Obama: 'I have come here to seek a new beginning'

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
-- President Obama, speaking Thursday at Cairo University

Text of Obama's address at Cairo University on June 4, 2009

To view President Obama's speech, click here.

Obama to seek reconciliation in Egypt

In his column for Newsweek, Howard Fineman writes about President Obama's scheduled visit to Cairo:

Barack Obama believes in his voice and his life story. Autobiographical speeches powered his campaign. ... Now comes the ultimate test of autobiographical speechmaking. Obama this week speaks at Cairo University, in the hub of Muslim-Arab culture. Obama "has privately told friends that his goal is far higher: nothing less than to help 'reconcile Islam and modernity.' ...

He will pay homage to the Golden Age of that culture—its glorious achievements in mathematics, science, literature and diplomacy—and note that Muslim scholars rescued from oblivion the Greek and Roman (i.e., the "Western") canon. He also will draw on the by-now-familiar story of his own life. A Christian son of an African-Muslim father, he spent years in Muslim-majority Indonesia, attending a public school run by, but not suffused with, the teachings of Islam. All of this, Obama thinks, not only allows him, but obliges him, to play a grand role as bridge builder.

The world will be watching as the president seeks reconciliation.


Tags: Obama, Egypt, Muslims, Reconciliation, Media by Sistrunk