Justin Webb to deliver AmericaInTheWorld's first annual address

Today marks the formal launch of AmericaInTheWorld.  David Cameron, UK Conservative leader, will address a reception at a Westminster hotel.  Over 150 guests are expected including MPs from all UK parties, supporters of the Democrats and Republicans and CEOs of some major businesses.  We'll report much more on the event tomorrow - with photographs and video to follow.

We are also delighted to announce that Justin Webb, the BBC's North America Editor, has agreed to deliver AITW's First Annual Address.  The Address will take place later this month - in London - and will be chaired by Labour MP David Cairns.  The event will be held jointly with the New Culture Forum.

AITW recently featured extracts from Justin Webb's new book - an invitation to fair-minded people to take another look at America and, perhaps, give it another chance.  One of those extracts focused on Justin's contention that America is still the best hope for the world's oppressed - even for those it lets down.

On BBC Radio 4 on Saturday, Justin Webb reflected on this year's presidential race.  He celebrated the changes in America that have seen a nation segregated by race come to the point where its Commander-in-Chief is likely to be a black American.  Here he remembers the Obama family pass in their motorcade:

"As the SUVs pass - including several with the doors and back windows open, men with large automatic weapons looking out with keen hard glares - I catch just a glimpse of the children, of 10-year-old Malia and seven-year-old Sasha peering out. I think their mother was sitting in the middle.

This is the true revolution.  There have been, after all, prominent black politicians for decades now, men and women afforded the full protection and respect that the nation can muster.  But seeing little black children gathered up into the arms of the secret service, surrounded by people who would die rather than let them die, is to see something that must truly make the racists of Americas past revolve in their graves.

I do not think Barack Obama will win or lose because of his race, but if he does win, the real moment you will know that America has changed is not when he takes the oath, but when we see pictures of tiny people padding along the White House corridors - a black First Family - representing America and American-ness.

True, Americans tire of their presidents, but in their early years they hold huge sway, they set the style.  Americans will look in the mirror, metaphorically speaking, and black faces will look back.

I wonder if the Obama children have ever asked the question: "Are we nearly there?"  The answer, at last, is: Yes, we are nearly there."

We greatly look forward to Mr Webb's address.

Comments

[Malcolm Dunn]

Good luck with this Tim. I know how important it is to you.
Also welcome to Jonathan Isaby! I hope you have a long and happy association with CH.

[Tim Montgomerie]

Thank you very much Malcolm.

[Dorian Englandism (retd)]

Eggs and baskets

The fat lady has yet to do her warm up but we are already calling Obama from Boris to all points left and right it would seem. Including our government.

What if? What if the impermissible happens and Palin and her dad pull it off on the very last lap of the race? Hamilton stylee. I think that we are taking a serious risk both with expectation and overtly partisan eggbasketry.

[YourNameHere]

Amused that for all your BBC bashing, and dogma about the institution, you invite one of their chief correspondents.

It's only recently that a lot of commentators set this guy Justin Webb up at being the chief purveyor of anti-Americanism. I'm glad you've invited him, because his book alone, will help combat anti-Americanism, more than a blog, I feel.

Good luck, nevertheless. I think the cause of combating dogmatic anti-Americanism will be smoothed a lot over the next few years. I hope so. We need a return to ration.

[Tony Makara]

The world needs a strong America, absolutely. I for one worry about the rise of China and the fact that China and Russia are moving closer to a strategic alliance. However America can only truly represent the free world if it represents a fair world. One in which hard diplomacy replaces hegemony and one in which dangerous and divisive ideas like a 'League of Democracies' don't surface. I believe that while America has had its focus set on the middle-east, it has lost sight of the rise of Russia and China. The East is rising and the West needs to be ready.

[Steevo]

Is Justin Webb truly enlightened and not just another Beeb hack enjoying his Palin Derangement Syndrome and the progress of hope and change having a man by virtue of his blackness, for president?

[Steevo]

Is Justin Webb truly enlightened and not just another Beeb hack enjoying his Palin Derangement Syndrome and the progress of hope and change having a man by virtue of his blackness, for president?

