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Tagged: Cairo Speech Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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thabet
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thabet
Ayaan Hirsi WhatsHerFaceName complains that Barack Obama ‘let down moderate Muslims’… on a website for and by American conservatives (i.e. not ‘moderate Muslims’).
The website, New Majority, describes her as an ‘Islamic reformer’. Stupid.
(Via Kawthar.)
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null
He didn’t touch on Muslim women being confined, being forced into marriages or being victims of honor killings: These traditions and principles in the Koran and in Islam are being practiced in the West. He didn’t address that.
Oh, Ayaan.
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http://www.SoukLubnan.com
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Pretty Pink Unicorns
The website, New Majority, describes her as an ‘Islamic reformer’. In their eyes, she is: reformation means Stopping the Evil Muslim Religion, so of course she’s a reformer of Islam.
Of course, she’s not a MUSLIM Islamic reformer…
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plimfix
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is to Islamic reform what black and decker is to dentristry.
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pi.info
Ha!
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thabet
The ‘jihadosphere’ reacts (offers alternative narratives?) to Barack Obama’s Cairo speech.
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aziz
funny moment from Obama’s speech:
PRESIDENT OBAMA: (lots of stuff about issues, rights, blah blah blah etc)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Barack Obama, we love you!
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you. (Applause.) The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom.
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aziz
American Islam: In many ways, the muslim-American community is the key to President Obama’s “New Beginning” with the muslim world.
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Lawrence of Arabia
Ali Eteraz’s comments on the Obama Speech at True/Slant.
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pi.info
Cool Ali -
He’s going to share some “unfiltered thoughts” as though this is something he wrote in response to Obama’s speech when in fact it is a well-researched piece that was in development for at least a few days in advance (I doubt all that Napoleonic historical detail right down to the Arab linguists just casually spun out of his head).
And that really gets at the shortcoming of this speech for me: You could have written your response to it a few days in advance. I’m with Thabet on this: zero substance.
I hope that the speech as a symbol of respect to Muslims is successful as such throughout the ‘Muslim world.’ I hope this is dramatic ‘public diplomacy’ on the part of Obama that works. I hope Ali is right that Obama’s direct populist engagement is empowering to the workers and the students and everyone else. Other than my interest in these responses in others, I’ve felt little personal engagement with this event. I’m glad others here at TI have been interested enough to post about this.
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aziz
Well, Al Qaeda hated Obama’s Cairo speech.
Heh. Good. Don’t miss John Cole’s snark, either…
UPDATE: The jafis hated it too. As usual, they and Al Qaeda are on the same page.
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plimfix
It’s the reality TV show I dream of. Big Brother, with housemates including Osama Bin Ladin et al and Daniel Pipes et al.
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BuzzK
Someone left the door open and in walked a couple of cluckers. “Shooter” and “Darkwind.” Sounds like the same troubled “Youth for Cheney” inductee.
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willow
I’ve been taking out the trash.
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aziz
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abunoor
Obviously there is much good in the speech — as a speech. This may be my own limitation, but I just cannot get certain realites out of my mind when I read it. I cannot listen to a line about closing Guantanamo without thinking of the torture that occurred, those that are dead, the Uighurs, undeniably innocent and harmless, still languishing there…the buildup of a massive prison at Bagram in Afghanistan which from all appearances has worse conditions than Gitmo and will apparently serve the same purpose once it is closed.
When Obama talks about the injustice of Al Qaida killing innocents regardless of the grievance, I cannot help but agree….but I cannot help but notice that he cannot acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of innocents that his own country has killed, including under his own command.
When Obama talks about the historical reality of the Jewish people and their desire for a state, I cannot help but sympathize and I truly hope that all of us as Muslims can continue to try to spread an appreciation for that history among Muslims despite the fact that many pro-Israel voices seem determined to adopt hateful positions which deny the equal humanity of Palestinians and Muslims. Still, Obama can talk about Blackamericans not using violence to achieve freedom, but apparently the contradiction with his justification of the US using violence against Muslims to advance its own interests and protect its own civilians doesn’t even occur to him.
I don’t mean to be overly nitpicky, I’m just saying that when one attempts to go beyond flowery rhetoric and really say is this a vision that substantively we can share and work towards in the real world…it just becomes obvious immediately that even Obama does not really follow through on the substance of much of his claims at the end of the day.
