MUSLIMS TO OBAMA: NOW WHAT?

MUSLIMS TO OBAMA: NOW WHAT?

April 10, 2009 at 7:33 am (Associate Post, Corrupt Politics, Israel, Palestine, War Crimes)

Reflections on Obama’s Speech to the Muslim World

By Khalid Amayreh

Journalist — Occupied Palestine

Editor’s Note: Obama’s recent speech in the Turkish parliament - in which he directed some words to the Muslim world - has triggered some different reactions; some saw that Obama while extending a firm hand of friendship to the Muslim World has placed the ball in the Muslim court (click here to read Muqtedar Khan’s article), while others more skeptically waiting to see the American President walk the talk. Khalid Amayreh goes in this opinion piece beyond Obama’s speech to question the policy.

US President Barack Obama and Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visit the Blue mosque, Apr. 7, 2009. (Reuters Photo)

President Obama should be lauded for the generally positive remarks he made during his current visit to Turkey.
Speaking before the Turkish Parliament on April 6, Obama declared that the United States “is not and will never be at war with Islam.”

Needless to say, this tone represents a laudable departure from the hateful anti-Islamic rhetoric that more or less characterized the general discourse of the Bush administration. Bush, undoubtedly one of the most ignorant Presidents in the US history, spoke of “Islamo-fascism” and claimed that Muslims “don’t like our freedoms.”

However, for Obama to leave a lasting impact on American-Muslim relations, he will have to make a real departure, not only from Bush’s poisoned rhetoric, but also from Bush’s odious policies.

Muslims and all people of goodwill around the world don’t expect Obama to transform himself into a paragon of virtue. The American political environment is simply too structurally morbid to allow the appearance, even evolution, of politics based on honesty and virtue.

Universal Need: Less Power Politics

Nonetheless, Obama must realize that America itself, and the world at large, are badly in need of more honesty and more justice and less, I would say much less, power politics.
This is because a world order based on military might, economic power, and realpolitik balances is doomed. Indeed, the present economic mega-crisis haunting the economies of the world is a clear and painful refutation of the present international political order.

In surah Ar-Rum (The Romans) 30:41, the Quran speaks of the appearance of corruption on earth as a result of the actions of men. ” Mischief has appeared on land and sea because of (the meed) that the hands of men have earned, that (Allah) may give them a taste of some of their deeds: in order that they may turn back (from Evil).”

Hence, it is necessary that the leaders of the world, especially those in whose hands lies power, adopt an entirely new approach to world politics since the current system has both outlived its usefulness and proven its destructiveness.

It is in this spirit that billions of people around the world are looking to Obama for a real change; a change that, as the second Muslim Caliph Abu Bakr said, would render the “weak” strong until his rights are properly restored and grievances are properly addressed; and render the “strong” weak until he is forced to give up that which is not his.

It is no secret that America is so much hated in this part of the world due to the policies of greed, rapacity, and oppression adopted for too long by successive American administrations.

This is why President Obama needs to do a lot of soul-searching in order to reach the right conclusion and act on it.

What Needs to Be Changed

Generally speaking, there are three main cardinal problems contributing to the bad chemistry between Arabs and Muslims on the one hand and the United States on the other that need to experience some change.
First, the enduring embrace by the United States of the manifestly criminal entity called Israel, a bellicose and brutal state that lives and thrives on murder, theft, and mendacity.

Thanks to unlimited and unrestricted American support for Israel, the evil state has arrogated our land, destroyed our homes, bulldozed our farms, and transformed our population centers into open-air detention camps.

And whenever we — the aggrieved Palestinians — seek redress at the United Nations’ Security Council, the US government routinely and ritualistically uses its veto power to perpetuate oppression, encourage Israel to keep up its criminal behaviors, and force us to do things that we shouldn’t be doing.

We don’t demand and we don’t expect the United States to completely reverse the course of its relationship with Israel. However, we do expect the Obama administration to tell Israel in no mistakable language that murdering and maiming thousands of innocent civilians with White Phosphorus, even under the false rubric of fighting “terror”, is wrong.

We do expect the American government to tell Israel that building Jewish-only colonies on occupied land is wrong.

And we do expect the American government to make sure that the awesome machines of death given to Israel by the United States are not used to murder civilians and destroy their homes.

And above all, we expect America, Israel’s guardian-ally, to tell Israel that the continued military occupation of another people is unacceptable and inconsistent with American ideals, if indeed this is the case.

For the Sake of True Peace

Unfortunately, the enduring American embrace of Israeli Nazism (the epithet is more than justified in light of recent Israeli actions in Gaza) has created a lasting impression among most Arabs and Muslims that the United States is as evil as Israel and that it is futile and pointless to appeal to the American sense of justice and fairness.
To be sure, there are a thousand examples of American duplicity, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and even schizophrenia pertaining to US policy in the Middle East. It is this highly ugly, immensely unjust, and brazenly immoral policy that eventually brought us to where we are now.

Hence, it is imperative, for the sake of true peace, that the United States espouse a new policy based on simple fairness and honesty toward the Palestinian cause, a policy free of the diabolic restrictions of AIPAC and other Jewish lobbies.

This is what Obama must do if Muslims are to give his proclamations in Ankara the benefit of the doubt.

Secondly, there is the enduring American embrace of Arab tyrannies, these hateful despotic regimes that torment and enslave their own masses in order to stay in power.

In fact, apart from the Israel factor, there is no greater cause for Arab-Muslim antipathy toward the United States than such support for tyrants.

By supporting these corrupt and bankrupt regimes and sustaining them in power, the United States is simply robbing Arab masses from Bahrain to Casablanca of their God-given right to liberty, the very paramount value that the ignoramus Bush claimed Muslims hate.

It is really sad and lamentable that while people around the world are allowed to freely elect their governments and leaders, hundreds of millions of Arabs are denied that right.

In light, Muslims appeal to Obama in the strongest terms to desist from backing and supporting these hateful regimes that constantly torment and humiliate their own people for the sake of remaining in power.

Yes, the United States is worried that true democracy in the Muslim world might bring to power a new breed of leaders that may not be sympathetic to US geopolitical interests. Well, this could be true in the short run, but in the long run any democratically-elected government would have to be pragmatic and take into consideration the cool calculations of governance.

In fact, I am completely sure that a strategic decision by the US to abandon these impotent and bankrupt regimes would be eventually reciprocated with lasting feelings of gratitude by hundreds of millions of Muslims and Arabs.

One Step in the Right Direction

Finally, the United States will have to terminate its anti-Islam policies and discriminatory behavior against Muslims both in the United States and abroad. The latest statements by President Obama are undoubtedly a step in the right direction.
We Muslims understand that countries must do what it takes to protect their legitimate security interests. However, it is amply clear that many of these measures are more vengeful than preventive and more vindictive than objective.

In fact, a smart, wise, objective, and successful anti-terrorism approach should endear itself to the masses, not alienate them.

Eventually, however, terrorism is a tactic not an ideology. And in order to vanquish the lesser terror committed by individuals or groups, the bigger terror committed by states must also be terminated.