The Student of History Needs to Go to Summer School

Near the start of his much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world, President Obama described himself as "a student of history;" by the end it was clear that he needs to get back to the classroom.

For all its well-intentioned rhetoric, President Obama's speech was, sadly, conceptually flawed, empirically challenged, and politically blind to the daily realities that drive hundreds of millions of Muslims to increasing despair.

Conceptually, the President's goal was clearly to help correct the mistaken notion shared by so many Muslims and Americans of the notion of an essential conflict between them. He even spoke of Islam, rightly, as being "always part of America."

But such rhetoric was overshadowed by the use of language and themes that hew closely to the long-held notion of "Islam" and the "West" as being two essentially different and civilizations traveling on separate historical trajectories.

To bridge the rift between them, Obama had first to establish a deep, centuries-long tension driven by "historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate." Islam "carried the light of learning" and "paved the way" for modernity and globalization, but it did not participate directly in their birth or development. Instead, modernity and the "sweeping change" it brought "led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam."

This idea of an essentially European modernity forcing its way into hostile Muslim territory is belied by the historical record. Indeed, the banking, credit and trading systems that fueled modern capitalism were born in Muslim-led trading systems of the Mediterranean. And where possible Muslims adopted the latest developments, from weapons to steam engines to agricultural technologies, as soon as they became available.

Yet however inaccurate, such a dualistic narrative serves an important rhetorical function in the President's larger argument. With a gap so wide, he can rightly argue that "change cannot happen overnight." Indeed, before the speech Senior Adviser David Axelrod explained that the breach would likely take more than one administration to heal.

In fact, change could happen overnight; and the policies necessary to achieve it are simple and easily implemented -- precisely because Muslims and Americans share so many of the same values when it comes to respect for democracy, human rights, and the rule of Law.

But change will only happen if President Obama takes seriously what most Muslim have long said, not merely "behind closed doors," but in the open and to anyone who will listen.

Here I'm reminded here of President Reagan's historic speech at the Berlin Wall, almost 22 years ago to the day, on June 12, 1987, where he exclaimed: "There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace... Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

This is the kind of language Obama needed to use in his speech. He needed to demand that the autocrats and occupiers of the region end their oppression, open the doors of their prisons and tear down their walls, and allow the peoples of the region to live in peace, freedom and democracy. And he needed to put the muscle and money of US foreign policy behind those words, the same way Reagan did in confronting the Soviet Union.

First and foremost, President Obama should have announced that the United States would stop providing political, economic and military support to corrupt and brutal authoritarian regimes, without exception. This goes for occupiers like Israel (and, one could add, India in Kashmir and Morocco in the Western Sahara) and governments of key allies such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt -- where thousands of activists have been harassed, imprisoned, tortured, burned and even killed by security forces without any fear US retribution, and will continue to suffer once Mr. Obama leaves.

Sadly, the President has offered little tangible support for some of Egypt's most important dissident voices, such as Ayman Nour, the one-time presidential candidate recently released from prison, who a bit over a week ago was almost burned to death by government thugs. Instead, he and his most senior advisors regularly praise Mubarak's "leadership" in an unending peace process that brings billions of dollars of aid and political support to his government, while well over 30 million of his compatriots live in dire poverty. Obama's effective silence on these issues is deafening to a generation of young Egyptians desperate to move beyond the current system and realize their natural, and national potential in a free society.

Instead of making concrete demands on President Mubarak and other regional leaders regarding freedom, democracy, human rights, and committing the US to a major shift in our policies on those issues, President Obama argued that the first step to healing the US-Islamic divide must be to "confront violent extremism in all of its forms." What the President doesn't realize is that from the standpoint of the peoples of the Middle East, US support for governments like Israel, Egypt and other authoritarian regimes, along with our invasion of Iraq -- which despite his pledge to "speak the truth" he refused to admit was wrong -- have been as extreme and violent as those of militant Islam.

He should have admitted that the Iraq invasion was flat-out wrong, not merely a "war of choice," and apologized for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and untold billions of dollars of their wealth and resources destroyed.

When it comes to Israel and Palestine, the President's words do mark a significant shift in tone from the rhetoric of his predecessors, especially his placing Palestine on equal footing with Israel as a nation deserving independence and sovereignty. But hearing them I couldn't help thinking that they constituted the speech President Clinton should have given sixteen years ago at the start of the Oslo peace process.

