June 3, 2009
Editor’s Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and contributing editor for Islamica Magazine in Washington.
by Arsalan Iftikhar | BIO
AC360° Contributor and Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com
Tomorrow President Obama will be in Cairo, Egypt where he will give his first major address to the Muslim world.
President Obama should use his speech to show American respect for Muslims worldwide — from the streets of Cairo to the streets of Chicago.
“I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek his majesty’s counsel and to discuss with him many of the issues that we confront here in the Middle East,” President Obama said today from Saudi Arabia, his first stop on a five-day tour of the Middle East and Europe.
During a January 2009 television interview with Al-Arabiya network channel, President Obama said that it was, “My job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect…I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries…”
But President Obama has his work cut out for him, both at home and abroad.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey suggests that “more than two in five Americans, or 46 percent, have an unfavorable opinion of Muslim countries”. That’s up nearly five percent from 2002. American public opinion towards Islam and Muslims since 9/11 shows the magnitude of the daunting diplomatic task in front of President Barack Obama in the Muslim world.
For example, a 2004 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Poll found that almost 4 in 10 Americans have an unfavorable view of Islam and 46 percent believes that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers. And a March 2005 ABC News Poll found that more than one-third of Americans believe that mainstream Islam encourages violence.
Continue Reading Arsalan’s June 2009 Column Here…
