奥巴马第16届曼德拉年度讲座演讲.docx

1、奥巴马第16届曼德拉年度讲座演讲奥巴马第16届曼德拉年度讲座演讲 Speech by Barack Obama at the 16thNelson Mandela Annual LectureWanderers Stadium, Johannesburg, South AfricaJuly 17, 2018Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much.Thank you. To Mama Graa Machel, members of the Mandela family, the

2、 Machel family, to President Ramaphosa who you can see is inspiring new hope in this great country professor, doctor, distinguished guests, to Mama Sisulu and the Sisulu family, 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

3、 and life of one of historys true giants.Let me begin by a correction and a few confessions. The correction is that I am a very good dancer. 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

4、 way to be here by Graa Machel.Confession number two: I forgot my geography and the fact that right now its winter in South Africa. I didnt bring a coat, and this morning, I had to send somebody out to the mall because I am wearing long johns. I was born in Hawaii. I was born in Hawaii.Confession nu

5、mber three: When my staff told me that I was to deliver a lecture, I thought back to the stuffy old professors in bow ties and tweed, and I wondered if this was one more sign of the stage of life that Im entering, along with gray hair and slightly failing eyesight. I thought about the fact that my d

6、aughters think anything I tell them is 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 didnt conform to two-minute soundbites. But given the strange and uncertain times that we are in and they are stran

7、ge, and they are uncertain with each days news cycles bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines, I thought maybe it would be useful to step back for a moment and try to get some perspective. So I hope youll indulge me, despite the slight chill, as I spend much of this lecture reflecting o

8、n where weve 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 next.One hundred years ago, Madiba was born in the village of M oh, see there, I always get that I got to get my Ms. right when Im in South Africa. Mvezo I got it. Truthf

9、ully, its because its so cold, my lips stuck. So in his autobiography, he describes a happy childhood; hes looking after cattle, hes playing with the other boys, eventually attends a school where his teacher gave him the English name Nelson. And as many of you know, hes quoted saying, “Why she besto

10、wed this particular name upon me, I have 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 r

11、acial segregation and subjugation, the network of laws that would be known as apartheid. Most of Africa, including my fathers homeland, was under colonial rule. The dominant European powers, having ended a horrific world war just a few months after Madibas birth, viewed this continent and its people

12、 primarily as spoils in a contest for territoryand abundant natural resources and cheap labor. And the inferiority of the black race, an indifference towards black culture and interests and aspirations was a given.And such aview of the world that certain races, certain nations, certain groups were i

13、nherently 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 bla

14、cks. Whites 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, without a say in the politics or economic forces that determined their lives. Often, they were

15、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 co

16、untry, 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 a

17、live 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 f

18、inally bring an end to colonial rule. More and more peoples, 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 p

19、rinciples 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

20、; and social welfare systems emerged, all with the 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

21、 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 just

22、ice and 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 his sacrifi

23、ce 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 allaround the world, their hopes for a better life, the possibility of a moral

24、transformation in the conduct of human affairs.Madibas 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 reexamine his own priorities, could make me consider the small role I might play

25、in bending the arc of the world towards justice. And when later, as a law student, I witnessed Madiba emerge from prison, justjust a few months, youll 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

26、 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 peoples lives and confined the human spirit that all that was crumbling bef

27、ore our eyes. 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 compl

28、ete, 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.And du

29、ring the last decades of the 20thcentury, the progressive, democratic vision that Nelson Mandela represented in many ways set the terms of international political debate. It doesnt mean that vision was always victorious, but it set the terms, the parameters; it guided how we thought about the meanin

30、g 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 andand sectarian strife still flared up with heartbreaking regularity, despite all that as a consequence of the continuation of n

31、uclear dtente, and a peaceful and prosperous Japan, and a unified Europe anchored in NATO, and the entry of China into the worlds system of trade all that greatly reduced the prospect of war between the worlds great powers. And from Europe to Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, dictatorships bega

32、n 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 theguiding normfor the majority of nations, even in places where the reality fell far short of the ideal, 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