Almost 100,000 people turned up today to see Barack Obama in Berlin.
He spoke well, though not exceptionally, perhaps staying too close to a somewhat overwrought script. His previous speeches have ironically set an exceptionally high standard that’s hard to meet, let alone exceed.
Still, there was lots to be encouraged by, not least his neatly condensed allusion to our shared responsibility for global warming – and its consequences:
As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya…”
His challenge to Berliners, as representatives of the world, was also succinct yet embracing; ticking surely most boxes on a European liberal thinker’s list:
Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words “never again” in Darfur?… Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law?”
Perhaps a wee bit too predictably, he riffed on the obvious Berlin metaphor, though the risk of repetition was borne out by a credible plea:
That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
Watch the entire speech here.
