Obama's Cairo Overture

“The West is the West. And the East is the East, and never the two shall meet,”- wrote the great bard of the British Empire, Kipling. Last week the President of the United States, Barack Obama decided to “make the two meet”; he journeyed from Washington to Cairo, which is considered the unofficial capital of the Arab world, and delivered a speech meant as an overture to the hearts of Muslims across the globe.

Obama’s “Cairo Speech” was the masterpiece of political eloquence and the President and his talented young speechwriters deserve credit for every word, beginning with the opening greeting- “Assalam Alеykum!”

No other Western government official is in as unique a position with regards to conducting a dialogue with the Muslim East. His father was a Muslim Kenyan. Obama spent his childhood in Indonesia- the larget Muslim country in the world. And finally, the President’s full name is Barack Hussein. Even his last name, Obama, involuntarily calls to mind Arabic names like Osama. And to add to all of this, he’s an African American.

Obama used all of these advantages in his recent peaceful take over of the Muslim world. He was as florid like Omar Hayam, and as honey-tongued like Hafis, glorifying Muslim contributions to world’s culture and science. Like the Pope, he repented for the evildoing of colonialism. And he promised, and promised, and promised…

The President formulated seven points regarding more specific (and more painful) issues that continue to dominate East-West relations. Topics spanned “military extremism in all of its forms” (including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq); the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; nuclear proliferation issues in Iran; the recent chafing between democracy and Islam; freedom of religion; universal recognition of women’s rights; and finally “economic development and opportunities.”

While addressing these seven points, Obama did not say anything new, although his rhetoric was much more balanced, more concrete, and more generous than his predecessors.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Francis Fukuyama promptly declared the “end of history,” assuming the apparent defeat of communism meant uncontested global domination by the West. But a sacred place is never empty. Another futurologist (both of them are America) Samuel Huntington claimed in his world-famous “The Clash of Civilizations” that if the twentieth century was a century of Western Civilization warring with dictatorial regimes- fascism and communism, then the twenty first century will be the battle arena of Christian and Muslim worlds.

The start of this century so far supports Huntington’s prognosis. Despite all the horrors of the major hot and cold wars of the twentieth century, those were fought against a “deformed aberration” of human history. After the cancerous tumor of Fascism was removed, Germany became an exemplary democratic government. Russia, rejecting communism, is now bearing down on the hard road to democracy.

Islam is a different animal all together. It is a religion, not an ideology, like fascism or communism. It is not a “deformed aberration” or a cancerous tumor; it is the soul and the essence of Muslim world. German Fascism and Soviet communism were phenomena of only the twenty first century. Islam, on the other hand, has a thousand year old history. The Koran is cannot be defeated with the Bible or with nuclear weapons.

When faced with the Koran, you can only coexist. Peacefully. You cannot win.

At the end of the Cairo speech, President Obama quoted the Talmud, the Koran, and the Bible as texts filled with peace and compassion. It should be noted that from these same books, his speechwriters could have extracted terrible ideas and preaching that make the blood run cold in your veins, quotations that decorated the banners of both sides during the Crusades and the propaganda of the not-so-ancient Arab-Israeli conflicts.

The historical tragedy of the Muslim world lies in that it is inadmissibly lagging in economic development. Without listing the reasons in detail, I will only mention the heavy roles Islamic fundamentalism and European colonialism have played. But the fact remains. It is a lot easier to wrestle a Kalashnikov away from a mujahadeen than it is to wrestle a yashmak away from a Muslim woman.

As long as the development gap exists, there cannot be a strong peace between the cross, the Star of David, and the crescent moon.

But economics is not everything. Maybe what I am about to say next will sound paradoxical, blasphemous, and irresponsible, but military parity must be the condition of lasting peace. As long as Western countries and Israel can attack any Muslim country with impunity whenever they feel like it, we cannot expect confidence and sincere will to cooperate in return.

The economic and military weakness of the Arab world is the real explosive hidden away in the clothing of the Muslim men, women, and children. The Islamic kamikaze will disappear only when the Islamic states can successfully defend their freedom and independence by more “civilized” and equal means.

The problem of “what to do with Islam” by no means is an exclusively American problem. And to make it so is to doom the issue to insolvability, fraught with catastrophes. Washington cannot be left alone with Islam. Should Americans bear the sole responsibility for this ‘problem’, both parties will chop so much wood it will be enough for multiple global fires.

Lets remember Iraq.

The solution to this problem is the responsibility of the entire global community, and not the least of Russia. (It’s worth little that out of 305 million people living in the United States, 7 million are Muslim-in Russia, out of 142 million, 20 million are Muslim). Russia has a long history- both positive and negative- in dealing with Islam, and this experience should be used to maximum capacity. We should hope the presidents Medvedev and Obama will deeply discuss this issue during the July summit in Moscow.

So is Obama’s Cairo Speech only, as Lenin said, an empty shake-up of the air by an empty sound? The dialogue with Islam is necessary. It should have been started a long time ago. Of course, West is West, East is East, and never the two shall meet-if neither one makes the first step. Not because it is more intelligent, but because its fault in this historical and dramatic conflict is far greater.