The air in Cairo is noticeably cleaner than usual and the stifling traffic has been veered from its heart this week. Shops have been closed, streets have been blockaded, and the Egyptian police state has outdone even itself with the massive security presence throughout the city. Obama is in town and the Cairenes must suffer the consequences.
Perhaps this paradox, more than his speech, has been Obama's inevitable message to the Muslim world: that the United States will look the other way at your governments' repressive policies because a working relationship with them is more important than a consideration of the peoples' rights.
Politics at its best - but where does that leave the people?
"He's here only eight hours, and yet my building has been taken over by security guards and I must show an ID just to go home to my family," a downtown cabbie who lives near Cairo University in Giza told me. "Is this democracy?"
Obama's speech was a carefully constructed, second speech to the Muslim world - do not forget his speech in Turkey in April. Today in Cairo he touched on a great deal of the issues that Western observers think Muslim people care deeply about.
On many fronts, Obama was right.
Merely speaking words like "the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable" or "civilization's debt to Islam" is important and necessary and Obama deserves praise for providing these nuggets of appreciation and historical perspective.
But his words today were more useful to the governments with whom the United States must engage during his administration - governments like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, The Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran, all of whom have a severely problematic regard for the rights of their people - than for the Muslim people whose living reality is too often stained by insufficient power to improve their lives.
The White House promoted this speech as a discussion with the Muslim world, but most of what Obama said seemed geared either to the governments of the Muslim world or the Muslims who live in the West.
Even when he touched on women's rights, Obama framed it in a Western perspective: he disagrees with Western nations - perhaps an allusion to Germany and France's recent problems - who struggle with Muslim women wearing hejab.
But he didn't come at the issue from the perspective that was promised -- by addressing Muslims in Muslim countries. If that were indeed the case, we should have heard his analysis of women who are compelled or forced to wear hejab in these countries and women whose lives and livelihoods are severely impaired by the segregation of sexes that pervades much of the Muslim world.
He commendably touched on the need for girls and women's education in Muslim countries - but ignored the fact that in the Muslim countries where women have least access to education, Islamic fundamentalism is often strongest.
At times in his speech, it was almost as if Obama in his elegant oration was pandering to the fundamentalists and the oppressive governments who have defined the Islamic dialogue for decades. He said that he does not want to be a prisoner of the past, but his speech was littered with history which, while accurate, is old news when it stands alone without direction or context.
If for Obama the Muslim world refers to the Muslim people, then their lives now and their future are more important to them - regardless of their religious values - than a detailed analysis of where their religious and political leaders have been.
"I don't know who Obama is yet," the cabbie told me, "but I wonder what he wants of our people."
I am truly sorry that your city and your people were inconvenienced by my President's visit to your country. The same thing happens in his country as well. But we know, despite the equally vocal complaints over here, that our history of assassinating and attempting to assassinate our Presidents is real, recent enough, and a constant threat. So, we accept the inconveniences because relatively speaking we would rather that than to lose him to some crazed idiot.
We need him to stay the course and finish what he has begun.
I am proud that he wanted to go to speak to your country and did such a fine job even though he could not and did not take care of every
If Obama's words made sense to anyone, and if the leaders took note of the applause, and the silences, then Obama did more than any other leader ever has.
President Obama's attempt at conciliation for our conduct to such a society was absurd.
All they do is fight.
Give me a stable dictatrship,
I take propaganda about 'Islamofascist' terrorism with more than a grain of salt, considering the true Qur'an and Islamic Cleric around the world speaking about (our Freedom Fighter) Osama bin Laden, sayig his murder of innocent by terrorist is forbidden, one US-Gov official shortly after 9-11 placing in the Congressional Record that the top Islamic Cleric in the world condemned Osama (as accused by the US-Gov) as involved, despite later finding 9 of the 15-WTC terrorists are still alive.
I hope now the Egypt-Gov opens borders and trade with the Gazans, rather than kissing other hindmost.
