It is hard to overstate just how deeply unpopular the United States is in the Muslim world.
A 2008 poll of six majority Muslim countries found that overwhelmingly large portions of the population, ranging from 71 percent in Morocco to 87 percent in Egypt, held unfavorable opinions of the United States. A 2009 poll in Pakistan revealed that 64 percent of the public views the United States as an outright enemy.
Let’s imagine that the Cold War was a detour. The entire 20th century, in fact, was a detour. Since conflicts among the 20th-century ideologies (liberalism, communism, fascism) cost humanity so dearly, it’s hard to conceive of World War II and the clashes that followed as sideshows. And yet many people have begun to do just that. They view the period we find ourselves in right now — the so-called post-Cold War era — as a return to a much earlier time and a much earlier confrontation. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t discrete battles against a tyrant (Saddam Hussein) or a tyrannical group (the Taliban). They fit together with Turkey’s resurgence, the swell of Muslim immigration to Europe, and Israel’s settlement policy to form part of a much larger struggle.
In his Cairo address, President Obama boldly asserted a broad commonality between the United States and a quarter of humanity: “America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
When the Swiss voted last year to prohibit future construction of minarets on their soil, political commentators in neighboring European countries were quick to express their moral outrage. “The vote of shame,” headlined Liberation in France. Belgium’s Le Soir deemed targeting the towers in order to aim at the population below them to be “hypocritical and fallacious.” The London Times predicted “international embarrassment” for Switzerland.
In what some world strategists call “the arc of instability” from Pakistan to Israel and Palestine — and what others call the central pool of oil and still others call the heart of Islam — there are several sets of overlapping wars, military occupations, and semi-military sanctions in process between the U.S. and its allies and various Muslim-majority countries.
A chaikhana is a Central Asian teahouse where poets and performers — men and (unveiled) women — sing verses and recite prose in a conversational atmosphere with fellow patrons. In New York, last month’s Muslim Voices festival recreated a chaikhana to showcase Urdu writers from Pakistan, performances of Lebanese zajal (dueling poetry with audience response and affirmation), and West African jaliya, an hereditary bardic tradition from Mali that has produced many world music stars.
In Cairo last week, President Barack Obama addressed the Muslim world, calling for a "new beginning" in the search for peace and prosperity in the Middle East. What he failed to address in this widely anticipated speech, however, were the repressive and corrupt regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. While eloquently promoting democracy, religious freedom, and women’s rights, Obama ignored the human rights abuses that have become routine under the 28-year dictatorship of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Similarly, on his visit to Saudi Arabia, the president refrained from publicly criticizing King Abdullah’s brutal theocracy.
Over the past week, President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo elicited a variety of reactions from its intended Arab and Muslim audience. The success of his outreach efforts, however, will be decided by a more unlikely group: the American public.
President Barack Obama began the dialogue between the West and the Muslim and Arab worlds by directly confronting the vexing issues between them. The new tone is devoid of arrogance and emphasizes peaceful coexistence — in contrast to the prior administration’s bellicose tone and militaristic policy.
The opening scene of Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2002) comes as a shock to the seasoned Bollywood enthusiast. A montage of news reports flickers across the screen. Images from 9/11, the murder of Daniel Pearl, America’s invasion of Iraq, and the most recent sectarian violence in Gujarat confront the unsuspecting viewer.