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Showing posts from September, 2010

A house divided | Oped | :: The Kathmandu Post ::

A house divided | Oped | :: The Kathmandu Post :: A house divided The global and the local Sushma Joshi SEP 25, 2010 - Yesterday, as I watched live on television President Obama give his speech in front of the UN General Assembly, one thing struck me: this man knows how to create consensus. Unlike his predecessor ex-President Bush, who seemed to specialise in dividing the world and creating mass panic (Muslims versus non-Muslims, Terrorists versus the Good Guys, Green Coded Time versus Orange Coded Time etc), President Obama creates a sense of a world united for the same peaceful purpose. In his speech, Obama went back to human rights, the foundation that created the United Nations. He talked about how each nation on earth could aspire towards this ideal of democracy by protecting human rights. He talked about nations’ willingness to engage with open government and open society—from India, the biggest democracy on earth, to North Korea, which remained an imprisoned island.