There is a festive mood as the crowd leaps to its feet in excitement. Here in the United States capital building as the man who is already the oldest president elected in history is about to be sworn in for a second term as president of the United States. Climbing onto the platform dressed in a navy blue suit hand-tailored in his home state of California, and a red and blue striped tie, Ronald Reagan will begin his second term at a time in history that is both peaceful and dangerous simultaneously. Shortly after taking the oath of office, he speaks to the nation.”
“My fellow citizens, our nation is poised for greatness. We must do what we know is right, and do it with all our might. Let history say of us: "These were golden years-when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, and America reached for her best.
Our two-party system has solved us-served us, I should say, well over the years, but never better than in those times of great challenge when we came together not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans united in a common cause…We strive for peace and security, heartened by the changes all around us. Since the turn of the century, the number of democracies in the world has grown fourfold. Human freedom is on the march, and nowhere more so than in our own hemisphere. Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit. People, worldwide, hunger for the right of self-determination, for those inalienable rights that make for human dignity and progress.”
Today, we are once again at the crossroads in our march for freedom. Will the march stall here once again and the fate of millions slide backward toward totalitarianism, or will we continue and protect the future of millions now and billions whose lives have not yet began. What I speak of is the most fundamental issue of our time: human rights.
We have in our time the potential to see the unimaginable flourishing of democratization and of new governments in places once thought unimaginable. However, that is not currently happening. In southern Congo for example, the people there have been in a perpetual civil war since the Rwandan led coalition invaded the country in 1994 and overthrew the government. When you go up to people and tell them that the United Nations has declared the war in the DRC to be over, they think you are telling a joke. As a result mass killings, rape, and looting are commonplace and the institutions in the government are barely functioning. What is worse is that it is estimated that about half of the soldiers fighting the war are under the age of 18.
In our time, if we are to make this decade the unbridled dream we all share, then we must act. If nothing else, because history will not wait for us.
