Why Obama's Speech in Cairo Matters -- and Why it Doesn't

President Barack Obama will give a highly anticipated speech to the Islamic world on June 4th in Cairo. There is a great deal of excitement in the Muslim community to hear what a President who shares a middle name with the grandson of Prophet Muhammad has to say. There are many reasons why Obama's speech is important. But there are also many reasons why it really isn't.

Let me explain. My friends at Patheos.com asked me to write a Muslim perspective on Obama's speech, and I found myself surprisingly ambivalent about the whole affair. On a positive note, since his historic election, Obama has made substantial efforts to reach out to the Islamic community and rebuild bridges after the disastrous legacy of his predecessor George W. Bush. He has signaled a willingness to re-establish diplomatic ties with Iran, has made some comments in sympathy with the Palestinians, and has called for an end to Israel's expansion of settlements in the West Bank.

Most importantly, in a speech he gave to the Turkish Parliament in April, Obama repeatedly used a word that Muslims have craved to hear from American leaders: "respect." After decades of open contempt for Islam in the corridors of Washington and the news media, the word signals an acceptance that mutual respect is the cornerstone of building a new relationship between the West and the Islamic world.

All of this is important and indicates a dramatic shift away from a foreign policy based on imperial hubris that has marked the past eight years. And it is not surprising that Obama, who has Muslim relatives and spent his youth among Muslims in Indonesia, has natural empathy for the Islamic world and knows how to communicate with its people. I have no doubt that his epic rhetorical skills will be in evidence in Cairo this week, and his speech may very well be historic and have a profound impact on Muslim hearts and minds.

Most analysts expect that Obama will continue his current efforts to treat Muslims with respect and encourage real discourse between America and Islamic nations. And many believe he will emphasize his support for an independent and prosperous Palestinian state living in peace with Israel. Obama will probably also encourage Muslim countries to move toward democracy, and will likely have some critical things to say about the current political and human rights equation in the Islamic world. And he will in all likelihood pledge America's support for Muslims in helping their countries to improve and evolve into freer and more economically successful societies.

All of this is important and needs to be said. The fact that such words will come from the mouth of America's first black president, one who has Muslim relatives, will no doubt give them real weight for his Muslim audience. Obama's natural talent is the ability to inspire and effect change with the power of words, an ability that Muslims greatly respect, as our first and greatest orator was Prophet Muhammad himself. As I detail in my novel, Mother of the Believers, the power of the spoken and written word in shaping a community's destiny is central to Islam. The first commandment received by the Prophet from the angel Gabriel was simple and unequivocal: "Read!"

President Obama is perhaps the most well-read and eloquent American leader in quite some time. But even the power of his words is limited. After the applause dies down, after the giddy cheers dissipate and are replaced by only echoes that linger like dying embers in a hearth, the Muslim world will still face very stark realities and challenges. And ultimately Barack Obama will not be the solution to the problems facing Islam today. It will be the Muslims that will have to bear the burden of making the painful reforms to revitalize our civilization, which has reached a pivotal moment in history.

It has been several decades since the Muslim world emerged from the greatest shock in its history since the Mongol destruction of Baghdad - the legacy of European colonialism. Most of our nations are new, less than a century old, and were carved out of the ruins of dead Islamic empires - the Ottomans in Turkey and the Middle East, the Qajars of Iran, and the Mughals of the Indian subcontinent. I was born in Pakistan, a Muslim country that didn't come into being until 1947, when my parents were toddlers. The extreme shock and humiliation of occupation by European powers has left the Islamic world in deep disarray and confusion.

Muslims have lost their sense of themselves as a confident, progressive community meant to serve as models and leaders for the world. In a wonderful new book Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, Tamim Ansary looks at how the recent experience of Western domination has shaken the sense of Islam's "manifest destiny" among Muslims. Only a few hundred years ago, Muslim armies ruled Eastern Europe and stood poised to conquer Vienna. Prior to that we had created rich civilizations that were the envy of the world - the Abbasids of Baghdad and the Umayyads of Spain led humanity in art and science. Muslims had mastered the use of gunpowder in the 13th century, when Europeans were living in stone huts. And the idea that one day the primitive Europeans would not only dominate Muslims but quantum leap past us in science, art and technology was laughable.

But it happened. And we are now here. Unelected dictators, clinging to outdated political and economic philosophies, rule most of the Muslim world. Muslims who used to take pride in treating women better than Christians (Islam gave women property and inheritance rights 1,300 years before Europe and America followed suit) now find ourselves having to defend the honor of our faith against claims of misogyny. Our education systems are still catching up to the West, and our commitment to the arts is shaky. Freedom of speech is curtailed in much of the Muslim world, even though the right to speak out against the ruler has long been enshrined in Islamic law.

And our greatest sorrow, the suffering of our brothers in Palestine, remains something that Muslims feel they can do nothing to alleviate. With Israel's nuclear weapons and economic and military support from the United States, Muslims feel powerless to help the Palestinians defend their lives, their homes, their human dignity. Seeing Israeli soldiers standing guard over the Al-Aqsa Mosque as Muslims pray is heart wrenching and shameful for a community that has considered Jerusalem its home since the days of Prophet Muhammad.

These are things that President Obama can do little to change. Indeed, when it comes to American foreign policy in the Middle East, Muslims are likely to be deeply disappointed in Obama. The reality is that unconditional support for Israel in general, and its right-wing politicians in particular, is deeply embedded into the Washington political culture. That bias will not change for decades, if ever. And despite his rhetoric in support of democracy in the Muslim world, Obama is unlikely to pressure our dictators to liberalize their societies. After the disaster of attempting to impose American power in Iraq, the United States has lost its taste for transforming other societies.

While the end of American imperial fantasies may be a good thing, it means that Muslims can no longer expect America to be on the forefront of their struggles for freedom and justice. America's economy is, frankly, bankrupt and cannot afford an aggressive foreign policy of any kind. So Muslims must accept that Obama's words will likely be just that - words. We must take up the responsibility for transforming our own societies ourselves. America will not solve the Palestine problem. America will not bring us democracy or human rights. America will not advance our economic, educational and political stature. That is something only Muslims can and must do.

The Holy Qur'an tells us that every human being is a "khalifa" - God's viceroy on Earth. The responsibility is on our shoulders to struggle for change, which is the true meaning of the word "jihad." No one else is going to carry our burdens. So we can take inspiration from President Barack Hussein Obama. We can take admonition from him. But ultimately Muslims must take responsibility for ourselves in bringing Islam back to its true destiny - to be a beacon of hope, progress and leadership for the world.

Kamran Pasha is a Hollywood filmmaker and the author of Mother of the Believers, a novel on the birth of Islam as told by Prophet Muhammad's wife Aisha (Atria Books; April 2009). For more information please visit: http://www.kamranpasha.com

Follow Kamran Pasha on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kamranpasha

Comments

[ArtsyJane]

Page 5 / 5:

What I fail to understand is your bragging about it. The misery the Ottoman Empire spread everywhere it went (you can check it on the Armenian or Arab fronts too: Armenia or the Arab nations harbour no tenderness over the Ottoman occupation either) is something to be ashamed, not proud of. One of the reasons, why Turkey is still in a dead end street on joining the E.U., other than the human rights record, is precisely the fact that they haven’t officially recognized the Armenian genocide or expressed any regrets on the yoke, human traffic and religious subjugation they put half of Europe through. Most European nations are against the admission because of Turkey’s failure to acknowledge and repent this disastrous history.

Bottom line, please stop posturing about the wrong things and do continue to convey wisdom as you sometimes do. No one is trying to deminish the Muslim world, but no one is blind to the inherent problems it faces today.

[ArtsyJane]

Page 4 / 5:

Another major problem I have with your article is the arrogant way in which you brag about Ottoman occupation and yoke in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The Ottoman Empire occupied South-eastern Europe for almost 5 centuries and managed to bring close to zero to the occupied nations, be it culturally, structurally, economically, etc. What they brought was terror, death, pillaging, abductions of young boys for their army and of young girls for their harems, religious submission and forced conversions, obscurantism. No nation harbours positive memories about an occupying force on their land and that’s a given. But the case of the Ottoman Empire is very striking and particular: an allegedly developed and culturally advanced nation somehow managed to leave no legacy whatsoever where they passed, other than destruction. Even their main mosque is in fact the former Orthodox Church Saint Sofia of the Byzantine Empire and the main religious site of Eastern Christianity. And while I am thankful that they didn’t destroy this magnificent piece fo architecture, it says something about their ability to create and spread culture, innovation and progress. They didn’t spread any. The period between 14th and 19th centuries was the darkest time in Eastern Europe. Former cultural centres, such as Constantinople, millennia long European Empire, nations with big history, were set backwards and subjected to darkness and nothingness. The perfect case of arrested development. The wound is still vivid throughout that part of Europe, as it only ended 150 years ago.

