Obama in Berlin — looking back

There are easy rationalisations that don’t quite explain away extensive detour Obama has taken from his 2008 aims.

On June 19, President Barack Obama gave a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. In anticipation of his address, commentators made inevitable comparisons to President John F Kennedy’s famous “ich bin ein Berliner” speech, as Obama’s remarks came almost exactly 50 years to the day after Kennedy’s and it is inconceivable that such significant timing was accidental. However, there is an even more evocative juxtaposition to be made: President Obama’s speech from June 19 to candidate Obama’s speech against the same compelling backdrop five years ago.

People will tell you they remember “exactly” where they were during momentous occasions in history, when they observed Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, or saw Boris Yeltsin standing on the tank, or watched unbelievingly as planes flew into the Twin Towers. While not intending to minimise those epic historical moments through a trivial comparison, Obama’s 2008 speech in Berlin is one of those momentous, memorable occasions in my own personal history.

I first became eligible to vote right before the 1996 elections and I knew even at the tender age of 18 that Bill Clinton was the candidate for me (even with his evident personal failings). Clinton was young, popular and powerful and I was certain that my own political beliefs leaned towards the Democratic Party. A vote for Clinton seemed the obvious choice.

What I didn’t realise at the time was how easy it was to be a Democrat and an American in the late 1990s. The First Gulf War had been an unqualified (and unexamined) success of good guys prevailing over bad, the economy was booming and US leadership on the Dayton Peace Accords meant that international sentiment towards America was favourable and forgiving.

Fast forward 12 years to the 2008 US elections. Eight years of President George W Bush — and his policies — had left the world exhausted. At that point, I had been living abroad in Europe for three years, enduring jibes, jokes and caustic comments about my country and “my” president. At countless social encounters, I had listened politely to tirades about how America had ruined “everything”, and on more than one occasion, I had been bullied into apologising for the Iraq war. (Sorry, everybody).

I watched Senator Obama’s speech in Berlin, late July 2008, live-streaming on my laptop, standing in my pajamas, doing the dishes in my tiny kitchen in Geneva. I was completely overcome with emotion when he reminded the rapturous crowd that “the world will watch and remember what we do here — what we do with this moment”. I was captivated when he asked the throngs to join him in acknowledging that “there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world”. I was riveted as he invited those gathered to extend their hands “to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice”.

How, then, has he gotten so far off track in the intervening five years?

There are easy rationalisations that don’t quite explain away the extensive detour that President Obama has taken from these laudable aims. Of course, it’s much easier to be idealistic when you are in the opposition; and yes, the US Congress has been inept and intransigent. But naivety, ineptitude and intransigence can’t justify the terrorisation of civilians through illegal drone strikes, force-feeding of hunger strikers in Guantanamo, massive unwarranted electronic surveillance of US citizens, the bullying of journalists, the expansion of the CIA’s paramilitary activities and humanitarian inaction on Syria, to name just a few confounding policies of the Obama Administration.

It will take much longer than the remaining three years of his administration for President Obama to undo the damage that these policies have done to his own personal reputation, not to mention the reputation of the United States. But he can use the occasion of his speech in Berlin to remind himself of what could have been. I know, at least, one expat who will be watching.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2013.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.