Forget the controversies over how well (or not well) Condoleezza
Rice performed as President George W. Bush’s national security
advisor and, in the second term, as secretary of state. Her visit
Thursday to Mobile, AL served as a reminder of just how impressive
a woman, and how inspirational, she is.
Secretary Rice was in lower Alabama both as part of her
book-signing tour
and in order to serve as the featured speaker at the annual
fund-raising gala for the University of Mobile (full disclosure: I
have an adjunct position at the university). The school celebrates
the 50th anniversary of its founding on Monday — which just
happens to be Rice’s birthday as well.
Anyway, the story is now rather familiar of how a
sharecropper’s grand-daughter became a top-flight musician and an
even better scholar, and then Soviet/Russian specialist on the
national security staff during the masterful American management of
the collapse of the Soviet empire. Intelligence, poise, strong work
ethic, and love of country have long been Rice’s calling
cards.
On Thursday night, she also demonstrated again a surfeit
of classiness. Rare indeed is it that a former top public official
can make an entire keynote speech, holding an audience at rapt
attention, without a single word of an overtly political, much less
partisan, nature. Recent months have embroiled Ms. Rice’s legacy in
its share of controversy, but she avoided all score-settling
entirely — and, indeed, barely touched on her personal experiences
during her tenure at the highest levels of American foreign policy.
Refreshingly, the speech wasn’t about her; it was about
country, freedom, education, and optimism.
I took down as many quotes as possible, as nearly verbatim
as I could manage. Read for yourself:
“We are witnessing shocks to the international system… in
the last decade…. One of the reasons that you and I could sleep
tonight [is that] we are defended by men and women in uniform who
volunteer — they volunteer — to defend us.”
In handling these shocks, we Americans must lead: “America
is a very special country. We’re not just an ordinary country.”
(Hillyer’s comment: Take that, Barack Obama.)
“We are witnessing extraordinary events…. There is no more
compelling change than what we are seeing in the streets of the
Middle East. … There is a universal desire to be free… [and to
demand] the dignity that comes from having those who govern you
have to ask for your consent.” In the long run, “authoritarianism
is just not stable.”
But, a warning: “The hard work is just beginning when
people seize their freedom. [Democracy isn’t enough. What’s needed
is] enshrining freedom in a set of institutions that can protect
it. But that’s not all. A stable democracy requires even more. It
requires there to be no tyranny of the majority. [It requires
individual rights against the state, but not even that is enough.]
In a strong democracy [people must demonstrate commitment to] civil
society and a communitarian spirit.”
That’s the American example: “The United States is the
most individualistic society on the face of the Earth. Yet there’s
this paradox: The most individualistic of peoples is also the most
philanthropic in the world. The truth is that the one thing the
government cannot do is to deliver compassion. That has to
be delivered from our communitarian spirit…. In our Christian
tradition, every individual is worthy. Since every human life is
worthy, every human life is worthy of compassion — not by the
state, but by the citizen.”
(Rice segued into the story of her grandfather’s move from
growing cotton to getting an education at Stillman College and
insisting that his children do the same, to pursue “a whole new
horizon about who they might be and what they might be.” And the
lesson was that they must “make that transformative leap by faith
and reason.”)
“Our Creator gave us a mind and he fully expects that we
should use it. [The key is] how to use that knowledge in a way that
will benefit the human condition… through ‘servant
leadership.’”
A great sin, she said, was to exhibit a sense of
“aggrievement.” And, worse, “aggrievement’s twin brother,
entitlement. If you give in to aggrievement and entitlement, you
have lost control of your own life…. You may or may not be able to
control your circumstances, but you and control your
response to your circumstances…. The Lord knows we need
optimism….
“Whenever we’re pessimistic… I would suggest that we think
about the many, many times when [what seemed to be] the impossible
now seems inevitable in retrospect.”
Rice focused on this for a while, with a few examples.
Again, for emphasis, she stressed this: “What once seemed
impossible now seems to have been inevitable.”
I lost track of her transition here, but she began to wrap
up thusly: “Someone will lead. It should be the
United States of America. [Because no nation better understands
that] every life is precious. Every individual is
worthy.”
*****
There: That gives at least some sense, unadorned, of Ms.
Rice’s speech and message. Of course it doesn’t do the speech
justice. It doesn’t show just how well she tied her themes
together, nor can it capture both the warmth and the soft-spoken,
but very notable, charisma with which she delivered it.
Agree with all of her policy judgments or not, one must
absolutely recognize that this is a woman of formidable intellect,
bedrock values, sincere faith, and fundamental decency. It cannot
be mere self-delusion to insist that these United States produces
more such people, or at least more who approach such a combination
of virtues, than any nation on Earth.
Now back at Stanford University, Condoleezza Rice is
exactly where she belongs: A university setting is where the
brightest of our young people, those who aspire to be tomorrow’s
leaders, are most in need of the example of uncommon sensibility
and essential values that Secretary Rice embodies, projects, and
teaches. But all of us, not just students, would do well to heed
her lessons.