Back then, when there were only a bit more than 100,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, calling for a "stop" to settlements made sense. Today, with nearly triple the population and having rendered huge swaths of the West Bank permanently off limits to Palestinians, it is a decade too late. Stopping settlement construction will still leave the West Bank a mishmash of Palestinian islands that cannot form the nuclear of a sovereign state.

Nothing less than the dismantlement of the majority of settlements, bypass roads and checkpoints, will allow for the creation of a territorially viable Palestinian state. Muslim listeners to his speech understand that unless the President is willing to force Israel to choose between the settlements and continued US patronage, peace will remain impossible to achieve.

Mr. Obama has a steep learning curve before he can hope to fulfill the lofty rhetoric of his speech in Cairo. He seems unaware that the best and perhaps only way to get the peoples of the Muslim world to support US goals such as preventing Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, pacifying Afghanistan, and stamping out violent Islamism is to hold all the peoples of the region and their leaders, without exception, to one, easily measurable standard.

Unless his words are matched by a rapid and profound shift in the strategic calculus underlying American foreign policy, Obama's speech will be remembered as little more than "haki fadi," or empty talk, and peace in the Middle East -- and with it America's quest for a better relationship with the people of the Muslim world -- will remain an illusive dream.

Comments

[Annoula]

"First and foremost, President Obama should have announced that the United States would stop providing political, economic and military support to corrupt and brutal authoritarian regimes, without exception. This goes for occupiers like Israel (and, one could add, India in Kashmir and Morocco in the Western Sahara) and governments of key allies such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt -- where thousands of activists have been harassed, imprisoned, tortured, burned and even killed by security forces without any fear US retribution, and will continue to suffer once Mr. Obama leaves."

That alone would immediately bring more CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN than all the speeches and meetings and diplomacy in the world!
THANK YOU, Mark Levine! Nobody has dared to say it so plainly and truthfully!

[anarkissed]

Levine's use of the cold war parallelism is more harmful than helpful. The tense relations, difficulties, and hopes addressed by Obama do not constitute a second or parallel cold war; rather, they are the symptoms of geopolitical decisions played out during the cold war. Obama needed humility, forthrightness, and pedagogy--which is what he delivered.

[mlevine]

i'm glad the commenters all liked his speech. but the speech is a guide to actions, and judged by that--which is the way the overwhelming number of people in the region are going to judge it--it does not bode well. the very terms of the speech reflect a misapprehension as to what are the minimum conditions out of which peace can come in israel/palestine, or a new relationship with the muslim world more broadly.

the idea that anyone who criticizes obama is merely jealous, or should run for president or otherwise act rather than write is utterly ludicrous. by that standard, there is no point reading the huffpo, is there? to equate the criticisms of his speech by scholars and activists who actually know the region and would like nothing more than to see peace and democracy win the day with those of hamas or bin laden is similarly nonsensical and reflects a level of simplistic thinking that is dangerously naive and will, if obama's actions don't far exceed his words in cairo, lead to grave disappointment. maybe that's what it will take for those who think they can just sit back and let obama save the world to get off their butts and force the changes in american foreign policy that are necessary to make any of his lofty goals to succeed.

[yasmeen]

as a muslim who listened to this speech i will say it was a masterpiece that will go down in history. he could not exceed an hour without it being too long, so he couldn't give details. however, your article is spot on. i was disappointed that he didn't make the connection between extremism (violent or otherwise) and dictatorial oppression in 95% of muslim countries.

it should be noted unemployment is 60%- 90% in these countries. in egypt a guy with a master's degree in chemistry drives a garbage truck!! also these extremist groups fill the negligent governments' void by providing free health care, schooling, food, etc for the people so they are popular that's why hamas won elections and hezbollah in lebanon will win tomorrow. they are all people got.

however, obama is just starting and like stated in the comments below, in his second term when he becomes a lame duck who has nothing to lose, he can come down hard on these dictators like reagan brought down the berlin wall at the end of his term. only democracy will end our problems.

