Obama’s Speech to the United Nations General Assembly September 24, 2009Text (Note: This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only)
Obama’s Speech to the United Nations General Assembly Following is a text of President Obama's prepared speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, as released by the White House.
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Responsibility and leadership in the 21st century demand more. In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional division between nations of the south and north makes no sense in an interconnected world. Nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long gone Cold War.
The time has come to realize that the old habits and arguments are irrelevant to the challenges faced by our people. They lead nations to act in opposition to the very goals that they claim to pursue, and to vote – often in this body – against the interests of their own people. They build up walls between us and the future that our people seek, and the time has come for those walls to come down.
Together, we must build new coalitions that bridge old divides – coalitions of different faiths and creeds; of north and south, east and west; black, white, and brown.
The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments of the 20th century into the 21st; that put off hard choices, refused to look ahead, and failed to keep pace because we defined ourselves by what we were against instead of what we were for. Or, we can be a generation that chooses to see the shoreline beyond the rough waters ahead; that comes together to serve the common interests of human beings, and finally gives meaning to the promise embedded in the name given to this institution: the United Nations.
That is the future America wants – a future of peace and prosperity that we can only reach if we recognize that all nations have rights, but all nations have responsibilities as well. That is the bargain that makes this work. That must be the guiding principle of international cooperation.
Today, I put forward four pillars that are fundamental to the future that we want for our children: 1) Non-proliferation and disarmament; 2) The promotion of peace and security; 3) The preservation of our planet; 4) and a Global economy that advances opportunity for all people.(Read the full text)
