I call your attention to the words of our incoming President, as offered in his meeting with the Washington Post Editorial Board on January 15, the actual birthday of the man whom we commemorate today, Martin Luther King Junior. Appearing on the Op-Ed page, the title is the three words I offer in my title, and can be read here, and they were offered in response to a question about promoting democracy and freedom, and how, if a part of our foreign policy he would do it differently than did Bush. Obama begins by saying that it has to be a central part of our foreign policy, because
It is who we are. It is one of our best exports, if it is not exported simply down the barrel of a gun.
After praising his predecessor's concerns about democracy and human rights, he notes
I think the mistake that was made is drawing an equivalence between democracy and elections.
As we celebrate the consequences of our most recent election, perhaps the words of our victor are worth our considering, and I invite your continued exploration of them.
I read the response of the President-Elect several times. Remember as you read his words that these were ad hoc, off-the-cuff if you will, in response to a question, which is what makes them all the more amazing and important. Consider this paragraph, which comes immediately after the words I last quoted:
Elections aren't democracy, as we understand it. They are one facet of a liberal order, as we understand it. And so in a lot of countries, you know, the first question is, if you go back to Roosevelt's four freedoms, the first question is freedom from want and freedom from fear.
And if that is not sufficient to demonstrate how deeply our new leader has thought about these issues, consider the next sentence, which appears in a paragraph by itself"
If people aren't secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay.
He talks about basic things, using for illustration his father's nation of Kenya, with the idea of providing tools for basic things like not getting shaken down by a policeman on the street (something I experienced with a Mexican colleague while working in data processing on a trip to Mexico City perhaps 25 years ago), or having to pay a bribe to get a job or have a phone installed. And as Obama notes,
And if we ignore those things, then oftentimes an election can just backfire or at least won't deliver for the people the kinds of -- it may raise expectations but not deliver what they're looking for.
There is more, but when I read the words in the blockquote above, I thought I heard Obama talking not only about overseas, but what he (and each of us) now confronts in our nation. Elections can raise hopes, but raised hopes are also potentially dangerous if the people who in hope voted for you find those hopes dashed.
It is hard to excerpt from the end of the piece - as a teacher I note a long, run- on sentence. There is reference to balancing military and civilian sides of our aid policies, reviewing aid and democracy projects, and then there is the question with which he concludes:
how do these all fit together and how do we view it through a lens that it is actually delivering a better life for people on the ground and less obsessed with form, more concerned with substance.
Methinks we might well remember those words: delivering a better life for people on the ground which of course should be the goal, which is why he is less obsessed with form, more concerned with substance.
Many of us are passionate about certain things. Leaves on the Current, my beloved spouse, is so about the environment. I acknowledge that I am for civil liberties and for education. As I read the words of Obama in the context of having now watched him for more than four years, I do not find myself quite as willing to be quickly critical of decisions and appointments with which I disagree, because I begin to see them as not the end of the process, but perhaps as necessary steps along a journey that leads to the goal of delivering a better life for people on the ground.
We won the election. Let me rephrase that: WE won the election. Obama acknowledges that, as he has throughout the campaign, with his constant reminders that change comes from the bottom up, with telling us as he did at the of his stump speeches that together we could go to Washington. Together - as millions pour into the area for the celebrations, and millions - even billions around the world - more watch and listen and also celebrate. The victory only begins at the ballot box, and is incomplete until we fulfill that goal of delivering a better life for people on the ground - people here, people around the world where the influences of our nation and our people are felt.
Today Obama has called us to serve - to see the victory as the first step in making changes that matter, change that comes from us, from the bottom up. Our responsibility does not end when we have voted for our preferred candidates, it has barely begun: if democracy is government by the will of the people then we must continue to exercise that will in our own daily words and actions.
It is who we are. It is one of our best exports. . . Amen to than. But also remember the rest of that - if it is not exported simply dwon the barrel of a gun.
Elections are not democracy. They are a necessary first step but in themselves incomplete.
I will not be surprised to hear more of this in words spoken from the Capitol tomorrow. It is not what Obama will do for us. Perhaps it is the experience of the community organizer that enables him to realize and to embody something different - the role of the leader in a democracy is to challenge, to inspire, to help all of us to come together on behalf of something greater than each of us, perhaps greater than the simple sum of all of us.
And I think the American people are beginning to grasp this approach, which may be why people are so hopeful for his administration.
His administration? No, OUR administration. It is the responsibility of all of us. Ideology should not matter, and we need to be less obsessed with form, more concerned with substance. Because our task and goal is actually delivering a better life for people on the ground. People on the ground - that includes me, it includes every one who may read these words, it includes those who cannot read English or any other language.
Elections aren't democracy but they give hope that in our participation We the people of the United States may finally fulfill the commitment of the Preamble, by which we did " ordain and establish" the Constitution, that in the still forming more perfect union we will
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity
secure the Blessings of Liberty - not only to ourselves and our posterity, but also offer them as a gift to the rest of mankind, not "down the barrel of a gun" but in the lives we lead and the country WE shape, create, sustain.
Elections aren't Democracy - it is now, after the election, that democracy truly begins.
Peace.