[Music]
so you have a president now and you
think the democratic system worked right
the people have elected their president
although in the lebanese case it took a
few ounce but now there is a man who
will leave the republic for the coming
years where the US citizen of Lebanon or
the United States I am here to tell you
that those systems we participated in
the ones to elect our presidents they
are not free nor fair and therefore not
the products but you will say that in
both countries the people have the
opportunity to go out and have a say in
electing their leaders the systems
reflect the popular will of the people
and that’s will is reflected by the slip
of paper we put into the ballot box is
it not yeah that is not democracy how
did you say what’s my power today the
people meaning you and I or the
presidents of our countries and the
ministers they’ve elected from their
group of friends if you agree that the
latter is true then you should also
agree that we have democracy all from
the power of the people is greater than
the people in power democracy did not
begin in America but is often cited as a
prominent example yet the ills of
American democracy spanned from the from
the electoral system to the pre-meeting
influence of capitalism through that
circus did any of you hear any ideas
about policies that you want your
governments to mimic ideas about banning
Muslims building walls and throwing
political opponents in jail and yet that
man with those big ideas he was elected
to be president of one of the most
powerful nations on earth here in
Lebanon a brutal civil war was fought
over some of the same ideas yet were any
of those ideas legal moral
constitutional or democratic the
salut three of these four concepts here
is democracy if we do not understand the
root of the idea then we cannot begin to
judge what has gone wrong the word
democracy literally comes from the
ancient term democracy a’ meaning the
rule of the commoners in Thucydides
history of the Peloponnesian War
democracy enshrines the principle of
individual equality
perhaps the Egyptians had it right in
2013
when many felt that Egypt’s first
democratically-elected president was
misguided after only one year in office
rather than allow him to carry out the
remainder of his four-year term he was
overthrown I was in Cairo that summer
and I remember an Egyptian friend
telling me if you paid a man to build
you a house and after some time you saw
he was building you a parking lot would
you allow him to finish or would you
stop him and replace him when you first
realized the mistake why do we all
endure the pain of watching politicians
who failed to fulfill promises that we
often become so frustrated with our
systems that we hear people say I don’t
care about politics Palestinian Arthur
Murray of our glooty once wrote politics
is the family at breakfast who is there
who is absent and why who misses whom
when the coffee is poured into waiting
cups politics is about your relationship
to one entity and that relationship to a
third party politics is just as divisive
as it is unifying politics is in our
homes our universities our offices and
even in death so whether or not you
believe you are participating in
politics in the governmental sense
everything you do is ultimately
political in 2003 the president of the
country I was born in authorized
airstrikes against the country my father
was born in it up was an illegal war
undertaken without national nor in turn
national consent and yet the people who
perpetrated those actions killing over 1
million people in the process have yet
to be brought to justice this is not
democracy democracy is found through
liberal democracy which has
institutionalized elections respect for
the rule of law and protections for
Human Rights the reality today though is
is that is that almost no liberal
democracies exist the world is a
collection of in liberal democracies
most famously coined in 1997 by
political affairs expert Fareed Zakaria
an in liberal democracy has some
functions of a democracy such as the
presence of a ballot box but yet has
other facets of society the rendered not
fully free nor fair in the liberal
democracies protections are offered only
for some citizens and that is usually on
the basis of race or religion in a
liberal democracies political freedoms
are outright stifled or otherwise curbed
for fear of threatening the existing
regime in the liberal democracies are
plentiful and we see them from Iraq Iran
Egypt Lebanon and the United States but
modern democracy was not always a
liberal in the United States there is a
system called the checks and balances
system where there are three independent
branches of government the executive the
legislative and the judiciary a recent
example of the system in action is when
President Trump attempted to issue a
travel ban against the citizens of seven
predominantly Muslim nations the United
States Supreme Court stepped in and they
revoked the president’s legitimacy to
enforce this ban the freedom of movement
is a human rights and human rights are
for all humans period distinguishing who
gets what when and where Byron
race or other distinguishing feature is
there by dividing us into segments that
will ultimately war with one another
[Music]
that community is each one of us the
power of the people is greater than the
people in power and individuals with
knowledge social media platforms of
voice and most importantly ideas it is
our duty to ensure that the government
is not getting us but that we are
[Applause]
[Music]
so you have a president now and you
