Three months
ago, my ed-in-chief called up if I am interested to listen to a $100,000
dollar speech. I gave out a chuckle. Kind of curious of what is in
it, without reservation I accepted the invitation.
On Tuesday, December
9, I was seated at portal number seven of the Concert Hall listening
in rapt---interrupted by empathic applause---to the speech of President
Clinton, 42nd President of the United States of America. He explained
to the audience his theory to embrace our common humanity as citizens
of the world in order to achieve security and prosperity in this millennium.
What President
Clinton said is not new. But others found it a novelty, particularly
societal cultures that are not acquainted with the concept of “bayanihan”.
This author had been espousing the content of President Clinton’s
speech since he started ghostwriting to some politicians back home.
The distinction, however, is: When the former most powerful man of
the world speaks, the world listens.
A lawyer by education,
President Clinton first serve the American public as Governor of Arkansas,
and held the office of the president for two terms, the first Democratic
president to win two terms after the late Franklin D. Roosevelt.
As head of government,
Clinton, presided the economic boom of U.S.A. that both unemployment
and monetary inflation dropped and achieved federal balance, which
the country never had one for decades. His core values on community
building, opportunity creation, and accountability resulted in the
unprecedented economic progress for America. Under his political leadership
he moved the nation from record deficits to record surpluses.
His presidency
marred by two major scandals, the Whitewater affair in which it was
alleged that she and his spouse illegally profited from land deals.
But the accusation was not proven. The other one was the Monica Lewinsky
affair that the House of Representatives impeached him, but the U.S.
Senate did not find him guilty.
The president,
his first visit in the City of Winnipeg, expounded on the three elements
of his speech. That the key for the prosperity of all and to sustain
global peace is: shared responsibility, shared benefits, and shared
values. He said, these three solutions are not hard to find, but admitted
it is hard to do.
Commencing the
body of his speech by citing global terrorism that grip the world,
President Clinton implied that there are no defence walls high enough
to protect nations from the assault of others who are angry, hungry,
and felt oppressed by nations which are the object of their scorn.
President Clinton
was proposing, rather than embracing globalization as a world order
wherein the more powerful nations are perceived to be exploiters by
weaker countries since the focus are economic issues; he is espousing
the idea of interdependence among nations; after all, world peace
and prosperity, as he said, is not only about money. Citing the threat
in the realm of health, in reference to the recent SARS epidemic that
almost crippled the economy of Ontario, President Clinton paraphrased
that in Canada, “a sneeze in Hong Kong led to a quarantine in
Toronto.”
Curiously, the
president find it equally odd that while scientists are feverish in
perfecting human cloning---mapping the human genome---yet, around
the globe there are hundreds of millions of young children going to
bed hungry, or are dying from malnutrition.
What impressed
me about the former President of U.S.A. is his passion to see a prosperous
world in order for the young generation to have a better place to
live in. His Worship Mayor Glen Murray, moderator of the evening’s
event, was moved with emotion when he gave his closing statement.
President William
Jefferson Clinton is not only a citizen of America; but, he is citizen
of the world.
