[R-G] We wanted a world leader. We saw only a US president

[Suzanne de Kuyper]

The last eight years of illegal wars of choice in countries and on Human
Rights world wide have lessened the global reach of respect and U S
presidentail power by seruiously tarnishing the Shining City on the Hill.
.

On 6/9/09, Sid Shniad <shniad at sfu.ca> wrote:
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> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/05/barack-obama-cairo
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> The Guardian 5 June 2009
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> We wanted a world leader. We saw only a US president
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> Obama's long-awaited speech demonstrated little to suggest America will
> pursue any course beyond its own interests
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> Ahdaf Soueif
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> This is hard. It's hard because we so need to believe that Obama is about
> change, that he's wise, that he's good, that he has the interests of the
> world – rather than just the interests of the United States – at heart.
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> The 3,500 invited guests were told they'd have to be in their places by
> 10.30. But Obama would speak at one . An odd time for everyone, it would
> seem: for us in Cairo, where the cool of the evening is the preferred time
> for any event, and for people in America, who wouldn't yet have woken up. I
> dress with my eye on the television screen: the loop of Obama touching
> cheeks with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, his hand resting for a
> companionable minute on the old monarch's arm. Just before I leave the house
> I glimpse the prancing horses that make up part of Obama's procession into
> Cairo.
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> The Egyptian state is doing pomp, and relieved (because of the security
> lockdown) of traffic and noise Cairo is playing along: the morning light is
> clear and free of dust, the flame trees are magnificent with their crowns of
> red massed flowers.
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> In the great Festival Hall under the dome of Cairo University we are a
> good-humoured crowd, amusing ourselves during our three-hour wait by
> applauding the mic checks and housekeeping announcements of the Egyptian
> staff. Then something interesting happens: an American strides on to the
> stage, brusque and marine-like in his efficiency, he marches through a
> prolonged mic check: "One, two, three, mic check, from Cairo, Egypt, one,
> two …" When he's finished the tiny patter of hesitant applause dies out very
> quickly. In a ­couple of minutes he's back. "Mic check," he announces – then
> grins: "Last time, I promise." The crowd roars its approval, applauds him.
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> They even applaud Hilary Clinton as she beams in through a side door. There
> are a lot of empty seats: the ­security arrangements and the ­promise of the
> long wait have kept people away. But then Obama comes in, and we're on our
> feet: waving, ­cheering, ­clapping. And that, really, is the highlight of
> the occasion.
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> Obama did what many of us hoped he would not do: he accorded faith a
> central position in the relationship between our different parts of the
> world: rather than human beings with different histories and different
> political interests and ambitions – and despite a quick acknowledgment of
> colonialism – we were essentially people of different faiths who would now
> make nice with each other. And such is our beleaguered state of mind here in
> this part of the world that every time he quoted the Qur'an, he was
> applauded. But then again, it seemed that it was the same 200 or so people
> who were putting their hands together – to less effect each time.
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> "Extremism" was top of the agenda, even though al-Qaida, once so modern and
> cutting edge, is now tired and irrelevant. But it was prodded out of its
> stall again as justification for American operations in Afghanistan. We were
> reminded of the 3,000 people killed in New York – people who had done no
> harm to anyone. And every person listening east of Rome and many west of it
> would have been thinking "and what about the million Iraqis, what about the
> Afghanis, what about …" And ­nothing about non-Muslim extremism, about the
> 40 million American Christian Zionists anticipating the Rapture with glee,
> or the Israeli settlers who in Hebron take your photo and upload it to God
> to fast-lane you to hell.
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> Obama's speech was a lawyerly speech, a clever speech. It certainly
> departed from the Bush discourse, but how far away from the policies of the
> last eight years are the sources it springs from? We still can only wait and
> see.
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> The biggest applause he got was when he said that all US troops would be
> out of Iraq by 2012, and when he repeated his position on the Israeli
> settlements. He's been brave on the settlements, and of course we're all
> grateful for every step in the direction of halting the dispossession of the
> Palestinians. But it also needs to be remembered that stopping the
> settlements has been part of the official position of every American
> administration; what's required is the implementation of that position by
> cutting off the funding for the settlements and closing the tax loophole
> that allows private American organisations to fund them.
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> Around the pedestal carrying the Eternal Flame of Knowledge outside the
> university, the American activist group Code Pink carried banners that said
> "Obama: Stop funding Israeli war crimes". They came out of Gaza on Wednesday
> carrying a letter from Hamas to the American president, and they were at
> pains to point out that Hamas chose an American feminist group to carry
> their letter. I don't know if they managed to deliver it.
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> There is a difference between believing that ultimately the interests of
> the inhabitants of the planet are genuinely interconnected and believing
> that the interests of the world can be made to seem compatible with
> America's. Obama has said that America should have not only the power but
> the moral standing to lead the world. Today we waited for him to demonstrate
> that moral standing and assume the leadership of the world. He did not; he
> remained the President of the United States.
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