Don't think words make a difference? This is what people in Arabia woke up to in their newspaper today.
Barack Obama, the man who ran an unlikely campaign on change, hope and the promise that anything is possible, was sworn in yesterday as the 44th president of the United States, and the first African-American to hold that office.
Standing before the US Capitol, built in part with slave labour not much more than two centuries ago, Mr Obama took the 35-word oath of office with his right hand raised and his left hand on the Bible – the same Bible used to swear in Abraham Lincoln, the president who set the slaves free... Mr Obama, whose inauguration returns the White House to Democratic hands after eight years of a Republican administration, becomes president at a time of enormous challenges and under the weight of colossal expectations both at home and abroad...
And, significantly, he directly addressed the Muslim world, saying “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect”...
http://thenational.ae/article/20090121/FOREIGN/10761234...