OBAMA'S SPEECH TO THE MUSLIM WORLD CALLS FOR A NEW BEGINNING
Wednesday 10 November 2010 13.15 GMT
White House planners initially considered Indonesia as the location for Barack Obama's much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world, which he eventually gave in Cairo in June last year. Expectations then were probably impossibly high, and his address in Jakarta today did not get the same dramatic billing. Seventeen months on, the mood has soured and polls show that his popularity is in decline across the globe as well as at home...click here to continue to article.
Link to 31:00 minute speech, University of Indonesia, Jakarta
1 comment:
I think President Obama spoke eloquently of his childhood days in Jakarta and of how living in Indonesia shaped his humanity. No doubt that these personal reflections and his declaration in the local language that “Indonesia is a part of me” will certainly be fodder for the relentless "othering" of Obama. His advisors are probably scrambling to control the birthers, right-wing bloggers, Fox and company. I think Obama came across two roads in preparing this speech – the political road (tone down the personal ties to this Muslim country) and the road of integrity. And he certainly took the latter.
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