Why President Obama's Speech in Oslo is One of the Most Important Presidential Speeches In U.S. History

Topics of justice and peace and conflict resolution will come up from time to time in these reflections. Today, I want to spend a little time on why President Obama's speech on December 10, 2009, before the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo-Norway, is one of the most important deliveries in the history of the U.S. presidency.

First, let's set the stage. On October 9, 2009, Obama was informed that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I think it is fair to characterize the general response from the public as WTF!?!? Some former winners include Mother Theresa, Elie Wiesel, Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Jr., Albert Schweitzer... and now Barack Obama? I mean, here's the President still deliberating on how many more bad ass American combat troopers to send to Afghanistan to kill terrorists, and then he's awarded a prize given to people that for the most part spent their lives practicing non-violence as a form of conflict resolution. It didn't add up. Several theories have been put out there as to why the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave Obama the award. These theories do not interest me. What interests me is how President Obama handled the situation by giving a masterpiece of a speech.

The speech is a remarkable piece by itself set apart from history and context. It is all the more remarkable set in history and context: it was delivered by a sitting Commander-In-Chief in the middle of two military conflicts against a Jihadist ideology several hundred years in the making, in the context of a world that increasingly views American might with scepticism, and in the context of a President who's black heritage had endured centuries of slavery and injustices that were finally overcome by the high practices of W.E.B. DuBois, Frederick Douglas, Mary McLeod Bethune, and of course Martin Luther King, to name a few. It is also remarkable for the theological context that runs rich throughout the speech, connecting with such giants of theology as Reinhold Niebuhr, Thomas Aquinas, and St. Augustine, and the intersection of this theological worldview with the philosophical framework of non-violent action trumpeted by Mahatma Gandhi and King. It is this context that makes his speech a remarkable work. I encourage everyone to read the entire speech delivered in Oslo. I provide a snippet below.

Now, while both Gandhi and King are cited in the speech as examples of non-violence teachers, the just war teachers of Augustine, Aquinas, and Niebuhr are not cited -- yet the entire framework from which Obama is coming from is very much constructed by the latter three. Reinhold Niebuhr's pragmatic and realism teachings springing from his work in "Moral Man and Immoral Society" and "The Irony of American History" contributed to modern just war theory. While Niebuhr is writing in the context of a new world with nuclear weapons, he maintains much of the realism and justice teachings of his predecessors Aquinas and Augustine. The issues of peace and justice and conflict resolution and war and non-violent action will probably never be settled, just as Obama acknowledged in his speech. But this does not discount the value of his contribution to this difficult topic. Please read...

"I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower.

But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions -- not just treaties and declarations -- that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another -- that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier's courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such."

....

"This brings me to a second point -- the nature of the peace that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.

It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.

And yet too often, these words are ignored. For some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation's development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists -- a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world.

I reject these choices. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America's interests -- nor the world's -- are served by the denial of human aspirations.

So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran. It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements -- these movements of hope and history -- they have us on their side."

...

"The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached -- their fundamental faith in human progress -- that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey."

Peace

JMac