Norton Reader Teaches Obama’s 2009 Cairo Speech to College Students
Last winter, I found a promotional copy of the Norton Reader in my campus mailbox. It contained a copy of Barack Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech delivered in Cairo in 2009, here presented to English professors for use in the classroom as an unqualified hallmark of diplomatic eloquence.
Even as the Middle East erupts in riots, college students will be asked to ponder the question posed by the professor-editors in one of the topic questions:
Obama concludes with a call to action directed especially toward the world’s youth: “And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country — you more than anyone, have the ability to reimagine the world, to remake this world’ (paragraph 68).” Write a paper in which you discuss way you personally might respond to this call.
The publisher’s instructor’s page tells English professors that this speech “marked a new beginning in U.S. relations with the rest of the world.” Intriguing. So: what has happened as a result of this “new beginning”?
Most recently, we have had a 9/11 invasion of our consulate in Libya resulting in our ambassador and three others being brutally murdered, while surrounding countries — presumably emerging democracies of the “Arab Spring” — erupted into riots, burning the U.S. flag and the symbols of the very president who stood in Cairo as the avatar of the Second Coming.
Mainstream outlets have largely ignored this ineptitude, instead following the continued diversions towards the amateur filmmaker of Innocence of Muslims. Certainly my colleagues — who received extra compensation to select, edit, and write introductions, topic questions, and footnotes to this speech and other selections of study-worthy rhetoric — could not have known the outcome of Obama’s words as they included the speech in a book that at one time would have been filled with only words that have withstood the test of time. (Yes, my colleagues deemed the words of Barack Hussein Obama as worth taking a place next to the venerable words of Abraham Lincoln. This is typical of my colleagues — other Obama speeches are also included in textbooks.)
The Cairo speech has proved testament to the supreme egotism of a man who believes that through his mere words and presence he can turn around centuries of history and entire civilizations. “I have come here,” he proclaimed in Cairo, although sans Roman columns, “to seek a new beginning.” And the world was supposed to stop and take notice. He flattered the Muslim world by lying about the West: the historical errors were legion, remarked on by numerous conservative commentators and historians. The liberal media gave him a pass, letting his reputation as an “intellectual” stand.





But didn’t Obama’s Cairo speech boast some outrageous falsehoods about Islam. The paragraph that begins “As a student of history” and ends with “religious tolerance and racial equality.”, wasn’t that pretty much bunkum.
A man in California makes an unflattering movie about the so-called prophet Mohammed, and devout Muslims put a bounty on his head. Now that’s Islam. Government police arresting the movie’s maker. That’s Obama.
It is even worse, given the popularity of HOMELAND on Showtime. Said to be Obama’s favorite television show, with good reason. I summarized its message and appeal here: http://clarespark.com/2012/09/23/homeland-and-the-idea-of-the-fifth-column/.
The President went on to say: “It was the prophet Muhammad who opeend the way for space exploration on his magic flying horse. Mozart wouldn’t have composed the now-ubiquitous Rondo alla Turca had it not been for the fine music of the Janissaries. Many a poem by Lord Byron were inspired during the time he fought the Ottomans to liberate Greece. The same Ottomans renovated Hagia Sofia by turning it into a mosque. The Moors discovered America by retreating from Spain and allowing Ferdinand and Isabella to shift resources to Columbus’ expedition. And I could go on and on if nobody stops me.”
Just a reaction from a good Muslim.
How many times, how many ways, does this blogger have to beat the same dead horse, repeatedly stating: western academia is a cesspool, and leftism is a mental disorder.
So, for the record, here are some findings, but feel free to pile onto them – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/08/21/the-paradox-pitfalls-of-liberal-democracies-in-a-time-of-immoral-relativism-the-havoc-wrought-by-leftist-academia-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
There is no question, the deconstruction of America requires the infiltration of the universities. In fact, it is so successful, the next step is a natural one – the capturing of the hearts of minds of kiddies, from kindergarten on up.
To be sure, communists and their fellow travelers are evil, but they are deeply in tune with the western/American psyche. They understand that capturing the youth is paramount, and that creeping through the American system must be done in stages.
NOW, replace communist/socialist/Marxist/left stealth, and replace with Islamist infiltration/penetration. Twin ideologies separated at birth!
“presented to English professors for use in the classroom as an unqualified hallmark of diplomatic eloquence”
Love it. Norton should publish it next to other examples of “diplomatic eloquence” such as Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” speech.
while more than a bit strange for those of us educated in the former united states of america, it is not surprising to hear that obama is considered an “intellectual” and “eloquent”. the tsunami of ignorance, islamic propaganda and just plain stupidity that has overwhelmed america is drowning us all. oh. anti-semitism is back, creeping and crawling out of the woodwork and like a monster from under the bed.
what is so sad about hatred of Jews, lies, crazytalk and blood libels, it always happens during the worst of times. it always attaches itself like deadly mold and every nadir in history. it is always the beginning of one sort of horror or another.
