Rethinking the Muslim World

Personal Reflection
Format: Lecture
Speaker: John Esposito
Date: 26-06-2009

John Esposito is an academic hero to many people; Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The event was well attended and facilitated well by the Change Institute.
 

Esposito talked about the problems facing the Obama administration and mentioned how it is not a clash of civilization that we are facing but a clash of policy. He cited the perception of the Muslim world of Canada; Canada basically being the USA without the USA’s foreign policy.
 

Obama will be facing a struggle because of the discourse that had been developed by the Bush administration for the last 8 years. A discourse which had been influenced by hard line Christian Zionists and neo-conservatives cannot simply be ignored, Obama will have to involve some of those figures and tackle the paradigm that has developed during the Bush era. I felt what he was saying was that you can’t ignore or move on from the discourse around for instance the war on terrorism or Islamic extremism even though it may have been an errant ideology as Obama probably believes without involving some of the very people who were orchestrators of that ideology.
 

Esposito argued that 93% of Muslims are mainstream, so it is illogical to focus and develop a discourse and approach which would harm the overwhelming majority of Muslims. He stated that even Tony Blair had said that one of the things he didn’t do was build enough bridges with mainstream Muslims.
 

He mentioned how Bush and Blair promised massive economic aid to develop the country following the end of the war, this never happened, and the press do not raise this issue.
 

Obama may have a chance if he could get a few powerful figures on his side notably Hilary Clinton’s godfather; Schumer, who is an extremely powerful figure. He responded to a concern from a member of the audience around the security issue around Barack Obama. Esposito conceded that there were some nasty people who despise Barack Obama but didn’t imply any credible threat to him.
 

Barack Obama is certainly a completely different US president we have ever seen, Esposito even proof read his Cairo speech and was very pleasantly surprised as to its content but whether he will be enough to calm the tides of Islamophobia remains to be seen. There is hope, there has always been hope, it’s just this time the hope of many has been raised.

However, with the highly controversial winning of the multi multi billion dollar contracts by BP to extract its oil some may feel like Fayad al-Nema, the Director of South Oil who told Reuters, “the service contracts will put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years. They squander Iraq’s revenues.”

It does make you wonder whether the rise in Islamophobia is a small price to pay for winning oil contracts. In an age of communication and the high moral values associated with democracy you can’t just invade countries and exploit them, you need the public on your side.
 

What do think? Feel?