Give Him a Chance and Time
By MisbahU.Azam, PhD
Phoenix, AZ
President Barak Obama’s landmark speech in Egypt may prove to be a watershed event: it may pave the way for a dialogue of civilizations instead of the much trumpeted clash of civilizations. In Pakistan, the reaction to the speech was widely lukewarm or cautiously supportive; however, as expected; a large number of analysts and politicians in seemed to reject the goodwill shown by the President in his speech. Following are some key concerns they expressed:
1) Obama did not mention the Kashmir issue.
2) Obama emphasized the Americans’ “strong bonds” with Israel.
3) Obama mentioned the Jewish holocaust but failed to mention the holocaust of the Palestinians.
4) Obama was offering a hand of friendship to Muslims as a representative of the West because today it has no choice but to join hands with Muslims for survival.
5) All that he said was nothing but hot air and no tangible results would ensue.
It is true that there is a huge trust deficit between the West, especially the US, and the Muslim world. However, looking at contemporary history it can be easily inferred that most US Presidents never had the courage to raise the Palestinian and Israeli issue in the first five months of their presidency. President Bush (senior) raised the issue a little over a year before his re-election after the US liberated Kuwait. President Clinton brought the Mid-East issue into the limelight when his second term was nearing the mid mark. President Bush (junior) gave an open hand to Israel to take decisions as it willed.
President Obama’s comment about Israel is actually a ground reality in the US which people of Pakistan must appreciate. In the US, Jewish people have made significant contributions in several fields - military, media, economy, and social uplift. A large number of Jewish people are in the academia and are responsible for ushering huge advances in the field of science and technology. Besides, ordinary Americans have sympathies for the Jewish people because they believe – rightly or wrongly - that the Jewish religion is close to theirs and Jews had suffered at the hands of the Christians. Obama was only trying to explain this reality to the Muslims.
Mistrust between the US and Pakistan began to build up from the very time when Pakistan decided to become a US ally during the Cold War and successive US governments supported dictatorships in the country. India, on the other hand, was seen by the Western world as a democracy, a potential market for business, and a potential regional power to counter China’s growing might. India’s importance may not be as much as it is today if China were a democracy. Besides, like the Jewish lobby in the US, the Indian lobby is also very strong because of the involvement of the large Indian diasporas in academia, technology, economy and politics. In some of the constituencies the Indian vote ultimately decides the election results. There is no doubt that President Obama strongly believes that the Kashmir issue must be resolved to lessen the temperature in South Asia and one expects that he would be working on resolving this issue. The people of Pakistan should not expect that the US President would publicly rebuff India.
If the Pakistani leadership was assertive and had worked hard to convince the West that Pakistan is not a subservient state but a country of 170 million self-respecting citizens, has its own interests and limitations, then the situation would have been very different today. Unfortunately, nothing to this effect was seen in the last 10 years.
Those who believe that Obama spoke to Muslims only because he had no choice must remember that the US still has a very resilient economy and potential to sustain wars for many, many years. If George W. Bush was in power, or if John McCain had won the elections, a status quo would have certainly prevailed and an end to the wars could not have been conceived in the near future. Obama’s speech was at least an effort to break the ice in the relations between the Muslim world and the West. Rome was not built in a day! He must be given time and a chance.