Now though, it sounds like you are suggesting that the new administration should continue the same sort of ham-fisted, insensitive, ideologically superior bluster and bullying that got us into this fix. I went and read some of your other articles to try and get an idea of where you’re coming from and now I see how you could find such an approach appealing.
xxx
the problem I have with the above statement is this:
we MUST have a working relationship with the governments of repressive regimes if we are to have any effect on how they treat their people.
our government has tried shaming them. it didn't work. we've tried overthrowing their governments. that didn't work either.
the only thing left is entering into a dialog with them as an equal. pretending we're better than they are hasn't worked in the past and won't work in the future.
no one listens to a scold.
-Continued wars
-More debt
-More wasteful spending
-More corporate bailouts
-Higher unemployment
-Less transparency
-Flowery speeches that no one talks about the next day [expect on MSNBC to lowest rated network on TV]
-Change no one can see?
There is the source of everything that you just mentioned.
You are the party of NO. You want this country to fail. We have already rejected you, and are now openly mocking you and your hatred of good and kind, hardworking people.
Sit back and enjoy the ride. You are no longer in control. Suck it up. Be glad that we are fixing the destruction that you did with your vote for fascists.
You want prez Obama to tell the Arab people how they choice their leaders...noway
u r joking sister...every country have to simplyied their probem like many others.
"Having lived in Egypt in the 80ies, I dare to say, if there were free elections in Egypt right now, the outcome may be surprising to you. A majority may vote for islamists, and human rights matters may get worse. So how can the US contribute with improving human rights issues in a muslim country, if a majority there probably wouldn't even want it?"
Maybe the majority doesn't know if they want human rights because they've never had them. If you don't want to meddle with our internal affairs, fine, be my guest. But what Obama's doing is giving the Egyptian government political leverage, as well as the funds they get from US aid, to continue its oppressive rule.
In short: Egypt's internal affairs not your responsibility? Then stay out of it--for good.
Do you really believe a critical message from the USA would be well received by most Egyptians? I don't think so, not even under normal circumstances. Now consider, after 8 years of Bush, the USA is not in a position any more, to lecture other countries about human rights. We can't even clean up our own mess. What is Obama supposed to say? "Don't put prisoners in secret prisons, have honest elections, and don't torture?" The whole world is going to laugh at us, pointing at Guantanamo, Florida, and Dick Cheney, who is on national TV every other day , telling people how great torture works.
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Despite the majority voting for fundamentalist islamists, it is heartening to have Barack Obama stating his view because millions recognize the voice of peaceful reason. Better that than the hateful message of fundamentalist extremists of all religions, which are also popular today.
I have a webpage of older regimes and dictatorships, we in America at one time were to worship these as "Friendly Western Allies." If you are interested try my webpage:
http://rtpricetag.home.comcast.net/~rtpricetag/Dictators_menu.html
What he failed to do is to acknowledge that radical Islam is still at war with America and Americans and that it is difficult for the American people, as we are on the other side of planet, to distinguish the difference between the two camps. The larger camp lives in fear of the lesser one. When a moderate Muslim speaks against a radical, that person is marked for death in many countries. Even the leadership of these countries is afraid of them. American's do not fear violence and death for the sake of our freedom of speech. This commitment out lasts all others, but Muslim states are fractured by some clerics into dissarray and fear. The end of it, without some interdiction from moderates, is a flood religious anarchy that sweep through Islamic world and would make the French Revolution look like a Sunday picnic. This idea of freedom is a bridge that the muslim world has not crossed as a religion or civilization. I can understand your personal fear and the thin line you must walk to write something like this and not draw too much attention to yourself. Thanks for being one of the brave ones.
With my most profound respect and admiration,
DenverJJ
I never thought a single sentence could be so ignorant. Let me count the ways:
1. There is no one Muslim world. Muslim countries are many and varied and very different from each other.
2. Muslim civilisation is not homogenous, and varies widely between regions of the world.
3. There are Muslim countries that have thankfully crossed the bridge to freedom.