think the democratic system worked right
the people have elected their president
although in the lebanese case it took a
few ounce but now there is a man who
will leave the republic for the coming
years where the US citizen of Lebanon or
the United States I am here to tell you
that those systems we participated in
the ones to elect our presidents they
are not free nor fair and therefore not
the products but you will say that in
both countries the people have the
opportunity to go out and have a say in
electing their leaders the systems
reflect the popular will of the people
and that’s will is reflected by the slip
of paper we put into the ballot box is
it not yeah that is not democracy how
did you say what’s my power today the
people meaning you and I or the
presidents of our countries and the
ministers they’ve elected from their
group of friends if you agree that the
latter is true then you should also
agree that we have democracy all from
the power of the people is greater than
the people in power democracy did not
begin in America but is often cited as a
prominent example yet the ills of
American democracy spanned from the from
the electoral system to the pre-meeting
influence of capitalism through that
circus did any of you hear any ideas
about policies that you want your
governments to mimic ideas about banning
Muslims building walls and throwing
political opponents in jail and yet that
man with those big ideas he was elected
to be president of one of the most
powerful nations on earth here in
Lebanon a brutal civil war was fought
over some of the same ideas yet were any
of those ideas legal moral
constitutional or democratic the
salut three of these four concepts here
is democracy if we do not understand the
root of the idea then we cannot begin to
judge what has gone wrong the word
democracy literally comes from the
ancient term democracy a’ meaning the
rule of the commoners in Thucydides
history of the Peloponnesian War
democracy enshrines the principle of
individual equality
perhaps the Egyptians had it right in
2013
when many felt that Egypt’s first
democratically-elected president was
misguided after only one year in office
rather than allow him to carry out the
remainder of his four-year term he was
overthrown I was in Cairo that summer
and I remember an Egyptian friend
telling me if you paid a man to build
you a house and after some time you saw
he was building you a parking lot would
you allow him to finish or would you
stop him and replace him when you first
realized the mistake why do we all
endure the pain of watching politicians
who failed to fulfill promises that we
often become so frustrated with our
systems that we hear people say I don’t
care about politics Palestinian Arthur
Murray of our glooty once wrote politics
is the family at breakfast who is there
who is absent and why who misses whom
when the coffee is poured into waiting
cups politics is about your relationship
to one entity and that relationship to a
third party politics is just as divisive
as it is unifying politics is in our
homes our universities our offices and
even in death so whether or not you
believe you are participating in
politics in the governmental sense
everything you do is ultimately
political in 2003 the president of the
country I was born in authorized
airstrikes against the country my father
was born in it up was an illegal war
undertaken without national nor in turn
national consent and yet the people who
perpetrated those actions killing over 1
million people in the process have yet
to be brought to justice this is not
democracy democracy is found through
liberal democracy which has
institutionalized elections respect for
the rule of law and protections for
Human Rights the reality today though is
is that is that almost no liberal
democracies exist the world is a
collection of in liberal democracies
most famously coined in 1997 by
political affairs expert Fareed Zakaria
an in liberal democracy has some
functions of a democracy such as the
presence of a ballot box but yet has
other facets of society the rendered not
fully free nor fair in the liberal
democracies protections are offered only
for some citizens and that is usually on
the basis of race or religion in a
liberal democracies political freedoms
are outright stifled or otherwise curbed
for fear of threatening the existing
regime in the liberal democracies are
plentiful and we see them from Iraq Iran
Egypt Lebanon and the United States but
modern democracy was not always a
liberal in the United States there is a
system called the checks and balances
system where there are three independent
branches of government the executive the
legislative and the judiciary a recent
example of the system in action is when
President Trump attempted to issue a
travel ban against the citizens of seven
predominantly Muslim nations the United
States Supreme Court stepped in and they
revoked the president’s legitimacy to
enforce this ban the freedom of movement
is a human rights and human rights are
for all humans period distinguishing who
gets what when and where Byron
race or other distinguishing feature is
there by dividing us into segments that
will ultimately war with one another
[Music]
that community is each one of us the
power of the people is greater than the
people in power and individuals with
knowledge social media platforms of
voice and most importantly ideas it is
our duty to ensure that the government
is not getting us but that we are
[Applause]
[Music]
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