Obama's disappointing speech
I am not surprised many people in my country showed little or no interest in Obama’s speech in Cairo. Like me, they are tired of being reduced to a cliché: “Muslim”.Surely there are millions and millions of ways of ‘being Muslim’? Surely many Muslims would not say that faith defines them, but other things such as national origin, political beliefs, or professional pursuits? Surely many people who are labelled as ‘Muslims’ would not say they are Muslim at all?!
One has to have very little sense of the world out-there to address (albeit with a message of peace) 1.5 billion individuals as if they were a clearly bounded and homogenous group. Frankly, does anybody go around nowadays and make speeches to the ‘Christian’ or ‘Hindu’ or ‘Buddhist’ or the ‘I-couldn’t-care-less-about-religion’ world?
Mr Obama is doing more harm than good. He is reproducing, reinforcing and perpetuating the received ideas and misunderstandings that prevailed under W's leadership. This is absolutely distressing.
posted by Tarek at
10:33
1 Comments:
You're absolutely right about the non sense of adressing 1,5 billion people as "muslims". One can not notice however "the shift in rethoric" Obama showed compared to his predecessor. His speech was not perfect, disapppointing sometimes but hope giving and I am still confident that things might change with this guy. It will be hard, he'll never be fair enough toward the "muslims" but let's wait and see...If it helps to change the mind of only a dozen people in the world toward "the muslim" world, it is better than nothing. The problem now is that even if we're sick to be addressed to as "muslims", there are people out there making their possible to keep us with that one identity and they are closer than the occidental media or leaders. It is a very serious issue we have to deal with. We have to fight against our own co-national enemies before putting the blame on the others.
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Anonymous, at 12:44 PM
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