Obama’s visit to Indonesia

Obama made the usual appeal to Christian-Muslim tolerance, claimed progress had been made after his speech in Cairo.

It’s only been a year since US President Barack Obama gave his much-praised speech on US-Muslim relations in Cairo. But if a week is a long time in politics, then a year is an eternity. Since then, much of the sheen has worn off Obama and his ‘hope-and-change’ brigade. At home, his popularity has been plummeting leading to a rout of the Democratic Party in this month’s midterm elections. Abroad, he has been jeered for winning the Nobel Peace Prize at the same time as he ramped up the war in Afghanistan, reneged on his promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and carried out more drone attacks in Pakistan in one year than his reviled predecessor did in his two terms.

Thus, it was a duly chastised Obama who paid a visit to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country. Words alone are no longer enough to dazzle sceptical crowds and if this trip showed anything, it is that Obama has little beyond rhetoric to offer. The difference from last year is vast. Riding the crest of popularity in 2009, he felt free to talk about the Islamic influence in his life. With 18 per cent of the US now believing Obama is a Muslim, he felt compelled to make mention of his Christianity when he visited a mosque in Indonesia. In India, it is said Obama cancelled a visit to the Golden Temple as it would have required him to sport Sikh headgear, an image that would be toxic in the American heartland. Obama no longer seems to possess the magic that made him such a celebrity the world over. His trip to Indonesia was perhaps best symbolised by a gaffe made by his wife Michelle, who shook the hand of a visibly uncomfortable ultra-conservative minister. This is the type of mistake one would expect of the insular Bushes, not the cosmopolitan Obamas.

The typical Obama shtick was still present. He made the usual appeal to Christian-Muslim tolerance and claimed progress had been made after his speech in Cairo. Such claims of progress are hollow. Muslims still view the US with suspicion and anti-Muslim feeling in the US, as typified by the Ground Zero mosque controversy, is on the rise. There seems to be no magic wand Obama can wave to wish these troubles away.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2010.