Barack Obama retraces his African-American roots
And I believe this not just based on sentiment, I believe it based on hard evidence. Look at the facts. The fact that countries which rely on rabid nationalism and xenophobia and doctrines of tribal, racial or religious superiority as their main organizing principle, the thing that holds people together — eventually those countries find themselves consumed by civil war or external war.
Check the history books. We have a better story to tell. But to say that our vision for the future is better is not to say that it will inevitably win. Because history also shows the power of fear. History shows the lasting hold of greed and the desire to dominate others in the minds of men. History shows how easily people can be convinced to turn on those who look different, or worship God in a different way.
First, Madiba shows those of us who believe in freedom and democracy we are going to have to fight harder to reduce inequality and promote lasting economic opportunity for all people. But they need bread. And when economic power is concentrated in the hands of the few, history also shows that political power is sure to follow — and that dynamic eats away at democracy. And Madiba understood this. This is not new. He warned us about this. So if we are serious about universal freedom today, if we care about social justice today, then we have a responsibility to do something about it.
And I would respectfully amend what Madiba said. And how we achieve this is going to vary country to country, and I know your new president is committed to rolling up his sleeves and trying to do so. But we can learn from the last 70 years that it will not involve unregulated, unbridled, unethical capitalism.
I can afford it. Who can I help? How can I give more and more and more?
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What an amazing gift to be able to help people, not just yourself. You get the point. It involves promoting an inclusive capitalism both within nations and between nations. And as we pursue, for example, the Sustainable Development Goals, we have to get past the charity mindset. Second, Madiba teaches us that some principles really are universal — and the most important one is the principle that we are bound together by a common humanity and that each individual has inherent dignity and worth.
More than a quarter century after Madiba walked out of prison, I still have to stand here at a lecture and devote some time to saying that black people and white people and Asian people and Latin American people and women and men and gays and straights, that we are all human, that our differences are superficial, and that we should treat each other with care and respect.
I would have thought we would have figured that out by now. I thought that basic notion was well established. Again, Madiba, he anticipated things. He knew what he was talking about. That applies here in this country, to me, and to you. He had read their documents more carefully than they had. What was true then remains true today. Basic truths do not change. It is a truth that can be embraced by the English, and by the Indian, and by the Mexican and by the Bantu and by the Luo and by the American. It is a truth that lies at the heart of every world religion — that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
That we see ourselves in other people. That we can recognize common hopes and common dreams. And it is a truth that is incompatible with any form of discrimination based on race or religion or gender or sexual orientation. And it is a truth that, by the way, when embraced, actually delivers practical benefits, since it ensures that a society can draw upon the talents and energy and skill of all its people. And if you doubt that, just ask the French football team that just won the World Cup. Because not all of those folks — not all of those folks look like Gauls to me.
Embracing our common humanity does not mean that we have to abandon our unique ethnic and national and religious identities.
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Madiba never stopped being proud of his tribal heritage. But he believed, as I believe, that you can be proud of your heritage without denigrating those of a different heritage. In fact, you dishonor your heritage. Those are legitimate things and we have to be able to engage people who do feel as if things are not orderly. And we can enforce the law while respecting the essential humanity of those who are striving for a better life. For a mother with a child in her arms, we can recognize that could be somebody in our family, that could be my child. He could have been president for life. Who was going to run against him?
I mean, Ramaphosa was popular, but come on. Plus he was a young — he was too young.
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Had he chose, Madiba could have governed by executive fiat, unconstrained by check and balances. But instead he helped guide South Africa through the drafting of a new Constitution, drawing from all the institutional practices and democratic ideals that had proven to be most sturdy, mindful of the fact that no single individual possesses a monopoly on wisdom. No one is immune from the dangers of that. This is especially true in a country such as ours where the vast majority have been systematically denied their rights. At the same time, democracy also requires the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.
And yes, democracy can be messy, and it can be slow, and it can be frustrating. I know, I promise. For all its imperfections, real democracy best upholds the idea that government exists to serve the individual and not the other way around. And it is the only form of government that has the possibility of making that idea real. Not from the top down, not from abstract theories, not just from experts, but from the bottom up. Knowing the lives of those who are struggling.
