Friday June 5, 2009

I've Been Thinking:

The Obama speech was brilliantly crafted and exceptionally delivered.
The reception the speech received was the reception I expected it to receive.

The Muslim world was and still is divided into three unequal levels.
Level # 1 was excited by and about the speech.
They are also the smallest group.

Level # 2 couldn't care less.
No president of the United States can ever redeem the infidel and change America in their eyes.
They are the mid size group.

Level # 3 recognized that there was a change in tone in this speech, but tone is irrelevant to them. It is the "narrative" that is essential and this narrative cannot be changed by this or any other speech. This narrative is part of their mother's milk, it is their history, it is their collective memory.
They are the largest group, composed of the vast masses of the Islamic world.

Even if most of the Arab and Islamic world found the speech interesting, even if the speech was delivered by the first black president of the United States, it did not and cannot change anything. It is, after all, a speech. Words changed, but the "narrative" remains the same.

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