good afternoon so in the summer of 1993
I was sitting at my desk in the
legislative office building here in
Albany New York working for the New York
State Senate and I got a call out of the
blue asking if I would be interested in
going to the Republic of Congo to be an
election observer I’d never been to the
Republic of Congo I’d lived in North
Africa for a while but that’s a long
ways from Congo and I’d never been an
election observer but I was interested
in this not just because it was
something wildly different but I was
interested in it also because it was a
time when this history was unfolding
when the Cold War had ended when
elections seemed to be in democracy was
breaking out all over at least so it
seemed that as the scholar Francis
Fukuyama said it was the end of history
it was the triumph of liberal democracy
at the end of this long Twilight
Struggle of the Cold War and so there
were elections happening all over the
place and there were election observers
going all over the place to make sure
that these elections were somehow free
and fair and so now I had an opportunity
to do this so I went to talk to my boss
the senator and asked him for some time
off he was very supportive he also noted
that it was probably the most unusual
request for time off that he’d ever
gotten to go to Congo and so I was on my
way the next day I was in Washington for
briefings about our mission as election
observers and the sorts of things that
we are going to be doing but the things
that we shouldn’t do that we shouldn’t
meddle in the process we shouldn’t
insert ourselves ourselves in Congolese
politics we were there to observe and
observe only that night I was on a plane
across the Atlantic and after transfers
and several stops and refuelings finally
landed in the capital of brazo Ville
where I spent a couple days with the
whole team of observers being briefed on
Congolese politics on society on
security issues and just getting to know
each other and I met the person that I
would be working with
over the next week or so a Canadian
judge from the province of Quebec who
had done many observations already and
was a great guide to this experience and
really a great mentor for me on this
first election observation that I was
going to be part of so we met with our
driver we headed off to the district
that we were going to be observing in
and it was several hours of drive
through the Congolese countryside
absolutely beautiful countryside
listening to great music on the radio
and traveling across the bumpiest
possible roads you can imagine that had
been washed out by rains hadn’t been
properly kept up and had been cratered
by all the fighting that was going on in
the country and there was a lot of
fighting going on in the country so we
got to the small town that was our base
of operations we toured around a little
bit we met with the local officials we
saw what was happening just in the
immediate run-up to to the elections and
the night before Election Day we decided
that we’d have a good meal a few
Congolese beers which were fantastic and
Gok beer highly recommended if you’re
ever in Brazzaville or anywhere nearby
and that we would turn in early the
electricity in this town went off at 9
o’clock every night so we thought well
that’s a good time for us to go to bed I
didn’t sleep very well that night
because I was really nervous about the
next day there was a lot of things that
we had to do and I was I just wanted to
get it right I mean the stakes are high
this is somebody’s first elections in
their country and I’m there as an
observer I want to get it right I also
didn’t sleep very well because when I
did finally fall asleep I woke up a
little while later with some sort of a
weight pressing down on my chest not a
huge weight but enough of a weight and
in my sleep in s I sort of brushed
whatever it was and I realized that I
had a noteworthy number of very large
very fuzzy spiders all over me
that was my reaction to and in fact I
would say you know they hadn’t briefed
me on this particular eventualities
but in in technical terms I would I did
what I would call I freaked out the
lights are off there’s no electricity I
hadn’t left my little gas lantern near
enough to me who knows where the matches
were but you know when you’re out in the
middle of nowhere and there’s nobody
there to help you and you’re freaking
out you realize you have to stop
freaking out you have to figure out what
to do I found the gas lantern I found
the matches I got rid of the spiders and
found a way to get a little bit more
sleep the next morning we were up early
we wanted to get to the first polling
station before it opened up and the
first polling station was far away and
so we had to go to a town on the shores
of the Congo River because the first
polling station was on an island in the
Congo River and so we got to this town
and the first person we met with was the
chief of the of the village probably the
most noteworthy thing about this photo
is how much hair I have in 1993 as you
can see the democracy business has been
tough on my hairline if nothing else
that’s really my whole message of this
talk but we it took us a long time to
get there we started late we arrived
late the roads were terrible and I was
really eager to get going to get moving
and you know we had a lot to do in this
very long day ahead of us this important
day for us and for the nation of Congo
the judge who I was with saw my kind of
agitation and eagerness and anxiety and
she took me aside and she said you know
we we really need to spend some time
with the chief of the village these
conversations are an important part of
why we’re here they’re part of the
process it’s not just casting the
ballots it’s not just checking the boxes
on our reports we need to talk with the
chief and we need to hear him out and so
