Bush, Obama Take Two Different Approaches to Muslim Democracy
It may be a historical curiosity that both Condoleezza Rice — President Bush’s secretary of state — and President Barack Obama chose Cairo University as the venue to send their messages to the Arab world. Egypt, the most populous Arab country and the largest Arab recipient of U.S. foreign aid, is also the country from which President/dictator Hosni Mubarak pledges his support for the U.S. and the West, causing his countrymen to hate America for its support of their dictator. Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 al-Qaeda suicide bombers, was an upper-middle-class Egyptian.
What is significant about the two speeches delivered at Cairo University is the difference in tone and substance. Secretary of State Rice spoke to the Arab world by way of the Egyptian student audience with 9/11 very much on her mind when she said:
In our world today, a growing number of men and women are securing their liberty. And as these people gain the power to choose, they create democratic governments to protect their natural rights. We should all look to a future when every government respects the will of its citizens — because the ideal of democracy is universal. …
For 60 years my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East — and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.
The George W. Bush administration surmised correctly that terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam was due to the absence of democracy and pluralism in the Arab world. Under dictators such as Abdul Nasser in Egypt, the failure of Arab socialism and nationalism to provide liberty and prosperity for their people made Islam the only safe avenue for protest and change. The mosque became the outlet for the frustration. Dr. Ayman al-Zahawiri, the second-in-command of al-Qaeda, found it easy to recruit future terrorists among privileged students who did not see a future for themselves in Egypt.
Obama’s Cairo speech was ostensibly meant to “repair America’s relations with Islam.” However, the tone of his June 4, 2009, speech was appeasing and apologetic. Obama blamed the West and America for the failures of Arab countries, rather than the Arab dictatorial leaders:
Tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.
Has President Obama deliberately lost sight of the fact that India, Singapore, and other South Asian countries were also colonized by Western powers, and that they too were treated as proxies?
To be fair Singapore is not a democracy nor does it have freedom of speech. But mostly the citizens are happy because it has a competent government that runs a country very well. None of the Arab states have that.
To be fair, Singapore’s government consists of three branches: the Executive (President and Cabinet), the Legislative (Parliament), and the Judicial (Supreme and Subordinate Courts). As the President is largely ceremonial it is the Cabinet (the Prime Minister and other ministers appointed by the President on advice of the PM) that mainly runs the GOS. It is true that the GOS tends to be much more autocratic and authoritarian than the US has traditionally been and the GOS has been dominated by a single party (People’s Action Party) since 1959, but then again Japan has been led by the LDP almost continuously since 1955.
I do agree, though, that none of the Arab states have anything close to Singapore, but Iraq is working on it.
The longer Obama is in office the more distant and uncertain are his words of hope and change, morphing into business as usual in dealing with the Middle East. You also bring us a interesting point. Why is he so concerned about the majority in those lands when it is obvious that the ones who suffer the most are the minorities; Christians, Kurds, and Jews.
How in the hell did that happen, where the ones in power of that region of the world for centuries, the ones who torment the rest of the world, have managed to portray themselves as the poor victims. They have owned that part of the world living off the backs of those they hold prisoner with their yoke of suppression and tyranny. Now we have a president who seems happy to again give merit to their deceit.
They wear blinders proudly, he and his intellectual cronies.
“President/dictator Hosni Mubarak pledges his support for the U.S. and the West, causing his countrymen to hate America for its support of their dictator.”
Mubarak’s regime is the only thing standing between Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood.
“The George W. Bush administration surmised correctly that terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam was due to the absence of democracy and pluralism in the Arab world.”
Watch out what you wish for. Gaza had a democratic vote and wound up with Hamas. And regardless of the Bush administration’s surmises, it accomplished nothing in the Middle East during its eight years.
#4
You are correct in saying to the people of Gaza; Watch out what you wish for, because they voted for a corrupt government and that is exactly what they got.
biblio44: “And regardless of the Bush administration’s surmises, it accomplished nothing in the Middle East during its eight years.”
Sorry but you are wrong. Syria got out of Lebanon and we did not get attacked. The War in Iraq attracted an entire generation of terrorists (extra men with no hope, due to polygamy) from all over the ME and introduced them to the 72 raisons. Here comes Obama fighting for the “right” of women to wear the veil. The veil is an excuse for men to rape women.
This is a great article pointing out the difference between a real man who cares about people with genuine courage, and a quisling.
“it accomplished nothing in the Middle East during its eight years.”
Funny, I thought there used to be a genocidal madman somewhere in the Middle East…in the Baghdad area.
I guess the aliens took him…or did he give up his post voluntarily, established a fledgling democracy, and then hung his own rotten ass? Also, wasn’t there some stuff going on in Lebanon that kind of stopped after that whole Hussein thing I just mentioned?
Jeebus biblio, if you’re going to troll, at least TRY and make it a little hard to call you out.
Democracy & Islam are incompatible. The dictatorships through-out the Muslim world are a symptom, not a cause. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is likewise a symptom, not a cause of conflict. The problem of the Middle-East (and of much of the world, lately) is ISLAM. Islam is a totalitarian political system not a religion. The problems are a direct result of the core beliefs of the ideology, such as Jihad. Terrorism is a tactic in the war against non-Muslims.