Easter

Back from his first foray as President on the world stage, Barack Obama used his weekly address to urge nations to come together to address issues such as the worldwide economic recession, pollution, terrorism, extremism and intolerance of race and religion.

Citing Passover and Easter -- two very different holidays that are celebrated in the same week -- Obama said every nation must join together to solve 21st century problems:

I speak to you today during a time that is holy and filled with meaning for believers around the world. Earlier this week, Jewish people gathered with family and friends to recite the stories of their ancestors’ struggle and ultimate liberation. Tomorrow, Christians of all denominations will come together to rejoice and remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

These are two very different holidays with their own very different traditions. But it seems fitting that we mark them both during the same week. For in a larger sense, they are both moments of reflection and renewal. They are both occasions to think more deeply about the obligations we have to ourselves and the obligations we have to one another, no matter who we are, where we come from, or what faith we practice.

This idea – that we are all bound up, as Martin Luther King once said, in “a single garment of destiny”– is a lesson of all the world’s great religions. And never has it been more important for us to reaffirm that lesson than it is today – at a time when we face tests and trials unlike any we have seen in our time. An economic crisis that recognizes no borders. Violent extremism that’s claimed the lives of innocent men, women, and children from Manhattan to Mumbai. An unsustainable dependence on foreign oil and other sources of energy that pollute our air and water and threaten our planet. The proliferation of the world’s most dangerous weapons, the persistence of deadly disease, and the recurrence of age-old conflicts.

Obama has just returned from the G-20 (watch NDN's special preview of the April 2 London summit here) where most of the focus was on the economy. Yesterday the President made optimistic comments about the economy, but as NDN Globalization Initiative Chair Dr. Rob Shapiro has written and Simon has argued recently, there is much more that must be done.  

The President heads next week to Mexico and then on to Trinidad and Tobago, the site of the Fifth Summit of the Americas (NDN hosted a March 26 forum on the Summit of the Americas).

Obama is not only America's President; he is the most powerful leader in the world. He will need help to face the daunting challenges ahead of us that he speaks about in his weekly address below: