Obama Pledges Partnerships For Better Lives for Muslims
FrontLines - July 2009
By Ben Barber
President Barack Obama delivered a speech in Cairo June 4 aimed at improving relations between the United States and Muslim countries.
He pledged U.S. foreign assistance for education, women’s rights, democracy, and economic development. USAID is helping to plan the assistance the president
pledged.
“Americans are ready to join with citizens and governments, community organizations, religious
leaders, and businesses in Muslim communities around the world to help our people pursue a better life,” Obama said.
His speech was widely seen in the Arab world over Al Jazeera and other satellite television
networks which translated it into Arabic and other languages. The speech has been translated into 15 different languages on the White House Web site.
“I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” he said.
USAID has missions in 27 of the 49 countries in the world that have more than 50 percent Muslim population. With this large presence on the ground, USAID is a central player in the president’s agenda to improve relations with Muslims around the world and to assist partner nations in meeting their development
goals.
Obama added that “because of modernity we lose control over our economic choices, our politics, and, most importantly, our identities—those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith.” He continued, noting that “… I also know that human progress cannot be denied. There need not be contradictions between development and tradition.”
Speaking before 2,000 people at Cairo University, Obama noted that financial crises, a new flu, nuclear proliferation, and human suffering affect all countries.
“When innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience,” he said, mentioning two Muslim-majority countries where U.S. assistance has saved millions of lives and continues to feed more than 2 million people.
He also said that U.S. support for democracy is being delivered in good faith. “No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation” over any other nation, he said.
But he added that all people yearn for “the freedom to live as you choose.”
Obama said he respects the right of women to choose a traditional lifestyle but added, “I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality….”
“And that is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support
expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue
employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams,” he said.
He said education was critical to growth and pledged to “expand exchange programs and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America.”
Concerning Pakistan and Afghanistan, the president said that “military power alone is not going to solve the problems.” He noted “that’s why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who’ve been displaced.”
On Afghanistan, Obama said “that’s why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend on.”
During his June visit to Pakistan, Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke visited some of the 2 million Pakistanis displaced by fighting between the Pakistan Army and Taliban militants. The United States pledged to triple aid for the displaced to more than $300 million—more than half the aid pledged by all donors. USAID officials accompanied
Holbrooke on his visit.
Obama also promised to create a corps of business volunteers;
a fund for technology; centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia; and science envoys to develop energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, and grow new crops.
He also announced an initiative
with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio.
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