The world stood at attention today when President Obama gave an historic speech to the Muslim world. In mainstream U.S. media, ran the expectations of the speech of highly pessimistic cautious optimism. Some in the United States believes that the idea of a speech in Cairo, Egypt, either a cow-towing to terrorism – or worse yet, an insidious plot by the U.S. into a Muslim nation in turn represented by a president who is secretly a Muslim.
Flattery and insanity aside, I thought I provide some perspective as someone who has lived and worked in the Muslim world and spent a lot of time to analyze world events in the light of a Christian missionary perspective.
First, the praise. President Obama does not have time to recognize the achievements of Islamic civilization made world history. With contributions to praise Muslim areas such as science, philosophy and architecture, the president touched on an issue felt by most Muslims around the world – the knowledge of a lost golden age. The fact that the President caused also recognized some positive aspects of Islamic history, probably a few tears in the eyes of some Muslims proud.
The President went on, the voltage of the Western colonialism that “denied rights and opportunities for many Muslims,” and, still visible fed recently, as during the Cold War many Muslim nations, “often as proxies without regard to their own aspirations treated. ” The historical truth of this statement is undeniable, but fortunately, Obama has not ended. He does not jihadist propaganda also called directly by saying: “Just as Muslims triggered a crude stereotype of America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has one of the largest sources of progress the world has ever known.”
The President touched on the issue of religious freedom, promised additional development assistance for Pakistan and Afghanistan, recognized Iraqi sovereignty to honor their wishes troops by 2012, retire, reiterated his support for Israel, while recognizing Palestinian complaints made it clear that should the democracy imposed on like other nations by force reaffirmed its commitment to a nuclear-free world (a position that John McCain signed on recently as I add) and made clear that the U.S. is not seeking a permanent military presence in Afghanistan. All these steps are very important for the erosion of the base of support for Al Qaeda and like-minded groups.
Well, the criticism. Obama in my opinion gone too far in emphasizing the shared values between America and Islam. In Obama’s words, “America and Islam are not exclusive, but they overlap and share common principles.” I beg to differ. America was founded on the Christian / Enlightenment principle of separation of church and state. In Islam, the idea of a separation between church and state – or rather mosque and state – is an abomination. These ideas are worlds apart and it takes a lot of cherry picking verses of the Koran by liberal and moderate Muslims try to reconcile the two.
I also felt that to judge the way the President the issue of religious freedom was weak. Although the President has said, “Freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to change his religion,” he is not on the reciprocal question of what the fact that Muslims enjoy – and often demand – is to spread freedom in the practice of denying their faith touched but the same freedom to religious minorities in their own countries. While the President could have made a clear moral appeal on this issue, the whole world got was, “among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to their faith by rejecting the other measure.” Lame.
The speech of the President of the rights of women was not much better. While he was on the question of allowing women the freedom to speak, the head scarf (wear Translation: We are not France!) Is this a problem affecting Muslim women in the West. It has little to do with living the life of millions of Muslim women in Muslim countries. The President may condemn this period to the stoning of adulterous women have taken absurd rape laws, married to the kidnapping of young Christian girls older men and a host of other rampant abuse of women, that many Muslim women are suffering from their male colleagues.
Will the President’s speech a positive difference in the US-Muslim relations? Yes it is, but the impact will be small. It is very important to understand that there is very little in Obama’s speech, which was not said already by previous governments – including the Bush administration. Even freezing the question to appeal to Israel, the expansion of settlements, the president said nothing new. In fact, every president from Carter has said so far, the same thing, and absolutely nothing has changed, because Israel refuses to America to comply with the wishes and America to continue to fund the Israeli government. Muslims know that President Obama is unlikely to change the status quo in this arrangement – especially with Netanyahu in power.
A further reason why the President’s words will ring in many Muslim holy ears, because the language seemed to be send to jihadist propaganda conflict while speaking very little to the problem that the vast majority of Muslims about the most – more political and ensure economic freedoms. Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of Muslims want more democracy, not less. However, many Muslims see the U.S. as an obstacle to democracy, because we support many of those oppressive dictators will rule over them.
The talk will spur a sea change in Al-Qaeda members and like-minded groups? Of course not! The only way to deal with these people is an aggressive strategy to pursue, in collaboration with our allies to dismantle their networks, freeze their assets to arrest the murderers and bring them to justice. The speech, however, help to erode the base of support for radical Islam, if it is followed by sound policy. Christians should pray that God guides our nation wisdom on what exactly should this policy provides. For Muslims around the world for the actions speak louder than words.