REPLAY - Former US president Barack Obama honours Nelson Mandela on the centerary of his birth

[Applause] professor dr. distinguished guests - ma ma Sisulu hoodless a suitor family did to the people of South Africa it is a singular honor for me to be here with all of you as we gather to celebrate the birth and life of one of history's true Giants let me begin by a correction and a few confessions the correction is that I am a very good dancer [Applause] [Music] I just want to be clear about that Michelle is a little better the confessions number one I was not exactly invited to be here I was ordered in a very nice way to be here by Raza Michele confession number two I forgot my geography and the fact that right now it's winter in South Africa I didn't bring a coat and this morning I had to send somebody out to the mall because I'm wearing long johns I was born in Hawaii confession number three when my staff told me that I was to deliver a lecture I thought back to the stuffy old professors and bowties and tweed and I wondered if this was one more sign of the stage of life that I'm entering along with gray hair and slightly failing eyesight I thought about the fact that my daughter's think anything I tell them as a lecture I thought about the American press and how they often got frustrated at my long-winded answers at press conferences when my responses didn't conform to two-minute soundbites but given the strange and uncertain times that we are in and they are strange and they are uncertain of each day's new cycles bringing more heads spinning and disturbing headlines I thought maybe it would be useful to step back for a moment and try to get some perspective [Music] so I hope you'll indulge me despite the slight chill as I spend much of this lecture reflecting on where we've been and how we arrived at this present moment in the hope that it will offer us a roadmap for where we need to go nicely a 100 years ago Madiba was born in the village I gotta get my ends right when I'm in South Africa bezel [Applause] truthfully it's because it's so cold my lips stuck so even his autobiography describes a happy childhood he's looking after cattle he's playing with the other boys eventually attends a school where this teacher gave him the English name Nelson and as many of you know he's quoted saying why sheep it stowed this particular name upon me I had no idea there was no reason to believe that a young black boy at this time in this place could in any way alter history after all South Africa was then less than a decade removed from full British control already laws were being codified to implement racial segregation and subjugation the network of laws that would be known as a parts on most of Africa including my father's homeland was under colonial rule the dominant European powers having end in a horrific world war just a few months after Madiba's Berger viewed this continent and its people primarily as spoils of a contest for territory abundant natural resources and cheap labor and the inferiority of the black race an indifference towards black culture of interests and aspirations was a given in such a view of the world that certain races certain nation certain groups were inherently superior and that violence and coercion is the primary basis for governance that the strong necessarily exploit the weak that wealth is determined primarily by conquest that view of the world was hardly confined to relations between Europe and Africa or relations between whites and blacks rights were happy to exploit other whites when they could and by the way blacks were often willing to exploit other blacks and around the globe the majority of people lived at subsistence levels with a say in the politics or economic forces that determine their lives often they were subject to the whims and cruelties of distant leaders the average person saw no possibility of advancing from the circumstances of their birth women were almost uniformly subordinate to men privilege and status was rigidly bound by caste and color and ethnicity and religion and even in my own country even in democracies like the United States founded on a declaration that all men are created equal racial segregation and systemic discrimination was the law in almost half the country and the norm throughout the rest of the country that was the world just 100 years ago there are people alive today who were alive in that world it is hard then to overstate the remarkable transformations that have taken place since that time a second world war even more terrible than the first along with a cascade of liberation movements from Africa to Asia Latin America the Middle East would finally bring an end to colonial rule more and more people's having witnessed the horrors of totalitarianism the repeated mass slaughters of the 20th century began to embrace a new vision for Humanity a new idea one based not only on the principle of national self-determination but also on the principles of democracy and rule of law and civil rights and the inherent dignity of every single individual in those nations with market-based economies suddenly union movements developed and health and safety and commercial regulations were instituted and access to public education was expanded and social welfare systems emerged all will be aim of constraining the excesses of capitalism and enhancing its ability to provide opportunity not just to some but to all people and the result was unmatched economic growth and a growth of the middle class and in my own country the moral force of the civil rights movement not only overthrew Jim Crow laws but it opened up the floodgates for women and historically marginalized groups to reimagine themselves to find their own voices to make their own claims to full citizenship it was in service of this long walk towards freedom and justice an equal opportunity that Nelson Mandela devoted his life at the outset his struggle was particular to this place to his homeland a fight to end apartheid a fight to ensure lasting political and social and economic equality for its disenfranchised non-white