4th of July celebration at Kjarvalsstadir
More than 700 Icelanders and Americans Celebrate July 4th at Kjarvalsstad
Over 700 people, including high-ranking representatives from the Icelandic government, businesses, media, universities, and cultural institutions, as well as members of the U.S. community and U.S. Naval Air Station at Keflavik, attended the Ambassador’s July 4th reception this year at the Reykjavík Art Museum (Kjarvalsstadír). Ambassador Carol van Voorst and her husband, William A. Garland, hosted the reception.
Singer Jonsi sang both the Icelandic and U.S. national anthems, and a group of Icelandic line-dancers, some dressed in cowboy hats, performed American-style dancing.
Here is the text of remarks delivered by Ambassador
Carol van Voorst:
4th of July Welcoming Remarks
Carol van Voorst
Reykjavik, July 4, 2006
Ministers, Ambassadors, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Thank you for joining us here at Kjarvalsstadir to celebrate America’s Independence Day. We are very happy to receive you in this lovely place. We’re grateful to the Museum administration for allowing us to be here.
A special welcome goes to the eleven companies who have sponsored this party. Without their generosity, we could not be celebrating in such style. Our thanks to them for contributing to the spirit of the day.
The 4th of July is always a very special day for Americans. It’s a birthday party, with the emphasis on PARTY. Here today, we have singing, dancing, and American treats, and we hope you enjoy them all.
This is a particularly happy event for my husband and me because it is our first 4th of July celebration in Iceland.
Some of you know that I’m a former professor of American history. Now I find myself standing at a microphone before a captive audience on the 4th of July. I admit it’s a real temptation to deliver a long lecture about the importance of this day in the history of mankind. But we’re having a party, so I will resist that impulse!
But I can’t let this 230th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence pass without saying a few words about the courage of those who proclaimed it and then fought for it. It is easy to forget today what a revolutionary document the Declaration was.
The 56 delegates to the Continental Congress who signed it were men of property and reputation, well-known and respected. A few, like Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, were quite simply brilliant.
They all signed the Declaration knowing they were committing treason and that the penalty for treason was death.
What they wrote was much more than an announcement of political divorce from Great Britain.
The electrifying, truly sensational assertion that “all men are created equal” and have “inalienable rights” to include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has echoed through the world to this day.
Their hope was not a certainty. The immediate price of the Declaration was a long and bitter war.
But twelve very difficult years after the Declaration, some of these same men and others like them wrote another revolutionary document that began with the simple words, “We the People.”
The Constitution is a document so alive, so meaningful, that as recently as last week its importance in American daily life created news headlines around the world, including here in Iceland.
The principles stated in the Declaration, implemented in the Constitution, are the American expression of the fundamental values which citizens of your country and mine regard as basic to a decent life.
Much of the subsequent history of the United States reflects the effort to live up to these ideals and to turn them into reality. Thomas Jefferson warned early on that securing these ideals would require the commitment and the intense effort – he even said the blood – of each new generation. And he was right.
For Americans on the 4th, at some point between the food and the fireworks, there’s time to remember what we believe in and to survey the work that lies ahead. And there’s always work ahead.
Icelanders will not find any of this alien to their own history and values. I have not been in Iceland long, but an outsider doesn’t need much time to realize what a remarkable country this is. A people whose ancestors set foot on the American continent long before Columbus, but kept that information to themselves, has got to be one of a kind.
Your energetic and frank public debate on domestic and international issues is a model of free expression. Your concern for the welfare of those who do not have the good luck to live in a peaceful, orderly, and prosperous country like Iceland is felt by people in continents far from home.
My fellow Americans and I, here and in the States, value your partnership with our country – this longstanding friendship that has brought benefits of security, trade, and cultural ties to both nations.
If you would allow a personal comment in closing: my husband and I owe many of you present here today our personal thanks for the gracious welcome we have received. We are honored and touched by your willingness to introduce us to your thinking, your lives, your businesses, your families, and your homes.
I would like to thank the band, led by Omar Gudjonsson, for performing during the past hour. I invite you now to listen to Iceland’s own Jonsi, who will sing the Icelandic and the U.S. national anthems.
I invite you to take a look at the photo exhibit by Professor Marcus Meckl’s journalism class from the University of Akureyri.
And don’t forget to check out our line-dancing entertainment outside on the patio. Have a good time, and thank you all for coming.