[ArtsyJane]

Page 3 / 5:

Another problem I have is your contempt towards Europe. I’m not sure which “primitive Europeans” in the 13th century you refer to, but the European culture and civilization began millennia before Islam even existed. Today’s Western world is based on what started in Ancient Greece several millennia ago: our Academia, our philosophy, our art, our political system, our societal organisation, Democracy, the foundations of today began there and then. There is a cultural continuum starting in Ancient Greece and going until today. Islam began in the 7th century. And while I’m not diminishing in any way the legacy of Muslim history, which is tremendous and essential in its own right, I cannot accept your premise that Europeans were primitive in the 13th century. You either don’t know anything about History or you purposefully pretend not to know.

In Europe, as anywhere else, there were dark and shameful periods as there were great and bright ones. The 13th century specifically is close to the Pre-Renaissance. But even in the Dark Ages, the medieval culture in Europe was unique. And while these were difficult times in many respects (due to religious obscurantism), we are certainly left with a tremendous medieval heritage. One only needs to travel a little around Europe, West and East, to become aware of it. To dismiss this heritage with a light hand as “primitive” is simply incredible, especially coming from an author and an intellectual. Read a little more about medieval European history.

[ArtsyJane]

Page 2 / 5:

One of the problems I have with your article is your romanticized presentation of Islam and the Muslim world, which coming from you is not very encouraging as to the ability for change within. It means that even educated, professional people, living in free countries have a much skewed perception of the realities in the Muslim world and harbour blinding passion about religion. The first step toward change is precisely the realization of the problems, the awakening, which I don’t see coming as demonstrated in your article. You completely fail to recognize the problems brought about not so much by Islam itself, but by its intensity and implementation in societies and their governments. You fail to recognize the problems of religion, any religion, governing nations and prevailing in every aspects of society.

[ArtsyJane]

Page 1 / 5:

I had to set your article aside for a while before I could respond, as I felt great ambivalence about it. Too many things are wrong with it and there are also big truths and wisdoms.

I agree that the lack of respect toward the Muslim world demonstrated by the West for too long is a major impediment to any kind of normal rapport. I know that Muslim people have the perception of constant humiliation and slaps in the face by the West, be it in the form of former colonisation, or in the form if Israel, or in the form of current presence on the territories, etc. I know that Muslim culture is very proud and every new humiliation is another step downwards in Muslim/West relationship. For that, the West is culpable.

I also agree that the Muslim world has a lot of work to do on its own. They need to wake up and embrace progress, in a secular way or not, and they need to understand democracy. No single nation is so almighty that it can bring true democratic reform and a lasting cultural transformation to any Muslim or other country. The nation-building fantasy is naive. The only way is within. You are right, Obama’s speech should not be taken as the mantra that is magically going to mend the Muslim world. However, it sets a new tone for the relation between the Muslim and the Western worlds.

That much we agree.

[jomellon]

Muslims often perhaps think they have been eclipsed by 'christian' West.

But the West only really started to make progress when it threw off the schackles of Christianity, and dogmatic religion: first with the rennaissance, then the reformation, and finally the enlightenment.

In the Muslim world the counter reformation won.

How should the 'muslim' world get on the road to progress? You work it out.

[Magenta]

Great feature!

[Christina4]

I grew up in an African nation among Muslims and Christians, and I am fully behind Obama's respectful outreach to the Muslim and Arab world. I agree with the author on most points. However, I don't believe Obama's goals for the Muslim world during his presidency are as broad as the author suggests (or others might wish for). I haven't seen evidence that Obama wishes to be the "solution to the problems Islam faces today" or the one to "liberalize the (Muslim) societies" as a matter of foreign policy.

Rather, I think Obama has some priority objectives which he is hoping will have far-reaching positive effects over time: eg., help to diffuse tensions between Muslim nations and America; help to repair America's image; and help to advance the Palestinian cause in the face of an onslaught of opposition among the largely pro-Israel US citizens, lawmakers and a powerful Israeli lobby. The fact that Israel is shocked at the anti-settlement rhetoric coming from both Obama and Clinton is a good sign that some aspects of the status quo are finally being challenged. I hope Muslims understand Obama's dilemmas and support his efforts. I pray for his success for everyone's benefit.

[Thabit]

I am an American and i am a muslim and i know that the response to Obama will be guarded, to use an american phrase, most muslims are from missouri, words can be pretty but it won't be till he SHOWS them with action that they will believe this speach or not. If he supports Israel's settlements and doesnt hold a hard line in regards to NO SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST BANK AND EAST JERUSELEM as the capitol of Palestine this will never work