OBAMA’S MESSAGE MIXES TONE AND SUBSTANCE
By Edward Luce and Delphine Strauss

FT
April 7 2009 03:00

It is not so much what Barack Obama says, as how he says it.

The US president yesterday gave his last set-piece address of
a frenetic and momentous inaugural overseas tour at the Turkish
parliament in Ankara. The event was loaded with opportunities to trip
up – not least over the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman soldiers.

Mr Obama has repeatedly backed a US congressional resolution describing
the killings as genocide. Without using the word "genocide" Mr Obama
gently pressed for progress in talks with neighbouring Armenia,
with which Ankara has yet to establish relations.

In spite of the speech’s acute sensitivity to his Turkish hosts,
Mr Obama was given a standing ovation. By choosing Turkey to deliver
messages on his policies for the region, and linking Turkey’s secular
and democratic evolution to that of the US, he flattered to cajole –
in stark contrast to the tone and language of George W. Bush.

Mr Obama said the US "is still working through some of our own darker
periods" – slavery, its treatment of Native Americans and human rights
abuses during the "war on terror".

"I say this as the president of a country that not too long ago made
it hard for someone who looks like me to vote," he said. "But it is
precisely that capacity to change that enriches our countries . . . =0
D Every challenge that we face is more easily met if we tend to our
own democratic foundation. This work is never over. That is why,
in the United States, we recently ordered the prison at Guantánamo
Bay closed, and prohibited, without exception or equivocation, any
use of torture."

Nowhere did Mr Obama unveil a radically new policy. Yet the unorthodox
manner in which he framed his words and the fact that he was introduced
by the Turkish speaker as Barack Hussein Obama made it all sound
radically fresh.

"Each country must work through its past," he said. "I know there
are strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of 1915
. . . The best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people is
a process that works through the past in a way that is honest, open
and constructive."

There was substance as well – Mr Obama offered his help to resolve
the continuing division of Cyprus and gave strong backing to Turkey’s
aspirations to join the European Union – urging his hosts to continue
reforms that had "created . . . a momentum that must be sustained".

If only for a day, there was more unity, even in the fractured world
of Turkish politics. Ankara’s military commanders came to listen
for the first time since shunning parliament after elections in 2007
brought Kurdish party politicians into the chamber. They applauded
as Mr Obama promised US support in fighting Kurdish separatists and
as=2 0he paid tribute to Kemal Ataturk’s legacy.

The speech came towards the end of a trip in which Mr Obama repeatedly
promised to "listen, not to lecture" and in which the US appeared, once
again, to be an enthusiastic participant in multilateral institutions,
such as the G20 meeting in London or the Nato summit in Strasbourg. Mr
Obama’s impact has been in how he has delivered his message.

"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the
Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in
Greek exceptionalism," the president said when asked by the Financial
Times whether he subscribed to the view that the US was uniquely
moral among nations. "The fact that I am very proud of my country,
and I think that we’ve got a whole lot to offer the world, does not
lessen my interest in recognising that we’re not always going to be
right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order
for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise."

Mr Obama applied that approach to Turkey, a country that could prove
pivotal to his plans for remaking America’s relations with the Muslim
world. "The trust that binds us has been strained, and I know that
strain is shared in many places where the Muslim faith is practised,"
he said.

The president distanced himself from the Bush administration’s habit
of praising Turkey as an example of moderate Islam. Mr Obama instead to
ok the US as his starting point, saying: "We do not consider ourselves
a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation."