Jun 19 2009 /
Obama Speech Echoes the Goals of YES
by Mariz Kelada, Egypt 2005-06
hosted in St Louis, MO
Since President Obama’s visit to Cairo, people have not stopped talking about it— so many thoughts and opinions, pros and cons of his very diplomatic, touching speech; was it meant to help ease the pain of the past years or was it a real preview of what will actually happen?! Truly, it could get very confusing hearing that much appreciation and respect. People can’t help but either become overwhelmed with happiness and hope by every Arabic word or quote from the Holy Qur’an, or get severely suspicious that it’s just a “la vie en rose" image that is never going to happen.
In fact, either of those is just too much to expect from a speech that is not a political release or official statement. That’s like over-reading the script! It is an initial outreach to start communication between the Islamic countries and the United States and the West. President Obama was intelligent enough to get people to listen because he spoke their own language; he spoke of their own culture and daily life. Yet he never over-ruled the reality of the very intense issues that are causing all the trouble, stating them clearly and precisely, side by side; a greater respect for this religion, culture and most of all for people; their freedom and compassion for their fellow human beings regardless of differences and conflicts.
As I’m part of AFS and the YES program, I could relate very much to this initiative; this is exactly the main ideal and motif of all cultural exchange programs. I mean imagine if everyone had the chance to be part of these cultural exchange programs. I’m sure the world would be way different for years to come. I could feel it already improving—yes, on a small scale, but it grows.
When I just came back from my YES year, which feels like yesterday, we were only three groups of YES alumni in Egypt and today we’re getting ready to send our 6th group. All the YES alumni who attended the speech and I felt so proud because we heard a very strong echo of what we do. We felt how fortunate we were to have experienced and realized the importance of communication and accepting human differences with respect, and now we see the President of the United States motivating the world to learn and do what we learned as teen-agers and are still doing and will do long into the future.
Photo: Mariz Kelada speaks with American students at a YES Abroad orientation
