Assem El-Kersh considers what will be going through people's minds in the first minute after Obama's address: the outcome is far more important than the event To reduce the probability of shock, it is wise to lower the level of expectations incumbent on President Barack Obama addressing the Muslim world from Cairo University today. This goes especially for those who believe that Obama is the answer to everything, contending, with astounding innocence, that the extremely complex problems of the region will be instantly resolved once Obama is our guest for a few hours, giving his breathlessly anticipated speech and offering to make peace with the Muslim world after years of unjustified strife if not enmity while he calls for a new convergence point that puts an end to division and smoothes out the bumps in Washington's vexed relations with the Arabs. Aside from exaggerations, few will argue against the symbolic significance of what is happening -- since the man, as the leader of the greatest power in the world, has proved remarkably popular wherever he goes, accompanied by broad optimism regarding what he may do about Arab and Muslim issues that have been suspended for whole decades. This is especially true in the light of his recent comments about the Palestinian issue, the most important major problem in the lives of millions of Muslims across generations. Parallel to a flood of open letters to him published by the dozen in newspapers and on Internet sites, news of the visit has unleashed wave upon wave of hopes, demands and dreams flitting, airborne, in every direction, and reflecting the view that Obama's initiative is a sign of good will and a step forward on the way to making it up to millions of Muslims who suffered boundlessly from the nightmares and collective punishment campaigns unleashed by President Bush under the banner of the War on Terror, as well as from all manner of variations on themes of aggression -- the full invoice -- which, imposed on whole countries, have changed their life courses forever. Yet it is precisely at such an exceptional moment that there emerges a genuine opportunity for Obama to find out, for real, and at the closest possible range, what we Arab-Muslims want and do not want from him. Understood correctly, this frank exchange should never imply failing to take the peaceful hand he extends to us with the required courtesy. But only a forthright statement of the facts can turn this occasion from a passing, symbolic event which we no sooner stop at, admiring, than we forget, into a movement on the ground, a real event with real, positive consequences free from the trappings of winner and loser. Only with a frank and straightforward statement of the Arab-Muslim standpoint can this encounter hope to remove the cumulative effects of years of bitterness in the face of arm-twisting arrogance and experience that can only evoke suspicion, distrust and lack of communication and understanding. It is precisely this experience that makes it necessary for Obama -- and all of the West behind him -- to understand, during the 51st minute of his 50-minute address, the nature of our feelings and doubts with the highest level of transparency. If the interchange is to prove successful and sustainable rather than abortive, such transparency is necessary. Otherwise the movement thus initiated will stumble at the first crisis or it will be, as it were, lost in translation, or else it will clash with the theories of strategists and the fears of all manner of ideologues terrified of the possibility of rapprochement between the Muslim world and the West, and who will then lose no time in saying, well, we told you so. Sincerity requires that we tell President Obama and the West that, while our popular proverbs testify to a strong belief in reconciliation, starting anew -- or turning a new page -- does not preclude the necessity of revising the recent past, many aspects of which certainly require revision. Any move in the direction of starting over must be preceded by an honest evocation of events gone by, not to wallow in their horror or express the compulsion to condemn the West, and not because we cannot forgive, but to help reach an agreement satisfactory to both parties on a "clean" basis capable of avoiding a repetition of the same sins and the causes of misunderstanding that marred relations for years. This past, in other words, will remain with us until the reality has changed, complete with the policies affecting it and a shared vision for the future. More importantly, it is crucial to realise that, as human beings, we cannot simply eliminate our feelings or stuff our memories underneath the carpet in order to please a president, however different and popular and willing to listen or be fair. Nor can it be denied that, due to countless disturbing precedents, there are those among us who will not endorse Obama's attempt to reach out or believe that his intentions are pure, without some kind of agenda hidden beneath his charming smile, until they see, hear and touch the effects of such plans on the ground. It is precisely this that makes us, time and again, eager to point out that no change will arrive in the Muslim world except through the gateways of an Arab Jerusalem, after the Palestinian rights are retrieved and a Palestinian state is established, and through adequately addressing the long register of grievances of Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan. (Regarding the latter, especially, we are calling on Obama not to make it his war). Most significantly, any improvement in the image of America depends on an improvement in the original of that image; and this applies equally to us in the Muslim world. Our hope is that Obama will understand when we confront him clearly with the fact that no number of speeches however honest, however brilliantly composed and however many apologies and regrets they express, are not worth the blood of an Iraqi child, the severed limb of an Afghan farmer or the tears of a Palestinian woman who has lost her husband or son to an air raid launched by Israel under the umbrella of Washington's blind bias. A speech will not bring back to life the many thousands of casualties who fell victim to the brutish policies of Western capitals and Washington in particular. Not that we blame Obama for these losses: we just hope he will agree with us that the shortest road to eliminating feelings of frustration and anger in the Muslim world is to drain out the springs of discontent, to remove the causes of injustice and suffering which give Muslims every right to throw the notorious question back at Americans (and Westerners): "Why do you hate us?" Only then will he believe us when we say that Islam, just like the West, is afflicted with some of its own children, which is no justification for blaming or punishing all of its children. We also want Obama to know that we have no wish for the West to fight our battles for us, or to solve our problems; only not to complicate them. The best Obama can do is to maintain his balance and objectivity in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict, not to follow in the footsteps of every American administration over the last 60 years by biting the apple of double standards and instead simply hold onto the values on which America was allegedly based: justice, freedom and equality. No doubt a man of Obama's intelligence will realise that, in the stormy seas of politics, nothing lasts, neither popularity nor success. This is reason enough to call on him not to waste his enormous record of trust and good will or let down those who hailed his arrival with every particle of their being. Muslims have believed in Obama's sincerity and his desire to achieve justice to the point of weeping tears of joy when he was elected to office. Nothing scares them more than the prospect of him turning out to be no different from his predecessors or cowing in to the pressures of the post and the dictates of realism by dragging them along into the mirage of peace settlement with no sign of an effective roadmap to show the way. Solving the problems of Islam and the West, in short, requires the unleashing of a genuine dialogue with the aim to rediscover common ground that would promote Muslim- Western comity as well as prevent America from polarising the world into friends and foes and reminds Muslims of the role assigned to them by the Quranic verse, "Allah does not change a people's lot unless they [first] change what is in their hearts." Such a dialogue, in other words, would also force Muslims to realise that they are just as responsible for what they have come to, to look in the mirror and accept their many faults and shortcomings. A serious, sensible dialogue between peers: only this will demonstrate that Obama's message of peace and rapprochement has truly been delivered. Once the applause dies down under the great dome of the university, and starting from the 51st minute, everyone will have enough time to consider the next step.