citizens but through a sacrifice and unwavering leadership and perhaps most of all through his moral example Mandela and the movement he led would come to signify something larger he came to embody the universal aspirations of dispossessed people all around the world their hopes for a better life the possibility of a moral transformation in the conduct of human affairs Madiba is light shone so brightly even from that narrow Robben Island cell that in the late 70s he could inspire a young college student on the other side of the world to re-examine his own priorities could make me consider the small role I might play in bending the arc of the world towards justice and when later as a law student I witnessed Madiba emerge from prison just just a few months you'll recall after the fall of the Berlin Wall I felt the same wave of Hope that washed through hearts all around the world you remember that feeling it seemed as if the forces of progress were on the march that they were inexorable each step he took you felt this is the moment when the old structures of violence and repression and ancient hatreds that had so long stunted people's lives and confined the human spirit that all that was crumbling before us and then as Madiba guided this nation through negotiation painstakingly reconciliation its first fair and free elections as we all witnessed the Grace and the generosity with which he embraced former enemies the wisdom for him to step away from power once he felt his job was complete we understood that we understood it was not just the subjugated the oppressed who were being freed from the shackles of the past the subjugator was being offered a gift being given a chance to see in a new way being given a chance to participate in the work of building a better world during the last decades of the 20th century the progressive democratic vision that Nelson Mandela represented in many ways set the terms of the International political debate it doesn't mean that vision was always victorious but it said the terms the parameters it guided how we thought about the meaning of progress and it continued to propel the world forward yes there were still tragedies bloody civil wars from the Balkans to the Congo despite the fact that ethnic and sectarian strife still flared up with heartbreaking regularity despite all that as a consequence of the continuation of nuclear to taunt a peaceful and prosperous Japan and a unified Europe anchored in NATO and the entry of China into the world system of trade all that greatly reduced the prospect of war between the world's great powers and from Europe to Africa Latin America Southeast Asia dictatorships began to give way to democracies the March was on a respect for human rights and the rule of law enumerated in a declaration by the United Nations became the guiding and norm for the majority of Nations even in places where the reality fell far short of the idea even when those human rights were violated those who violated human rights were on the defensive and with these geopolitical changes came sweeping economic changes the introduction of market-based principles in which previously closed economies along with the forces of global integration powered by new technologies suddenly unleashed entrepreneurial talents to those that once had been relegated to the periphery of the world economy who hadn't counted suddenly they counted they had some power that the possibilities of doing business and then came scientific breakthroughs and new infrastructure and the reduction of armed conflicts and suddenly a billion people were lifted out of poverty and once starving nations were able to feed themselves and infant mortality rates plummeted and meanwhile the spread of the internet made it possible for people to connect across oceans and cultures and continents instantly were brought together and potentially all the world's knowledge could be in the hands of a small child and even the most remote village that's what happened just over the course of a few decades and all that progress is real it has been brought and it has been deep and it all happened in what by the standards of human history was nothing more than a blink of an eye and now an entire generation has grown up in a world that by most measures has gotten steadily freer and healthier and wealthier and less violent and more tolerant during the course of their lifetimes it should make us hopeful but if we cannot deny the very real strides that our world has made since that moment when Madiba took those steps out of confinement we also have to recognize all the ways that the international order has fallen short of its promise in fact it is in part because of the failures of governments and powerful elites to squarely address the shortcomings and contradictions of this international order that we now see much of the world threatening to return to an older a more dangerous a more brutal way of doing business so we have to start by admitting that whatever laws may have existed on the books whatever wonderful pronouncements existed in constitutions whatever nice words were spoken during these last several decades at international conferences or in the halls of the United Nations the previous structures of privilege and power and injustice and exploitation never completely went away they were never fully dislodged cast differences still impact the life chances of people in the Indian subcontinent ethnic and religious differences still determine who gets opportunity from Central Europe to the Gulf it is a plain fact that racial discrimination still exists in both the United States and South Africa and it is also a fact that the accumulated disadvantages of years of institutionalized depression have created yawning disparities in income and in wealth and in education and in health in personal safety and access to credit women and girls around the world continue to be blocked from positions of power and authority they continue to be prevented from getting a basic education they are disproportionately victimized by violence and abuse they're still paid less than