sin: That despite the decree, all men were in fact not seen as equal. Their shortcomings in many ways come full circle as we inaugurate Barack Obama as our President.
That oath, enshrined in the Constitution and the only sentence in quotes in the entire document, reads:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
This is our great pledge. While the parades, balls and parties surrounding the inauguration are exciting, the purpose of the entire day is these 37 words outlined by our founders as the promise a President makes to the people he serves.
The oath President-elect Obama recites is the exact same pledge that George Washington took. In fact, General Washington himself wrote notes on the draft Constitution he was working on in August of 1787. At the archives in Washington, D.C. you can see where Washington crossed out the word “judgment” and wrote the word “ability”.
Washington was concerned that a President would interpret the oath to mean their judgment could supplant the Constitution’s. In one of the small beautiful pieces of history, it was the first President himself whose personal edit guaranteed that the Constitution was supreme.
On Tuesday we will gather as a national community to re-enact one of our nation’s few sacred rites: The passing of the title Head of State and Commander in Chief from one man to another peacefully. With 37 words a new President becomes leader of the free world, the only gun shots fired are salutes in celebration.
It is often retold that after the oath was administered, Washington added the phrase, “So help me God.” Of course, by tradition, each new President recites that same simple prayer. But what happened immediately after at the First Inaugural is perhaps as appropriate.
On the balcony on that April day in 1789, the Supreme Court had yet to be constituted and so the oath of office was administered by Chancellor Robert R. Livingstone, New York's highest ranking judge. Immediately after swearing in President Washington, the Chancellor whispered “It is done.”
And so friends as we approach this momentous day, and the first black President is inaugurated I echo to all those who have worked and struggled and dreamed of this day — “It is done.”
These are events, both of joy and woe that we all remember where we were when we heard the news, saw the pictures and felt their impact. They become part of our language, reference points by which other events are judged, and pivot points from which we are collectively never the same.
We come upon one of these common shared moments in history next Tuesday, a moment I never believed I would see in my lifetime. The world’s eyes will share a singular spectacle. A man will place his brown hand on the bible used by Abraham Lincoln and swear to uphold, defend and protect the Constitution as President of the United States of America.
With that, our great American experiment will take another step forward.
The founders devised a nation of laws that could grow and change like a living organism. We are a nation where every day is a new day and each unique and often flawed experiment in democracy is judged and weighed separately to be either woven into our fabric or discarded. They were brilliant in their certainty that they did not know all the answers.
But it was these geniuses of Liberty that stained our nation with its original sin: That despite the decree, all men were in fact not seen as equal. Their shortcomings in many ways come full circle as we inaugurate Barack Obama as our President.
That oath, enshrined in the Constitution and the only sentence in quotes in the entire document, reads:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
This is our great pledge. While the parades, balls and parties surrounding the inauguration are exciting, the purpose of the entire day is these 37 words outlined by our founders as the promise a President makes to the people he serves.
The oath President-elect Obama recites is the exact same pledge that George Washington took. In fact, General Washington himself wrote notes on the draft Constitution he was working on in August of 1787. At the archives in Washington, D.C. you can see where Washington crossed out the word “judgment” and wrote the word “ability”.
Washington was concerned that a President would interpret the oath to mean their judgment could supplant the Constitution’s. In one of the small beautiful pieces of history, it was the first President himself whose personal edit guaranteed that the Constitution was supreme.
On Tuesday we will gather as a national community to re-enact one of our nation’s few sacred rites: The passing of the title Head of State and Commander in Chief from one man to another peacefully. With 37 words a new President becomes leader of the free world, the only gun shots fired are salutes in celebration.
It is often retold that after the oath was administered, Washington added the phrase, “So help me God.” Of course, by tradition, each new President recites that same simple prayer. But what happened immediately after at the First Inaugural is perhaps as appropriate.
On the balcony on that April day in 1789, the Supreme Court had yet to be constituted and so the oath of office was administered by Chancellor Robert R. Livingstone, New York's highest ranking judge. Immediately after swearing in President Washington, the Chancellor whispered “It is done.”
And so friends as we approach this momentous day, and the first black President is inaugurated I echo to all those who have worked and struggled and dreamed of this day — “It is done.”
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
For Obama, Job First
By Emanuel Cleaver II
Published in The Washington Post,
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
page A17
The black D.C. cabdriver and I connected immediately when it became clear that he simply couldn't suppress his elation about the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. He told me that he had recently quashed some barbershop Obama-bashing arising from what some saw as Obama's failure to name enough blacks to his Cabinet. "I told these barbershop politicos," the cabbie said, "just wait until after he is sworn in, and then he will be free to do the black thing."
I winced and, rather clumsily, tried to explain that Obama will be the first black president, not the black president first. While it isn't my intention to hold up any critic of the president-elect to censure, I want to remind all those who strongly support the president-elect and wish desperately for him to succeed: If you like the honey, don't kick over the beehive.
Since Obama's historic Nov. 4 victory, there has been much discussion in the media suggesting that he faces a plate filled not only with issues related to the slumping economy and other urgent national challenges but also a hefty portion of the extravagant expectations of African Americans and other minority groups. Some, it seems, would rather put the new president into a pressure cooker instead of a melting pot.
