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Kids Speaking Up: Welcome to the 21st Century, Mr. Gingrich
“I am not a citizen of the world. I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous.”
So spoke former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., at a recent Washington fundraiser to the applause of fellow Republicans in the room. Gingrich asserted that he doesn’t want to be part of North Korea, Zimbabwe or Russia, but rather will focus solely on the United States. However, there is a problem in thinking that it is us and us alone, that “we must strengthen our unique American civilization” (as he said in the same speech) rather than adopt a more global perspective.
Gingrich used his “citizen of the world” comment to dismiss the notion of a world government of sorts, with the same world laws, but within this dismissal is a “stunningly dangerous” and intellectually flawed way of looking at the world.
I would assert to Gingrich and those who agree with his position that many in my generation would disagree. For us, the fact that we are all citizens in our global community is actually a “no-duh” idea.
Everything travels the world these days. Our clothing, food and everyday goods are made in Ecuador, China, Bangladesh and Indonesia, assembled in Mexico, packaged in various U.S. states and shipped to local stores. Every year, an area the size of Wales is being cut down in an Indonesian rainforest so that palm oil can be produced. Last week, Shell was ordered to pay $15.5 million to the family of one of the many environmentalists in Nigeria who were hanged. The charge against Shell was complicity. It is a country rich in oil, rich in corruption and rich in human rights violations.
Brazilian rainforest is being cut down so that cattle can graze — although rainforest pulls CO2 (a greenhouse gas) from the atmosphere and cattle release methane (a greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere.
For a more directly American connection, air pollution from China (produced mainly from the burning of coal) is drifting across the Pacific Ocean, putting chemicals into Alaska’s air and food chains.
Lastly, in a time where freshwater is scarce and is being used at a rate much faster than it is being replenished, Sudan floods its Nile-bordering farms with water, which flows through wasteful and primitive irrigation systems. Meanwhile, the small amounts of salt that the water brings to the farm requires more water, in a positive feedback loop that wastes one of the Earth’s most valuable resources.
These are global problems that affect all of us. Whether through oil (transportation, local consumption, etc.) that leads to NO2 (acid rain and the acidification of our lakes), through the cheap labor and environmentally toxic means of producing much of what we consume (often powered by coal, in countries where environmental regulations are nonexistent or unenforceable), through climate change, a fast-moving threat that endangers us all (not just those in certain, non-American countries), through deforestation (that happens often when people are poor or malnourished, desperate for money even if it means the exploitation of natural resources), through the irresponsible use of fresh water (a crisis that, at some point, even America will grapple with), it is clear that our problems are global.
Thinking otherwise is naive. It is stunningly dangerous, because until we start addressing those problems as our problems, too, we will all suffer together — sooner or later. When it comes to the world, we are all tenants, citizens and caretakers, responsible for its maintenance. Otherwise, everyone feels the consequences.
Gingrich and his myriad followers represent an outdated mindset blossoming in ignorance, blind to the reality of our global situation.
I would like to leave you with this thought, one often repeated in my household and in my culture: It is not your job to save the world, but it is your job to try.
It falls on each of us to step outside American-mania and realize we are all one family, to the end.
— Dos Pueblos High graduate Isabelle D’Arcy is co-founder of Kids Speaking Up, a local group working to educate youth on social, national and political issues and inspire them to write.
Comments
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» on 06.11.09 @ 08:24 PM
It’s an absolute pleasure to read such thoughtful and intelligent comments. In my days at DP it was sayings such as “no ‘man’ is an island,” and songs like “the times they are a changin’.” Or, as I quoted in my graduation speech, “The seven last words . . . we never did it that way before.” Isabelle, you not only carry on several great traditions, you expand on them and bring fresh hope for the future.
All my best,
Alex McDavid, Class of ‘73
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» on 06.12.09 @ 02:46 AM
One can study how the world’s economy and environment is interconnected without being a “citizen of the world.” Gingrich was really criticizing multiculturalism with its philosophy that the U.S. should not be a sovereign nation with its own traditions and culture. If being a citizen of the United States was not such a unique benefit, why are so many citizens of the rest of the world trying to immigrate here? Do you really want to be a citizen of such places as Saudi Arabia or North Korea or Burma etc?
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» on 06.12.09 @ 03:08 AM
“Brazilian rainforest is being cut down so that cattle can graze” Don’t forget that is now being cut down so that Ethanol can be grown to run our city buses and “clean” vehicles. Much more lucrative and less risky than food crops or rainforest products. You can thank the “environmentalists” (Das Williams) for that one.
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» on 06.12.09 @ 03:12 AM
One day when it is too late, you will realize that the United States is unique and exceptional amongst it’s world’s neighbors, that everyone wants what we have, they risk all to escape where they are from to come here. Not all countries are the same, as Obama would have you believe. You will realize too late that a “world government” means a world run by our enemies, who seek our economic and political destruction.
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» on 06.12.09 @ 03:56 AM
Brillant!
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» on 06.12.09 @ 03:59 AM
Isabelle, this is extremely impressive and absolutely correct. Great Job!!
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» on 06.12.09 @ 05:17 AM
Huh? I don’t know the context of the rest of Newt Gingrich’s speech, but I’m pretty sure Isabelle’s commendable recitation of the environmental problems the world faces, and her subsequent appeal to all nations to work together to solve those very real issues, is a bit off track as a criticism of that single remark of Mr. Gingrich. Your parents and teachers must be proud, though. And I see a Nobel Prize in the future (wasn’t it a Peace Prize won by Al Gore?). Check back with us in 20 years.
