Sarkozy: Freedom as Self-Determination
Yesterday I got a chance to read an English translation of French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s speech from at the Munich security conference over the weekend. I thought this part was interesting:
What has history taught us? That no empire, even the largest, can defeat the longing for freedom. All of us, in the course of our history, have found ourselves confronted with this painful reality. All of us, not just in the twentieth century, with the dissillusionment of the USSR, but when we look back at our history, at some point have thought we were an empire able to treat others’ longing for freedom with disdain.
It isn’t just in Europe that there’s a longing for freedom; it’s all over the world. We have all — and, in her history, like others, France has — had to deal with great disillusionment when we forgot that freedom was for everyone.
Not so long ago this kind of anti-imperialist sentiment would have been commonplace in the United States. Certainly FDR and Harry Truman took the view that part of forging the alliance with England and France to fight Nazism and Communism required the U.S. to pressure those countries to disband their empires. More recently, we’ve lost sight of these issues, and under the administration of George W. Bush it became commonplace to argue that to support an international agenda aimed at “freedom” actually required the United States to espouse the coercive military domination of foreign countries. Sarkozy has found a way to push back on that attitude that, both rightly and politely, puts the recent errors of American policy in a broader context not as some unique sin of ours but as a sin of hubris that’s been repeatedly engaged in by a variety of countries and that we all need to collectively overcome.
36 Responses to “Sarkozy: Freedom as Self-Determination”
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February 10th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Words won’t cut it. Nothing will change until the world unites to stop it. Sanctions aimed at the U.S., refusal to fund our deficit, economic warfare, arresting our leaders when they leave the U.S., refusal to allow our troops to be based on foreign soil, etc., etc., etc. That’s what we need to see.
February 10th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Given that there’s a certain segment of American society that will not listen to reason, he makes a very persuasive argument. Like the USA, France doesn’t usually like its leaders admitting to any blemishes in our national history, so I’m sure that our diplomats perked their ears at his humility.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Just curious:
Matthieu, how come you spell the first name of Sarkozy with a H?
February 10th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
It’s also hogwash… Freedom falls somewhere behind health, economic prosperity, physical security, and basic equality in the list of things that people in Western societies value. The miracle of democracy is that in some Western countries we’ve managed to supply all of the above, plus freedom. But, take away a few of the above-mentioned and you’ll see the mob demand freedom’s head on a pike.
Don’t fall for Sarkozy’s language. It’s Bush with a little intellectual heft. It’s also Wilson, without the lying-through-the-teeth hypocrisy. Freedom did not create the French Republic, it was perverse levels of economic inequality, or, the violent protests of French Algerians (depending on your perception of the Fifth Republic).
February 10th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
under the administration of George W. Bush it became commonplace to argue that to support an international agenda aimed at “freedom” actually required the United States to espouse the coercive military domination of foreign countries
Yes, that’s right, Matt. The Iraqis clearly had more freedom under Saddam Hussein than they have now. And Germans clearly had more freedom under Hitler and the Nazis than as a liberal democracy. How dare anyone suggest that “coercive military domination” is a means to freedom!
February 10th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
And the naybobs of negativity will say: America is not usually an empire in the traditional sense (unless you happen to have lived in turn-of-the-century Cuba, 1909-1933 Nicaragua, etc or live in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Iraq, etc) and projects its power more of the time less through military occupation and direct colonial administration than through regional and international institutions it dominates, economic aid and investment to countries that play ball and refusal of aid and investment to and even sanctions against countries that don’t, the threat rather than actuality of military action, and so on.
February 10th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
“What has history taught us? That no empire, even the largest, can defeat the longing for freedom.”
That might be arguably true, if everything in history before about 1750 AD is flushed down the memory hole. For pete’s sake, folks from 4 or 5 centuries ago would see our concept of freedom as nothing but anarchy.
Mike
February 10th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Okay. I agree with the anti-imperialist sentiment. But France is probably not a great standard-bearer, unless you think their sins since Louis XIV (or for that matter Philippe Le Bel) have been somehow purged by a decade or two of government by limp-wristed Socialists. And Sarkozy is definitely a funny spokesman, since his margin of victory came from Le Penists and gerontological pieds noirs. N’est-ce pas?
February 10th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Matt’s comments seem to have nothing to do with What Sarkozy says. He seems to be talking about places like Saudia Arabia, Iran North Korea and China where youhave a goverment activly repressing freedom.
February 10th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
“forging the alliance with England and France to fight Nazism and Communism required the U.S. to pressure those countries to disband their empires.”
Really? Exactly what pressure did we apply to France in Southeast Asia? Aside from support for their colonial enterprise, of course. It seems the people of Southeast Asia were the only ones pressuring France to give up their empire.
February 10th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Braden and MBunge are right. The idea that people ‘naturally’ long for political ‘freedom’ is nonsense on stilts, and people like Bush, Al, and the like who spout this nonsense about ‘democratization’ and ’spreading the blessings of liberty’ are among the more pernicious enemies of peace in the world today.
This prolonged economic crisis, I suspect, will probably put paid to liberal democracy in not a few countries.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:14 am
Excuse me? I think MATT just flunked history. England & France both (& the US) still have remnants of their empires in place. Ever hear of Fiji, Faulkland Islands, Guam to name just a few? Most of the parts of those empires they no longer have been taken forceably from them by the natives. Which, BTW, proves Sarkozy’s point.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:51 am
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February 11th, 2009 at 1:00 am
Certainly FDR and Harry Truman took the view that part of forging the alliance with England and France to fight Nazism and Communism required the U.S. to pressure those countries to disband their empires
Others have already discussed this upthread.
More recently, we’ve lost sight of these issues, and under the administration of George W. Bush it became commonplace to argue that to support an international agenda aimed at “freedom” actually required the United States to espouse the coercive military domination of foreign countries
Yes, this started with George W. Bush. Sure. Not with Truman in Korea, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon in Vietnam, nor everyone since the early 19th century practically everywhere in Latin America.
February 11th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Re: Most of the parts of those empires they no longer have been taken forceably from them by the natives.
That happened in a few places (Vietnam, Algeria, etc.), more commonly with the French than the British. But the majority of British and French colonies were surrendered without much of a fight, after Britain and France were broken and exhausted by the Second World War. The _threat_ of violence and insurgency was always there, of course, but in most cases it never progressed to actual bloodshed.
Fiji is independent, btw, although it’s racked by political struggle between the Indians and the native Melanesians.
As Kolohe points out, the U.S. has effectively been an empire for quite some time. The Vietnam war, the myriad Cold War interventions in Latin America, the conquest of the Philippines, and the effective domination of the Central American republics over the last century can’t be fairly described as anything other than imperialism.
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