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Speech
Ambassador Mussomeli's July 4th Remarks
U.S. Embassy, Phnom PenhJuly 4, 2006Good evening. Welcome to our new embassy building. Thank you all for coming and celebrating the Fourth of July with us. This is the 230th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, yet in our own peculiar way we still think ourselves a young nation -- even though we are one of the oldest, most enduring democracies.
While I always enjoy the Fourth of July, I wonder whether celebrating this date makes people wrongly assume that the signing of the Declaration was the end of the story. Of course, it wasn’t the end; it was only a beginning, and a pretty shaky beginning at that. We still had five hard years of fighting ahead of us, followed by half a dozen more years of disorder and confusion.
And then almost immediately, in 1798, our hard-won freedom was threatened by the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws allowed the removal of foreigners "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States," and resulted in more than 25 people, most of them newspaper editors, being arrested and their newspapers shut down. Imagine what the UN Representative for Human Rights would say about that!
This same sad story was repeated over a hundred years later. The Espionage Act of 1917 made it a crime to criticize certain government policies, and our distrust of foreigners became so acute that some German immigrants were beaten, even lynched. And one of my favorite foods—sauerkraut—was re-named “Liberty Cabbage.”
Less than thirty years later WWII began, with the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans and thousands of German and Italian immigrants. Then after the war, the McCarthy Era, when some actors, writers, even teachers, were blacklisted, ruining their lives and careers.
Why dredge up all this disturbing history on such a happy occasion? Primarily because they are a testament to the strength of our principles and the resilience of the American people.
Also because they remind us that freedom is hard to attain, but even harder to retain. That protecting our freedom requires constant vigilance and uncommon courage. That no generation can guarantee the freedom of the next.
And finally, because I think there is much Cambodia can learn from our own American struggle to gain our freedom and our struggles to protect it when it has been threatened. As President Bush stated in his Second Inaugural Address: Freedom, “is the urgent requirement of our nation's security…. So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture.” America’s history is a good reminder that all people, not just those living in developing countries, are in a continual process of preserving and renewing their liberty.
We Americans share with Cambodians an undying desire to expand freedom and ensure democracy. As President Bush also has said, “We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom.” Yes, we all falter and take missteps now and then, but we are determined to never give up, to never give in, and to always, always prevail against those who would take from us our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
So on this special day when we celebrate our own freedom and democracy, let me toast His Majesty the King, the government of Cambodia, and especially the Cambodian people, that they too may enjoy the fruits and benefits of freedom, and always may they be ready to take the risks that liberty requires of us all.