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When President Obama visits Turkey early next month, some observers are expecting he will use the occasion to deliver on his promise to deliver a major foreign policy speech from a Muslim nation in his first 100 days. But indications are that he will not give the speech in Turkey. The White House and State Department have not yet decided on the location for the speech, which is meant to undo some of the damage done to America's image in the Muslim world during the George W. Bush Administration. (Read "Turkey Sees a Greater Role in Obama's Foreign...
Jakarta, Indonesia "It's the most logical choice," says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Not only is Jakarta the capital of the world's most populous Muslim nation, it is also part of the Obama narrative: he lived in the city for a few years as a child. Hooper says the President "will get an incredibly warm welcome there" - which will help with the symbolism of the moment...
Istanbul, Turkey Ironically, the sweet spot for Obama's speech may well be the country he visits next month, in his first trip as President to a Muslim nation. Turkey, says Hooper, is "the bridge between the Islamic world and the West, and it's a good setting for bridge-building, for establishing increased dialogue." In the past, many Muslims regarded Turkey with some suspicion because of Ankara's strident secularism; Turkey was seen as a country ashamed of its religion. But with an Islamist party now in power, that perception is changing. Turkey has also emerged as a player...
...Linking the ethnic make-up of a multiracial nation to genocide may sound like hyperbole elsewhere, but the French know that tinkering with the founding principles and universal values of the nation was central to some of the ugliest episodes in the country's history. The French constitution proudly declares the country "an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic [that] assures equality before the law for all its citizens, without distinction of origin, of race, or religion". That gender- and color-blindness, national ideology holds, protects minority populations by ignoring the differences that divide them into often mutually hostile groups...
...news to no one that France's blighted unemployment-ravaged suburban housing projects have disproportionately high black and Arab populations. It's also no scoop that those same two ethnic groups are under-represented in the nation's elite schools, corporate management ranks and political establishment. The French themselves are acutely aware that racial discrimination is a problem - and since the 2005 suburban riots have appeared eager to do something to remedy...