By choosing Cairo, Egypt as the platform for his long awaited address to the global Muslim community, President Barack Obama predictably leans on a reliable dictatorship suffocating a country that is teetering toward religious and political irrelevance.

Indeed, modern Egypt resembles its ubiquitous tourist attraction, the Sphinx, the symbolic temple guardian adorned with a human head on a prostrate lion.

Similarly, the near-30-year, brutal autocracy of Hosni Mubarak weighs heavily on the immobilised body of an exasperated, stifled and proud populace who've wearily observed their country, a former beacon for Arab nationalism, transformed into a loyal watchdog and stooge for anti-democratic, "pro-western" policies.

Perhaps Turkey, which Obama visited last month, served as a more ideal and dynamic location due to its successful marriage of secular democracy and Islam, as evidenced by the election of the AKP party, a moderate, pro-western political party with Islamic leanings.

Or Obama could have chosen Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, which recently held free elections and whose citizens roundly rejected rightwing, deeply conservative Islamic parties in favour of non-sectarianism and moderation.

Obama's speech in Cairo on June will mark the third time he has addressed the Muslim world, seeking partnership and conciliation with Muslims jaded by George Bush's unrelentingly belligerent and humiliating "war on terror" policies and his divisive, poisonous rhetoric. In his first major interview to Al-Arabiya, Obama proclaimed: "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy."

Yet, Obama's choice of Egypt is an implicit endorsement and validation of Mubarak's dictatorship, and it reiterates the oft-spoken but albeit true cliché in the Muslim world that US merely covets selfish policy interests instead of democratisation, autonomy and self determination by and for the Arab and Muslim people.

During a visit to Egypt last week, Robert Gates, the US secretary of defence, affirmed that America's $2bn in aid to Egypt will continue, thus assuring Egypt's perennial spot as one of US's closest allies and recipients of monetary benevolence.

This charity flows annually despite the Egyptian government's brutal crackdown on political opposition, the free press, dissidents and even critical bloggers whose punishment runs the ignominious gamut from harassment and arrests to torture and "mysterious disappearances". For example, a Christian blogger, Hani Nazeer Aziz, turned himself in after the government's security apparatus arrested two of his brothers and used them as hostages, forcing his surrender.

Mubarak's Egypt also shares a lucrative outsourcing arrangement with the US. Instead of telecommunication and tech support services, Egypt, along with Syria, specialises in torture, so US can conveniently bypass laws, due process and international human rights. Mamdouh Habib, who was eventually sent to Guantánamo Bay, was outsourced by the US to Egypt, where he said he was "hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten", according to the Washington Post.

Partaking in what is now a routine and convenient pastime for dictators of Muslim countries, Mubarak casually manipulates the constitution like Play-Doh. His government recently amended the document to outlaw opposing "religious parties" like the Muslim Brotherhood – an influential, extremely conservative Islamic political party that won 20% of parliamentary seats in 2005 elections – and neuter judicial supervision over future sham elections, thus ensuring the Mubarak dictatorship dynasty is passed on to his son, Gamal.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Jordan follow this brazen display of forceful attempts to stifle democracy. All of them are long-term US allies whose respective leaders have shared cosy, mutually beneficial relationships. Sadly, the US seems more committed to supporting reliable despots who toe the line than to dealing with democratic parties representative of the people's desires and values.

If Obama is sincere in treating Muslims as partners and engaging them with mutual respect, his very pretty words must inspire legitimate policy reform. First, he must use this opportunity to empathise with the people's concerns by denouncing the heinous crimes and oppressive, intolerant conduct of client autocrats, such as Mubarak and the Saudi royal family – just to name a couple.

Second, he must implement a long-term policy initiative that nurtures the emergence of vibrant democratic parties representing the people's voice throughout the Middle East, especially in Egypt, which has been paralysed by a faltering national economy and decades of unrelenting dictatorships.

Although Obama's shameful silence on Israel's massacre in Gaza and his increasingly unsuccessful and casualty-inducing drone attacks in Pakistan have left many Muslims frustrated, his words of conciliation, dignity and respect continue to inspire optimistic Egyptians and Muslims abroad, whose only currency now is hope for an new era of changed, enlightened US relations with the Middle East that does not depend on dictatorships and prostration.

