WATANI International
31 May 2009
Next Thursday should see United States president Barack Obama address the Arab and Muslim Worlds from the venerable assembly hall of Cairo University. Obama’s upcoming visit has Cairo all in a stir, with expectations and hopes running high. Following 9/11 and George W. Bush’s consequent policies that placed the US on a collision path with the Islamic World, there is a general anticipation that Obama would attempt to ameliorate that attitude.
Bone of contention
The Israeli Palestinian struggle, the resolution of which is top priority with Egyptians, will probably figure highly on President Obama’s speech “President Obama has already strongly asserted his commitment to a two-State solution to the Palestinian Israeli struggle,” says Amina al-Naqash, editor-in-chief of the al-Ahali weekly, the mouthpiece of the leftist Tagammu political party. Hafez Abu-Saeda, who heads the Egyptian Human Rights Organisation, believes President Obama would attempt to resolve that struggle within the context of dissipating tensions in flaring points across the globe.
“The Israeli Palestinian struggle has long been a bone of contention between the Arabs and the US,” says Salah Eissa, editor-in-chief of the weekly al-Qahira . In that context, Mr Eissa thinks, President Obama will surely attempt to resolve it. Emad Gad of the al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies, however, merely expects President Obama to set a general framework for a solution to the Palestinian Israeli struggle, without going into details.
There is an almost general consensus that political reform and human rights would figure as priority issues with President Obama. “After all,” Mr Abu-Saeda says, “The US has been trying hard lately to improve its own image on that front.” Egypt for its part has demonstrated good will by freeing dissident Ayman Nour who had been imprisoned for some three years, and by acquitting another dissident, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, of the charge of tarnishing Egypt’s reputation. “The US under President Obama does not impose ‘conditions’ on other countries, rather offers ‘advice’,” Dr Gad says. “There is a world of difference between both attitudes.”
An end to the clash of civilisations?
Dr Gad believes President Obama will be in Cairo to declare to the Islamic World the end of the so-called clash of civilisations. Yet the fact that the US president has chosen to deliver his speech from the secular Cairo University rather than the Islamic institution of al-Azhar as so many Muslims had wished, Dr Gad said, is a strong indication that the speech will be primarily a political not a religious one. “I can assure that President Obama’s speech will be conciliatory, though,” Dr Gad said.
But Ms Naqash does not expect President Obama to delve into superfluous details, no matter how significant. Egypt, naturally, Ms Naqash says, is interested in the details, especially as regards a free trade agreement with the US, but it is not clear at all if President Obama would tackle that issue.
Mr Abu-Saeda asserts that all the States in the region will listen carefully to what President Obama has to say. Even Iran and Syria are interested in good relations with the US, he says.
President Obama’s visit to Cairo is beyond doubt a special message to the Islamic World, and it is up to the Islamic World to respond to it. Dr Gad, Mr Abu-Saeda, and Mr Eissa were unanimous in confirming it as a golden opportunity which the Islamic World must seize to build bridges with the West, especially with President Obama extending a conciliatory address to all.