I have seen numerous people online quote Obama as stating that the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. And I mean more polemical, angry, uncharitable types, if you catch my drift. I have seen people react to the statement with comments like, but slandering Jesus is okay, right? I have asked those who shared that quote where it was from, and no one could produce a source (I recall one person even assuring me that it was probably said at some Muslim conference). Well, I just stumbled across it now. It was in Obamas speech before the UN General Assembly back in 2012, so I figured Id share a clip of the relevant portion. The fuller statement, is as follows: The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims and Shi`a pilgrims. It’s time to heed the words of Gandhi: Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit. And prior to that, he also said that the future must not belong to those who target Coptic Christians, in Egypt. Having the actual context of the statement seems to cast it in a light different from that intended (or assumed) by almost all of those who pass the quote around on social media.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 15:34:27 +0000