In Pursuit of an Untrodden Path

by K B KALE
Posted on 2009-06-19
SUCCESS of a speech can be gauged by how it is attacked and what it leads to. From both these counts, Mr Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo seems to be a great success with Muslim audiences all over the world.Firstly, it attracted pre-emptive attack from his biggest adversary, the Al Qaeda, two full days before he gave it (“Obama’s bloody messages would not be concealed by polished words”)!
And then, last Sunday, the Israeli PM accepted the two-nation theory to create a Palestine state. Though he added a lot of conditions, these are just pre-loaded stuff for trading at the negotiating table in subsequent ‘give-and-take’.
So the US President, Mr Obama is worthy of congratulations for this success. He was very balanced and apparently said what he meant and meant what he said. He was forthright to reiterate America’s strong bonds with Israel but equally emphatic in promising that America will not turn its backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspirations saying that Palestinian people had waited long in refugee camps wanting to lead a life of peace and security in their own homeland.
Mr Obama’s body language during his recent meeting with the Israeli PM, Mr Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington was different from the cosiness one generally sees between Presidents of USA and Israel. Very rarely have I seen any American President expressing his views so forcefully and an Israeli President looking so uncomfortable.
Mr Obama covered many issues and the other important issue beyond the ‘Arab-Israel conflict’ was ‘democracy’.
His comments on democracy were very interesting and educative for the young Indonesian democracy. He wanted the elected governments to protect fundamental rights, free speech and adult franchise because, according to him, only elected governments are stable, successful and secure and suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.
He mocked leaders who advocate for democracy only when they’re out of power but are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others once in power.
Whose examples were in front of Obama? Presidents for life like Iddi Amin? Kings and Sheikhs in the Middle East? Military rulers who came to power by way of coup d’états? Or those who usurped power under various excuses like constitutional loopholes, lack of stability, external threats and likely loss of unity of a country? Or was it Hitler who never won a clear majority in any of the three elections in 1932, but allowed the Nazi party to ‘arrange’ crowds of thugs to create chaos, violence and even murder to force the elected President Hindenburg into appointing himself a Chancellor and once he thus usurped power, never allowed elections in Germany till her defeat in 1945.
Such silly tactics never succeed and finally ‘people-power’ always wins. But Mr Obama’s best sentence was ‘partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t’. The world would wish Mr Barack Obama every success in his pursuit of an untrodden path.