So I woke up this morning and heard that the President went to Cairo and now this whole clash of civilizations misunderstanding has been all cleared up. Phew. I should sleep well tonight.
I hear we're going to have more student exchange programs or something? Never mind all that terrorism and intolerance, the real problem is Jewish houses.
Salam!
"Syme: It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. You wouldn't have seen the [Newspeak] Dictionary 10th edition, would you Smith? It's that thick. [illustrates thickness with fingers] The 11th Edition will be that [narrows fingers] thick. Winston Smith: So, The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect? Syme: The secret is to move from translation, to direct thought, to automatic response. No need for self-discipline. Language coming from here [the larynx], not from here
[the brain]" -1984 (film) |
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Not only that but he revised history along the way.
Why shouldn't it be cleared up? America is a Muslim country now, isn't it? (And one of the largest, too...)
Obama's oratory produces miracles, the late-modern sophisticate's version of turning water into wine: political speechifying.
The best that can be said about the Cairo speech is that it's not bad in every regard. But his moral incoherence and equivalencies at critical junctures are causing me to feel a bit cynical, in the common and low sense of the term, so I'll avoid any elaboration.
Reading the speech again and listening to Prager, I need to reform my opinion of the speech upward, at least in parts. There's still plenty to grouse about, some of it critical, but there are some emphases in the speech that are worthy as well.
I finally watched it. It's not so, so bad in itself, nor did I expect it to be. It's just the whole idea of the thing.
Other than not speaking at all, what would have made it a better speech?
As Walter Laqueur pointed out what is more important is how the Muslims interpreted the speech.
One thing for sure those Muslims with any intelligence will realise that it was very PC.
A necessary, not a great speech, one that hits some important and positively framed chords, but is discordant at some pivotal/critical moral, policy oriented and even some intellectual, historical and factual junctures, junctures that could have been much better clarified, more illuminative. The echoes of neo-Marxian, post-colonial criticism, faint though they were, were unnecessary. Worse still was the moral equivocation of Sunni Arab populations in Gaza and the West Bank with 1930's era German and European Jewish communities, even though that too was modulated with some other comments.
As a whole and given the context, wherein expectations need to be realistic and moderated rather than arch, abstracted and too idealistic, more good than bad in this speech.
Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth. American shouldn’t dictate to anyone ... except Israel. And her own people.
The whole settlements issue should be hit hard, in a much more illuminating manner, both for its own sake, since it's such a presumptively approached issue, and because it will help to clarify the entire Israel/Sunni Arab set of issues in broader terms.
h/t The Anchoress