Unfortunately, many Imams seem to interpret religious tolerance as “The rest of the world should learn to tolerate our awful behavior.”
The Left often re-purposes words to such an extent that you can hardly tell what they’re talking about any more. It is an interesting projection that we often hear of them screeching about “Dog-Whistle Racism” while they perpetrate exactly this sort of thinking.
Clearly, before the Arab Spring happened, there were many Imams reading leftist literature and re-framing their backward ideas as “forward-thinking” freedom fighters –and the Left ate it up hook, line, and sinker. Using up to date Leftist interpretations of Obama’s Cairo speech, it looks completely different today than it did in 2009.
And then everyone is confused as to what happened. No wonder…
And the building of the Cult of Personality continues. Ever wonder why dictatorships have large posters and statues of their “Dear Leader” everywhere? Some of that can be traced to the dictator’s meglomania but a lot of it is likely the result of sychophants sucking up to Dear Leader.
Under Obama – and no other US president – we’ve had:
1. Schoolchildren singing songs praising him. (“Barack Hussein Obama – um um um”)
2. Obama references inserted into the biographies of other presidents.
3. Obama references inserted into State Department fact sheets about other countries.
What’s next, statues in every public square? Publication of a little red (or green) book? Mandatory readings of Dear Leader’s speeches?
…only if he’s around for 4 more years.
I was forced to slog through the Norton Anthology as a freshman engineering student. It was horrid, even back then; now it appears things are much worse. Combine the Norton Anthology with a few nut-case flaming liberal 1960s throwback English professors, and right there you have the worst part of earning an undergraduate degree. Gag.
I feel for undergraduates forced to endure this stuff. God help them.
obama’s speech is political narcissim on steroids. This administration, for good reason, is held in contempt throughout the islamic world. Concessions, appeasement, and the expressed desire to “engage” genocidal sociopaths have resulted in the dismissal of the United States as a weak and declining power. Israelis understand that they are on their own. Even Israeli arabs are beginning to understandably fear the decline of American influence.
Was O’s speech full of the usual first person OCD, poor grammar and language mangling that we generally see in his writings and speeches? Because if it is it probably doesn’t belong in the book just based on that.
One word: vomit.
I’m just surprised that Neville Chamberlain’s Munich speech claiming he had achieved “Peace in our time” wasn’t recommended by Norton as well for use in the classroom as an unqualified hallmark of diplomatic eloquence. Appeasement is always in vogue with weak politicians who know nothing about the real world. And it seems that Obama’s Cairo speech worked out about as well as Chamberlain’s Munich speech. You don’t discourage terror or terrorists by acting terrified of them and begging them to leave you alone. And for all of this to have happened on the anniversary of 9/11, Obama and his minions have much to atone for.
While there are some parallels between Chamberlain and 1938 Munich, there are several differences as well.
First, Britain had lost approximately 10% of its male population during WWI, killed and wounded. The population of Britain was largely behind Chamberlain and engaged in the same kind of isolationism policies as did the U.S. at the time. France was not much better off, but we had best remember that the harshness of Versailles is what provided grist for Hitler’s mill.
When 50-60 million people had died in WWI, it is a bit more than understandable that political leaders were loathe to engage in another major war just 20 years later. It can be argued that Chamberlain’s stalling gave British industry, with Churchill’s prodding, to build up the RAF for the coming storm.
Obama, on the other hand, expressed these lofty passages while at the same time provided “Surge II” in Afghanistan, surreptitious drone and SF strikes into Pakistan, aided the Arab Spring in Libya and implicitly did the same thing by protesting Assad and dissing Mubarak. Probably most of the Arab world is wondering which side of the fence America is on, today?
We Americans like our wars short and sweet, having little patience for slogging it out against a decade long guerrilla conflict. It doesn’t help that we had six or seven years of “emergency supplemental off budget” quarterly war appropriations bills sent through Congress under Bush as well.
It is high time we exited the field there, for as historian Niall Ferguson suggests, in America we enjoy the idea of Pax Americana but are usually wholly unprepared for the Empire that comes with it.
arabs don’t wonder which side of the fence we are on. they see us as weak losers, targets for aggression, and blackmail.
in any case, they don’t care what we think and have nothing but contempt for acquiescence. they’ve been slaughteringc each other for 1,400 years. and they can’t seem to stop regardless of how many billions we pour in.
we should be wondering what is wrong with that picture.
All crises start in human minds first.
That kind of garbage should never appear in a textbook at any age until a President has been judged by history. Nothing more than blatant indoctrination.
Yet another indication of the decline in education. Only a morally and intellectually corrupt educational system would treat Obama’s speech as any thing other than a bogus and maudlin sham.
Some of what I remember of President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo is what an ignoramus – or liar – he is. He said that Muslims had invented the printing press (Gutenberg was a German Christian), that they had invented the compass (the Chinese did that), and had founded the first university (Italians did that in Bologna).
For a stunning lesson in a president’s command of history and the English language, see Theodore Roosevelt’s essay “History as Literature” (1913) at http://www.bartleby.com/56/1.html.