I know something about what Obama faces. In 1991, I was elected Kansas City's first black mayor. I and more than 400 other African American mayors who served during the most diverse period in the political history of America's large cities experienced a similar, and understandable, unreasonableness from brothers and sisters who saw in our election an opportunity at last to get a slice of the American pie. Obama will fall short of fulfilling the considerable hopes and dreams of the minorities who supported him, just as we could not fulfill those of ours.
To be sure, he will do all he can. Just as the black mayors of the '90s appointed able blacks to positions that were previously beyond their reach, championed capital projects in often-ignored and ailing parts of their cities, and included minorities in municipal economic opportunities, President Obama will certainly be attentive to the unique needs of the nation's neglected. Clearly, the goal of the Obama administration will be to destroy, not supervise, any government impulse to favor one group of Americans over others.
But brothers and sisters of hue, we must be candid: Race relations in America are far from sublime. Despite Obama's election, there are still Americans who, like the ole Missouri mule, are awful backward about going forward. It would be absurd not to expect high-profile acts of racism to continue to occur, just as always. Obama 's administration won't have the power to prevent them; no administration could. Yes, such situations will now be addressed by an Obama-appointed attorney general, but they also must continue to be dealt with by civil rights organizations and, frankly, by each of us. The duty of the many cannot become the responsibility of the one, even if the one is a black president.
Obama surely knows that he owes enormous gratitude to the huge numbers of black Americans who toiled in his campaign and came out to the polls to help to elect him. I think every African American supporter of Obama can safely assume that Obama will do everything within his power to create a level playing field for all Americans by ensuring that they have a government that is just and fair.
But it is important to note that Obama will not be the nation's highest-profile civil rights leader. He will be the leader of the free world.
We must keep that in mind. Barack Obama cannot both agitate and legislate from the Oval Office. A horse cannot pull while kicking, and Obama has much pulling on his agenda. He will need to pull the U.S. economy out of the tank, U.S. troops out of Iraq and health-care costs back down to earth.
At this moment, the people of color who love this great nation are a part of something thrilling and exalting. Most of us thought that we would never see a black president in our lifetimes. Our coming together this past November was a beginning; staying together through the tough times ahead will be progress; and working together to build bridges, not walls, will be the sign that we are creating a change all can depend on.
Published in The Washington Post,
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
page A17
The black D.C. cabdriver and I connected immediately when it became clear that he simply couldn't suppress his elation about the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. He told me that he had recently quashed some barbershop Obama-bashing arising from what some saw as Obama's failure to name enough blacks to his Cabinet. "I told these barbershop politicos," the cabbie said, "just wait until after he is sworn in, and then he will be free to do the black thing."
I winced and, rather clumsily, tried to explain that Obama will be the first black president, not the black president first. While it isn't my intention to hold up any critic of the president-elect to censure, I want to remind all those who strongly support the president-elect and wish desperately for him to succeed: If you like the honey, don't kick over the beehive.
Since Obama's historic Nov. 4 victory, there has been much discussion in the media suggesting that he faces a plate filled not only with issues related to the slumping economy and other urgent national challenges but also a hefty portion of the extravagant expectations of African Americans and other minority groups. Some, it seems, would rather put the new president into a pressure cooker instead of a melting pot.
I know something about what Obama faces. In 1991, I was elected Kansas City's first black mayor. I and more than 400 other African American mayors who served during the most diverse period in the political history of America's large cities experienced a similar, and understandable, unreasonableness from brothers and sisters who saw in our election an opportunity at last to get a slice of the American pie. Obama will fall short of fulfilling the considerable hopes and dreams of the minorities who supported him, just as we could not fulfill those of ours.
To be sure, he will do all he can. Just as the black mayors of the '90s appointed able blacks to positions that were previously beyond their reach, championed capital projects in often-ignored and ailing parts of their cities, and included minorities in municipal economic opportunities, President Obama will certainly be attentive to the unique needs of the nation's neglected. Clearly, the goal of the Obama administration will be to destroy, not supervise, any government impulse to favor one group of Americans over others.
But brothers and sisters of hue, we must be candid: Race relations in America are far from sublime. Despite Obama's election, there are still Americans who, like the ole Missouri mule, are awful backward about going forward. It would be absurd not to expect high-profile acts of racism to continue to occur, just as always. Obama 's administration won't have the power to prevent them; no administration could. Yes, such situations will now be addressed by an Obama-appointed attorney general, but they also must continue to be dealt with by civil rights organizations and, frankly, by each of us. The duty of the many cannot become the responsibility of the one, even if the one is a black president.
Obama surely knows that he owes enormous gratitude to the huge numbers of black Americans who toiled in his campaign and came out to the polls to help to elect him. I think every African American supporter of Obama can safely assume that Obama will do everything within his power to create a level playing field for all Americans by ensuring that they have a government that is just and fair.
But it is important to note that Obama will not be the nation's highest-profile civil rights leader. He will be the leader of the free world.
We must keep that in mind. Barack Obama cannot both agitate and legislate from the Oval Office. A horse cannot pull while kicking, and Obama has much pulling on his agenda. He will need to pull the U.S. economy out of the tank, U.S. troops out of Iraq and health-care costs back down to earth.
At this moment, the people of color who love this great nation are a part of something thrilling and exalting. Most of us thought that we would never see a black president in our lifetimes. Our coming together this past November was a beginning; staying together through the tough times ahead will be progress; and working together to build bridges, not walls, will be the sign that we are creating a change all can depend on.
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