By: Deborah Mathis
You don’t have to share the religion to appreciate the salient effect President Obama’s words had on the Muslim world in his address from Cairo University last week. They should have resounded with the oppressed, suppressed and distressed the world over, but particularly with Arab and African adherents of Islam.
By speaking honestly, frankly yet appealingly, the president treated the Muslim community not as subjects to be directed nor as children to be scolded, but as equals. Different in custom and tenets, but equal. It is a quality he has shown with the American public as well – to treat us as thinking adults, not quivering lemmings.
“I am convinced that, in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors,” Obama said to a packed auditorium and an international television audience. “There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to respect one another and to seek common ground.”
A far cry, for sure, from “Either you’re with us or you’re against us.”
In Obama, America’s Got the Intelligence We’ve Been Awaiting....
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