(Photo: Stefan Geens via flickr under a Creative Commons license. This piece was previously published in The Guardian, Comment is Free)

I generally agree that Egypt is a bad choice. However, whether we like it or not, the Arab world is the cultural center of the larger Islamic workd (me: not like it). All else is the periphery, and a message delivered in the periphery is largely an inefficient spending of political capital.

>>cliché in the Muslim world that US merely covets selfish policy interests instead of democratisation,

Democratization (aka populism) isn't the right policy; Liberalization ought to come first, else the West is shooting itself in the foot with ultra-convervative populists.

>>self determination by and for the Arab and Muslim people.

Why the distinction between Arab and Muslim? Aren't we all the same as brothers and sisters in faith?

I really don't understand the point by the folks who are complaining about this. So what? Muslim societies to a large extent anywhere are authoritarian - that doesn't mean they are alQaeda / Taliban like. They are what they are. More substance please - like speculation on what he'll say and what sort of acts of cooperation could we hope for etc.?

>the Arab world is the cultural center of the larger Islamic workd (me: not like it).<

Nonsense. Arabs make up around 20% of the Islamic world's population and hardly its "cultural center."

>Democratization (aka populism) isn't the right policy; Liberalization ought to come first, else the West is shooting itself in the foot with ultra-convervative populists.<

So you're essentially promoting the agenda Westen hegemony. Oh yeah, let have more of the same "liberalization" which the local western installed puppet regimes have championed for decades and further cripple society while preventing anyone else from standing up.

>I really don't understand the point by the folks who are complaining about this.<

Asalam Aliakum AsifSheikh,
Don't fall for the hype. We'll keep hearing about the Al-Queda and/or Taliban phantom menace till the end of time to justify imperial wars of conquest. Listen to this :
http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/05/08/eric-margolis-15/

the lack of any public accountability of the armies and regimes in Muslim lands which the U.S. backs (and funds) to secure its own interests often at the expense of the local people in the area and their interests is *fundamentally* at the heart of the differences between Islam/Muslims and the U.S.

the typical argument used to justify this was that they preferred doing business with the "stability" (of dictators/kings/queens) of a known business partner vs. the instability of elections, popular revolts of those in which the "wrong" group/party might win and jeapardize U.S. interests.

>let have more of the same "liberalization" which the local western >installed puppet regimes have championed for decades and further >cripple society while preventing anyone else from standing up.

this point is fair, and is well documented in this article below:

http://www.muslimedia.com/stateummah2.htm

"the lack of any public accountability of the armies and regimes in Muslim lands which the U.S. backs (and funds) to secure its own interests often at the expense of the local people in the area and their interests is *fundamentally* at the heart of the differences between Islam/Muslims and the U.S."

It is becoming clearer and clearer to me now that the exceptional focus on America's oh so awesome power steadily, rationally and so perfectly taking over the lives of muslims (i.e. paranoid thinking) has caused muslim political discourse to be in a state of arrested development. America is a big powerful country and will use it unjustly and for its own interests. Big deal! Get over it! Muslims did the same things when they were imperial powers. Our religious law still to this day has the category of the dhimmi.

American power is not so deterministic that it can't be or hasn't been challenged. Examples: Pakistan's shenanigans in Afghanistan with its support of the Taliban and Saudis using their wealth to promote versions of Islam (which I have nothing against) that are incompatible with local Islamic traditions in other parts of the world.

On the other end of the spectrum the exceptional focus on OBL, Qaeda, and Islamism by external actors (e.g. the americans) and those muslims who are alienated from religion and Islamist politics prevents muslims from developing a sophisticated understanding of religion, spirituality and the intersection of these with politics and justice.

A muslim version of MoveOn.org would ideally bring us back from these positions and attitudes.

"So you're essentially promoting the agenda Westen hegemony."

What do you promote, DrM?

Isn't it possible that Obama went to Egypt because noones going to protest his arrival in the police state, and noone is going to make any foreign policy demands of him while he's there?

