Speech to Muslim World Hinges on Venue, Content

President Barack Obama will travel to Egypt next week. While there, he is expected to deliver a major address to the Muslim world, thus fulfilling a promise made during his presidential campaign. As he fulfills that promise, his choice of a venue and the content of his message could prove controversial.

While a specific location for the President Obama’s June 4 speech has yet to be made public, one Israeli media outlet reports that the choice of Egypt, which has a poor human rights record, could potentially overshadow the substance of the speech.

Another source reports that Egyptian media is predicting President Obama might address the Muslim world from Cairo’s Al Azhar University, a known racist university funded by the Egyptian government yet does not admit non-Muslims nor accept them to study in it’s 11 branches with it’s tens of medical, pharmaceutical and schools of science.  That could prove even more controversial — what with President Obama being the champion of so-called “inclusiveness.”

Regarding content, another group is cognizant of the fact that the president’s speech is expected to address ways to mend the differences between the Islamic world and the United States and that the hope is for the speech to bring some kind of reconciliation between the two.

That group, Christian Copts, used a news release today to remind President Obama that reconciliation between the United States and the Muslim world is a two-way street.  It’s a good reminder, especially when one considers the source.

The Copts have a long track record of dealing with Muslims that traces back to the first century A.D. when their Egyptian ancestors embraced Christianity.

-- Bob McCarty Writes