Local News: President Obama’s Speech Effects Local Muslims

Obama's Speech in Cairo Resonates With Muslims in Waco
By Terri Jo Ryan (Tribune-Herald staff writer)

From the Waco Tribune-Herald

They say you can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar. And President Barack Obama’s speech to the global Muslim community from Cairo succeeded by hitting the right tone, according to local Muslim community leaders.

Al Siddiq, president of the Islamic Center of Waco and a local resident for 22 years, said that if previous administrations had taken a more respectful and even conciliatory tone with Muslim lands in recent decades, perhaps “there would have been no Sept. 11, no Afghanistan war and no Iraq war.”

By following the path of the peacemaker, he added, Obama is “killing al-Qaida more effectively than ‘Mr. Previous President,’ who created more terrorists with his words and actions.”

“Honest to God, when Muslims hear a speech like that, their hearts melt and their minds cool down.”

Siddiq, 44, a U.S. Army veteran born in Pakistan, said the president’s pledge to build more roads, hospitals and schools in war-torn areas will be far more productive in winning Muslim hearts and minds than sending more bombs or bullets.

Anjum “Jim” Alam, a local insurance man, said the speech offered hope to people like him, “the 99.9 percent of Muslims who want to live in peace,” that they are not alone.

“Here’s someone with the courage to stand up to the world and tell the truth, whether we like it or not,” he said of Obama’s remarks, which he called “well-balanced” and “expertly crafted.”

An American since 1971 who spent two decades with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers until his retirement in 2004, Alam said he’s sure that the problem of power-hungry dictatorships and greedy ruling classes in the Middle East cannot be erased overnight. But overall, Obama offered the average American and the average Muslim on the street “some light at the end of a tunnel.”

Addressing Conflict

Aisha Tariq, a journalism graduate student at Baylor University, gave the president points for not shying away from raising the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “always such a flash point” for tensions in the region.

“People are expecting more and expecting change from this administration regarding foreign policy,” the American-born Muslim woman said.

She appreciated the effort he made to connect to Muslims on their level; citing his frequent quotations from the Quran and use of Muslim terms without translating them. For example, he said he’d grown up in Indonesia with the sound of azaan at dawn and dusk — without explaining that it is the Islamic call to prayer by the muezzin from a minaret of a mosque.

“He demonstrated a degree of familiarity. That was really smart of him to do,” Tariq said.

But like many Muslims, American and otherwise, she added, she’ll be looking for how well Obama puts his rhetoric into action.

Jordanian native Mohammad Al-Tal, 50, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Hewitt, said he saw the speech as “a continuation of the relationship” started by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the ’50s, Jimmy Carter in the ’70s and Bill Clinton in the ’90s.

“I think you will see a lot of positive response to this speech in the Arab and Muslim world,” said Al-Tal, a five-year Waco resident. The vast majority of Muslim states, he added, want stability and prosperity.

The tobacco shop manager said Obama, by publicly airing Muslim grievances — such as the pain of Palestinians expelled from their homeland 60 years ago — endeared himself to the common folk.

Published on Friday, June 05, 2009