Asifsheikh >>> Big deal! Get over it! Muslims did the same things when they were imperial powers. Our religious law still to this day has the category of the dhimmi. >> American power is not so deterministic that it can't be or hasn't been challenged.

Exactly. If the most progressive force for development is the tyrant, can we really be upset with the system until society effectively develops a working alternative (revolution or otherwise). This is not about changing Islam. This is about advancing Muslims. What Obama effectively says with regards to trade, international co-operation and multilateralistm is ultimately going to have some sort of transformative impact.

From my side of the planet however, it seems that Obamas administration is resorting to traditional neo-liberal tactics and couldn't give a stuff about partnerships, Muslim or otherwise. So I guess crying about how much Obama partners the rest of the world, actually creates the impression of Muslims sincerely wanting to stand in line, hat in hand, rather than developing themselves independently or amongst others. That's not true of us though. I think that's an emotional need of American Muslims and not a practical need for rest of the Ummah.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200905120111.html
http://www.tradejusticeusa.org/issues/trade_agreements/southafrica.htm

Solomon2 >>> "So you're essentially promoting the agenda Westen hegemony." >> What do you promote, DrM?

While you've effectively answered that question, I'd like you to word it out for us. Do you essentially promote the agenda of Western Hegemony? Its obvious that DrM promotes an anti-hegemonic, more participatory agenda. The peoples agenda. Loathesome as you find it to accept others as being equally human to you.

OmarG >>> the Arab world is the cultural center of the larger Islamic world

Far from it OmarG. I feel that visiting Nigeria or Indonesia would have had as much/more of an effect on the Muslim world. The largest gathering of Muslims in the world, approximately 2million people, is the Bishwa Ijtima in Bangladesh, a few thousand miles from the middle east and hardly a blip on the US radar since the CIA sponsored coup of that countries democracy.

@Ghulam >>Far from it OmarG.

Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Arabic Language, al-Azhar, "Sayeds", Arab style clothing is all the rage among the ultra-conservatives, etc...

>>the Bishwa Ijtima in Bangladesh

How many Arabs go to that? You can always tell where the assumed cultural center is relative to the periphery by: whose language is adopted, who marries their daughters into other cultural groups, who participates or does not participates in others' events YET is not criticized for any of the above cultural hegemonies / aloofness from adopting the rest of the ummah's cultures. The center almost never borrows from the periphery, but "donates" plenty to the cultures of the periphery.

Obama is a realist and chose an Arab country exactly because its the cultural center. Other Muslim cultures are more advanced, but they are merely local or regional and do not influence other parts of the Ummah. How many Nigerian words have filtered into other Muslim languages? How many people ooh and aah when an Indonesian scholar comes to town versus a Saudi or Syrian? Who else in the Ummah knows jack about Indonesia or Nigeria let alone be influenced by events that take place in its borders? How many Hausa language schools are setup in other Muslim countries? How many Muslims even know where Hausa is spoken??

You want to live in the hegemony that shoots you for your hems or the hegemony that doesn't care? Dr. Moron lives in the Western hege because the other might shut his mouth.

I am all for the US getting out of muslim lands and muslims getting out of the West. Let the muslims make Islamic states. I notice that the more closely they adhere to the scriptures - Iran, Saudi - the more they are decried as "unislamic". Yes, may the stoned and flogged increase in number.

No aid, no interference. No oil. We made cold fusion a couple of days ago.

>You want to live in the hegemony that shoots you for your hems or the hegemony that doesn't care? Dr. Moron lives in the Western hege because the other might shut his mouth.<

Wrong as ever, elizard. As I've told you before, we're not your colonial subjects, on the contrary you're the brown and black man's burden. A sick parasite.
The only mouth which should be shut is yours. Or is that a pigs snout?


>What do you promote, DrM?<

Local control. It would also be great if judeofascist hegemony over the US was brought to an end.

