Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Not bad, just sad...Prager: Why the Cairo Speech Was So Sad
... It was extremely sad that it was necessary for anyone, let alone an American president, to tell Muslims that the Holocaust occurred, that "6 million Jews were killed," and that "denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful." There is no other audience on earth to whom that would have to be said.
Incidentally, wouldn't one think that an American president feeling the need to condemn Holocaust-denial before a world Muslim audience would be worthy of comment? Yet, such is the soft bigotry of low expectations that dominates world news media views of the Muslim world, that I did not see one mainstream media comment on this extraordinary fact.
I did, however, see Tom Brokaw ask this incredible question of President Obama after the latter's visit to the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald: "What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald and what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians?"
To his credit, President Obama immediately responded: "Well, look, there's no equivalency here."
Talk about sad. What other word can be used to describe one of the most famous journalists in America using the Holocaust to ask about Israeli policy toward Palestinians?
Returning to the president's speech, it was also sad that the president had to condemn Muslim Jew-hatred and threats to annihilate Israel -- "Threatening Israel with destruction or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews is deeply wrong." This, too, needed to be said to a Muslim audience. Nazi-like depictions of Jews, regularly equating Jews with animals and calling for their destruction, are found in much of the Muslim media, many Islamic schools and many mosques.
It was likewise sad that an American president felt he had to go to Cairo and tell Muslims that Islam has a history of tolerance: "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country."
It was as if the president had to persuade his audience that Islam has been or is, in essence, tolerant. Even President Obama's examples were not convincing...
"Sad" is the right word, but there are some potentially tragic indicators to heed as well.
I kept wanting to be generous and "reasonable," kept wanting to see as much good in the Cairo speech as possible, even reprimanding myself for a too negative or too uncharitable interpretation at times. But in the end and after repeated reviews it is a speech that is threadbare in terms of any truly substantive foundations for long term outlooks; too many Carteresque indulgences that do not support better foundations and better long-term visions for the M.E. and the world at large.
And not to be self-referential, but two comments of mine in this Melanie Phillips thread effectively encapsulate some critical distinctions between genuine leadership vs. a simulated leadership that is too heavily invested in naivete, most notably the Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan comments. Financial bubbles are one thing; power bubbles at this level are something else entirely.
And how sad is it that not only must we distinguish between "good" terrorists (Fatah) and "bad" terrorists (Hamas), now there is also "bad" Holocaust deniers (Achmadinejad) and "good" Holocaust deniers (Mahmoud Abbas)