we sat down and she said she said this
to me too she said we need to do this
and she said in French use the word do
small slowly gently sweetly and it’s a
great word because it encapsulates all
of
and so we did and we sat down we had tea
we talked about our respective countries
where we’re from our families and
eventually the chief introduced us to
the guy who could rent us the boat the
boat as it turns out is a hollowed-out
tree trunk in French of P log and this
is the boat that we rented and then we
had to rent the motor for the boat we
had to rent the gas for the motor and we
had to hire the services of the guy who
would operate the motor and then a
navigator and then the last person whose
services we secured which was a guy with
his own personal ak-47 who would be
travelling up the river with us and so
we headed off up the river and the judge
at some point we’re chatting amongst
ourselves and it’s absolutely beautiful
the river is just enormous the currents
are very strong and she says well you
know maybe while we’re going up the
river each of us should sing a song from
our country and so the Congolese guys
each had really beautiful songs
the judge sang this absolutely beautiful
song from her childhood in Quebec and
all the while I’m thinking I’ve got
nothing like I don’t have I don’t
remember songs I don’t know and so
they’re in June in the middle of the
river in Congo I belt it out Santa Claus
is coming to town
and I have to say I did it with feeling
I really think I nailed it and and I was
feeling pretty good about myself and
feeling like you know just a few days
ago I was in Albany and Here I am this
is really cool and then the motor conked
out and now we’re drifting backwards and
not only back but we’re drifting toward
the opposite shore which is another
country
it’s the Democratic Republic of Congo
there’s a year known to some and things
over there are even in worse shape than
they were in the Republic of Congo and
it wouldn’t have been particularly good
for any number of reasons if we were to
end up over there and so there was a lot
of nervousness in the boat there was a
lot of frantic working on the motor
didn’t seem to be going anywhere
making it work
then the word went out does anyone have
a screwdriver now this is an unusual
question but it just so happened I had
my Swiss Army knife on me I turned it
over they used it on the engine
voila it worked we headed on our way we
got to where now it that were really
delayed we get to the first polling
station which is in this island village
and guess what they’re not having the
election they’re not holding it that day
we’ve spent hours getting there and
they’re not having the election so we
decided that we should at least
interview the people in charge and find
out why they’re not having the election
and so we sat down in what was like the
equivalent of the Town Hall on this
island village a cinderblock building
the whole town all the residents crowded
around looking through the windows
looking through the doors and the two
guys who were in charge the judge went
into one corner with one guy and was
chatting with him and I went to the one
corner with another guy and I was
chatting with him and in pretty short
order these two guys started accusing
each other across the room of
undermining the election and then they
started yelling at each other and then
they were up and out of their seats and
they were coming at each other and they
were grappling with each other and then
it was a really a fist fight a
knock-down drag-out fight was ensuing
and then all sorts of fights outside
started to erupt I thought this is not
exactly how I planned this going our
guys in the boat are some yards away
over by the shore with the boat all they
know is there’s this melee breaking out
and their charges the judge and me are
in the middle of it so this guy fires
off a few shots into the air now I don’t
know that it’s into the air now I just
know I hear machine-gun fire on top of
all of this and but he was firing in the
air everyone came to a quick pause and
now I’m thinking well for any number of
reasons we need to get out of here we’re
really late we haven’t seen an election
yet
everything has disintegrated things are
falling apart here we need to move on
and again
the judge very wisely said let’s finish
our conversation with these two guys
again she said do small let’s proceed
this way and we had civil conversations
with them and they had a civil
conversation with each other we moved on
we saw lots of other votes being cast it
was a difficult election was a violent
time in Congo but in the midst of that
violence I saw so many people coming out
and walking for miles in the hot Sun and
casting their ballots in many cases for
the first time in their lives that it
mattered that the election really
mattered and after that election I
worked in lots of other elections in
Guinea Conakry in West Africa again you
can see people turning out with babies
on their back standing in long lines
putting up with was very challenging
bureaucratic obstacles in 2000 I worked
in the first elections in Kosovo after
the war a place that had been ravaged by
crimes against humanity where the people
that who were working for me the
Kosovars
were coming to work under death threat
every day were voting in the shadows of
mass graves and where the town that I
worked in had very few buildings left
they had either been bombed by NATO or
had burned burned down by either side
during the war
later in Macedonia you can see here that
I’ve upgraded myself I’ve got Noah not
only a tie but also an armband and the
armband really makes it I think but it
was a it was an important time to be
there in that country at that moment in
bosnia-herzegovina a country that we
know has has suffered so much and and
has a very precarious political system
yet people turned out and we’re working
very hard as you can see at this polling
station in in good cheer and most
recently in Ukraine in 2014 so following
the uprisings in Ukraine
in Maidan in Kiev the ouster of their
president then the elections for a new
president the politics were very intense
Russia had annexed Crimea there was
out-and-out combat going on in the
southeastern part of the country men
were being called to Millie’s military
service from across the country and
people were putting on this election and
I worked with some just extraordinary
people the international observers it
was a huge mission for the organization
and Security and Cooperation in Europe
which the u.s. is a member state of and
the Ukrainians who I worked with here is
a picture of the people at the district
office of the electoral district where I
was working and they worked over 24
hours straight to make sure that the
votes were tallied and that the results
were sent on to the capital and they did
this in the face of the whole election
election system the electronic system
being hacked by a foreign power we don’t
know what power exactly I don’t know
exactly I would just say sometimes you
get the bear and sometimes the bear gets
you it was a very tough day these people
worked very hard the day after the
election i sat down with some of the
Ukrainian election workers and some of
my fellow observers and had this
extraordinary meal this time to kind of
just commune over great food
conversation many toasts a fair amount
of homemade vodka singing some songs
there was no singing of Santa Claus is
coming to town I think that was a missed
opportunity and it was just an
extraordinary moment and having worked
on all these elections I think gives me
some opportunity to stand back and
reflect on democracy in general and
democracy in my own country what are
some of the elements that matter now I
can talk to you about this like an
academic and there’s all these reams of
volumes of books written about what
democracy is and what it isn’t but what
I was able to experience through these
elections in other people’s countries
was the lived experience of democracy
the human element of democracy how does
how does it transpire when people are
really having to sacrifice such a great
deal to go and vote to hold an election
to vote for the very first time in their
lives and so I’ve been in many countries
where people have cast their very first
votes and I’m reminded of that when I
vote here and I’m there at the polling
station and I think there’s somebody
here who’s voted for the first time
either because they’ve just turned 18
and they can vote well because they’ve
come here from another country and
they’re now a citizen and maybe they’ve
come from someplace where they can’t
they couldn’t have voted before I think
about how important Election Day is as a
ritual as a time to gather together at
the polling stations I’ve seen so many
great moments and conversations and
polling stations around the world and it
pains me when I sometimes when I go to
to vote here and and it seems kind of
pro forma or it just seems empty and I
think about why people vote people vote
to send people to institutions that we
hope will work that we need to work
because otherwise it’s an empty exercise
we need to be able to know that the day
after election day isn’t just
winner-take-all that we will be able to
maintain something akin to a loyal
opposition meaning that you can
assiduously oppose the policies of the
government in power and still be loyal
to the country and still be deemed as
such not be seen as traitorous that we
can work toward compromise it makes me
think about leadership and the qualities
of leadership I’ve been in many
countries that have had revolutions
where people have said we’re looking for
our Nelson Mandela there’s not a lot of
Nelson Mandela’s in history I mean a man
of that character comes along every so
once in a while however we do need to
find ways to cultivate leadership we
shouldn’t be too overly reliant on
individual leaders but at the same time
we should seek out leaders who have the
quality the courage of their convictions
but also the capacity to compromise and
in my experience that’s rare and it’s
fragile but it’s possible and it is one
of the differences that I think comes
down between democracies working and not
working but in the end I think it really
comes down to the many other things that
are not part of constitutions or
institutions or electoral law Alexis de
Tocqueville came to the United States in
the 1830s and he wrote about democracy
in America and he noted that what really
makes it work here are all those other
things
the other ways that we come together
they’re the ways in which we find
opportunities to work together and to
converse with each other and I think
back to that tea that I had with the
chief in Congo and the judge saying to
me do small we need to we need to stop
we need to talk and we need to listen I
think about the boat going up the Congo
River against the currents and having to
work together singing songs together but
also you know finding a way to fix that
motor I think about the two guys yelling
at each other in the cinderblock
building we need to have a civil
conversation do small we need to talk
and so there’s a lot of things that are
hard they’re so big it’s hard to imagine
how we can fix them but we can talk to
each other we can listen to each other
we can talk to somebody who we know we
disagree with and they who disagrees
with us and that I think is an important
element that I’ve learned from traveling
around the world and seeing people risk
everything for democracy and I leave you
with one further and very important
thought don’t forget your Swiss Army
knife
[Applause]
you