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aziz
well, I pretty much agree with you – though it should be noted that where America’s past actions fail to meet teh standardds of the present day speech, the speech itself becomes a record against which future actions can be judged. And the speech is titled “A New Beginning” – so sure lets not forget the past but we can and should look forward. Closing Gitmo is what is important, not the torture that went on there (and will not happen again), for example.
Rhetoric isnt just rhetoric – its now the official record. Obama is now accountable to himself. For example, i can now make a much stronger argument in my campaign to classify aerial bombardment as inhumane during war, like land mines or poison gas, because the collateral damage is similar – Obama’s own words you cite about killing innocents gives me much greater authority.
I think there was an unreasonable expectation that Obama would take office and throw the switch on reversing everything we dont like about everything. Real change takes time, for it to be lasting. And its up to us to point out what Obama himself probably genuinely doesnt realize needs to be changed.
being nitpicky is good.
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Lawrence of Arabia
Violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.
I think, coming from POTUS, we call that either irony or hypocrisy. Maybe when the American army isn’t spread over the entire globe, and isn’t waging several wars, we can then lecture someone [in this case, the Palestinians] about what a dead-end violence is. Until then, it seems we have a great deal of faith in the power of violence.
And surely, if I thought this passage ran entirely counter to American foreign policy, people throughout the Middle East were either laughing or angered by such shameless and self-serving rhetoric.
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Lawrence of Arabia
On the positive side, I thought the criticism of our “liberal” allies (and obviously the biggest culprit here is France and the Netherlands) for using liberalism as a tool for attacking Islam, religious freedom and freedom of speech was right on target….and a long time coming.
I was also happy to see the U.S. back off from its democracy-crusade. I thought this speech set out a somewhat more reasonable and slightly less triumphalistic set of goals.
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aziz
solid critique from The Angry Arab worth reading.
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plimfix
Obama is a slick intelligent politician, and for once, perhaps a politician who actually believes in what he says. Whether his hopes will lead to concrete change remains to be seen, or whether his vision –even it it does come to fruition — is capable of delivering substantial political, economic, social and environmental justice, even in the US is a moot point. One thing I am sure of,. He’s not G W Bush.
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thabet
I think pretty much agree what everything Abu Noor and LoA said, especially the bits on the use of violence (but collateral damage and illegal invasions of countries based on lies seems to be ok though) and his ‘unequivocal’ end to torture and Guantanamo (errr, except kidnapping still continues, Guantanamo is still open and people continue to die in it, and no one with who had the real responsibility for torture will be punished). I also thought his refusal to condemn Israeli violence while condemning Palestinian violence was very telling.
Having said that, at this moment in time, I don’t see the value in ‘fisking’ his speech. There was very little in the way of actual policies and so on and the speech was clearly designed to be an introduction to his presidency. As Aziz says, Obama is now accountable to his own words.
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Kawthar
What “Muslim World“?
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razib
who disagrees with this? if obama was a conservative republican wouldn’t be all over this sort of generalization?
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thabet
I agree with the sentiments expressed (i.e. why not look at these countries in their geopolitical setting, e.g. ASEAN, South Asian, Middle/Near Eastern, North African, etc), but the US has hardly done much to counter the assertion of the bin Ladenists that it is at war with Muslims (maybe he could just drop the ‘world’ part). (Invading two Muslim-majority countries, one of them on a completely unjustified basis, and pissing away any good will it had in the other; kidnap, torture, indefinite detention… all of Muslims; explicitly anti-Muslim stuff like desecration of the Qur’an at Guantanamo; Abu Ghraib… and so on). Couple that with the shit from the Right and it doesn’t look nice to outsiders.)
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shams, 
Freddy, 
BuzzK, and 
thabet, 
razib are discussing. 
AA 8:48 am on July 11, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
How is that funny?
Lawrence of Arabia 8:50 am on July 11, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
this is more like the way Obama “respected” Muslims by not allowing hijabis on the podium during the presidential campaign.
Freddy 1:00 pm on July 11, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I still think he was the better candidate, but is anyone really surprised?
shams 4:10 am on July 12, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
man, i keep trying to ‘splain this. the biggest worry in the WH right now is that our Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Israel is going to a lob a nuke onto Iran if she feels unloved, so’s to drag the US into thermonuclear war while she still can. ‘Nejad wants this, the Sauds kinda want it, Palin and the neotards and the teabaggers want it, the zzraelis want it……
Obama and Petraeus got a tight-rope act going on, and as usual Brother Thabet is all pissy cuz Obama doesn’t toe the line on what he tinks Obama should do.