Obama’s Big Initiative

Whether American President Barack Obama’s historic speech at Cairo University will help to break America’s villainous image in the Muslim world is a question that is being discussed even in circles strongly opposed to America. Along with being a wise politician, Obama is also a good writer and wonderful speaker. Laced with examples from the Koran, his speech not only showed a political maturity, but also showed signs of cultural sensitivity. It has definitely been able to put a dent in the rising wall of insensitivity between Islam and America, but to get rid of the hatred against America that has taken hold in Muslims from Syria to Indonesia and from Chechnya to Sudan, it will take many more years of diplomatic efforts.

In the nineties, in the thesis presented on the struggle between civilizations, American thinker Samuel Huntington said that the conflict between modern civilization, Confucianism, and Muslim civilization will be the main catalyst element for the Cold War conditions prevalent in the world. American leaders have always repudiated this thesis and said that there is not even the slightest chance that it has any relation to them. But the twenty-first century began with the destruction of the World Trade Towers and the American attack on Afghanistan and Iraq. And by openly offering support to Israel on the Palestinian issue, Bush completely ruined all previous efforts of the settlement. This not only created a tyrannical image in Muslim minds about America, but they also lost faith in all international organizations, including the United Nations.

They found themselves in the middle of a struggle between civilizations where there was no one to see or listen to their problems in a logical way. For fundamentalist terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, it was as if their wish had come true. To get out of this unfortunate situation is not only important for America, but also for Islam. Here, it is also important to remember that since the eighties, just after the Iranian-Islamic rebellion, America has been seen as ignoring this religion’s liberal Democratic thinkers by taking a stand alongside the most backward and fundamentalist thinkers of Saudi Arabia, such as Wahabi Islam. In fact, even Bill Clinton’s eight years of Democratic policies were not an exception to this.

To address Muslims, Obama’s decision to choose the oldest educational institute of the Arab world, Cairo University, instead of choosing a forum in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, shows that he wants to change this 40-year-old diplomatic framework of America. In particular, saying that it is wrong for Israel to construct new colonies in Palestinian areas, as it is for the Islamic world to give lesser importance to women (by citing the fact that staying behind the veil does not make women any less than others in any way) shows that Obama’s intention is to work on entering the Islamic world and not just to talk and slip by the side. It’s a wonderful beginning, but the international Muslim community might just wait to see if some of Obama’s words turn into action before taking any initiative of their own.