>I am all for the US getting out of muslim lands and muslims getting out of the West. Let the muslims make Islamic states. I notice that the more closely they adhere to the scriptures - Iran, Saudi - the more they are decried as "unislamic". Yes, may the stoned and flogged increase in number.<

Actually you're not for getting out of the Middle East, thats why you support terrorism in the Middle East. Iran and Saudi Arabia are not states which adhere to scripture, idiot. If you had a clue about the history of the region you wouldn't sound half as retarded. As for flogging, I'll take that over sick demented bastards legalizing rampant drug usage, incest, pedophilia and bestiality any day.
Never mind the fact that you install, finance and arm just about every dictatorship on the planet.
>No aid, no interference. No oil. We made cold fusion a couple of days ago.<

Yeah sure, we've been hearing about "cold fusion" for a while now. Get on with it, and piss off back to the Nazi pig sty.

Dr Moron, you should take a logic pill. Also, work on reducing your God complex.

Yes, go make Islamic states. Fill the air with heads, whips, stones....chop, chop, whack, whack, splat, splat.

You should go immediately to the Islamic hegemony and work on their rampant drug usage, incest, pedophilia and bestiality.

Yes, go there. You might be flogged. Then you can tell us definitely whether or not it is torture.

Why live in the Western Hege where one has to depend on bordellos and porn for sadistic ecstasies? Go to the Islamic states, experience the same thing in public with public approval. Faugh, what degradation.

"A blow to democracy"? Possibly, but I am just familiar enough with Egypt's democracy activists to know that no matter what course of action the U.S. takes the U.S. will be blamed for doing the wrong thing; they can hold opposite opinions in the same sentence and not see the contradiction. These activists may want things to change, but I'm afraid they do not yet accept the importance of personal political responsibility that is the hallmark of democratic politicians.

Elizard, you should take a cyanide pill and end your useless pitiful existence. Better yet go play Russian roulette with all chambers loaded. Your description of the Islamic world as usual is laced with the same laughable fantasies like something out of the "Temple of Doom." It's a pathetic smokescreen for terrorism you practice globally.
You can't address the facts because you have no case. I have absolutely no objection Nazi pigs like you being flogged, shot etc. I think it would improve your condition significantly. As I've said before there's more culture in a bombed out Baghdad latrine then there is in all of Europe. The good news is that destructive, amoral inferior European culture is dying out as it should. Incest, beastiality, drug usage, eating placentas(with or without the fetus) are not "values" normal human beings believe in.
Forget the cold fusion hype, you could power your primitive nations with the amount of methane coming out of both ends of your mouth. Get out of the Middle East(and pretty much any other part of the world you're causing trouble in), and take your client regimes with you.
Good riddance to European trash.

>>>> How many Arabs go to that? You can always tell where the assumed cultural center is relative to the periphery by: whose language is adopted, who marries their daughters into other cultural groups, who participates or does not participates in others' events YET is not criticized for any of the above cultural hegemonies / aloofness from adopting the rest of the ummah's cultures. The center almost never borrows from the periphery, but "donates" plenty to the cultures of the periphery.

Uhm ... okey dokey ... you need to review Islamic history.

There may be a dominant force with regards to culture. But by and large, whether it is art, business, education, literature .. you will be hard pressed to convince me that this Ummah leans heavily to one side. Its out of our love for our Prophet SAW and to find authenticity in Islam that we may SOMETIMES elevate Arab culture.

And to assume that we're all Arab wannabes can be seen as just racist and superficial. There is independence, co-dependence, and a healthy dose of mutualism too! Remember that Egyptians are not the Arabs who received revelation (and they weren't speaking Arabic at that time either). Arab culture dominates the Muslim world as much as coffee is a culturally arab. Egyptians are as much bedouin as I am Tamilian or you are Irish.

I say Obama went to Egypt because its where he would be safe .. in the hands of an effective police state. He further sough to address the geopolitical issues that face Israel. Egypt buys American military products, supports the two state solution, doesn't allow Hamas to seek support in Egypt. RealPolitik.

Eliza >>> You want to live in the hegemony that shoots you for your hems or the hegemony that doesn't care? Dr. Moron lives in the Western hege because the other might shut his mouth.

There are plenty of examples of violence and even massacres in the US that are a result of culture, ideas. Discrimination on the basis of sex and race and religion too. You take one or two (probably falsified) incidences, misinterpret them .. then start singing the song. You have problems.

