She landed in Cairo on Wednesday evening. Thursday morning, before President Obama gave his much antipated speech to the Muslim World, they took a tour together of the Sultan Hassan Mosque.
The Sultan Hassan Mosque is considered stylistically the most compact and unified of all Cairo monuments. It is one of the masterpieces of Mamluk architecture.
They listened to a tour guide as they visited the Mosque. From the absolutely adorable photos you can see Hillary looked lovely in a scarf with a matching tan pantsuit. They wandered the mosque in their barefeet, where you can see Hillary's polished toenails and Barack's unmatching black socks paired with his blue suit (come on Obama, men's fashion 101! haha!).
You can view a video of their tour below:
Up next was the big speech. With this speech the President was attempting to open a dialogue with the Muslim world. He gave the address from a tightly secured Cairo University where he quoted from Islam's Holy Book and stressed the United States was not in competition with Islam in a bid to heal the rift that has developed between the two.
In his hour long address, Obama touched on several issues from women's rights to economic development but not before he talked about his personal links with Islam and the role of Islam in American history and stressed that America was not at war with Islam.
"Islam is a part of America," he said as he called on Muslims to help the United States fight extremism because "we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan" but we need to be confident that there were no more violent extremists determined to kill Americans.
The president said that he felt it his duty to negate the negative stereotype of Islam in the West and said just as "Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire."
He touched on other issues ranging from anti-semitism, Israel and Palestine, to Iran and Iraq, and he pledged the closure of Guantanamo Bay.
And for those that are interested you can read the full text of President Obama's speech here or watch below:
Secretary Clinton and Organisation of the Islamic Conference Secretary-General Ekmeleddine Ihsanoglu were seated together for the speech.
She posed for a souvenir photo with Dalia Megahed, the executive director of Gallup Institute and President Obama's advisor on Islamic affairs as well as spoke to reporters after the the speech.
She was also accompanied by US Ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scoby and she talked with Egyptian Christian leaders at the Univeristy.
The speech was intended to be a landmark speech that was a fulfillment of his inaugural speech promise to reach out to Muslims. Was it a success? Please comment with your own thoughts and opinions on his speech, I'd love to hear from everyone!
Want Hillary's reaction? She praised the president for making "a very significant turning point" with his appeal to the Muslim world from Cairo.
"He planted seeds, he encouraged people to have to have a conversation and to think hard about their perspectives and points of view," Clinton said today in an interview airing this evening on FOX News Channel's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.
"I think he also challenged Americans," Clinton said of Obama. "He went right at how we can't have stereotypes for other people, as we don't want to have stereotypes about us... This was a speech that I believe will be viewed historically as a very significant turning point.... One of the most important points that he made was how if the Palestinians had pursued a different path of non-violence, of following an example of a Gandhi, or a Dr. Martin Luther King, who knows where we'd be right now," Clinton said. "That violence is not the answer. It does not change hearts and minds, it hardens them."
She also said the Obama Administration's teamwork is essential to the mission at hand: "This is a very important part of our new diplomacy, our outreach, our policy of engagement and partnership.... It is really critical that we make clear, as the president did in this magnificent speech he gave, that we want to work with people all over the world, regardless of religion," she said.
"We have no feeling of hostility or conflict with Muslims everywhere... I thought that it was important that we all be here to send a strong signal that America is doing what the president said we would do in his inaugural address. You know, stretch out his hand and hopefully people will unclench their fists."
At some point, you should be able to watch the interview here.
8 comments:
I'll admit to not watching Obama's speech, so I don't have much to say on the matter except that I love those photos of Hillary!
i didnt watch it either! but i did read the transcript... errr... most of it.
these photos are delightful tho! i love the mixture of the ones of her laughing and looking up at the ceiling in the mosque to the serious ones of her listening to the speech...
any word on if she is going to Germany next? I wasnt sure.
Wonderful pics! Thanks for posting them.
I love womens barefeet and I have always thought Hillary was gorgeous, just wished she had gotten on her knees and prayed so I could see her beautiful wrinkled soles! Would give anything to smell them!
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. Hillary said that this is a very important part of our new diplomacy, our outreach, our policy of engagement and partnership.... It is really critical that we make clear, as the president did in this magnificent speech he gave, that we want to work with people all over the world, regardless of religion.
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