Remarks by U.S. Ambassador to Spain Eduardo Aguirre at 4th of July Party,
Embassy of the United States in Madrid,
Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Good evening.

First I would like to show our respect and condolences to the city of Valencia, and our solidarity with the grief of the Spanish people, with a moment of silence.

Thank you. Tere and I would like to welcome to the Embassy residence, on our Independence day. I’d like to thank our special friends, Foreign Affairs & Cooperation Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Defense Minister José Antonio Alonso and Minister Magdalena Álvarez, and my esteemed friend Esperanza Aguirre, President of the Community of Madrid. I’d like to thank all our sponsors, whose generosity has helped make this event possible. Thanks also to the Spanish Air Force band, and thanks and a special welcome to the Canal Street Band for giving a special New Orleans touch to tonight’s festivities. I’d like to thank all of you for your presence here, and for the best wishes many of you have conveyed to me for the continued prosperity and good fortune of the United States.

This evening we gather to celebrate my country’s birthday. Today she is 230 years young – and like the young the world over, she is still bursting with energy and enthusiasm, optimism and idealism. America is still guided by the stars of its founding fathers, still driven forward by an untiring commitment to make them a reality.

As many of you know, I was not born in America. My beloved mother can verify that, who pleased me greatly by joining us this evening as the special guest of honor. Mama who is 94 year young, traveled from Miami to celebrate the 4th of July with us.

As I said, I was not born an American – but like every immigrant who came before me, like the immigrants yet to come to the United States in search of freedom and opportunity, I share equally in the legacy of our great generation of founding Patriots. My parents were not from the United States. No genealogical tree connects them to the leaders of 1776. But Americans are united not by blood, but by a passionate love of freedom. The great ideals and principles proclaimed by Washington and Franklin, Jefferson and Adams and Patrick Henry belong to me, too – and this makes them my forefathers. They are my blood and my countrymen, no less than my parents from Cuba, and their forefathers from Spain.

Today we honor the creed of liberty that is our country’s heritage. We celebrate not just a birth, but the ideals that birth unleashed, ideals still resonating around the world. During a difficult time for our country, Abraham Lincoln encouraged his fellow citizens to refresh their commitment to the Declaration of Independence “not only on the occasions of success, but also on the much more trying occasions of the want of success.” Let us re-read the Declaration, consider it, and take renewed strength from it.

We are not meant to sing idle praises to the past, as if all that is necessary has been accomplished. We have work to do to meet the challenges our founders set for us. Our country stands for human freedom, and we will never weaken in our defense of it. We stand for equality in rights, dignity and opportunity, and we will never tire in striving to achieve these ideals.

We acknowledge with humility that the Declaration’s ideals have sometimes exceeded our grasp. But we draw comfort from the actions of Americans like Frederick Douglass and Susan Anthony and Martin Luther King, who strove to improve our democracy.

They knew that no democracy is ever complete; it is an always unfinished task. Our society remains imperfect, but it is ever perfectible.

To my Spanish friends, thank you for sharing this celebration with us. I am proud and honored that the United States has Spain as an important ally and a valued friend. We are brought together by deep historic ties, shared values, and common actions. Together we share the responsibility to defeat terrorism. Together we are working to promote democracy, preserve peace, fight disease and poverty, and bring humanitarian aid to people beset by earthquakes, tsunamis … and hurricanes.

During this past year, my wife Tere and I have experienced many unforgettable moments. Two stand out in my mind:

I see the Spanish flag waving next to the flag of my country today. Those of you who were present at last year’s Independence Day celebration may remember my words about how much my beloved American flag means to me. Last August, I saw that Spanish flag covering the coffins of seventeen brave Spanish soldiers. In solidarity, we lowered our flag to half mast. I was deeply moved during the funerals, where Spain and the United States both wept those who perished in Afghanistan defending, in distant lands, along with their NATO partners, the freedom of another country.

I also remember, and am moved and grateful, when I saw taking off from the Torrejón Air Base two Hercules cargo planes, carrying relief supplies from the Spanish people for the victims in my country of Hurrican Katrina.

Those two events are carved into my heart as faithful examples of the true ties that unite us.

Every country and every culture has given mankind great works of invention and discovery, literature and art – noble achievements that transcend one language or one culture or one nation, and resonate for all humanity. From the American people, even before there was a United States, came this Declaration. Let me assure you that my country’s commitment to the ideals proclaimed in our founding Declaration is unchanged, unbroken and unbreakable. Thomas Jefferson called the Declaration of Independence “an expression of the American mind.” But it was and remains much more. It is a passionate affirmation of ideals and rights that every man and every woman in the world may justly claim as his or her own. It has become part of the common heritage of mankind. Like the genius of Cervantes, it belongs to us all and inspires us all.

Tonight we observe not one nation’s holiday, but the right to liberty, equality and opportunity for all people, everywhere in the world. As long as the love of freedom beats in our hearts, this Declaration and its promise will ring true and strong.

May God bless our two countries!

Que Viva España, y God Bless America!

Gunny – retire the colors!

This concludes our formal program. Please enjoy our hospitality.
 

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