Friday, June 5, 2009

Obama...What it means to be a Leader


This speech was given by President Obama on June 4th, 2009. The name of the speech, "The US is not at War with Islam". While I'm not sure whether or not this is the official name of the speech, I can already tell you that it does not do it justice. The truth is anything I write will not do this speech justice. Sure there will be people out there who attempt to belittle the statements said on that historic podium by claiming that its "a ruse", "only words" or "that's what he says today but what will he DO tomorrow". With all do respect to naysayers, I believe that people who say such things do not understand a) American Politics b) Arab Politics c) that change has happened.

I'm not going to analyse this speech further, because the symbolism combined with actionable Presdiential Promises are far more elequent. I will say this: Presidents like this don't come everyday...we Arabs better make the best of it while he lasts.

Enjoy.

3 comments:

falantan said...

Have you seen "Wag the Dog"?

there's a part where DeNiro's character tells the spin doctors that the first thing to do when trying to tell a lie, is to deny it.

go to 5:00 and to 8:50 on this clip.

The first thing that pops into my head when I read "America is Not at war with Islam", I read it "America IS at war with Islamists".

Which it has for the past 8 years. Almost every world conflict in that period has had muslims on one side of it, if not both. Deaths in the news are either muslims in explosions, or non-muslims in nature disasters.

You should try to find the text of his speech a week later in Tel-Aviv. it almost counters his Cairo speech point by point (and very tough to find). Like Jerusalem will be the capital of the jewish state, palestinian refugees, and on and on.. it was a regular american "pat on the back" saying "don't worry, I just told them what they like to hear".

falantan said...

also this one is hilarious 3:30 to 4:30

wag the dog, press release

Ahmed's 819 said...

well, u said it, *while he last* :)