A week has elapsed since President Obama addressed the Muslim world in a speech delivered at Cairo University. Time, then, for a cool-headed assessment of the implications of what was said and the significance of what was left unsaid. First up, is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a refugee from African and European Islam. In "The iPod and the Queen, the Kindle and the King", she wasn't exactly disdainful of the speech, but she wasn't admiring, either:
"Nowhere in the world is bigotry so rampant as in Muslim countries. No difference is greater between American and Islamic principles than the founding ideals of both. It is on the basis of the founding ideals of Islam that al-Qaida and other Muslim puritans insist on the implementation of sharia law, jihad and the eternal subjection of women. It is on the basis of the founding ideals of America that blacks and women fought for — and gained — equal rights and gays and new immigrants continue to do so."
Next is Camille Paglia, a brilliant intellect and a person who is both a beneficiary and an advocate of the struggle for equal rights that Hirsi Ali refers to in her article. Paglia voted for Obama and continues to support him, but in "Obama's hit — and big miss", her verdict on the Cairo speech is mixed and, ultimately, negative.
"Obama's lack of fervor may be one reason he rejects and perhaps cannot comprehend the religious passions that perennially erupt around the globe and that will never be waved away by mere words. By approaching religion with the cool, neutral voice of the American professional elite, Obama was sometimes simplistic and even inadvertently condescending, as in his gift bag of educational perks like 'scholarships,' 'internships,' and 'online learning' — as if any of these could checkmate the seething, hallucinatory obsessions of jihadism."
Finally, the conservative journalist Christopher Caldwell, who writes a weekly column on politics, culture and international affairs for the Financial Times. Interestingly, just as Camille Paglia picked up on Ayann Hirsi Ali's reference to the struggle for human rights, Caldwell picks up on Paglia's observation that Obama, who projects religious sympathy, understands absolutely nothing about faith. In "The politics of self-abasement", Caldwell is honest and clinical:
"If 'choice' is the way forward, then Mr Obama is addressing his audience not as Muslims but as citizens. Politics is about choice. Religion is not — it is about truth. As soon as there are meaningful free choices about whether to be liberated or traditional, the problem defines itself away. The point of the Cairo speech was to break faith with Israel on peace negotiations, in hope that the move will provoke concessions from Muslims. Wrapped around that realpolitik was an oration which was heartfelt and subtle — but which neither made the US stronger than before, nor made the world safer."
These three readings of President Obama's landmark speech suggest that while a new approach to the Muslim world is in all our interests, no good can come from ignoring reality, misinterpreting motivations or avoiding confronting the nihilism that Islam has nurtured.
