Now that Barack Obama’s world tour is over – how do Gulf Arabs see the junior senator from Illinois?
While some commentary in the Arab world has been less than glowing, at least in the Persian Gulf States, hope for an Obama presidency remains high.
For the Al-Ittihad newspaper of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed Khalfan Aloasi writes in part:
“All people, especially in the Arab and Islamic world, long to see Democratic candidate Barack Hussein Obama win, occupy the chair of the American President and replace Republican Bush at the helm of the United States.”
“The way Obama absorbed the inside of America during the primaries is reflected in his compelling campaign slogan (change). In the same way, his intellectual assets and his Muslim origins have allowed him to absorb the thinking of many Arabs and Muslims, notwithstanding his subsequent assurances that he isn’t Muslim, which is a position taken for political purposes only … The entire world awaits Obama, considering him a good man to replace an “evil” one. It is Bush who has prepared the ground for Arab and Muslim religious and social support for Obama, a man who may find it possible to look at their problems differently than other presidents, especially Bush.”
“It is commonplace to have U.S. presidential candidates become the focus of world public opinion and controversy. It’s to be expected that they become the center of attention for newspapers, analysts and other politicians. But in Hussein Obama’s case, almost everyone has gathered around him and considers him a possible world savior.”
By Mohammed Khalfan Aloasi
Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher
July 30, 2008
United Arab Emirates – Al-Ittihad – Original Article (Arabic)
All people, especially in the Arab and Islamic world, long to see Democratic candidate Barack Hussein Obama win, occupy the chair of the American President and replace Republican Bush at the helm of the United States.
The way Obama absorbed the inside of America during the primaries is reflected in his compelling campaign slogan (change). In the same way, his intellectual assets and his Muslim origins have allowed him to absorb the thinking of many Arabs and Muslims, notwithstanding his subsequent assurances that he isn’t Muslim, which is a position taken for political purposes only. Obama has also absorbed global public opinion on his world tour, during which he visited several countries and offered his suggestions in regard to the world’s central problems, including wars into that the current American administration plunged the United States into – and which the Europeans should have nothing to do with.
The entire world awaits Obama, considering him a good man to replace an “evil” one. It is Bush who has prepared the ground for Arab and Muslim religious and social support for Obama, who may find it possible to look at their problems differently than other presidents, especially Bush. In Obama’s racial origins, skin color and youth, Africans and Asians find in him someone that they hope will ease their economic concerns and be more in tune with the distortions of American foreign policy – and the incapacity of the “neo-conservatives” to solve them.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. election.
