Thomas Jefferson in Cairo
Much has been said about what President Obama plans to accomplish in his speech in Cairo tomorrow. It is to "improve our image" in the "Muslim world"; it is to "reset our relations" with them; it is to dispel myths about the United States and our policies; it is to show respect for Muslims. It is that and so much more in the minds of those who project on the President almost mythical powers to bring friendship to hostile places and turn not only world opinion but also world behavior.
He probably cannot live up to the hype.
Objectively, many of the myths about the United States bandied about the world are related to the lack of a free and independent media and academia in those places, and despotic governments who use the threat of a devil abroad (whether the United States or Israel) to justify draconian limitations in freedom at home. We hope the President will use the august setting of al Azhar University not as a platform for himself and his interesting but ultimately only personal story, but for a definition of our American soul and its unique ability to reach the souls of good people everywhere, in every culture and every milieu, of every religion or of no religion. America is born of the words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Thomas Jefferson gave voice to the hopes and aspirations of the Founding Fathers and generations after. The extent to which America lives up to those words, or fails to, is the extent to which the United States remains what we freely admit is an "experiment in democracy." Our shortcomings are there for all to see - and what we aspire to is there for all to see. It accounts for the millions who came and still come to our country - the President's family included. His personal journey as an American is, in that regard, no different from millions of other journeys, easier than some and more difficult than others.
To bring Thomas Jefferson to Cairo would give hope to millions across the world, Muslim and otherwise, who long not for American imposed democracy or American-style democracy, but for recognition of their individual dignity. It would comfort those who fear revolution. It would reassure those who believe that religion should not be the determinant of how one governs or is governed - and thus would reassure minorities everywhere who fear for their own future. It would recognize that the so-called "Muslim world" is more a series of places inhabited by Muslims - and inevitably others - who have individual as well as national aspirations that differ from place to place and region to region.
President Obama would be revolutionary within the tradition of the American Revolution. The President would BE the message.
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