A Wink from Obama

Obama, the American president, has spoken to Muslims. Salam alaikum! Ave, Caesar! Since the days of Rome – the Eternal City, which turned out not to be so eternal after all – it has been traditional for the emperor to send a message to the barbarian provinces and even beyond, far out to those wild lands, beyond horizons that no human would dare to cross, inhabited by creatures whose nature can only be as monstrous as it is unknown.

How far the world has evolved since then! But the spirit remains the same. On one side there is the civilized world, and on the other the barbarians who burn their identity papers before illegally crossing the borders, reigniting fears of a Vandal invasion. Remember how Rome fell beneath the barbarians’ onslaught before it even knew what was happening.

Now at last comes a new emperor who greets us in Arabic, whose skin is brown like ours, to whom Islam is not a completely alien thing, and whose origins are similar to our own. He is certainly no Muslim, but he was one once. His history is strange, and his destiny extraordinary. He is a god among us – but let’s not break our faith. He is sure to come to a tragic end. But in the meantime he gives us a wink, with neither meaning, malice, commitments nor consequences. Salam alaikum, a little wink that will do nothing to repair the damage wreaked by his predecessor, the horrendous Dubya, and will do nothing to protect us against further damage in the future. Obama represents neither our own evils nor those of the world at large. His speech in Cairo is of the same nature as his pilgrimage to Kenya, or at any rate bears the same symbolism.

This man will certainly inspire new perspectives on some things – we are not too sure which – but by himself he will change nothing. And yet he will try to do so all the same, because he is not at liberty to do otherwise. Everything will lead him to a confrontation with forces more powerful than himself – such as those whose existence is closely tied to Israeli interests as expressed and understood by the majority of Israelis and doubtless by many Jews.

Obama will not be able to change the world, any more than he will be able to change the country he leads. But he will not be able to stop trying. Everything rests on that contradiction, which in the end will prove fatal on all sides. Only when today’s power relations have been completely swept away will we see the beginning of a new set of relations whose form as yet is hardly perceptible. Obama will be remembered as a prophet who winked at Muslims and America as a country that was slightly insane. And the Muslims themselves will be remembered as a community of people who loved heaven so much that they never understood what was happening down here on earth. Salam alaikum! Peace be upon you, good people! Perhaps that was the meaning of the wink in question.