men for doing the same work that's still happening economic opportunity for all the magnificence of the global economy all the shining skyscrapers that have transformed the landscape around the world entire neighborhoods entire cities entire regions entire nations have been bypassed in other words for far too many people the more things have changed the more things stayed the same and while globalization and technology have opened up new opportunities have driven remarkable economic growth in previously struggling parts of the world globalization has also upended the agricultural and manufacturing sectors in many countries has also greatly reduced the demand for certain workers has helped weaken unions and labourers bargaining power it's made it easier for capital to avoid tax laws and the regulations of nation states can just move billions trillions of dollars with the tap of a computer key and the results of all these trends has been an explosion in economic inequality it's meant that a few dozen individuals controlled the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of humanity that's not an exaggeration that's a statistic think about that in many middle-income and developing countries new wealth has just tracked the old bad deal but people got because of reinforced or even compounded existing patterns of inequality the only difference is it created even greater opportunities for corruption on an epic scale and for once solidly middle-class families in advanced economies like the United States these trends of men greater economic insecurity especially for those who don't have specialized skills people who were in manufacturing people working in factories people working on farms in every country just about the disproportionate economic clout of those at the top has provided these individuals with wildly disproportionate influence on their country's political life and on its media on what policies are pursued and whose interests end up being ignored now it should be noted that this new international elite the professional class that supports them differs and important respects from the ruling aristocracies of old it includes many who are self-made it includes champions of meritocracy and although still mostly white and male as a group they reflect the diversity of nationalities and ethnicities that would have not existed a hundred years ago a decent percentage considered themselves liberal in their politics modern and cosmopolitan in their outlook unburdened by parochialism or nationalism or overt racial prejudice or strong religious sentiment they are equally comfortable to New York or London or Shanghai or Nairobi or Ueno sadhus or Johannesburg many are sincere and effective in their philanthropy some of them count Nelson Mandela among their heroes some even supported Barack Obama for the presidency the United States and by virtue of my status is a former head of state some of them consider me as an honorary member of the club you know I get invited to these fancy things you know they'll fly me out but what's nevertheless true is that in their business dealings many titans of industry and finance are increasingly detached from any single locale or nation-state they live lives more and more insulated from the struggles of ordinary people in their countries of origin and their decisions their decisions to shut down a manufacturing plan or to try to minimize their tax bill by shifting profits to a tax haven with the help of high-priced accountants or lawyers or their decision to take advantage of lower-cost immigrant labor or their decision to pay abroad are often done without malice it's just a rational response they consider to the demands of their balance sheets and their shareholders and competitive pressures but too often these decisions are also made without reference to notions of human solidarity or a ground-level understanding of the consequences that will be felt by particular people in particular communities by the decisions that they're made and from their board rooms or retreats global decision-makers don't get a chance to see sometimes the pain in the faces of laid off workers their kids don't suffer when cuts in public education and health care result as a consequence of a reduced tax base because of tax avoidance they can't hear the resentment of an older tradesman when he complains that a newcomer doesn't speak his language on a jobsite when he once worked there less subject to the discomfort and the displacement that some of their countrymen may feel as globalization scrambles not only existing economic arrangements but traditional social and religious mores which is why at the end of the 20th century while some Western commentators were declaring the end of history and the inevitable triumph of liberal democracy and the virtues of the global supply chain so many missed signs of a brewing backlash a backlash that arrived in so many forms it announced itself most violently with 9/11 and the emergence of transnational terrorist networks fueled by an ideology that perverted one of the world's great religions and asserted to struggle not just between Islam and the West but between Islam and modernity and an ill-advised US invasion of Iraq didn't help accelerating a sectarian conflict Russia already humiliated by its reduced influence since the collapse of the Soviet Union feeling threatened by Democratic movements along its borders suddenly started reasserting authoritarian control and in some cases meddling with its neighbors China emboldened by its economic success started bristling against criticism of its human rights record it framed the promotion of universal values as nothing more than foreign meddling imperialism under a new name within the United States within the European Union challenges the globalization first came from the left but then came more forcefully from the right as he started seeing populist movements which by the way are often cynically funded by right-wing billionaires intent on reducing government constraints on their business interests these movements tapped the unease that was