I was asked to speak at the swearing in ceremony, on April 29th 2011 in PIttsburgh, Penssylvania, at which 51 of us became American Citizens. After thanking the judge, the attorney, and all who work for the court and the immigration service who had helped us along the way, this is what I said:
At Jewish Passovers, it is traditional for a young member of the family to ask “Why is this day special?”, whereupon one of the grandparents tells the moving story of a nation’s founding, a nation’s freedom. Every year on our own Independence Day (also my daughter Elinor’s birthday), I find myself wishing that we had the same tradition: amid the pleasures of a good meal, a cold beer, and the anticipation of fireworks, to stop and ask “Why is this day special?”
If you’re British in America, you have a special advantage here - every year on Independence Day you can’t avoid the question! And so it was for me, on my first Independence Day here, and every year: and it is a wonderful and moving journey. Schoolchildren in England are usually taught something about the French and Russian Revolutions, but not the American Revolution. It is never mentioned in political or social history, and in military history, American Independence is skated over in shuffling embarrassment, something of a hiccup in an otherwise clean slate from King Alfred to Francis Drake, to Nelson to Churchill. Coming to America, Britons have to learn afresh and question themselves.
The American Revolution was about much much more than whether people on one side of the Atlantic should govern people on another. The Revolution took the best of English and European traditions: Magna Carta, the Religious Settlement under Elizabeth, the French Enlightenment and the Rights of Man, and made something real, practical, resilient, sustainable, something we could implement as the cornerstone of freedom. Government of the people, by the people, for the people: however imperfect we the people are, it is our way to the Creator’s endowment of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
The American Revolution did not end in chaos or dictatorship. It cannot be placed in one period of history, the student can not finish the chapter and move on. It led to a new law, the Constitution, which governs each of us as individuals, but is itself governed by the people as a whole. It is part of a great campaign of the rights of humanity spanning centuries: that freedom cannot be restricted by religion or color, that voting cannot be restricted by wealth or gender. The Revolution spread, winning converts who made it their own. After two generations, in 1832, Britain passed its own reform act, so that, as in the USA, representation in government was based on population, not on ancient privilege. In 1867, Canada moved peacefully to its own democratic independence. People throughout every continent have thrown off old overlords and forge their own destinies: France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Japan, India, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, a daring, growing list that would have amazed our founding fathers. And with events in the Middle East, the reach of freedom may even be spreading further than any of us would have imagined only a few months ago.
Every nation is unique, every people brings its own insight and value to the world table. But we believe there is a unifying theme to all humanity: that we all share rights including Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. These rights, though divinely endowed, are for many people today as distant as the dreams that must have sustained the American Revolutionaries through some of their bitter, doubtful winters. To this day, it is a hope for all people, a natural birthright, worth the devotion of a lifetime.
To this, I too dedicate myself. I am here today not because my story is inspiring: I am here because America’s story is inspiring. I am honored, I am grateful, to take part. Thank you all.
2 comments:
No, the American revolution didn't end in dictatorship possibly because, as Marx used to say, it wasnt a real revolution at all---for which he had a theoretical criterion---but "one group of gentlemen handing over to another group of gentlemen". After all, America has state assemblies and governors before the revolution, just like after! The US had the moral upper hand in 1996, but by 1851, say, it had shifted back, and the British press regularly bemoaned the slave mentality of the US in firm tones referring to "British liberty" which had freed slaves across the world. The dialectic of liberty ebbs back and forth: in the McCarthy era the British felt very superior when the US was imprisoning and banning communists; less so now, when we are setting up a "Supreme Court" and have more than half the surveillance cameras in Europe.
Thanks Yorick for the comment. I would love to study more systematically the ebb and flow of liberties in Britain and America over the decades.
One can certainly make a strong argument that the American Revolution was more continuity than a breach with the past. "No taxation without representation" and habeus corpus were to many of the colonists simply "the rights of Englishmen" that were long-established and under attack. From one points of view I've come to see the English Civil War, American Independence and the American Civil War as one long interwoven process, with a variety of related issues at stake but in some ways the same two opposing sides.
I still think there's something fascinating and brave about the American Revolution, not in terms of "who's in charge", but because of the absurd notion of systematically writing down core principles of moral philosophy and thinking you can base a government on them. The British have benefitted over the centuries from many liberties that had not previously been widely enjoyed, but we're not always good at even knowing what they are.
There are some big simplifications in the speech I gave that morning, and some deliberate mythology. Of course, by "myth" I mean "a story that is important to our understanding of the world", not "a story that I don't really believe". It's a speech to new fellow-citizens first and foremost: I hope that excuses some of its historical simplicity.
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