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Obama through Arab Eyes
Aref Assaf
February 15, 2008
I do not know how to describe my Primary vote for other than Obama. I did vote for Hilary Clinton as the Democratic
candidate for US president. I know some fellow Arab Americans
really like Obama and his promise of change. I of course see a
false vision with potentially worse outcome. In this piece,
however, I want to reflect on how the Arabs in the Arab world see
Barack Obama.
Barack Obama wants to restore America’s image around the world.
But how does the rest of the world view Barack Obama? I read an
interesting
commentary on that a few days ago.
You should really read the whole
thing.
Here one striking statement:"The point of course is not that
Obama is really a Muslim, because in America he is whatever he
says he is. American ideas about such things as choice,
religion, freedom of expression – including the freedom to
choose your own faith – are different from the rest of much of
the world. For us, a man is whatever religion he wants to
practice, or not practice. But for Muslims around the world,
non-American Muslims at any rate, they can only ever see Barack
Hussein Obama as a Muslim.
It’s useful keeping in mind that difference between how
Americans see our lives and our actions and how others see us,
given that one of the chief conceits of the Obama campaign is
that a president of his biological identity will redeem our
reputation around the world after George Bush enflamed the
better part of humanity by invading two Muslim countries."…
That’s an interesting way to make a point lost on most American
commentators: Barack Obama’s father was Muslim and therefore,
according to Islamic law, so is the candidate. In spite of the
Quranic verses explaining that there is no compulsion in
religion, a Muslim child takes the religion of his or her
father. The point of course is not that Obama is really a
Muslim, because in America he is whatever he says he is.
American ideas about such things as choice, religion, freedom of
expression – including the freedom to choose your own faith –
are different from the rest of much of the world. For us, a man
is whatever religion he wants to practice, or not practice.
But
for Muslims around the world, non-American Muslims at any rate,
they can only ever see Barack Hussein Obama as a Muslim. It’s
useful keeping in mind that difference between how Americans see
our lives and our actions and how others see us, given that one
of the chief conceits of the Obama campaign is that a president
of his biological identity will redeem our reputation around the
world after George Bush enflamed the better part of humanity by
invading two Muslim countries.
So, if we’re concerned about
how we look to the rest of the world, we should at least
recognize how much of the world looks at things. Laugh as some
may about the Bush Administration’s idea to export democracy to
the Middle East, they had the basic principle right. The world
needs our help more than we need to petition its approval. We
are a people who choose our own faith, and, after a civil war
and a civil rights movement, a nation where the dignity of each
individual human being is accorded respect, and men and women
are equal regardless of race, sex, religion or creed.
The Middle
East is not like that and George W. Bush thought it wise, for
the sake of Arabs and Americans, to try to do something about
it, an initiative that inspired some Arabs while it enraged
others. (So now guess who the good guys are in the Middle East
and who are the bad ones?) What made them like or dislike Bush
wasn’t the color of the president’s skin or his religious faith,
but his ideas.
It’s not clear to me why Americans seem now to be
trying to export a very un-American idea - that a man’s color
and his faith matter.
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