felt by many people who lived outside of the urban course fears that economic security was slipping away that their social status and privileges were eroding that their cultural identities were being threatened by outsiders somebody that didn't look like them or sound like them or pray as they did and perhaps more than anything else the devastating impact of the 2008 financial crisis in which the reckless behavior of financial elites resulted in years of hardship for ordinary people all around the world made all the previous assurances of experts ring hollow all all those assurances that somehow financial regulators knew what they were doing that somebody was minding the store that global economic integration was a nun adulterer good because of the actions taken by governments during and after that crisis including I should add by aggressive steps by my administration the global economy has now returned to healthy growth but the credibility of the international system the faith and experts in places like Washington or Brussels all that had taken a blow and a politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment began to appear and that kind of politics is now on the move it's on a move at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago I am NOT being alarmist I am simply stating the facts look around strongman politics are ascendant suddenly whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained the form of it but those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning [Applause] in the West you've got far-right parties that oftentimes are based not just on platforms of protectionism and closed borders but also on barely hidden racial nationalism many developing countries now we're looking at China's model of authoritarian control combined with mercantilist capitalism as preferable to the messiness of democracy who needs free speech as long as the economy is going good the Free Press is under attack censorship and state control of media is on the rise social media once seen as a mechanism to promote knowledge and understanding and solidarity has proved to be just as effective promoting hatred and paranoia and propaganda and conspiracy theories [Applause] so i'ma divas 100th birthday we now stand at a crossroads a moment in time at which two very different visions of humanity's future compete for the hearts and the minds of citizens around the world two different stories two different narratives about who we are and who we should be how should we respond should we see that wave of hope that we felt with Madiba's release from prison from the Berlin Wall coming down should we see that hope that we had as naive and misguided should we understand the last 25 years of global integration as nothing more than a detour from the previous inevitable cycle of history where might makes right and politics is a hostile competition between tribes and races and religions and nations compete in a zero-sum game constantly teetering on the edge of conflict until full-blown war breaks up is that what we think let me tell you what I believe I believe in Nelson Mandela's vision I believe in a vision shared by Gandhi and King and Abraham Lincoln I believe in a vision of equality and justice and freedom and multiracial democracy built on the premise that all people are created equal and they're endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights and I believe that a world governed by such principles is possible and that it can achieve more peace and more cooperation in pursuit of a common good that's what I believe and I believe we have no choice but to move forward that those of us who believe in democracy and civil rights and a common humanity have a better story to tell and I believe this not just based on sentiment I believe it based on hard evidence the fact that the world's most prosperous and successful societies the ones with the highest living standards and the highest levels of satisfaction among their people happen to be those which have most closely approximated the liberal progressive ideal that we talked about and have nurtured the talents and contributions of all their citizens the fact that authoritarian governments have been shown time and time again to breed corruption because they're not accountable to repress their people to lose touch eventually with reality to engage in bigger and bigger lies that ultimately result in economic and political and cultural and scientific stagnation look at look at history look at the facts the fact that countries which rely on rabid nationalism and xenophobia and doctrines of tribal racial or religious superiority as their main organizing principle the thing that that holds people together eventually those countries find themselves consumed by civil war or external war check the history books the fact that technology cannot be put back in a bottle so we're stuck with the fact that we now live close together and populations are going to be moving and environmental challenges are not going to go away on their own so that the only way to effectively address problems like climate change or mass migration or pandemic disease will be to develop systems for more international cooperation not less we have a better story to tell but to say that our vision for the future is better is not to say that it will inevitably win because history also shows the power of fear history shows the lasting hold of greed and the desire to dominate others in the minds of men especially men history shows how easily people can be convinced to turn on those who look different or worship God in a different way so if we're truly to continue my divas long walk towards freedom we're gonna have to work harder and we're gonna have to be smarter we're gonna have to learn from the mistakes of the recent past and so in the brief time remaining let me just suggest a few guideposts for the road ahead guideposts that draw from Madiba x' work his words the lessons of his life first Madiba shows those of us who believe in freedom and democracy we are going to have to fight harder to reduce inequality and