The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
— Duke of Albany, King Lear
in al gore’s acceptance speech of his shared 2007 nobel peace prize in oslo, he started by describing the pain he endured when the 2000 presidential elections was decided against him. his loss taught him a painful lesson, he said, which made him focus his energies into doing what he always wanted to do, to serve people. the fruit of his labours since then led him down the path of environmental degradation and its inconvenient truths, and the rest is history.
lorna derksen, in explaining the words of the duke of albany in king lear, says, “In short, he is saying that the truth of our dark times must be told, whether or not it is what others want to hear.”
it was a moving speech, delivered by a highly educated and articulate man who would have been america’s president nearly 8 years ago if not for the odd electoral college rule that the united states has. election years are when you hear ohio and florida revered, and not for its college football programs or sunny climes. he minced no words, lambasting governments for waging a collective war on the earth’s resources, and called on the united states and china to stop ignoring the need to address carbon dioxide emissions issues, especially those included in the kyoto protocol of 1997, and to lead the way in redressing the situation.
i have only this to say: eloquence springs forth in unforced ways when we speak from the depths of our being, from the depths that embrace darkness and pain. we seek ways towards the light and in sometimes so doing, we discover hidden strengths that will not remain thus, and in revealing them, whether willingly or not, we show the world the marks we bear and how we have coped with it. today i just wanted to share how gore’s speech touched off a response in me that floated beside logic and cognition of what the former vice president was saying. i felt inexorably pulled in by his words, maybe because they resonated with a yearning within, or maybe because he was speaking of our world’s collective future, whittling down to a few years, that we can no longer bequeath to our young. as a mother, it may have raised my concern for my children, as when this thought flitted through my mind, “if the polar caps in the north pole disappear in 7 years instead of 20, my sons will not enjoy the beauty that i have been blessed to witness in the work of god in nature… no, this must not happen.” or it could have been something else, something more visceral, more primeval. you might dismiss it as the sappy stuff of tear jerkers but give it to me whole, wrapped in old newspapers or an ornate treasure chest, the effect remains the same.
i am quoting here the most striking part of his speech, coming in the beginning as it logically and brilliantly did, while i unhurriedly cleaned our apartment:
“Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention – dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.
Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.
Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken – if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.
Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, ‘We must act.'”
if you heard the speech live, or have read it from the link i provided above, what do you make of it? any reactions, visceral or other? 🙂
… rather, ask what you can do for your country. JFK said this in a different context and it is my prompt for this post. in the wake of the shocking assassination of pakistan’s benazir bhutto, my husband and i noticed how political analysts on CNN kept talking about how the death of the former prime minister seriously hampers US interests. who, they debate, can we rely on to continue in OUR war against terror? now that our washington-coddled candidate is lying beside her equally-controversial father in their lavih family mausoleum, who can we manipulate according to our agenda in that volatile region of the world?
Always Svelte Rogue 
What They’ve Said