Hussein Obama

No one could deny that the speech of the US president Barack Obama from Cairo is the most important international event of 06/04/09. This event is so important for it’s the speech addressed from the president of the strongest country in the world. Also, it has more importance as it’s addressed to the Muslim world, one of the nations with which the west have tough confrontations. Throughout history, Islam and Christianity have confronted since the Crusades up till now. And of course this what the president referred to as historical and religious tensions. This confrontation is remarkably has grown especially after 9/11 events.

Nowadays, Islam is a source of fear for a large number of people in the west and it is remarked that the Islam-phobia is what determining the west in his relation with Muslims in these years especially after 9/11 events and this is what Obama cited here “The attacks of Sept, 11, 2001, and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians have led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile”.

After these september events, US, under the president Bush, led more blood shed in Muslim countries, namely in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. May be Bush thought that leading war against Muslims would be a solution for this confrontation, but in the contrary, these wars led only to more violence which is still seen here and there in different parts of the world.

Today, Barack Hussein Obama has given a different speech. With his middle name “Hussein” which could be seen as a Muslim background for the current US president and this is what he wanted to strengthen when he said “I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims.”, Obama has cited different verses of Holly Koran as if to say to the Muslims that I have knowledge about Islam and that your religion could be ours too especially when he said in many times that “Koran told us”. And by doing so, may be he wanted to tell both Muslims and the west that Islam has never urged for violence and the hatred between the west, particularly US, and Muslims could be came over.

From Obama speech, we remark a change in US’s policies toward the Muslims. And we could understand that US wants to reach peace. But to what extent US, far from the eloquence of the president’s speech, is trying to solve the problem with Muslims in peaceful ways by listening to the Muslims and accept that they have different characteristics as the west has his own characteristics? But, since the Muslims are in the position of weakness and not of strength, they really don’t have a strong voice in the current world movements. But if the west don’t know how to deal with the strength they have, the violence they want to stop will never ended and the peace we all aiming to be reached will be suspended to another date.