[mommamia526]

I am glad to see the response from a Muslim. Just today I read that people, both degreed, in Iran can not afford to get married, because they can not even afford to rent a one bedroom apartment! So, is it the case that the extremist groups fill in a void, because the upper echelons, different in different Arab nations, are not held responsible to the people they govern? OR, are they groups of persons who may start out with idealism but soon enough end up looking out for nr. one, themselves, and hoarding money for themselves, as Arafat has done, and as Hamas and Abu Mazen are still doing today? I do not know if only democracy will end the problems of the ME, and the U.S. is not a democracy, it is a Republic. Politics will not solve unemployment, rather entrepreneurship and people starting small businesses which employ people will help solve unemployment. So, maybe it should start there. People should get small loans to start out, like as is done with Grameen Bank, rather than remaining dependent and beholden to *masters*, be they one political or terrorist group or another, or the upper echelons. Saudi Arabia already has Graameen Bank or a similar institution. A means to get just a little money to start on a miniscule basis, maybe a woman starting a small business (selling bread/cakes?), buying a few animals, or some seed to plant a little lot.

[quillsinister]

It was a speech, not a doctoral thesis. Its purpose was to initiate a dialogue and get the ball rolling in a positive direction, not address every single thing that has happened or needs to happen. If he tried that, he'd have been talking for a solid week just to lay out an outline.

What the speech did was set the tone for the work that needs to be done over the next three and a half to seven and a half years, and it did that amazingly well. Are you also one of the ones who asks why Obama hasn't fixed every single thing that is wrong in the world in his first four months in office?

People will remember that good work was done that day. More good work remains. A lot more. You expect too much from what was, after all, just a speech, albeit a brilliant one.

:-)

[KiwisCanFly]

After reading Levine's opine, I am grateful for yr commonsense and unpretentious perspective.

[wbramh]

Excellent response.
After 2,000 years of failed policies (including the ones Mr. Levine has suggested), a one hour speech was certainly not meant to b e an instant fix.
The lesser men on all sides reacted the way they always react . Hamas called him an American Imperialist in diguise. Israel accused him of selling out to the Pallestinians, Bin Laden called him a secret Jew and James Imhofe called him "unAmerican" and wondered "what side he is on." Imhgofe's comments ended tied for the stupid comment of the day along with one provided by Ari Fleisher who complained that the President's speech was "even-handed."
(Gosh - what an odd approach for a peacemaker).

I was enthralled by the speech. It was magnificently crafted, unusually candid and delivered with perfection. If I doubted for a secondthe impact on the sizable audience around the World, that doubt dissipated quickly as Mr. Obama left the stage to the music of the 4,000 attendees chanting
"O-Bam-A, O-Bam-A."

They will be my personal barometer of the success of the President's speech - and not the ideologues who rushed to rejoin the age-old war of words that Mr. Obama so artfully and thoughtfully warned against.

H

[dredeize]

Why don't you run for president and solve world peace? It seems that you have all of the perfect answers!! That's just sooo easy!! Thanks for enlightening us!!! Now, get out there with YOUR ideas and solve this crisis for us!! I'm sure the President could use YOUR help!!

[SameSo]

Dredeize..­..........­you took the words right out of my mouth.

This Perfect Teacher of History, Mark Levine, should do what he does best......sit back and WATCH as others WORK. The president has caused expectations to rise to unprecedentedly high, that everyone keeps forgetting that he has been in office a mere F I V E M O N T H S.

Reagan, whom levine seems to hold in such high esteem, was almost at the end of his two terms in office before he was emboldened enough to utter those famous words which he initially, according to history, didnt want to utter in the first place, thinking they were too demanding and could be misconstrued. But lame duck presidents have nothing to lose so he went for it. Good for him. Cos thats mostly what people like levine can hold up as an example of Reagan's boldnesss. LOL.

Levine, there's a reason why, AGAINST ALL ODDS, President Obama is the President and a reason why you will remain an armchair critic.

[SameSo]

Dredeize..­..........­you took the words right out of my mouth.

This Perfect Teacher of History, Mark Levine, should do what he does best......sit back and WATCH as others WORK. The president has caused expectations to rise so unprecedentedly high, that everyone keeps forgetting that he has been in office a mere F O U R M O N T H S.

R.e.a.g.a.n., whom levine seems to hold in such high esteem, was almost at the end of his two terms in office before he was emboldened enough to utter those famous words which he initially, according to history, didnt want to utter in the first place, thinking they were too demanding and could be misconstrued. But lame duck presidents have nothing to lose so he went for it. Good for him. Cos thats mostly what people like levine can hold up as an example of his boldness. LOL.

Levine, there's a reason why, AGAINST ALL ODDS, President Obama is the President and a reason why you will remain a mere critic of the ACTIONS of the movers and skakers of history.