The thing that stands out when comparing President Obama’s speech in Cairo and speeches made by other American presidents is the reaction was split depending on what the point of view was.
In the United States, Obama’ speech was well received. The same goes for Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” speech. Both speeches were intended to make a statement to an “enemy”, but Obama’s was more of a reconciliation attempt than Reagan’s.
In 1987, the Soviet Union was starting to crumble and it was easy to make demands of the Russians while they were restructuring their economy. Regan telling Gorbachev to tear down the wall made no difference at the time. Only after two years had passed and the wall came down did Regan’s speech become elevated to an almost mythic status. Personally, I think with the way things were, Regan’s speech was made in to something much bigger than it actually was because American’s were (are?) totally in love with Reagan and jumped at the opportunity to thumb their noses at the Communists and say, “We told you so.”
Abroad, the Regan speech was dismissed or criticized. Understandably, the international media did not think much of what Regan had to say.
The Obama speech was seen from several different points of view. Israelis were not enthused about what Obama had to say, and Palestinians had some good things to say. As usual with these two groups, any attempt to say ANYTHING about either group sets off a huge debate about the Americans not treating them fairly.
The test of time will be the true indicator of how good or bad this speech was.
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The notion of historical moments becoming more poignant in hindsight is quite interesting. I hope to see what you think about how history will view Obama's Cairo speech.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, your opinions are strong and sensible, so I have nothing to add to that. I will say from a Web/blogging perspective that it never hurts to link to outside sources within the text, especially when you have to generalize something due to a lack of space or time.
ReplyDeleteI think you are on point here. Unfortunatly for Obama it was a lose-lose situation. If he supported the Arabs he upset the Israeli's and vise versa. I think Obama is making the right call in negotiating with the Arabs though because it is their homeland as well.
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