We now have, for the first time in our history, a non-American president. President Obama has stated explicitly that he does not believe that America has a special role in the world. The bedrock premise of his foreign policy is that America’s interactions with the world over the last 100 years have been mostly venal, stupid, and corrupt, and that his task is to repair the damage. His domestic policies assume that, contrary to the explicit proscriptions of the Constitution, the Federal government should make all meaningful decisions in our national life, and that the great flaw in our political history is our collective skepticism toward state power as a means for enacting perfect justice.
Until now, Thomas Jefferson was the closest we have had to a non-American president, with his Francophilia and his deep bows toward the Enlightenment goddesses of Reason and Liberty, he often sounding as if he loved the idea of America more than America herself. But once he was president of the United States, he acted his part vigorously, waging war against the Barbary Pirates, authorizing the Louisiana Purchase, declining to abolish the First Bank of the United States, etc. No one could doubt that by the end of his life he was immensely proud of the nation he helped build.
Patriotic pride was not discernable in the tone or substance of President Obama’s speech to Muslims yesterday in Cairo. Characteristically, any praise for his country was invariably paired with criticism. When he was running for office, he did not always talk this way. Indeed, he professed “a deep and abiding faith in the country that I love”:
As my wife said after watching that commercial, “You’d think he was a conservative.” That material was for the yokels in the swing states, the ones who didn’t like George Bush much, but weren’t too sure about this Barack Obama guy. What was his middle name, again?
Some call President Obama’s perspective “post-American,” but that isn’t quite right. The American project isn’t finished yet, as there are still tens of millions of people — a majority, one hopes — who still believe in its goodness. His speech assumed his favorite persona, that of the calm, reasonable judge sitting far above the squabbling, petty litigants. This is moral equivalence of a very high order, where praise for his country is paired invariably with criticism, and often occurs in the future tense. Its appeal is rooted in our innate desire for transcendance, which is not satisfied by our relentlessly horizontal culture and its human-centered churches.
Obama plays to this need, and it is why people call him a “leader” even though his political program is thoroughly unoriginal (all of his ideas are at least 40 years old), and he has neither fought nor sacrificed for an unpopular cause. He sounds like a leader (though his actual words are apparently cribbed from high-school valedictory speeches), with his forceful emphasis on certain words, followed by the…pause…for dramatic effect. Plus, everything is clear to Mr. Obama, even in the murky Middle East:
…let me speak as clearly and as plainly as I can…
In Ankara, I made clear…
But let us be clear…
I have made it clear to the Iraqi people…
…the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear…
I’ve made it clear to Iran’s leaders…
But it is clear to all concerned…
So let me be clear…
But this much is clear…
Now let me be clear…
Then there are the admonitions, always delivered in the imperative mood, with 32 “musts” in all, e.g.:
And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end….
…we must say openly to each other…
There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other…
…partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is…
So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership, our progress must be shared. [hat trick!]
We must face these tensions squarely….
…we must never alter or forget our principles…
Palestinians must abandon violence…
The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern…
Hamas must put an end to violence…
…Israelis must acknowledge…
…Israel must also live up to its obligation…
Obama lectures Muslims on how they “must” behave, not just towards non-Muslims, but toward each other as well: “…fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.” As if the two great schools of Muslim thought are founded on bigotry, and not differing views of eschatology, the human person, and the constitution of their holy scriptures. But perhaps the divide between Sunni and Shia is easily bridged, and the Islamic world has living with a tragic misconception for the last 13 centuries. Thus, they should be thankful that Barack Obama has finally shown them the “clear” path that they “must” follow.
It might be easier for Muslims to hear these words, because Mr. Obama went beyond politeness toward Islam and flirted with endorsement. Five times he referred to the “holy Quran,” not just “the Quran.” “…I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed,” he said. Not “originated.” Revealed. As in, from God. He (Obama, not God) related “the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed — peace be upon them — joined in prayer,” using the standard Muslim honorific for Mohammad, just like a pious student in a madrassah. Throughout the entire speech, Mr. Obama spoke as if he was a fellow Muslim, or at least a crypto-Muslim.
Why does he adopt this discursive mode? Is he, as some writers murmur on the Internet, a Muslim in disguise trying to take down Christian America from within? No. He is the apostle from Cosmopolitanistan, a realm that exists in the minds of the international, globalized elite. In Cosmopolitanistan, religions, nations, families, corporations, associations, and every other form of human organization lie prostrate beneath the boots of the technocratic state.
The elites who run Cosmopolitanistan are immune to the temptations that come with wielding great power over other men. To them, all disputes can be resolved through talking, never violence. The citizens’ primary duty is to submit completely to their masters. Anyone who disagree will be treated with contempt and shoved aside. Apostles from Cosmopolitanistan dominate the staffs of international organizations, prestigious universities, and large news organizations, and it is no coincidence that Obama is nearly universally admired in those circles.
Many Americans do not want to live in Cosmopolitanistan, and for that matter, neither do many Muslims. That is why President Obama sounds like an American when addressing Americans, and a Muslim when addressing Muslims. He knows he “must” talk on their level to overcome their intransigence. To Obama, the Americans who wish to guard their personal liberties which originate from God, and the Muslims who desire to conduct themselves rightly before God, are indulging in petty, self-indulgent “distractions,” to use one of his other favorite words. His apostolic mission is to get both groups to abandon their beliefs — or, if that proves difficult, to cease agitating for their beliefs, so Cosmopolitanistan’s construction can speedily proceed.
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I’m actually willing to wait a while before giving up on Mr. Obama’s appeal to people in Muslim countries.
Considering how many people in benighted Muslim countries are willing to believe all sorts of charlatans, it’s only reasonable to expect that some of them will fall for Mr. Obama.
And there is even some interesting material in the speech that needs commentary: criticism for colonialism really is blame for the European powers who are responsible for badly-drawn borders of so many Muslim countries, more than blame for America.
This line has a subtext too: “Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.” It’s not that the West is hostile to Islam: rather, modernity is a package of forces hostile to traditional religious societies everywhere: liberalism, globalization, and consumerist capitalism.
The visit to Buchenwald and the appeal to end Jew-hating are worthwhile: if Obama can get public opinion in the Muslim world to turn against Holocaust denial, that would be a positive contribution. Yet that part of his speech — according to the AP transcript — drew no interruptions for applause.
You seem to assume that one has to be nationalistic to be patriotic. Lets say one doesn’t believe that the U.S.A. has a divine mandate to spread freedom. Does that mean they aren’t “true Americans”? You do understand that when this concept of America was concieved, it was Catholic Europe under the domination of throne and altar that was the unfree foil to free America.
You reference Americans who guard their personal liberties which orriginate from God. Are you saying that the nations before America that did not recognize these rights were unjust? Were all nations unjust before the U.S. came around? This sounds like enlightenment liberalism to me.
Mike, I’m not sure where you’re getting that assumption. From a Christian point of view, I think it’s possible to love or hate America and still think it has a divinely-sanctioned role to play in history.
All power comes from God:
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. (Colossians 1:16)
This truth is confirmed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The authority required by the moral order derives from God” (1899). It is elaborated at length here:
The U.S. has a tremendous amount of worldly power. This power takes economic, ideological, cultural and military forms. We can debate the degree and extent of that power, but it would be impossible to deny that it exists. This power must derive from God, or else there is some other independent source of power in the universe. To believe the latter, one must deny the omnipotence of the Godhead.
If power flows from God, and the U.S. possesses an exceptional degree of power, it follows that God has some very high expectations of America. We can debate what those general expectations might be, and how American power should be applied in this or that situation (or, indeed, whether it should be applied at all in a particular situation, as this country is not omnipotent). But from a Christian perspective, I don’t think it is possible to deny that the U.S. has an exceptional role to play in world history at the moment, and that this role is sanctioned (or “permitted,” if you prefer) by God.
I don’t know what you mean by “spread freedom.” Do you mean that the U.S. ought to promote political liberty as it interacts with the rest of the world? Yes, I think it should. Is this a divine “mandate”? Yes, I think it is: a state’s primary duty is to protect its citizens, but it has a secondary responsibility to serve the community of nations. That service can take many different forms. I would turn the question around and ask, do you think God is indifferent to political liberty? Does God approve of states that do not recognize the natural freedom of their peoples?
When America was “conceived,” their foil was Protestant King George, not “Catholic Europe,” whatever that is. The Founders eagerly allied themselves with the Catholic King Louis; there were certainly some anti-Catholics among them, but the Declaration and Constitution are not anti-Catholic, and our first two presidents pointedly rejected anti-Catholic sentiments as contrary to the American experiment.
(My parish, St. Mary’s in Alexandria, Virginia, was co-founded by Colonel John Fitzgerald, a Catholic aide to General Washington.)
I wouldn’t (and didn’t) say that all nations were unjust before the United States. No society is perfectly just, and ours never has been. But the U.S. is far more just than the nation in which President Obama was speaking, and it is more just than practically every Muslim-majority state. (I say “practically” because I don’t know everything about those 50+ states, but I can’t think of an exception). That was my main objection to the speech: he pretended as if there was little substantive difference between our country and the “Muslim world.” He need not have taken a tone of haughty superiority, but he didn’t need to act as if he was the universal judge of humanity who just happened to be born American.
If power flows from God, and the U.S. possesses an exceptional degree of power, it follows that God has some very high expectations of America. We can debate what those general expectations might be, and how American power should be applied in this or that situation (or, indeed, whether it should be applied at all in a particular situation, as this country is not omnipotent). But from a Christian perspective, I don’t think it is possible to deny that the U.S. has an exceptional role to play in world history at the moment, and that this role is sanctioned (or “permitted,” if you prefer) by God.
This does seem to flirt with American Exceptionalism, which I understand is not condoned by Catholic teaching. It seems God may permit a certain nation to accumulate worldy power, and with that accumulation, comes a grave responsibility to use it wisely. In our short history of Empire, we have not seemed to be particularly adept at using that power responsibly. At least, we have not shown ourselves better than Persian, Roman, Spanish, English or other empires at using it (all have been mixed bags at best).
Perhaps before using our power to spread democracy to every corner of the world, we might take a lesson from Hippocrates – first, do no harm.
I’ve been reading “City of God” lately, and St. Augustine seemed to think that Rome played a positive role in history at one point. Thus, I’m sure it isn’t sinful to believe that America, generally speaking, is a force for good in the world, despite her failures of omission and commission.
The United States is not an empire. I know academic types have great fun debating whether we are a “neo-imperial” power, but an empire is a polity that extends across the lands of many peoples. We have a lot of influence over other countries, but not positive control. The difference is substantial.
I’d say that the track record stacks up pretty well against the Persian Empire. Didn’t you ever see the documentary “300”?