As a community organizer, I learned as much from a laid-off steel worker in Chicago or a single mom in a poor neighborhood that I visited as I learned from the finest economists in the Oval Office.
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And to make democracy work, Madiba shows us that we also have to keep teaching our children, and ourselves — and this is really hard — to engage with people not only who look different but who hold different views. Most of us prefer to surround ourselves with opinions that validate what we already believe. You notice the people who you think are smart are the people who agree with you. Funny how that works. Madiba, he lived this complexity. In prison, he studied Afrikaans so that he could better understand the people who were jailing him. And when he got out of prison, he extended a hand to those who had jailed him, because he knew that they had to be a part of the democratic South Africa that he wanted to build.
And I should add for this to work, we have to actually believe in an objective reality. You have to believe in facts.
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Without facts, there is no basis for cooperation. At least I can have a debate with them about that and I can show them why I think clean energy is the better path, especially for poor countries, that you can leapfrog old technologies. Unfortunately, too much of politics today seems to reject the very concept of objective truth. People just make stuff up. Anyway, we see it in the promotion of anti-intellectualism and the rejection of science from leaders who find critical thinking and data somehow politically inconvenient.
And, as with the denial of rights, the denial of facts runs counter to democracy, it could be its undoing, which is why we must zealously protect independent media; and we have to guard against the tendency for social media to become purely a platform for spectacle, outrage, or disinformation; and we have to insist that our schools teach critical thinking to our young people, not just blind obedience.
It is tempting to give in to cynicism: Just as people spoke about the triumph of democracy in the 90s, now you are hearing people talk about end of democracy and the triumph of tribalism and the strong man. We have to resist that cynicism. The man went to prison for almost three decades.
He split limestone in the heat, he slept in a small cell, and was repeatedly put in solitary confinement. And, I know that those young people, those hope carriers are gathering around the world. So, young people, who are in the audience, who are listening, my message to you is simple, keep believing, keep marching, keep building, keep raising your voice.
Every generation has the opportunity to remake the world. Now is a good time to be fired up. And, for those of us who care about the legacy that we honor here today — about equality and dignity and democracy and solidarity and kindness, those of us who remain young at heart, if not in body — we have an obligation to help our youth succeed. People like Abaas Mpindi, a journalist from Uganda, who founded the Media Challenge Initiative, to help other young people get the training they need to tell the stories that the world needs to know.
People like Caren Wakoli, an entrepreneur from Kenya, who founded the Emerging Leaders Foundation to get young people involved in the work of fighting poverty and promoting human dignity. You meet these people, you talk to them, they will give you hope. They stand on the shoulders of those who came before, including that young black boy born years ago, but they know that it is now their turn to do the work.
Madiba reminds us that: People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart. Contact us at editors time. By Alix Langone July 17, The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. You can find more information in our data protection declaration. Now he's in Kenya and South Africa for the first time since leaving office. Can he live up to the public's expectations as a private citizen?
I won't have such a big security detail all the time," announced Barack Obama, still president of the USA at the time, during his speech to the African Union in I can spend time with my family. His diary for this trip is no less full than in the days when he was considered the most powerful man in the world. On Sunday he arrived in Kenya, his father's homeland, for a two-day visit.
Shortly after his arrival he held brief meetings with the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and opposition leader Raila Odinga. He will also be spending time with his family: His face was printed on African fabrics and every African artist had portraits of the American statesman in their repertoire. Africans believed their continent would be given a higher status with regard to US foreign policy, investment and development aid.
After Obama's eight years in office, many Africans still feel disillusioned. No reason for 'Obama-Mania' in Africa. He was also the first sitting US president to address the African Union. Instead of just relying on humanitarian aid, he emphasized the continent's economic potential. The South African freedom fighter would have turned on July More trade than democracy. Barack Obama will round off his Africa trip with a speech to around students from his own foundation, who he has invited to attend a workshop in Johannesburg. The aim of the program is to train and support young African leaders.
Obama highlighted Africa's need to combat terrorism and corruption.