Tentative optimism

Across the Arab and Islamic world people hoped that Obama would win. Now that he has, he should listen to their views, writes Assem El-Kersh

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Once again, Arabs watched the US elections with rapt attention, cheering and even praying for the victory of one of the candidates. The ritual, with its jumble of facts and illusions, hopes and false promises, repeats itself every four years. It is an exercise in futility. The most we can contribute is our feelings of enthusiasm or disappointment as mere spectators, unable to influence the course of the whirlwind as we await its outcome, good or bad.

This time the uncontested Arab favourite was Barack Obama. The first African American to win the nomination of one of the US's two major parties and have a clear shot of the White House, the youthful and energetic senator raced ahead of his rival as the result of an expertly managed campaign that succeeded in rallying millions of Americans behind his call for change and the hope of reviving America's international prestige so battered by eight years of Bush's follies and disasters.

Throughout the Arab and Islamic world the support for Obama was even greater -- perhaps unanimous and certainly heartfelt. Egyptians recorded their testimonials of support in Facebook. In Gaza, people waved placards proclaiming, "Obama, God willing!" In all opinion polls and even among the ruling elites in most Arab capitals Obama prevailed. But here, as there, few gave sufficient pause to the actual ideas and opinions of the Illinois senator, sufficing instead with superficialities and even rumours. Many, for example, reiterated the belief that he was a Muslim (because his father's name is Hussein) even though he refused to admit it and that he would inevitably support Arab causes because he is "dark skinned, like us". Others went for him because he looks too kind and noble to treat us badly, or because his distant ancestors suffered the ills of slavery that would inspire him to fight injustice when president. And, according to some, although he was munificent in his support for Israel at the height of his campaign he could not afford to alienate the extremely powerful Jewish American lobby at that crucial time. But even assuming the worst, he could never be as bad as Bush -- any other president would be better!

But is there really a basis for optimism? Will Obama truly follow through on his pledge of change when he takes his seat in the Oval Office? That is difficult to predict with any real accuracy. It will still be a while before he takes office and familiarises himself with the cardinal coordinates of the White House maze. It will be an even longer time before that vast divide fades between his rhetoric as a nominee steeped in the calculations of campaign strategy and his decisions as a president under an enormous variety of pressures and faced with momentous choices in what many regard as his capacity as president of the entire world. He will not be in an enviable position. The world, impatient for the end of the Bush era with its spate of unjustified wars and innumerable injustices, has the highest hopes pinned on him. So do Americans, following the enormous attrition on their country's political, military, financial, and, even, moral influence.

The hopes that Arabs have pinned on Obama appear limitless. This is understandable in light of their horrendous experiences in the course of Bush's so-called war on terror, from his distortion of the image of Islam following 11 September through his war on Afghanistan and his falsely justified war on Iraq, to his ongoing attempts to remap the Middle East to suit US interests as well as those of Israel whose every whim has received American support unqualified as never before and blind to all its acts of brutality, repression and aggression. The new president will have to contend with this heavy and bitter legacy, and quickly. He will have to steer US policy towards the opposite tack, just as virtually every new president has had to do when coming to power.

Obama was clear about where he wanted to head. The Middle East would be one of his first priorities, he said. He planned to gradually end the US's reliance on this region for oil and withdraw US forces from Iraq, completely and as soon as possible. He is in favour of direct talks with Tehran and simultaneously stresses that the US is not at war with Islam and that countering terrorism must begin with the search for solutions to ongoing political disputes, most notably the Arab-Israeli conflict. Not only has he greatly de-prioritised the military approach to the fight against terrorism (with the exception perhaps of Afghanistan where he remains determined to uproot Al-Qaeda), he has also made it clear that as enthusiastic as his support for Israel is, this does not entail catering to every Israeli wish.

This might not reflect our fullest hopes. However, as Patrick Seale, a leading British writer on the Middle East, has pointed out, proof will be in Obama's ability to put his words into effect, in spite of the enormous pressures and restrictions he will have to contend with in the process. No one can claim that the task of the US's 44th president will be easy. No one can dispute that the highest priority of any president is to work for what is best for his own country. Nor should we blame him if his attention is diverted from our part of the world by problems that he regards as more pressing, especially in view of the fact that we have little means to pressure him to keep us in his field of vision, let alone devote to us the attention we believe we deserve.

Even so, it will do him no harm, after the dust of the elections settles and he recovers from the strains of the campaign, for him to hear in the clearest ways possible how so many people wished that the US had behaved in a way that a great power should instead of taking out spiteful vengefulness against entire peoples and tampering so dangerously in the affairs of others. He should hear how strongly they hope that the US will rediscover and revive its humanitarian face and somehow compensate the thousands of families who have vanished or had their futures wrecked as the consequence of Bush's outrages in Iraq and Afghanistan. How desperately, too, they hope that Obama will apply his principle of "change" to the issues that concern them and, for a change, to apply a single standard when dealing with the plights and hardships of peoples around the world. If, in particular, he could use the boundless support that the US has always given Israel to assert enough pressure on that country in order to find a just solution to the complex problem of peace, security and national rights, then people will have every right to say, "Obama, thank God you won!"