"Preacher, historian, economist, moralist, schoolteacher, critic, warrior, imam, emperor. Sometimes you even forgot Barack Obama was the President of the United States of America.
Will his lecture to a carefully chosen audience at Cairo University "re-imagine the world" and heal the wounds of centuries between Muslims and Christians? Will it resolve the Arab-Israeli tragedy after more than 60 years? If words could do the job, perhaps...
It was a clever speech we heard from Obama yesterday, as gentle and as ruthless as any audience could wish for – and we were all his audience. He praised Islam. He loved Islam. He admired Islam. He loved Christianity. And he admired America. Did we know that there were seven million Muslims in America, that there were mosques in every state of the Union, that Morocco was the first nation to recognise the United States and that our duty is to fight against stereotypes of Muslims just as Muslims must fight against stereotypes of America?"
Who says so? None other than veteran journalist, author and commentator, Robert Fisk, the pre-eminent expert on the Middle East. In his latest op-ed piece in The Independent, here, Fisk joins many who have dissected Obama's speech in Cairo.
For a perspective of someone who actually was in the hall listening to Obama, turn to Ahdaf Soueif, an Egyptian short story writer, novelist and political and cultural commentator. Writing in The Guardian, in "We wanted a world leader. We saw only a US president" she says:
"Obama's speech was a lawyerly speech, a clever speech. It certainly departed from the Bush discourse, but how far away from the policies of the last eight years are the sources it springs from? We still can only wait and see.
The biggest applause he got was when he said that all US troops would be out of Iraq by 2012, and when he repeated his position on the Israeli settlements. He's been brave on the settlements, and of course we're all grateful for every step in the direction of halting the dispossession of the Palestinians. But it also needs to be remembered that stopping the settlements has been part of the official position of every American administration; what's required is the implementation of that position by cutting off the funding for the settlements and closing the tax loophole that allows private American organisations to fund them.
Around the pedestal carrying the Eternal Flame of Knowledge outside the university, the American activist group Code Pink carried banners that said "Obama: Stop funding Israeli war crimes". They came out of Gaza on Wednesday carrying a letter from Hamas to the American president, and they were at pains to point out that Hamas chose an American feminist group to carry their letter. I don't know if they managed to deliver it.
There is a difference between believing that ultimately the interests of the inhabitants of the planet are genuinely interconnected and believing that the interests of the world can be made to seem compatible with America's. Obama has said that America should have not only the power but the moral standing to lead the world. Today we waited for him to demonstrate that moral standing and assume the leadership of the world. He did not; he remained the President of the United States."
Will his lecture to a carefully chosen audience at Cairo University "re-imagine the world" and heal the wounds of centuries between Muslims and Christians? Will it resolve the Arab-Israeli tragedy after more than 60 years? If words could do the job, perhaps...
It was a clever speech we heard from Obama yesterday, as gentle and as ruthless as any audience could wish for – and we were all his audience. He praised Islam. He loved Islam. He admired Islam. He loved Christianity. And he admired America. Did we know that there were seven million Muslims in America, that there were mosques in every state of the Union, that Morocco was the first nation to recognise the United States and that our duty is to fight against stereotypes of Muslims just as Muslims must fight against stereotypes of America?"
Who says so? None other than veteran journalist, author and commentator, Robert Fisk, the pre-eminent expert on the Middle East. In his latest op-ed piece in The Independent, here, Fisk joins many who have dissected Obama's speech in Cairo.
For a perspective of someone who actually was in the hall listening to Obama, turn to Ahdaf Soueif, an Egyptian short story writer, novelist and political and cultural commentator. Writing in The Guardian, in "We wanted a world leader. We saw only a US president" she says:
"Obama's speech was a lawyerly speech, a clever speech. It certainly departed from the Bush discourse, but how far away from the policies of the last eight years are the sources it springs from? We still can only wait and see.
The biggest applause he got was when he said that all US troops would be out of Iraq by 2012, and when he repeated his position on the Israeli settlements. He's been brave on the settlements, and of course we're all grateful for every step in the direction of halting the dispossession of the Palestinians. But it also needs to be remembered that stopping the settlements has been part of the official position of every American administration; what's required is the implementation of that position by cutting off the funding for the settlements and closing the tax loophole that allows private American organisations to fund them.
Around the pedestal carrying the Eternal Flame of Knowledge outside the university, the American activist group Code Pink carried banners that said "Obama: Stop funding Israeli war crimes". They came out of Gaza on Wednesday carrying a letter from Hamas to the American president, and they were at pains to point out that Hamas chose an American feminist group to carry their letter. I don't know if they managed to deliver it.
There is a difference between believing that ultimately the interests of the inhabitants of the planet are genuinely interconnected and believing that the interests of the world can be made to seem compatible with America's. Obama has said that America should have not only the power but the moral standing to lead the world. Today we waited for him to demonstrate that moral standing and assume the leadership of the world. He did not; he remained the President of the United States."
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