promote lasting economic opportunity for all people now I don't believe in economic determinism human beings don't live on bread alone but they need bread and history shows that societies which tolerate vast differences in wealth feed resentments and reduce solidarity and actually grow more slowly and then once people achieved more than mere subsistence then they're measuring their well-being by how they compare to their neighbours and whether their children can expect to live a better life and when economic power is concentrated in the hands of the few history also shows that political power is sure to follow and that that dynamic eats away at democracy sometimes it may be straight out corruption but from times it may not involve the exchange of money that's just folks who are that wealthy get what they want and it undermines human freedom and my people understood this this is not new he warned us about this he said where globalization means as it so often does that the rich and the powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and the weaker then we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom that's what he said so if we are serious about universal freedom today if we care about social justice today then we have a responsibility to do something about it and I would respectfully amend what Madiba said I don't do it often but I'd say it's not enough for us to protest we're gonna have to build we're gonna have to innovate we're gonna have to figure out how do we close this widening chasm of wealth and opportunity both within countries and between them and [Applause] and how we achieve this is going to vary country to country and I know your new president is committed to rolling up his sleeves and trying to do so but we can learn from the last 70 years that it will not involve unregulated unbridled unethical capitalism it also won't involve old-style command-and-control socialism from the top that was tried it didn't work very well for almost all countries progress is going to depend on an inclusive market-based system one that offers education for every child that protects collective bargaining and secures the rights of every worker that breaks up monopolies to encourage competition and small and medium sized businesses and and has laws that root out corruption and ensures fair dealing in business that maintains some form of progressive taxation so that which people are still rich but they're given a little bit back to make sure that everybody else has something to pay for universal health care and retirement security and invests in infrastructure and scientific research that builds platforms for animation I should add by the way right now I'm actually surprised by how much money I got and let me tell you something I don't have half as much as most of these folks or the tenth or hundredth there's only so much you can eat this only oh so big a house you can have that there's only so many life sucks you can take I mean it's enough you you don't have to to take a vow of poverty just to say well let me help out and look a few of the other folks but let me look at that child out there who doesn't have enough to eat or need some school fees let me help them out I'll pay a little more in taxes it's okay I mean it shows a poverty of ambition to just want to take more and more and more instead of saying well I've got so much who can I help how can I give more and more and more that's ambition that's impact that's influence what it what an amazing gift to be able to help people not just yourself where was I I had lived you get the point it involves promoting an inclusive capitalism both within nations and between nations and as we pursue for example sustainable development goals we have to get past the the charity mindset we've got to bring more resources to the Forgotten pockets of the world through through investment and entrepreneurship because there is talent everywhere in the world if given an opportunity when it comes to the international system of commerce and trade it's legitimate for poor countries to continue to seek access to wealthier markets and by the way wealthier markets that's not the big problem that you're having that a small African country is sending you tea and flowers that's not your biggest economic challenge it's also proper for advanced economies like the United States to insist on reciprocity from nations like China that are no longer solely for countries to make sure that they're providing access to their markets and that they stop taking intellectual property in hacking our servers but but even as there are discussions to be had around trade and commerce it's important to recognize this reality while the outsourcing of jobs from north to south from east to west while a lot of that was a dominant trend in the late 20th century the biggest challenge to workers in countries like mine today is technology and the biggest challenge for your new president when we think about how we're going to employ more people here is going to be also technology because artificial intelligence is here and it is accelerated and you're going to have driverless cars and you're going to have more and more automated services and that's going to make the job of giving everybody work that is meaningful tougher and we're going to have to be more imaginative and the pace of changes is going to require to do more fundamental reimagining of our social and political arrangements to protect the economic security and the dignity that comes with a job it's not just money that a job provides it provides dignity instruction and a sense of place and a sense of purpose so we're gonna have to consider new ways of thinking about these problems like a universal income review of our workweek how we retrain our young people how we make everybody an entrepreneur at some level but we're gonna have to worry about economics if we want to get democracy back on track second Madiba teaches us that some principles really are universal and the most important one is the principle that we are bound together by a common humanity and that each individual has inherent dignity and worth now it's surprising that we have to affirm this truth today more than a quarter century after Madiba walked out of prison I still have to stand here at a lecture and devote some time to saying that black people and white people and Asian people and Latin American people and women and men and gays and straights that we are all human that our differences are superficial and that we should treat each other with care and respect I would have thought we would have figured that out by now I thought that basic No was well-established but it turns out as we're seeing in this recent drift into reactionary politics that the struggle for basic justice is never truly finished so we've got to constantly be on the lookout and fight for people who seek to elevate themselves by putting somebody else down and by the way we also have to actively resist this is important particularly in some countries in Africa like my own father's homeland I um I've made this point before we have to resist the notion that basic human rights like freedom to dissent or the right of women to fully participate in the society or or the rights minorities to equal treatment or the rights of people not to be beat up and jailed because of their sexual orientation we have to be careful not to say that somehow well that doesn't apply to us that those are Western ideas rather than Universal approaches again Madiba you know he anticipated things he knew what he was talking about in 1964 before he received the sentence that condemned him to die in prison he explained from the doc that the Magna Carta the petition of rights the Bill of Rights are documents which are held in veneration by Democrats throughout the world in other words he didn't say well those folks were written by South African saw this I can't claim them though he said that's part of my inheritance that's part of the human inheritance that applies here in this country to me and to you and that's part of what gave him the moral authority that the apartheid regime could never claim because he was more familiar with their best values than they were he had read their documents more carefully than they had he went on to say political division based on color is entirely artificial and when it disappears so will the domination of one color group by another that's Nelson Mandela speaking in 1964 when I was three years old while it's true then remains true today basic truths that do not change it is a truth that can be embraced by the English and by the Indian by Mexican by the Bantu and by the looool and by the American it is a truth that lies at the heart of every world religion that we should do unto others as we'd have them do unto us that we see ourselves in other people that we can recognize common hopes and common groups and it is a truth that is incompatible with any form of discrimination based on race or religion or gender or sexual orientation and it is a truth that by the way when embraced actually delivers practical benefits since it ensures that a society can draw upon the talents and energy and skill of all its people and if you doubt that just ask the French football team that just won the World Cup because not all of those folks not all of those folks looked like Gauls to me but the French they're French embracing our common humanity does not mean that we had to abandon our unique ethnic and national and religious identities but even there was stop being proud of his tribal heritage he didn't he didn't stop being proud of being a black man and being a South African but he believed as I believe that you can be proud of your heritage without denigrating those of a different heritage in fact you dishonor your heritage it would make me think that you're a little insecure about your heritage if you got to put somebody else's heritage down yeah that's right don't you get a sense sometimes but again I'm a delivery new that that that these people who are so intent on putting people down and puffing themselves up that they're small hearted that that there's uh there's something something they're just afraid of but even knew that we cannot clean justice for ourselves when it's only reserved for some a Deva understood that we can't say we've got to just society simply because we replaced the color of the person on top of an unjust system so the person looks like us even though they're doing the same stuff and somehow now we've got justice that doesn't work it's not justice if now you're on top so I'm going to do the same thing that those folks were doing to me now I'm gonna do it to you that's not justice I detest racialism he said whether it comes from a black man or a white man now we have to acknowledge that there is disorientation that comes from rapid change in modernization and the fact that the world has has shrunk and we're going to have to find ways to lessen the fears that those who feel threatened in the Western debate around immigration for example it's not wrong to insist that national borders matter that's whether you're a citizen or not is gonna matter to a government that laws need to be followed then in the public realm newcomers should make an effort to adapt to the language and customs of their new home those are legitimate things and we have to be able to engage people who who do feel as if things are not orderly but that can't be an excuse for immigration policies based on race or ethnicity or religion there's got to be some consistency and we can enforce the law while respecting the essential humanity of those who are striving for a better life for a mother with a child in her arms we can recognize that could be somebody in our family that could be my child Bert

Channel: FRANCE 24 English

Views: 45,903

Keywords: France24, US, President, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Centenary, South Africa, Johannesburg, Cape Town, speech, Commemorations, Cyril Ramaphosa, Africa, Kenya, Muslim, islam, apartheid, legend, black, african american

Id: O_tu2k_V3lI

Length: 61min 56sec (3716 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2018