Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (80 page)

This church has stood for that. Why do you think you have five million members in this country? Because people know you are filled with the spirit of God to do the right thing in this life by them. So I say to you, we have to make a partnership, all the government agencies, all the business folks; but where there are no families, where there is no order, where there is no hope, where we are reducing the size of our armed services because we have won the cold war, who will be there to give structure, discipline, and love to these children? You must do that. And we must help you. Scripture says, you are the salt of the Earth and the light of the world, that if your light shines before men they will give glory to the Father in heaven. That is what we must do.

That is what we must do. How would we explain it to Martin Luther King if he showed up today and said, yes, we won the Cold War. Yes, the biggest threat that all of us grew up under, communism and nuclear war, communism gone, nuclear war receding. Yes, we developed all
these miraculous technologies. Yes, we all have got a VCR in our home; it’s interesting. Yes, we get fifty channels on the cable. Yes, without regard to race, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can get into a service academy or a good college, you’ll do just great. How would we explain to him all these kids getting killed and killing each other? How would we justify the things that we permit that no other country in the world would permit? How could we explain that we gave people the freedom to succeed, and we created conditions in which millions abuse that freedom to destroy the things that make life worth living and life itself? We cannot.

And so I say to you today, my fellow Americans, you gave me this job, and we’re making progress on the things you hired me to do. But unless we deal with the ravages of crime and drugs and violence and unless we recognize that it’s due to the breakdown of the family, the community, and the disappearance of jobs, and unless we say some of this cannot be done by government, because we have to reach deep inside to the values, the spirit, the soul, and the truth of human nature, none of the other things we seek to do will ever take us where we need to go.

So in this pulpit, on this day, let me ask all of you in your heart to say: We will honor the life and the work of Martin Luther King. We will honor the meaning of our church. We will, somehow, by God’s grace, we will turn this around. We will give these children a future. We will take away their guns and give them books. We will take away their despair and give them hope. We will rebuild the families and the neighborhoods and the communities. We won’t make all the work that has gone on here benefit just a few. We will do it together by the grace of God.

Six months after American and British forces liberated Baghdad, the flush of victory had been replaced by the dismayed reaction to the guerrilla warfare being waged by terrorists and die-hard supporters of the ousted Saddam Hussein, who had not yet been captured. Nor had weapons of mass destruction been found, and critics led at the time by Democrat Howard Dean derided claims of a link between Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network and Iraq. President George W. Bush found it necessary to counter his critics at home and abroad by placing the second Iraq war in a greater context than “regime change.”

At a dinner in Washington, D.C., on November 6, 2003, honoring the twentieth anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, he delivered what had become a rarity in recent political rhetoric: a thematic speech.

In articulating what had become, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the central purpose of his presidency, he evoked three of his predecessors in the twentieth century: Woodrow Wilson, trying to make the world safe for democracy in 1918; Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1941 giving hope to peoples crushed and endangered by nazism; and Ronald Reagan, in 1982 (derogated at the time, as Bush often is, as a “cowboy”) telling the British Parliament that a turning point had been reached in confronting the menace of world communism. “From the Fourteen Points to the Four Freedoms, to the speech at Westminster, America has put our power at the service of principle.” (A copyeditor would have changed “our” to “its.”) He stated his theme in ten words: “The advance of freedom is the calling of our time.”

The speech is structured, like a concerto, on a tripod. It begins with its forceful statement of theme and an optimistic evocation of recent history: “We’ve witnessed, in little over a generation, the swiftest advance of freedom in the 2,500-year story of democracy…. It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world’s most influential nation was itself a democracy.” (He chose the adjective “influential” rather than the customary “powerful” to stress our democratic example. And the formulation “It is no accident” parodies, perhaps unconsciously, the communist cliché “As is well known.”)

The second movement turns from the successes of freedom in South Africa, Central America, and a unified Germany to a
tour d’horizon
of the places where restrictions on freedom are an anomaly in an age of liberty: from the assonant “outposts of oppression”—including Cuba, North Korea, and Zimbabwe—to those Palestinian leaders who are “the main obstacles to peace” in the Middle East. That brings him to the challenge to leaders of nations of that turbulent area: “Will they be remembered for resisting reform, or for leading it?”

The transition to the speech’s third movement is a startling charge of error in previous U.S. policy toward that area. He faults presidents since FDR—including his father, George H. W. Bush—for not doing more to urge freedom on authoritarian regimes: “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe—because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.” In thus breaking with the advocates
of realpolitik, he associated his policy with that of the Wilsonian idealism so long derided by pragmatic Kissingerians. In that way, he wrapped his controversial decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the larger purpose of advancing human freedom everywhere in the “age of liberty.” (He first used that phrase in his speech to a joint session of Congress a week after the September 11, 2001, attacks.)

Both the daring and profundity of the speech were a surprise coming from a speaker not known for his eloquence. Because it had not been heralded in advance as a major foreign policy address, the text was not printed in the
New York Times
nor telecast at length on network newscasts, and its impact was delayed. Bush’s main speechwriters—Michael Gerson, John McConnell, and Matthew Scully—followed up this speech by drafting an address to the British Parliament two weeks later that developed the freedom theme further. Because of the dramatic setting and delayed reaction to the first speech, the London effort was far more extensively covered. It included a defiant, Churchillian applause line: “We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq and pay a bitter cost of casualties, and liberate 25 million people, only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins.”