Solomon >>> but I am just familiar enough with Egypt's democracy activists to know that no matter what course of action the U.S. takes the U.S. will be blamed for doing the wrong thing;

If you are as familiar with democracy activists in Egypt as you have proven to be familiar with the motivations and causes of the rest of the Muslim world, then I'm going to have to disagree with you because... you're consistently biased. That and the perspective you usually defend is prone to lying.

When you are a nation that dominates world politics, happily label yourself a Super-Empire to the extent you don't mind assassinating presidents or counting the dead, then maybe being responsible for your actions is the least you should expect from the global community. Economists in South Africa have a saying, when the US sneezes, the worlds gets a cold.

Its about time you give up pretending to balance our debates, when all you're doing is warping the debate we're actually having with you.

Ghulam, I don't think you would live in a place where your daughters could be legally flogged for wearing makeup or not wearing a scarf, and your sons hanged for being gay.

In the US you might be murdered for being gay, but not legally.

"If you are as familiar with democracy activists in Egypt as you have proven to be familiar with the motivations and causes of the rest of the Muslim world -"

No, a bit more than that.

"...you're consistently biased."

Please (1) define "bias" and (2) explain what is wrong with my bias.

"the perspective you usually defend is prone to lying."

I don't understand. Please provide an example.

"maybe being responsible for your actions is the least you should expect from the global community"

This is different. Say an American policy towards Egypt is a choice between X and Y, both policies advocated by different branches of Egypt's democracy reform movement, and ask democracy activists for their choice. The reply is that X is a U.S. plot against Egypt and that Y means the U.S. supports Mubarak's dictatorship.

"Its about time you give up pretending to balance our debates -"

My presence here is about "balance"?

>your daughters could be legally flogged for wearing makeup or not wearing a scarf<

Nobody gets flogged for for wearing make-up or being without a scarf, nazi carrion, criminals on the other hand aren't so lucky. Given your retarded obsession with flogging, you might want to check out the S&M scene which disgusting European perverts are heavily into, leather, whips and all.
Truly a failed culture, thankfully on its way down the sewer of history.

>My presence here is about "balance"?<

Your presence here is pretty much summed up with two words : judeofascist trolling. Its not simply a matter of bias but serious mental health issues when one lives 5000 years in the past thinking God is their personal real estate agent.

Alright. I have read different, Dr. Moron, but let's change it to not wanting to live in a place where your children would be flogged for anything, or executed for being gay.

Sol2 >>> Please (1) define "bias" and (2) explain what is wrong with my bias.

No. Why should I define an obvious word?

The perspective you usually defend .. whether its the Israeli view of Palestinians as non-existent people, or the American attachment of terrorism and mass destruction to Iraq...the list goes on, but I try not to preserve mythologys in my memory.

Sol2 >>> Say an American policy towards Egypt is a choice between X and Y,

Uhm .. that was not the argument at all. The choice wasn't between an X and a Y. And his choice of visit, considering vocal GLOBAL MUSLIM opposition to Mubaraks position regarding the Palestinian border (during that murder destruction of Palestine and as reflected in the American press no less), tied together with his speech and the subsidisation of arms to Saudi and the bombing of Pakistani and Afghan villages ... yes! .. believe it or not, we have actually been addressing issues in a far more broader and realistic way than those two egyptian guys you may or may not have come across at memri. I wonder if you really think we're blindly being led by your arguments.

Eliza >>> Ghulam, I don't think you would live in a place where your daughters could be legally flogged for wearing makeup or not wearing a scarf, and your sons hanged for being gay.

I wouldn't live in a country that indiscriminately wages wars on poor nations to legitimise its military industrial complex, that bombs rural villages, persists in humiliating the developing world for economic benefit etc. That said, majority of Pakistanis don't live in that country either.

But you're suffering from a blinkered vision of reality. You're taking exception to Afghanistan because of some traditional social norms, but couldn't give a stuff if millions of them died fighting a proxy war for the US or were dying from hunger because of western induced climate change. That's not as bad as being called a tart in some village in the mountains a thousand miles from a city. In fact, over a million people have died in Iraq since the invasion, and a million died between that invasion and the 1990 war. Too bad for them. Its the makeup and three quarter pants that has you in a tizz.