[Kevin Sampson]

'The world needs a strong America'

Why? And even if it does, that doesn't obligate us to provide whatever 'the world' needs.

'America can only truly represent the free world if it represents a fair world'

So why should we want to 'represent the free world'? And what's in it for us if we do? From what I've seen over the last 50 years, representing the free world is a very expensive and completely thankless task that only a fool would accept voluntarily. Let the free world look out for itself for a change, they couldn't screw things up worse than we have, right?

[Babs]

What a bunch of crap. So, we will all be better off with little back feet padding around the white house?
I am actually revolted by this shameless racist twaddle.
Elect your own black Commander in Chief and fawn over him incesantly. What, You say? It has never and could never happen here but we give full support to it happening in the U.S. Never mind what the man might support, we (of European stripe) MUST HAVE A BLACK PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. !!!!
Your preoccupation with all things racist is very telling...

[Cassandra S.]

Justin Webb is just another self-righteous Brit whose ignorance about the U.S. is inexcusable. African-Americans in national security are routinely protected by white undercover operatives sworn to die for them, and vice versa. (Or by Chinese-American or Mexican-American operatives, etc.) This has been a routine practice for many decades. Who do you think protects the people with the "hard glares" who hold the "large automatic weapons"--or their families?

What's more, because of their dubious histories, Secret Service operatives have higher security clearances than both Obama and Bill Clinton. Not so with Pres. Bush Jr. or Sr.

Only in America.

[Kanaka]

Oh, the British. We love you but you make us want to pull our hair out. Trying to wax eloquent about America, you dig holes larger than the one built for the Millennium Dome. Europeans were enslaving Africans as early as the 1400s, yet you go on and on as if you're morally superior to the U.S. It was British slave ships that purchased African slaves from other Africans and brought five percent of them to the U.S.

Contemporary slavery is alive and well in parts of Africa and some say even in Saudi Arabia, and Muslims and blacks in Britain frequently complain about racist treatment, but all you can do is point your finger at the U.S.?

Hypocrisy, thy name is Europe in general, and Britain in particular.

[B.A.]

Americans have been at a great disadvantage, but no more. Britain has long been fascinated by the slightest hiccup from our vast borders while our left-leaning media couldn't have been bothered to treat us with news from across the pond. However, the advent of the internet means we can link onto dozens of your print publications and even watch videos on YouTube. Expect us to be just as curious and critical, if not judgemental, of your politics and culture as you have been of ours. After all, you've set the standard.

[Ralph Loren]

If Justin Webb is so moved by people of color being protected by Secret Service personnel, why was he silent when Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice were appointed to President Bush's Cabinet in 2001? They also had well-trained and menacingly looking men (and women) protecting them. It was also the first time African-Americans had been appointed to such high offices. Say it like it is, Mr. Webb; you're a one-man liberal propaganda machine.

[Kelsie]

What a shame some of my "fellow countrymen" are so impossible-to-please (to say nothing of being unpleasant), they can't even take a compliment graciously.

Anyhow: as an American, I'm impressed with this effort being put forth by our brethren across the ocean, and as a great admirer of British culture and the special relationship that has been the cornerstone of American and British foreign policy for many decades, I very loudly applaud the efforts of everyone involved--even if I don't necessarily agree with everything the organization supports.

[Kelsie]

I also hope President-elect Obama fulfills Mr Brown's words, and will be a true friend to Britain--and to the world.

[Garth Wiseman]

I greatly welcome this initiative. Objectivity is much needed in discussion of Ammerica by the people of all other nations. The recent US Election was frightengly partisan as indeed are politics in many if not most countries. The initial need perhaps is to clarify once and for all that so called anti Americanism in recent years has really consisted of opposition to the policies of the Bush administration - not to the American people.

[Austin]

What a load of crap from Mr. Webb indeed!
Silly and pretentious, Mr. Webb and his ilk are the racists getting giggly over a guy because he's half Kenyan. Blacks in the States are nearly all West Africans with alot of English, Welsh, and Scots-Irish flavoring. I don't care that he's dark complected. I'm livid, as are tens of millions of Americans, that he's a socialist.