USA/ The oath and the speech

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So Barack Obama, a democrat, was the third president of the United States, after  Chester Arthur (president from 1881 to 1885), another democrat, and Grover Cleveland (president from 1885 to 1889 and then from 1893 to 1897), a republican, to take his oath twice while entering the White House. The first time, in front of two millions people and the TV or internet cameras of the whole world, Obama stumbled over the word « faithfully ». Sure enough, the way the Chief Justice was enunciating the oath to him was a bit misleading. And there is no question the new president did not really want his oath-taking to be ambiguous in any way. The fact is, however, that something occurred. And that the Romans, who despised their auguri but believed in signs, would have not been happy about that.

I have nothing against Barack Obama as the president of the United States – so far. As a foreign friend of the United States, I urged my American friends not to vote for him, and I greatly deplored his being elected. On the other hand, I cannot deny Obama’s charisma, charm, and intelligence. Moreover, he beamed, even before being elected, and all the more so after being elected, many signals to moderate and even conservative Americans, to reassure them about his true intentions. In the same line of things, he really insisted so adamantly that he was a friend of Israel that one has to take it in account. And finally, since I believe that the welfare and the safety of the world are linked to a strong American leadership, I prefer a strong and thriving America, even under Obama, to a weak and declining America without him.

Like most Americans and millions of people all over the world, I watched the Inauguration ceremony on TV. Like most people, I was not really aware then of the « faithfully » incident. However, I had immediately some reservations about the inaugural speech. Nearly everybody said it was a great and very inspiring piece of political eloquence. I agree it was a momentous speech in some ways, but not necessarily for the best reasons.

It was too good an inaugural speech, in terms of sheer rhetorics, to qualify as a good speech in terms of politics. It was replete with conventional patriotic clichés of all sort. Obama mentioned  « God » and « Scripture » time and again, spoke of a God-given American national « destiny », extolled the American heritage in peace and war (including the Vietnam war), promised to take up every challenge in the old, virile, way. It was more John Wayne than Martin Luther King. Naturally, every leader in the world, let alone every American leader, must refer to the accepted national narrative : it is just another token of legitimacy, like the solemn inaugural oath itself. The problem with Obama’s speech, in this respect, was overkill. The more John Wayne he pretended to be, the more apparent was his departure from that narrative to something quite different. This is what I mean when I say that the inaugural speech, in the end of the day, was not politically conclusive. Macchiavelli opined that princes should no be but should appear to be pious. Obama’s pieties were both so strongly articulated and so obviously out of sync with so many parts of the same speech that they could not be taken at face value.

One crucial paragraph really bothered me. Obama, the first Black president of the United States, was supposed to say something about race. He obliged  : « For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace. »

Admittedly, that sounds like the standard messianic view of America as a convenantal rather than ethnic nation, based on the primacy of law and trust, rather than on blood and blind obedience, and is as such exactly what was expected from the 44th president. But some subtle, yet fateful, variations were introduced in the traditional wording.  The most relevant sentence reads as follows : « We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. » For one thing, this is the first time that an American president lists non-believers as, so to say, one of American creeds. But what is really a departure from the accepted American practice is to posit America, when it comes to religion proper, as  « a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus », in that order. Until now, the wording would have been : « A nation of Christians and Jews, Muslims and Hindus ». Obama’s new wording dismisses the old view of America as an Judeo-Christian nation bound together by a strong Biblical and especially Old Testament heritage for a newer view of a primarily Christian-Muslim nation, with also Jewish and Hindu communities.

Many people who indeed noticed that change think it is of no consequence : « He just wanted to signal to American Muslims that they, too, were part of the American nation », I was told. « And to other Muslims all over the world that America was not, after all, a Christian or Judeo-Christian nation, but a nation inclusive of Muslims as well ». Maybe. Or maybe not. If the president’s words, especially in his inaugural speech, are inconsequential, what do we need such a speech in the first place, with so much John Wayne about it ? And if the order of his words doesn’t really count, why did he need to repeat his oath ?

American Jews, who voted en masse for Obama, are downgraded, in the president’s sentence, to the third rank in terms of religion and spiritual heritage, after Muslims : something which is  neither true according to data nor in accordance to the heretofore accepted American narrative. They are stripped of the special Abrahamic,  « older brother »,  status they had enjoyed ever since the Puritans and George Washington. The Zionist Organization of America may be quoted on this. It said, in a fairly recent press release, as President George  W. Bush already mentioned mosques along with synagogues,  albeit in the proprer order : « Throughout its history, the United States has always been known as a nation based on Judeo-Christian values and heritage. Moreover, surveys show that there are some 5 – 7 million Jews living in the United States. Most surveys show that there are 1.8 – 2.8 million Muslims living in the United States. In contrast, in President George W. Bush's Inauguration Speech on January 20, 2001, he said the following, "Church and charity, synagogue and mosque, lend our communities their humanity, and they will have an honored place in our plans and laws’’ » . I don’t know whether ZOA will repeat from now on its claim that the United State « has always been known as a nation on Judeo-Christian values and heritage ». What it clear is that it won’t even be able to quote the present president to the same effect, unless he drastically reverses his inaugural speech's  mantra.

© Michel Gurfinkiel, 2009