Kudos to Obama...I couldn't have said it better

President Obama recently spoke before the Turkish parliament during his tour of Europe after the G20 convention. During his speech he discussed repairing ties between the U.S. and the Islamic world and also Turkey's desired accession into the E.U. One of the main holdbacks from Turkey becoming an E.U. nation is their failure to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. There are also issues in Turkey with freedom of speech and the treatment of Kurdish citizens. Obama's words on this matter are especially relevant to my last post about Dachau and coming to terms with one's national history while taking a stand on human rights.

According to Tuesday's Financial Times:

Mr Obama said "the United States is still working through some of our own darker periods" - slavery, its treatment of native Americans and human rights abuses during the "war on terror."

"I say this as the president of a country that not too long ago made it hard for someone who looks like me to vote," he sid. "But it is precisely that capacity to change that enriches our countries ... Every challenge that we face is more easily met if we tend to our own democratic foundation. This work is never over. That is why, in the United States, we recently ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed, and prohibited , without exception or equivocation, any use of torture."

...

"Each country must work through its past," he said. "I know there are strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of 1915...The best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest, open and constructive."

End quote.

Obama is quite the man of words, and he knows how to use his words sensitively to inspire people to action. I am very grateful that we have a president who can communicate respectfully with other nations and can begin to repair international relations that have been strained in recent years. Hopefully with this leadership Americans can begin to recognize mistakes made in the nation's recent past and can address the damage done as a result of these mistakes.