【英文版27】Europe’s New Democracy - George W. Bush

27 George W. Bush

Europe’s New Democracy

Warsaw University/Jun 15, 2001

It’s a great honor for me to visit this great city—a city that breathes with confidence, creativity and success of modern Poland.

Like all nations, Poland still faces challenges. But I am confident you’ll meet them with the same optimistic spirit a visitor feels on Warsaw’s streets and sees in the city’s fast-changing skyline. We find evidence of this energy and enterprise surrounding us right now in this magnificent building. And you can hear it in the air. Today’s own—Poland’s orchestra called Golec’s is telling the world, “on that wheat field, I’m going to build my San Francisco; over that molehill, I’m going to build my bank.”

Americans recognize that kind of optimism and ambition—because we share it. We are linked to Poland by culture and heritage, kinship and common values.

Polish glass makers built and operated the New World’s first factory in Jamestown, Virginia in 1608. Seeking the right to vote, those same Poles also staged the New World’s first labor strike. They succeeded. It seems the Poles have been keeping the world honest for a long period of time.

Some of the most courageous moments of the 20th century took place in this nation. Here, in 1943, the world saw the heroic effort and revolt of the Warsaw Ghetto; a year later, the 63 days of the Warsaw Uprising; and then the reduction of this city to rubble because it chose to resist evil.

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Yalta did not ratify a natural divide; it divided a living civilization. The partition of Europe was not a fact of geography, it was an act of violence. And wise leaders for decades have found the hope of European peace in the hope of greater unity. In the same speech that described an “iron curtain”, Winston Churchill called for “a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast.”

Consider how far we have come since that speech. Through trenches and shell-fire, through death camps and bombed-out cities, through gulags and food lines men and women have dreamed of what my father called a Europe “whole and free”. This free Europe is no longer a dream. It is the Europe that is rising around us. It is the work that you and I are called on to complete. We can build an open Europe.

Our goal is to erase the false lines—our goal is to erase the false lines that have divided Europe for too long. The future of every European nation must be determined by the progress of internal reform, not the interests of outside powers. Every European nation that struggles toward democracy and free markets and a strong civic culture must be welcomed into Europe’s home.

All of Europe’s new democracies, from the Baltic to the Black Sea and all that lie between, should have the same chance for security and freedom—and the same chance to join the institutions of Europe—as Europe’s old democracies have.

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Through a hard history, with all its precedents of pain, Europe has come to believe in the dignity of every individual: in social freedom, tempered by moral restraint; in economic liberty, balanced with humane values.

Just as man cannot be reduced to a means of production, he must find goals greater than mere consumption. The European ideal is inconsistent with a life defined by gain and greed and the lonely pursuit of self. It calls for consideration and respect, compassion and forgiveness—the habits of character on which the exercise of freedom depends.

And all these duties, and all these rights are ultimately traced to a source of law and justice above our wills and beyond our politics—an author of our dignity, who calls us to act worthy of our dignity.

This belief is more than a memory, it is a living faith. And it is the main reason Europe and America will never be separated. We are products of the same history, reaching from Jerusalem and Athens to Warsaw and Washington. We share more than an alliance. We share a civilization. Its values are universal, and they pervade our history and our partnership in a unique way.

These trans-Atlantic ties could not be severed by U-boats. They could not be cut by checkpoints and barbed wire. They were not ended by SS- 20S and nuclear blackmail. And they certainly will not be broken by commercial quarrels and political debates. America will not permit it. Poland will not allow it.

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Fifty years ago, all Europe looked to the United States for help. Ten years ago, Poland did, as well. Now, we and others can only go forward together. The question no longer is what others can do for Poland, but what America and Poland and all of Europe can do for the rest of the world.

Today, a new generation makes a new commitment: a Europe and an America bound in a great alliance of liberty—history’s greatest united force for peace and progress and human dignity. The bells of victory have rung. The Iron Curtain is no more. Now, we plan and build the house of freedom—whose doors are open to all of Europe’s peoples and whose windows look out to global challenges beyond. Our progress is great, our goals are large, and our differences, in comparison, are small. And America, in calm and in crisis, will honor this vision and the values we share.

Poland, in so many ways, is a symbol of renewal and common purpose. More than half a century ago, from this spot, all one could see was a desert of ruins. Hardly did a single unbroken brick touch another. This city had been razed by the Nazis and betrayed by the Soviets. Its people were mostly displaced.

Not far from here is the only monument which survived. It is the figure of Christ falling under the cross and struggling to rise. Under him are written the words: “Sursum corda”—“lift up your hearts.”

From the determination in Polish hearts, Warsaw did rise again,brick by brick. Poland has regained its rightful place at the heart of a new Europe and is helping other nations to find their own.

“Lift up your hearts” is the story of Poland. “Iift up your hearts”is the story of a new Europe. And, together, let us raise this hope of freedom for all who seek it in our world.

God bless.