Obama uses final U.N. General Assembly speech to plead for global coexistence

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

last updated 20 September 2016

President Obama warned against an increasingly isolationist world in his final speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. "The world is too small for us to simply be able to build a wall and prevent [extremism] from affecting our own societies," he cautioned, while stressing that world leaders need to cooperate to solve conflicts.

Obama additionally called for a global "course correction," urging diplomacy and stressing the limitations of what can be achieved when world powers act alone. "If we are honest, we know that no external power is going to be able to force different religious communities or ethnic communities to coexist for long," he said. "Until basic questions are answered about how communities coexist, the embers of extremism will continue to burn. Countless human beings will suffer."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.