Much Ado About Speeches

We latch on to public statements as a hook by which we can hold our leaders accountable, but if the history of politics is one of promises made and broken, why do we continually cry foul when our leaders fall back on their words? Perhaps it's not that we cry foul -- if a leader fails on his or her own words, he/she deserves to be called out on it -- it's that we act surprised when we do it.

The history of genocide is perhaps among the most replete with soaring speeches, aspirational commitments, and utter failures of follow-through. I purposefully left mention of International Holocaust Remembrance Day to others yesterday, preferring to focus on the liberation of Auschwitz instead, because the day has always left a bad taste in my mouth -- not because of what it commemorates, but because of who it is typically commemorated by: politicians who use the day for solemn reflection and then quickly forget its meaning and its lessons. That the day was only designated by the United Nations in 2005, after another half-century of failure to confront genocide, makes it seem all the more superficial. (I've always found Yom Hashoah far more meaningful and genuine.)

Joshua Keating said it best yesterday when he wrote of the Auschwitz "memory trap" at the FP Passport blog: "Each time a Holocaust anniversary comes around, we hear the same speeches about how these camps stand as a symbol of the human capacity of evil and the duty to prevent it, yet nations are still just as slow to respond  to modern-day cases of genocide and atrocity or take steps needed to prevent them."

It's not that I think the commemoration is particularly negative or damaging, it's that, at the end of the day, I'm left with a big, "So what?" The same goes for Obama's State of the Union address -- a speech which often seems more about PR than policy, for any president. Activists made a valiant push for Obama to commit his administration to implement the recommendations of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, and while I understand the motivation for such a campaign, I can't help but wonder if that energy would have been better spent elsewhere.

Obama has made reference to genocide and human rights, in Darfur and elsewhere, in several major speeches since taking office, but his actions have yet to parallel his words. Rather than asking for more public commitments, what will it take to make sure that those already made will be effectively and transparently implemented?

Photo credit: Elwood J. Blues.