I was sitting at my desk in the
legislative office building here in
Albany New York working for the New York
State Senate and I got a call out of the
blue asking if I would be interested in
going to the Republic of Congo to be an
election observer I’d never been to the
Republic of Congo I’d lived in North
Africa for a while but that’s a long
ways from Congo and I’d never been an
election observer but I was interested
in this not just because it was
something wildly different but I was
interested in it also because it was a
time when this history was unfolding
when the Cold War had ended when
elections seemed to be in democracy was
breaking out all over at least so it
seemed that as the scholar Francis
Fukuyama said it was the end of history
it was the triumph of liberal democracy
at the end of this long Twilight
Struggle of the Cold War and so there
were elections happening all over the
place and there were election observers
going all over the place to make sure
that these elections were somehow free
and fair and so now I had an opportunity
to do this so I went to talk to my boss
the senator and asked him for some time
off he was very supportive he also noted
that it was probably the most unusual
request for time off that he’d ever
gotten to go to Congo and so I was on my
way the next day I was in Washington for
briefings about our mission as election
observers and the sorts of things that
we are going to be doing but the things
that we shouldn’t do that we shouldn’t
meddle in the process we shouldn’t
insert ourselves ourselves in Congolese
politics we were there to observe and
observe only that night I was on a plane
across the Atlantic and after transfers
and several stops and refuelings finally
landed in the capital of brazo Ville
where I spent a couple days with the
whole team of observers being briefed on
Congolese politics on society on
security issues and just getting to know
each other and I met the person that I
would be working with
over the next week or so a Canadian
judge from the province of Quebec who
had done many observations already and
was a great guide to this experience and
really a great mentor for me on this
first election observation that I was
going to be part of so we met with our
driver we headed off to the district
that we were going to be observing in
and it was several hours of drive
through the Congolese countryside
absolutely beautiful countryside
listening to great music on the radio
and traveling across the bumpiest
possible roads you can imagine that had
been washed out by rains hadn’t been
properly kept up and had been cratered
by all the fighting that was going on in
the country and there was a lot of
fighting going on in the country so we
got to the small town that was our base
of operations we toured around a little
bit we met with the local officials we
saw what was happening just in the
immediate run-up to to the elections and
the night before Election Day we decided
that we’d have a good meal a few
Congolese beers which were fantastic and
Gok beer highly recommended if you’re
ever in Brazzaville or anywhere nearby
and that we would turn in early the
electricity in this town went off at 9
o’clock every night so we thought well
that’s a good time for us to go to bed I
didn’t sleep very well that night
because I was really nervous about the
next day there was a lot of things that
we had to do and I was I just wanted to
get it right I mean the stakes are high
this is somebody’s first elections in
their country and I’m there as an
observer I want to get it right I also
didn’t sleep very well because when I
did finally fall asleep I woke up a
little while later with some sort of a
weight pressing down on my chest not a
huge weight but enough of a weight and
in my sleep in s I sort of brushed
whatever it was and I realized that I
had a noteworthy number of very large
very fuzzy spiders all over me
that was my reaction to and in fact I
would say you know they hadn’t briefed
me on this particular eventualities
but in in technical terms I would I did
what I would call I freaked out the
lights are off there’s no electricity I
hadn’t left my little gas lantern near
enough to me who knows where the matches
were but you know when you’re out in the
middle of nowhere and there’s nobody
there to help you and you’re freaking
out you realize you have to stop
freaking out you have to figure out what
to do I found the gas lantern I found
the matches I got rid of the spiders and
found a way to get a little bit more
sleep the next morning we were up early
we wanted to get to the first polling
station before it opened up and the
first polling station was far away and
so we had to go to a town on the shores
of the Congo River because the first
polling station was on an island in the
Congo River and so we got to this town
and the first person we met with was the
chief of the of the village probably the
most noteworthy thing about this photo
is how much hair I have in 1993 as you
can see the democracy business has been
tough on my hairline if nothing else
that’s really my whole message of this
talk but we it took us a long time to
get there we started late we arrived
late the roads were terrible and I was
really eager to get going to get moving
and you know we had a lot to do in this
very long day ahead of us this important
day for us and for the nation of Congo
the judge who I was with saw my kind of
agitation and eagerness and anxiety and
she took me aside and she said you know
we we really need to spend some time
with the chief of the village these
conversations are an important part of
why we’re here they’re part of the
process it’s not just casting the
ballots it’s not just checking the boxes
on our reports we need to talk with the
chief and we need to hear him out and so
we sat down and she said she said this
