"No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust," but there comes that single point in every national conflict when pounding plow shears into swords, exacting that last vestige of vengeance, and continuing the wholesale slaughter of perceived enemies no longer reflects the will of the combatants and a desire for peace and reason prevails.
After a long and devastating night of siege and violence where warring leaders on both sides vie for their individual conceptualization of victory, when dawn comes, the light reveals the catastrophe of their obsession, a battlefield strewn with the torn bodies and shattered lives of soldiers of misfortune, depleted of hope and future, all pleading for an end to the insanity.
President Barack Obama's historic speech to the Muslim world at Cairo University, whose enrollment is more than 180,000 young students -- many of whom have suffered the loss of families and friends in this intractable conflict -- perhaps is that crucial point which will help to bridge the divide between "hateful American and Arab stereotypes" and encourage combatants towards a resolution to the awful chaos in the Middle East.
The speech was interrupted more than 30 times with applause from the audience of young Muslim idealists whose desire for peace resonates in their continence, having experienced the long, long night of religious and political extremism steeped in fear and dissonance.
The president said that "no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust," but in history, there is a plethora of single speeches that brought forth wisdom, eradicated pain and suffering, inspired new generations and changed the course of human emotion. This speech is another one.
-- Charles Williams, Oxnard