Interviews by Gihan Shahine is director of the Cairo- based Bridges Foundation, a body that specialises in presenting Islam to non- Muslims. He is also an Islamic daawa activist, former imam of the American University in Washington DC, and was appointed the National Chaplain of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in North and Central America (WAMY). does not pin much hope on President Barack Obama's visit to Egypt. "Visits and verbal messages do not bring change, but rather real work does," he says. Like many, Soliman expects President Obama to "work hard to achieve all kinds of gains for the US". But what may inspire hope -- and is, perhaps, unique about the new president -- is that "Obama does not seem to find much contradiction between the interests of the US and bridging the gap with the Muslim world." Since President Obama took the oath of office earlier this year, he has been sending repeated messages of goodwill and reconciliation to the Arab and Muslim worlds. In his inaugural speech, Obama addressed the Muslim world saying, "We seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect." He reiterated the same message during his visit to Turkey, insisting that the US is not and will never be at war with Islam. And it is, perhaps, in that vein that Soliman views Obama's choice of Egypt as a venue to address the Muslim world as an opportunity to bridge gaps -- an opportunity that Muslims should not miss. "Let us be frank," Fadel starts. "The Americans view Muslims through an Israeli lens and biased Zionist media coverage. Muslims, in turn, put the US and Israel in one basket; they perceive the US in terms of Israeli weapons and F-16s that continuously bomb innocent Palestinian children in their schools. So let us remove those lenses through which we see each other. Only then will we have a better vision." But words should be met by deeds, and double standards in Western foreign policies should be removed if rifts between the Western and Muslim worlds are to be mended. "Western politicians would, for example, speak in defence of the Danish cartoonists' depiction of the Prophet Mohamed, peace be upon him, with a bomb- shaped turban as an issue of freedom of speech," Soliman said. "But had this cartoon been for a chief Rabbi with a bomb- shaped hat, those same politicians would immediately slam it as an intolerable anti- Semitic offence. Again, no one dares to deny the Holocaust of the Jews -- which is silly to do -- or discuss the number of victims [six millions]. But, at the same time, the world remains silent on the holocaust of Palestinians which has been ongoing for 60 years." That "double-standard" in foreign policy is the outcome of "a racist mindset", according to Soliman. What Muslims hope for is for the West "to look at every innocent victim in Palestine or Kabul as humanly equal to every innocent victim in London or New York". Muslims living in Western societies, for their part, should also do their bit to "integrate in a way that preserves their religion -- following in the footsteps of the Prophet Mohamed, when he immigrated to Medina -- and at the same time prove to their fellow citizens that Islam is an asset not a threat," Soliman adds. Soliman also suggests that the West should stop exploiting the Sunna-Shia divide, insisting that the disunity of the Muslim world does not serve Western interests, contrary to what many Western politicians appear to believe. "The Western world ended the unity of the Muslim world at the beginning of the 20th century thinking that it was in the favour of the West. However, I must say that the disintegration of Muslims brought nothing to the world but chaos. The West thinks that if Muslims unite, they will fight against the West, which is not necessarily true. If Muslims unite, the West will have one entity to address, and even in the case that this entity does not cooperate, then at least they will have one headache to deal with, instead of 600 headaches."
