ambassador speeches

Ambassador Cabaniss for MF Dnes: "Of Words and Beliefs"

July 4, 2005

As America celebrates July 4 as our 229th Independence Day anniversary, we can easily forget how close that band of colonists rebelling against the British monarchy came to defeat. In April 1775 at the decisive battle of Lexington, a mere 77 American farmers stood their ground against 700 well-trained and well-armed British troops.  The colonies had one-third the numbers of people as the Czech Republic today, no army to speak of, few munitions, and a weak economy dependent on trade with England. 

Fifty years later, on his deathbed, Thomas Jefferson, the architect of the Declaration of Independence and America’s experiment in democracy, reminisced on the boldness of his 56 compatriots who signed the document that was announced on July 4, 1776.  He wrote with hope that self-government and “the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion” would spread to all peoples and become every nation’s birthright.  But Europe was at war and solemn pronouncements such as “all men are created equal” or the revolutionary idea that people have “inalienable rights” simply because they are human beings were not spreading quite so fast.  Even in America, a whole class of people – African slaves – were far from being included in Jefferson’s dream.

Over two hundred years later, the success of our 77 farmers still reverberates.  National liberators from Simon Bolivar to Thomas Masaryk have broken through tyranny and oppression harkening back to Jefferson and arming their peoples with the tools of self-determination.  More nations today benefit from the rule of the governed, freedom of speech and guarantees of basic human rights than ever before in history.  Thus, what we celebrate as our Independence Day is really a shared triumph – the triumph of democracy in the myriad forms it takes throughout the world, be it revolutions of velvet or orange shadings. 

As we are learning, however, being a democracy or joining the liberty bandwagon does not immunize a society from terrorism or other threats to peace.  While it is true that America has championed democratic causes and helped defend our allies from the nightmare of totalitarian rule, many people may resent our raising the torch of freedom so high.  Others may think we have strayed from the dream itself, or that leading the democracy crusade is too self-congratulatory, an imposition.  It is a peculiarity of America’s development, its uniqueness, that the force of ideas and ideals laid down by a handful of men holds so much sway over our civic life after more than two centuries.  No other political doctrine – the very nature of democracy is, of course, non-doctrinaire – has withstood such a test of time.  This may be because, despite certain cynics who discount every pronouncement by President Bush, his words to the effect that most human beings, if given the chance, would choose self rule and live in a democracy, are true. 

We must recognize that the shapes and contours of the world today in all their layers of complexity cannot be smoothed out by one single formula; neither beliefs nor good intentions alone can make freedom ring out.  But it does take visionaries to inspire people to act.  It was President Reagan who announced that the Berlin wall “cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.”   The wall would fall and the clarion call would become reality. Time and time again in my visits across the Czech Republic, people come up to me to reminisce about Ronald Reagan, about his ‘wall’ speech, thanking America for standing by the Czech people.  The Czechs owe themselves the greatest credit, for men like Thomas Masaryk knew well the power of ideas in shaping the course of history.  At the celebration of July 4th in 1919 hosted by the American Ambassador to Prague, and in his first year at the helm of the new Czechoslovak Republic, Masaryk said: “the same ideals, the same principles shall ever unite us”, quoting from the Declaration of Independence and from what he referred to as Abraham Lincoln’s “eternal message” of ‘a government of the people, by the people, and for the people’.

Today Americans do not pretend to lay proprietary claim to self-evident truths enshrined as universal rights of man, including the right of self-determination and government by the governed.  These principles have long been adopted as a common political cause by a majority of nations.  But, today, in the face of radicalism and terrorism, it is the defense of democracy and the rise of democracy that must be more actively promoted.