to me too she said we need to do this
and she said in French use the word do
small slowly gently sweetly and it’s a
great word because it encapsulates all
of
and so we did and we sat down we had tea
we talked about our respective countries
where we’re from our families and
eventually the chief introduced us to
the guy who could rent us the boat the
boat as it turns out is a hollowed-out
tree trunk in French of P log and this
is the boat that we rented and then we
had to rent the motor for the boat we
had to rent the gas for the motor and we
had to hire the services of the guy who
would operate the motor and then a
navigator and then the last person whose
services we secured which was a guy with
his own personal ak-47 who would be
travelling up the river with us and so
we headed off up the river and the judge
at some point we’re chatting amongst
ourselves and it’s absolutely beautiful
the river is just enormous the currents
are very strong and she says well you
know maybe while we’re going up the
river each of us should sing a song from
our country and so the Congolese guys
each had really beautiful songs
the judge sang this absolutely beautiful
song from her childhood in Quebec and
all the while I’m thinking I’ve got
nothing like I don’t have I don’t
remember songs I don’t know and so
they’re in June in the middle of the
river in Congo I belt it out Santa Claus
is coming to town
and I have to say I did it with feeling
I really think I nailed it and and I was
feeling pretty good about myself and
feeling like you know just a few days
ago I was in Albany and Here I am this
is really cool and then the motor conked
out and now we’re drifting backwards and
not only back but we’re drifting toward
the opposite shore which is another
country
it’s the Democratic Republic of Congo
there’s a year known to some and things
over there are even in worse shape than
they were in the Republic of Congo and
it wouldn’t have been particularly good
for any number of reasons if we were to
end up over there and so there was a lot
of nervousness in the boat there was a
lot of frantic working on the motor
didn’t seem to be going anywhere
making it work
then the word went out does anyone have
a screwdriver now this is an unusual
question but it just so happened I had
my Swiss Army knife on me I turned it
over they used it on the engine
voila it worked we headed on our way we
got to where now it that were really
delayed we get to the first polling
station which is in this island village
and guess what they’re not having the
election they’re not holding it that day
we’ve spent hours getting there and
they’re not having the election so we
decided that we should at least
interview the people in charge and find
out why they’re not having the election
and so we sat down in what was like the
equivalent of the Town Hall on this
island village a cinderblock building
the whole town all the residents crowded
around looking through the windows
looking through the doors and the two
guys who were in charge the judge went
into one corner with one guy and was
chatting with him and I went to the one
corner with another guy and I was
chatting with him and in pretty short
order these two guys started accusing
each other across the room of
undermining the election and then they
started yelling at each other and then
they were up and out of their seats and
they were coming at each other and they
were grappling with each other and then
it was a really a fist fight a
knock-down drag-out fight was ensuing
and then all sorts of fights outside
started to erupt I thought this is not
exactly how I planned this going our
guys in the boat are some yards away
over by the shore with the boat all they
know is there’s this melee breaking out
and their charges the judge and me are
in the middle of it so this guy fires
off a few shots into the air now I don’t
know that it’s into the air now I just
know I hear machine-gun fire on top of
all of this and but he was firing in the
air everyone came to a quick pause and
now I’m thinking well for any number of
reasons we need to get out of here we’re
really late we haven’t seen an election
yet
everything has disintegrated things are
falling apart here we need to move on
and again
the judge very wisely said let’s finish
our conversation with these two guys
again she said do small let’s proceed
this way and we had civil conversations
with them and they had a civil
conversation with each other we moved on
we saw lots of other votes being cast it
was a difficult election was a violent
time in Congo but in the midst of that
violence I saw so many people coming out
and walking for miles in the hot Sun and
casting their ballots in many cases for
the first time in their lives that it
mattered that the election really
mattered and after that election I
worked in lots of other elections in
Guinea Conakry in West Africa again you
can see people turning out with babies
on their back standing in long lines
putting up with was very challenging
bureaucratic obstacles in 2000 I worked
in the first elections in Kosovo after
the war a place that had been ravaged by
crimes against humanity where the people
that who were working for me the
Kosovars
were coming to work under death threat
every day were voting in the shadows of
mass graves and where the town that I
worked in had very few buildings left
they had either been bombed by NATO or
had burned burned down by either side
during the war
later in Macedonia you can see here that
I’ve upgraded myself I’ve got Noah not
only a tie but also an armband and the
armband really makes it I think but it
was a it was an important time to be
there in that country at that moment in
bosnia-herzegovina a country that we
know has has suffered so much and and
has a very precarious political system
