Continuing our monitoring of Muslim reaction to President Obama’s Cairo speech – now being called the ‘Cairo Declaration,’ Kharroubi Habib of Algeria’s Le Quotidien d’Oran speaks for a huge swath of the Muslim world when he expresses appreciation mixed with skepticism – not in regard to the president’s sincerity, but whether Mr. Obama can and will make real the declarations he put forward last Thursday.
For Le Quotidien d’Oran, Kharroubi Habib writes in part:
“Although in his Cairo speech, Obama genuinely expressed his vision and thinking on the future of ties he wishes to establish between his nation and the Muslim world, he must quickly follow up with strong action in that direction. This is the only way to begin tearing down the wall of suspicion that decades of humiliation inflicted by the United States on Muslims has erected in the Islamic consciousness against all things American.
“Quickly, because time is against the American President. Indeed, his current extraordinary popularity in his country and across the world is at risk of eroding. This will prevent him from continuing to shake up the status quo and the calculations that provide the framework of American policy toward the Muslim world. Even though for now, his Cairo speech hasn’t faced radical opposition in his country and only predictable opposition from the Zionist state, Barack Obama is nevertheless going to have to reckon with it [Israel] if he dithers over putting into practice the changes that he claims to hold dear.”
By Kharroubi Habib
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges and Alexandra Griffiths
June 5, 2009
Algeria – Le Quotidien d’Oran – Home Page (French)
In Cairo, Barack Obama gave a speech addressed to Muslims across the world that will go down in history. Because in the future, this speech will be considered either the founding act of reconciliation between America and that part of humanity with which up to now, it has had relations marked by sectarian prejudice and often violent conflict, or as a cynical new coating applied to the same old view of relations, seeking only to mitigate the hatred and resentment that the United States stirs up in the Muslim world.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
Founder and Managing Editor of Worldmeets.US