A Touch of Peace

America’s President Barack Obama showed his good intentions in Cairo – but he also clearly laid out a superpower’s interests.

It was either superbly choreographed or a timing error in presidential staging: While the audience was applauding Hillary Clinton as she left the hall, the main speaker made his entrance, unannounced and at first barely noticed by the crowd. Alone, through a stage side door, Barack Obama suddenly appeared and strode toward the lectern, where he surveyed his audience and began to speak.

It was probably the only appropriate way to begin such an address. In addition to the decorated dignitaries in the Cairo University auditorium, which was festooned with crimson velvet, it also had to convince a world audience of 1.3 billion people. So the speaker had to more or less be seen as descending from heaven, in order to convince the public he could pull off this super-human event.

He opened with “Assalamu-alaikum,” the traditional Arabic salutation. Then came a 50-minute tour-de-force, covering the things currently most important to the Islamic world. This was followed by a detour through the things most important to the rest of the world, as well. From the Israeli-Palestinian question through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on to the Iranian nuclear program, and then to democratization and the question of women’s rights and the problems between Muslims and Christians in the Near East. Obama covered it all.

He asked for understanding. He showed awareness of the West’s mistakes and paid tribute to the achievements of the Islamic culture. He seasoned it all with quotations from the Koran and mixed a few dashes of the Bible and the Torah in with it. In short, he didn’t try to sell a miracle cure or a magic solution where none exists; he tried to sell the idea of openness and candor.

“I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition,” Obama said.

Cairo was well-prepared for the president’s eight-hour visit. Cafés and businesses were shuttered, walls along the parade route freshly painted over, a few potential protesters arrested and police posted all over the city.

A meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak opened Obama’s visit, then a visit to the pyramids and the Egyptian Museum and a talk with opposition politicians and intellectuals. It was apparent, however, that the highpoint of and main reason for the visit was the speech at Cairo University.

With a message from the classroom, the president wanted to prove that the U.S. and the Western world both seek a compromise with the Arab and Islamic world; that they both seek peace in a world full of war and terror. The speech was not meant to be an end, but a beginning.

Just as his head moved from left to right and back again, as he tried to read his distant teleprompters, so did his speech turn from sober analysis of conditions to an honest feeling for those things both worlds had in common: from an appeal, to commonalities, to the clearly formulated viewpoint of a superpower determined to strongly defend against any future threats.

In the television age, however, a speech is dissected into its component parts. It is these individual parts that convince people. And there were plenty of such component parts in Obama’s speech, which is why enthusiastic cheers of “Obama” broke out regularly among the Cairo University audience.

The applause of the 3,000 invited guests gave an indication of what went over and what didn’t in this political here and there: “The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as . . . it is as if he has killed all mankind. And the Holy Koran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.” Tremendous applause.

Then, on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.” Loud applause. Obama went on to say that America did not recognize the legitimacy of Israeli settlements and called for a halt to their construction and a change in Israel’s settlement policy; he also reiterated his intention to close Guantanamo. Again, thunderous applause.

When he turned to the subject of Israel and its security needs and spoke against Holocaust denial, there was noticeably less enthusiasm in the audience. But it rose again when Obama said every woman should be able to decide for herself whether to wear the veil or not, and that educational opportunities for Muslim women was far more important than disagreements about clothing. “We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism.”

In short, Obama laid out no road map in Cairo for a new U.S. Near East policy.

He didn’t explain how – except for obvious good will – his policies will materially differ from those of George W. Bush, a figure still reviled in the Islamic world. But he presented himself as a politician who displays understanding, as well as a strong will.

It’s difficult to say whether the Arab and Muslim worlds found this speech convincing. But at least he didn’t snub 1.3 billion people as his predecessor did, time and again. Perhaps that doesn’t constitute a historic speech, but considering the difficult conditions that exist between the Islamic and Western worlds, it’s a good start.