yet people turned out and we’re working
very hard as you can see at this polling
station in in good cheer and most
recently in Ukraine in 2014 so following
the uprisings in Ukraine
in Maidan in Kiev the ouster of their
president then the elections for a new
president the politics were very intense
Russia had annexed Crimea there was
out-and-out combat going on in the
southeastern part of the country men
were being called to Millie’s military
service from across the country and
people were putting on this election and
I worked with some just extraordinary
people the international observers it
was a huge mission for the organization
and Security and Cooperation in Europe
which the u.s. is a member state of and
the Ukrainians who I worked with here is
a picture of the people at the district
office of the electoral district where I
was working and they worked over 24
hours straight to make sure that the
votes were tallied and that the results
were sent on to the capital and they did
this in the face of the whole election
election system the electronic system
being hacked by a foreign power we don’t
know what power exactly I don’t know
exactly I would just say sometimes you
get the bear and sometimes the bear gets
you it was a very tough day these people
worked very hard the day after the
election i sat down with some of the
Ukrainian election workers and some of
my fellow observers and had this
extraordinary meal this time to kind of
just commune over great food
conversation many toasts a fair amount
of homemade vodka singing some songs
there was no singing of Santa Claus is
coming to town I think that was a missed
opportunity and it was just an
extraordinary moment and having worked
on all these elections I think gives me
some opportunity to stand back and
reflect on democracy in general and
democracy in my own country what are
some of the elements that matter now I
can talk to you about this like an
academic and there’s all these reams of
volumes of books written about what
democracy is and what it isn’t but what
I was able to experience through these
elections in other people’s countries
was the lived experience of democracy
the human element of democracy how does
how does it transpire when people are
really having to sacrifice such a great
deal to go and vote to hold an election
to vote for the very first time in their
lives and so I’ve been in many countries
where people have cast their very first
votes and I’m reminded of that when I
vote here and I’m there at the polling
station and I think there’s somebody
here who’s voted for the first time
either because they’ve just turned 18
and they can vote well because they’ve
come here from another country and
they’re now a citizen and maybe they’ve
come from someplace where they can’t
they couldn’t have voted before I think
about how important Election Day is as a
ritual as a time to gather together at
the polling stations I’ve seen so many
great moments and conversations and
polling stations around the world and it
pains me when I sometimes when I go to
to vote here and and it seems kind of
pro forma or it just seems empty and I
think about why people vote people vote
to send people to institutions that we
hope will work that we need to work
because otherwise it’s an empty exercise
we need to be able to know that the day
after election day isn’t just
winner-take-all that we will be able to
maintain something akin to a loyal
opposition meaning that you can
assiduously oppose the policies of the
government in power and still be loyal
to the country and still be deemed as
such not be seen as traitorous that we
can work toward compromise it makes me
think about leadership and the qualities
of leadership I’ve been in many
countries that have had revolutions
where people have said we’re looking for
our Nelson Mandela there’s not a lot of
Nelson Mandela’s in history I mean a man
of that character comes along every so
once in a while however we do need to
find ways to cultivate leadership we
shouldn’t be too overly reliant on
individual leaders but at the same time
we should seek out leaders who have the
quality the courage of their convictions
but also the capacity to compromise and
in my experience that’s rare and it’s
fragile but it’s possible and it is one
of the differences that I think comes
down between democracies working and not
working but in the end I think it really
comes down to the many other things that
are not part of constitutions or
institutions or electoral law Alexis de
Tocqueville came to the United States in
the 1830s and he wrote about democracy
in America and he noted that what really
makes it work here are all those other
things
the other ways that we come together
they’re the ways in which we find
opportunities to work together and to
converse with each other and I think
back to that tea that I had with the
chief in Congo and the judge saying to
me do small we need to we need to stop
we need to talk and we need to listen I
think about the boat going up the Congo
River against the currents and having to
work together singing songs together but
also you know finding a way to fix that
motor I think about the two guys yelling
at each other in the cinderblock
building we need to have a civil
conversation do small we need to talk
and so there’s a lot of things that are
hard they’re so big it’s hard to imagine
how we can fix them but we can talk to
each other we can listen to each other
we can talk to somebody who we know we
disagree with and they who disagrees
with us and that I think is an important
element that I’ve learned from traveling
around the world and seeing people risk
everything for democracy and I leave you
with one further and very important
thought don’t forget your Swiss Army
knife
[Applause]
you
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