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» on 06.12.09 @ 05:56 AM
Terrific writing, Miss D’Arcy.
Also consider that all the concept of “citizen of the world” does not focus on common environmental problems to be solved as you raise. The sense of “we are all in it together on this little planet and have to work together” only makes sense in terms of common human problem, care for the planet, and economic justice (although specifics will always be subject to science and debate).
Consider some broader issues: Should language and culture disappear and be merged into sameness? Should traditional native peoples be forced to modernize? Should the world be Western or Eastern or Southern, with all the different traditions, cultures, religious experience and understanding? Should the Santa Barbara County zoning ordinances be applied to Somalia? Should the IMF or World Bank determine if you can get a loan for your home or car or small business? Should all local governments be subject to world laws? Everyone sane rejects Hitler’s exterminations based on race, disability and religion—but governments seek to continue the same throughout the world today (and do so forcefully) through abortion (sometimes forced) and euthanasia (sometimes forced). Should the world be forced to undergo the political ambitions of an Alexander the Great, Ginghes Kahn, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin? Recall that the majority of people in Germany gave Hitler what he wanted in the legislature because it was slow, small steps. Should doctors be forced to do procedures against their reason, conscience, convictions, and determination of the best interests of their patients, just because the government says so?
Take another approach: How much does your voice matter in one world? The collective overwhelms the individual. But how much does it matter in your school? Your town? Your family? Shouldn’t communities be free to decide what is best for them without imposition from above where there is no necessity or benefit for the common good of all?
Government’s only role is only promoting the common good of all persons and each person individually. But that is not the agenda of the one world movement, no matter how much it wants to cloak itself in the feel-good sense of common humanity, brother and sister. Where individual rights, starting with the most basic right to life of each human being, are violated and the agenda is not the common good, one can be sure there is an agenda of power and greed on the part of a few that is at work.
So you are right, Miss D’Arcy, but think much more broadly (even if the schools hold you back - don’t let your mind be confined).
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» on 06.12.09 @ 05:58 AM
Graig:
A simple Google search finds the following, which will provide plenty of context for you.
In a July 2008 speech in Berlin, Germany, Obama described himself as “a citizen—a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.”
GINGRICH: “Let me be clear. I am not a citizen of the world. I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous. There is no world sovereignty. There is no world system of law. There is in fact no circumstance under which I would like to be a citizen of North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba, or Russia. I am a citizen—I am a citizen of the United States of America, and the rest of this speech is about the United States of America.”
In a June 17, 1982, speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Reagan similarly said, “I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world.”
To him in whom love dwells, the whole world is but one family. ~ Buddha
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world. ~ Socrates
It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. ~ Baha’u'llah
It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars. ~ Arthur C. Clarke
I couldn’t help but say to [Mr. Gorbachev], just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. [We’d] find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together. ~ Ronald Reagan, 1985
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» on 06.12.09 @ 07:47 AM
It’s interesting to know that Newt Gingrich thinks that Ronald Reagan’s ideas were “intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous”, since it’s Reagan who said, speaking to the General Assembly of the UN: “I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world….
My people have sent me here today to speak for them as citizens of the world, which they truly are, for we Americans are drawn from every nationality represented in this chamber today.” (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=42644citizen)
If the American “news” media weren’t so willfully incompetent, every single article reporting Gingrich’s statement would include this information.
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» on 06.12.09 @ 07:57 AM
Poor b_reynaldo and “Also”, responding to brilliance with doltishness.
And Graig, the context was Gingrich in a forum of his fellow partisan thugs slamming Obama’s ME tour strictly for partisan purposes. One must look at the context in which Obama is acting, and Isabelle’s comments speak very much to that context.
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» on 06.12.09 @ 08:05 AM
Andrew Sullivan gives the full context of U.S. Presidents talking about being citizens of the world: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/07/citizen-of-the.html
JFK, Reagan, George HW Bush, Obama ... of course none of them were saying that they wanted to be citizens of Saudi Arabia; that’s just right wingers being willfully stupid.
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» on 06.12.09 @ 11:44 AM
Thanks to Isabelle for a thoughtful essay, and to Noozhawk for running it.
Mr. Gingrich is a bright, talented, colorful character.
Some of his remarks may be designed to shore up his political party. He may also be testing the waters for a political comeback.
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» on 09.18.09 @ 02:29 PM
Your writing is childish and you do not understand how the world works yet. Please grow up and then you will realize that American values are being destroyed because of globalization and this one world order vision that you Commies all seem to have.
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» on 12.01.09 @ 09:43 AM
D’Arcy for President!!
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» on 01.17.10 @ 05:28 AM
Opinions or facts? I used to enjoy your articles, but this article represents the same old crappola from liberals. No facts, no real data, just..elitist opinion. This article would have been much more important had Miss D’Arcy had the opportunity to actually interview Mr. Gingrich and dig deeper into his thought process rather than re-read a trancript and predict the liberal-predictable. Miss D’Arcy, what exactly does your generation’s global community look like? Koombaya? Just visit a local school after lunch time..you’ll find trash everywhere, except in the garbage cans. How about graffiti or the gang violence? Kids can barely be part of a school community let alone a global one, that idea seems naive.
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