As President Obama prepares to make his June 4 address to the Muslim world, journalists, politicians, and academics have clamored to offer advice and opinions on the subject matter of his speech, the presentation of the United States in the Middle East, and the global ramifications of this moment.
Juan Cole writes at Salon about the importance of Obama’s trip to the Middle East as a whole. While Muslims from Indonesia and West Africa support Obama, it is Arab Muslims with whom the United States primarily trades, and they are the ones Obama must win over:
The 325 million Arabs are a minority of Muslims worldwide (and not all Arabs are Muslim), but Arab Muslims are disproportionately influential among their co-religionists and, because of their energy resources and strategic position between Europe and Afro-Asia, are especially important to the United States and its allies. They are the Muslims who are most skeptical about Obama.
Shadi Hamid places a special emphasis on the choice to hold this speech in Cairo, rather than in Jordan or Saudi Arabia, other stops on the president’s trip. Some see the choice of location as a tacit endorsement of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, and as a potential indicator that Obama will not prioritize human rights and democracy. In the Washington Post, Michael Gerson echoes these concerns, asking, “Does Obama honor and support [political, oppositional] courage, or de-emphasize and dismiss it in the ‘realist’ pursuit of other ends?”
Dr. Ghassan Michel Rubiez also addresses questions of human rights and democracy, questioning specifically how Obama will discuss the Arab-Israeli conflict. He believes that, on this trip, Obama must focus on Arab issues, express compassion for Palestinians, and address Palestinian unity, which could lead to peace with Israel.
After a phone call with President Obama about this speech, Thomas L. Friedman writes in the New York Times that Obama hopes to show that, while the US is willing to work with Middle Eastern countries, it cannot impose solutions to Middle Eastern problems. Friedman writes that:
[Obama] sees [this speech] as part of his broader diplomatic approach that says: If you go right into peoples’ living rooms, don’t be afraid to hold up a mirror to everything they are doing, but also engage them in a way that says “I know and respect who you are.” You end up—if nothing else—creating a little more space for U.S. diplomacy. And you never know when that can help.
Bigger themes aside, some simply call for a few choice words from the president—the Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board hopes that Obama will thank moderate Muslims, while Christopher Dickey believes that Obama should apologize for any past wrongs committed by the United States.
Rather than offer advice for the speech itself, Faisal Ghori argues that Obama’s address is only important to Americans, and that there is no great Middle Eastern anticipation of this event. He writes:
President Obama is perhaps the orator of his generation, yet what the Muslim world needs now are not the hollow promises of “hope” and “change” but meaningful, actionable change that positively transforms their lives. Until then, Obama’s words, however articulate and precisely delivered, will continue to be ignored through the din.
At OnFaith, the Washington Post’s religion blog, Eboo Patel says that what Obama is doing in this moment is more than discussing US-Muslim relations. Instead, he will “[set] the precedent for how diverse peoples and nations should interact in the 21st century.” Patel urges Obama to embrace religious pluralism, and hopes that he will point to the bridges that have been built and the improvements that have been made. He writes:
Let us hope that these are the stories President Obama tells tomorrow morning. Because we know that the whole world is listening, and the soul of a generation is at stake.