In anticipation of President Obama’s address in Egypt I’d like to ask a rather obvious question: why Egypt?
| Rank | Country | Approx. # Muslims |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indonesia | 199,959,285 |
| 2 | Pakistan | 164,741,924 |
| 3 | India | 156,254,615 |
| 4 | Bangladesh | 132,446,365 |
| 5 | Egypt | 72,301,532 |
| 6 | Turkey | 70,800,000 |
| 8 | Nigeria | 67,515,582 |
| 7 | Iran | 64,089,570 |
| 9 | Algeria | 32,999,884 |
| 10 | Afghanistan | 31,571,023 |
The table above (info gleaned from the CIA World Factbook) shows the countries with the ten largest Muslim populations.
If your objective is to address Muslims, why not pick Indonesia? It’s the largest Muslim country. Furthermore, it has a significant degree of democracy and freedom, quite a success story. Why not pick Pakistan, the second largest? Or India, the third largest, in which Muslims are a minority as they are in many of the world’s countries?
Why not Nigeria? If trends continue sub-Saharan Africa will soon be the population center of Islam. Wouldn’t that be looking to the future? How about Turkey, a staunch ally? Or Iran, which the Obama Administration is trying to get to the bargaining table? Kenya, the land of his father?
Actually, I’m being facetious. Then answer is obvious: Egypt is the largest Arab country with the largest population of Muslims. I certainly hope that in his address President Obama largely abandons his pretext of addressing Muslims and tailors his message for a Middle Eastern Arab audience.
That is, BTW, one of the reasons that I disagree with Amir Taheri’s complaint that President Obama is “adopting the key element of the Islamist narrative”:
Rich in symbolism, Obama’s “address to Islam†is also full of political implications. Obama is the first major Western leader, after Bonaparte, to address Islam as a single bloc, thus adopting the traditional Islamic narrative of dividing the world according to religious beliefs. This ignores the rich and conflict-ridden diversity of the 57 Muslim-majority nations and fosters the illusion, peddled by people such as Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Islam is one and indivisible and should, one day, unite under a caliphate.
By adopting the key element of the Islamist narrative, that is to say the division of humanity into religious blocs, Mr Obama also intends to send a signal to the Middle East’s nascent democratic forces that Washington is abandoning with a vengeance George W. Bush’s “freedom agendaâ€.
President Obama is only addressing all Muslims nominally. Muslims, corporately, don’t pose problems for the United States nor do Muslims in Indonesia or Bangladesh or Nigeria. And we are only concerned about Pakistan because of the Al Qaeda remnants being harbored in the ironically named Federally Administered Tribal Areas and of those we are primarily concerned about the radical Islamist Arabs in their midst. That’s not anti-Arab hate speech. It can’t be since I don’t hate Arabs. It’s merely a statement of fact, “truth-telling”, as Tom Friedman says in his op-ed today.
Furthermore, Egypt is the home of the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. That makes it an excellent selection for President Obama’s address. I hope he doesn’t dilute his message and miss an historic opportunity.
Update
I see that the Christian Science Monitor editorial board is thinking along lines similar to mine:
Mr. Obama can also express appreciation for countries that have resisted Iran’s support of violent groups in many countries since its 1979 Islamic revolution.
Gratitude is an essential part of Islamic practice – in praying five times a day, during the fasting of Ramadan, and in the Arabic expression “May Allah reward you for the good.” It is the easiest avenue for Obama to engage nations with large Muslim populations and to earn a fresh respect for the United States.
And it will open more doors for Washington to partner more closely with Islamic nations in turning back Al Qaeda and other groups that seek a unified Muslim community through terror.
Cairo is the right venue for such a message. It is the place where the ideas of today’s jihadism were hatched 80 years ago with the founding of the fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Arabs and Persians. I think Iran is being sent a message here, too. Diluting Arab antipathy to the US is to Iran’s disadvantage. Israel isn’t Iran’s only enemy in the region.
In all seriousness, though, he does need to do a major address in Indonesia. Particularly since it is heading in the direction he probably wants it to go, and just recently dumped a whole bunch of Islamist parties in elections.
Why Egypt over Indonesia? It’s all geopolitics: while Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world (90% of its 240 million population are Muslims) and it is one of the few stable Muslim-majority democracy in the world, it is located outside the Middle East, thus, it is not high on US policymakers’ radar screen. The only two times it was on the radar screen in recent times were when its long-term dictator Suharto was ousted in a popular revolt in 1998 and after the 2002 Bali bombing when policymakers and pundits alike immediately labeled Indo as a “terrorist haven,” some even call the country “the new Afghanistan.”
Only a small number (from what I heard less than five) of middle to high-level State Dept and Pentagon officials know Indonesia well (and able to speak the Bahasa language) and only a small number (less than half a dozen) US academics could be considered as Indonesian experts. On the other hand, the number of US policymakers and academics studying ME politics are very sizable. I assume there must be more than a dozen policymakers and academics who know Egypt politics well that can be easily reached via phone or e-mail from the Oval Office.
I personally think Obama should have made the speech in Indo given its growing reputation as a Muslim democracy – the govt has cracked down most major terrorist groups, it completed a parliamentary election last April and will have its second direct presidential election next month (a fact that scarcely been covered by US media outlets, even the usually attentive Lehrer Newshour). You have to turn to the BBC or Australian TV to find good coverage of Indo elections.
However, given the lack of US policymakers and academics who know Indo well and follow its politics on a consistent basis, sadly the country is being passed over again. I guess until the day Obama finally does pay a visit, Indonesians should be contend with Hillary Clinton’s visit last February.