However, his earlier, shorter effort in D.C. was seminal and that is why I chose it for this anthology, despite the greater sense of occasion in London. Just as he used a spiritual word in stating his theme—“the
calling
of our time”—Bush invoked, without excessive religiosity, the Deity in his conclusion: “As we meet the terror and violence of the world, we can be certain the author of freedom is not indifferent to the fate of freedom.”

***

THE ROOTS OF
our democracy can be traced to England, and to its Parliament—and so can the roots of this organization. In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared, the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people—their creativity, their genius, and their rights.

President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important twenty years ago; it is equally important today.

A number of critics were dismissive of that speech by the president. According to one editorial of the time, “It seems hard to be a sophisticated
European and also an admirer of Ronald Reagan.” Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced the speech simplistic and naive, and even dangerous. In fact, Ronald Reagan’s words were courageous and optimistic and entirely correct.

The great democratic movement President Reagan described was already well under way. In the early 1970s, there were about forty democracies in the world. By the middle of that decade, Portugal and Spain and Greece held free elections. Soon there were new democracies in Latin America, and free institutions were spreading in Korea, in Taiwan, and in East Asia. This very week in 1989, there were protests in East Berlin and in Leipzig. By the end of that year, every communist dictatorship in Central America had collapsed. Within another year, the South African government released Nelson Mandela. Four years later, he was elected president of his country—ascending, like Walesa and Havel, from prisoner of state to head of state.

As the twentieth century ended, there were around 120 democracies in the world—and I can assure you more are on the way. Ronald Reagan would be pleased, and he would not be surprised.

We’ve witnessed, in little over a generation, the swiftest advance of freedom in the 2,500-year story of democracy. Historians in the future will offer their own explanations for why this happened. Yet we already know some of the reasons they will cite. It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world’s most influential nation was itself a democracy.

The United States made military and moral commitments in Europe and Asia, which protected free nations from aggression, and created the conditions in which new democracies could flourish. As we provided security for whole nations, we also provided inspiration for oppressed peoples. In prison camps, in banned union meetings, in clandestine churches, men and women knew that the whole world was not sharing their own nightmare. They knew of at least one place—a bright and hopeful land—where freedom was valued and secure. And they prayed that America would not forget them, or forget the mission to promote liberty around the world.

Historians will note that in many nations, the advance of markets and free enterprise helped to create a middle class that was confident enough to demand their own rights. They will point to the role of technology in frustrating censorship and central control—and marvel at the power of instant communications to spread the truth, the news, and courage across borders.

Historians in the future will reflect on an extraordinary, undeniable
fact: Over time, free nations grow stronger and dictatorships grow weaker. In the middle of the twentieth century, some imagined that the central planning and social regimentation were a shortcut to national strength. In fact, the prosperity, and social vitality and technological progress of a people, are directly determined by extent of their liberty. Freedom honors and unleashes human creativity—and creativity determines the strength and wealth of nations. Liberty is both the plan of heaven for humanity, and the best hope for progress here on Earth.

The progress of liberty is a powerful trend. Yet, we also know that liberty, if not defended, can be lost. The success of freedom is not determined by some dialectic of history. By definition, the success of freedom rests upon the choices and the courage of free peoples, and upon their willingness to sacrifice. In the trenches of World War I, through a two-front war in the 1940s, the difficult battles of Korea and Vietnam, and in missions of rescue and liberation on nearly every continent, Americans have amply displayed our willingness to sacrifice for liberty.

The sacrifices of Americans have not always been recognized or appreciated, yet they have been worthwhile. Because we and our allies were steadfast, Germany and Japan are democratic nations that no longer threaten the world. A global nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union ended peacefully—as did the Soviet Union. The nations of Europe are moving towards unity, not dividing into armed camps and descending into genocide. Every nation has learned, or should have learned, an important lesson: Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for, and standing for—and the advance of freedom leads to peace.

And now we must apply that lesson in our own time. We’ve reached another great turning point—and the resolve we show will shape the next stage of the world democratic movement.

Our commitment to democracy is tested in countries like Cuba and Burma and North Korea and Zimbabwe—outposts of oppression in our world. The people in these nations live in captivity, and fear and silence. Yet, these regimes cannot hold back freedom forever—and, one day, from prison camps and prison cells, and from exile, the leaders of new democracies will arrive. Communism, and militarism and rule by the capricious and corrupt, are the relics of a passing era. And we will stand with these oppressed peoples until the day of their freedom finally arrives.

Our commitment to democracy is tested in China. That nation now has a sliver, a fragment of liberty. Yet, China’s people will eventually want their liberty pure and whole. China has discovered that economic freedom leads to national wealth. China’s leaders will also discover that freedom is indivisible—that social and religious freedom is also essential
to national greatness and national dignity. Eventually, men and women who are allowed to control their own wealth will insist on controlling their own lives and their own country.

Our commitment to democracy is also tested in the Middle East, which is my focus today, and must be a focus of American policy for decades to come. In many nations of the Middle East—countries of great strategic importance—democracy has not yet taken root. And the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free.