Region | Egypt
'US president should deliver'
Arabs expect US President Barack Obama to walk the talk on respect for Islam, Palestinian statehood and speedy Iraq pullout.
- By Duraid Al Baik, Associate Editor
- Published: 23:35 June 3, 2009
- Image Credit: Reuters
- A worker spruces up the railings in front of the Sultan Hassan Mosque in the old Islamic area of Cairo, on Tuesday, ahead of a visit by US President Barack Obama.The Sultan Hassan Mosque was built in the 14th century.
Dubai: Respect for Islam, a prescription for Palestinian statehood and assurances of a speedy US pullout from Iraq are what Muslims expect to hear from US President Barack Obama.
The Muslim community, from Morocco to Malaysia, expect to hear solid assurances from Obama on Thursday when he delivers his address in Cairo.
His speech will try to soften the fury toward the United States among many of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims - a fury ignited by the US occupation of Iraq and the hands-off attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of his predecessor George W. Bush.
Robert Menard, director-general of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom, told Gulf News that Obama had inherited a complicated relationship with Muslims which was loaded with accumulated errors and crimes committed under the Bush administration.
"Fine words such as 'democracy' and 'human rights' have been devalued because they shore up memories of the invasion of Iraq, blind support for Israel and support for Middle Eastern regimes that rank among the world's most repressive," Menard said.
In a letter addressed to Obama, he said: "While it is your duty, Mr President, to end your country's unconditional support for the Israeli leadership, that leads the administration in Washington to turn a blind eye to criminal behaviour, it is essential that the rebalancing of your policy should not benefit corrupt and autocratic Arab regimes. Democrats and independent journalists in the Middle East need to know you are behind them."
The American leader's positive speech and his Muslim roots have kindled hope among Muslims.
However, Muslims will judge him by his actions and not his words, said Mohammad Wasel, 20, from Cairo.
"There will be a lot of talk, but I seriously want to see something real coming out of this speech, something tangible," Wasel said. His views were shared by an Eritrean social worker in Rome, a retired teacher in Baghdad and a Palestinian mayor in the Occupied West Bank.
"[Obama] has to walk the talk," said social activist Marina Mahathir, daughter of Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
However, the risk of disappointment always accompanies rising hopes. Obama is not expected to present a detailed vision of a Mideast peace deal - potentially the most effective antidote to anti-Western sentiment - until later.
And there is doubt Obama can change entrenched foreign policy, particularly what is perceived in the Muslim world as Washington's pro-Israeli bias.
What Muslims see as America's repeated failure to hold Israel to its international obligations is a sore point. A construction freeze in Israeli's Occupied West Bank colonies - Obama wants it, Israel rejects it - is shaping up as a major test.
"It's true that Obama's election created a new wave of hope," said Jordan-based political analyst Mo'en Rabbani. "But if he pulls the same tricks as his predecessor - making some nice statements and doing the opposite in practice - people will be disabused of their illusions quite quickly."
Obama's initial actions have earned him goodwill. He's reached out to Muslims in an interview with an Arab satellite TV station in a message to Iranians on their new year and in a speech to the Turkish parliament.
He ordered the Guantanamo Bay camp closed within a year and said the United States would not engage in torture - moves which reversed two Bush policies seen as targeting Muslims.
After the Bush years, one of the darkest periods in US-Muslim relations, there is now a chance for reconciliation, said Shibli Telhami. He is a Mideast scholar at the University of Maryland who conducts annual public opinion surveys around the Middle East.
"The most striking is the openness toward President Obama and the expressed hopefulness about American foreign policy, something profoundly new, given the last eight years," he said.
A pullout of Iraqi troops according to schedule would also go a long way toward restoring Muslim confidence. However, despite Obama's timetable - he plans to withdraw most US troops by September 2010 and pull all out by the end of 2011 - many are upset by the ongoing violence and fear Iraq could one day disintegrate.
Obama's choice of Cairo as the venue for his speech highlights problems that have long fed tensions in the region. Authoritarian rule, poverty and a lack of opportunity deprive many of the young of a say in their future.
Youth unemployment in the Middle East and North Africa is the highest in the world, with one in four young Egyptians sitting idle, the United Nations says.
Nearly 20 per cent of Egypt's 79 million people live on less than $2 (Dh7.34) a day. Militants from Egypt, including Al Qaida's No 2 Ayman Al Zawahiri, have exported their violent ideologies. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, like other US allies in the region, tolerates little opposition.
"Obama should remember that before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western leaders saw it as a matter of duty and honour to give dissidents in the former Soviet bloc their aid and respect. Why not adopt the same policy towards Arab democrats?
"They represent the only future for their countries and are allies in the fight against terrorism. To support them is not only moral, but also in our own interest, since democracy is the only possible answer to the rise of extremism," Menard said.
Obama will have to strike a balance between raising human rights violations in Egypt and elsewhere in the region, while not sounding like he is trying to impose US values.
The Bush administration's pro-democracy campaign in the region was widely seen as hypocritical, particularly after the United States refused to deal with Hamas despite its 2006 election victory in the Palestinian territories.
"When someone talks to me with dignity and respect, then I will feel I could follow him," said Mustafa Ragab, 19, as he came from his Friday prayers at a Cairo mosque where dialogue was promoted ahead of Obama's visit.
"I think Obama will be able to make the Arabs feel that way."
Your comments
America must change its foreign
policy and stop being the police
of the world.
Henry Nyakudya
Harare,Zimbabwe
Posted: June 04, 2009, 16:11
News Editor's choice
-
6,000 cups and counting: Addicted to that tea
This cafeteria in Al Mamzar attracts thousands of customers daily, including the rich and not so rich
-
Swimming pool horror: Twins hospitalised
Twins rushed to hospital after collapsing from chlorine inhalation at swimming pool in their villa
-
Play your cards right with credit card interest
UAE Central Bank plans to cap interest rates, but are you paying thirty-five per cent now?
