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So, Uh, About That Speech
...How in the fuck is it that we liberal westerners, who already by and large agree with Obama's foreign policies and do not really harbour any particular islamophobias, are able to judge the Cairo speech to be historic, a turning point, a speech truly addressing the Muslim world and really completely revolutionary even though everything in it has been said a thousand times before but this time it is different and how we can really feel kinship and bridge the divide etc., etc., etc.?
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Is this a trick question?
June 5, 2009 12:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you Stilli.
I said it already at least three times today.
This was one of the greatest speeches ever made in the last hundred years.
ha!!!
June 5, 2009 3:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is it a complete sentence?
I think Obama's speech was a potential turning point, was potentially revolutionary. I think there's some evidence it (and Obama's recent moves on settlements) have got the attention of the muslim world, and whether that counts for anything will depend on whether Obama's words are backed up with actions. (I definitely don't think we should count our chickens before they're hatched.)
I think certain things about the speech-- that an American president addressed the muslim world as equal partners-- were unique, and that this is where a lot of the potential comes from. Though I don't have any way of knowing to what extent it played that way to the muslim-world audiences it was targeted at...
June 5, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure what you're asking, or why. It's "historic" and "groundbreaking" because it comes just months after that foul, disgusting eight-year reign that's still stinking up the place.
Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty (rhetorically speaking), we're free at last.
June 5, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is not the sentiment in all quarters of the left. That is for sure Ramona.
But for me it is so gd simple. Of course I agree with your lilt of hope, your ability to see the poetry of a speech that rings throughout the world.
Maybe I am carried away, but I like being carried away.
I already told you I like your take on all of this.
June 5, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, DD. My heart has been broken many times before by politicians who would be heroes--but weren't. John Edwards comes to mind. So does Bill Clinton before him. I WANT Obama to succeed. He has proven he can talk the talk--beautifully. But now he has to walk the walk.
But there is no question that already he's the hero that GWB never was--and, I suspect, never wanted to be.
Obama is a man who can do it if he chooses. GWB never could, and nobody knew it better than he himself. He floundered through those miserable eight years and only did as much as he was absolutely required to do. Everything else either went to somebody else to do or was left undone. And here we are. We desperately need a hero. I hope Obama is the one. I'm giving him every chance to prove himself.
June 5, 2009 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Me dos...I hate to lay the future of my idealism at the man's feet, but if he turns out to be just another politician, I'm done. I know he isn't the Messiah, but if a man with his talent, heart, brains and desire to do right can't make a change for the better in our country no one can, and we're toast.
June 5, 2009 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It looks to me like there may be three things in play that are making this a potential big deal notwithstanding the fact that everything he said has been said before (albeit not all at once).
First, it looks like he's been quietly laying the groundwork in Congress necessary to try to outflank AIPAC and, to an unprecedented extent, seems to have succeeded. Indeed, he appears to be the first president since we forever to even believe it might be possible to outflank AIPAC instead of crumpling before their presumed omnipotence.
Second, related to the stone wall AIPAC and Bibi have run into here as they've probed for loopholes and side deals, Obama appears to be trying something that's never been tried before, or at least not since Eisenhower: saying basically the same thing to the Israelis and the Arabs in private that he does in public. If by some improbable chance that caught on in the Middle East, it would be revolutionary, er, I mean, profoundly important. (Sorry, forgot whose blog I was on).
Third, when Obama talks to Muslims about stuff like how Islam preserved civilization while Europe was degenerating into barbarism and supersitition, they know he knows what he's talking about and appreciates the significance rather than just reading words written by some P.R. whore for a clueless president to read in order to stroke the wogs' child-like egos. He can also gently draw their attention to the fact that, in a lot of places, Islam's former tolorance and enlightenment ain't what it used to be without getting people's backs up. In short, it's a lot like what makes his press conferences so remarkable--he's talking to them like they're adults.
Oh, fourth--it hasn't gone unnoticed that he's starting this in year one rather than ignoring it until he's moved to make some last ditch legacy-building panic in year eight.
June 5, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink