Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Obama's "Muslim Outreach" - Obsessed With Wrong Question
Obama's "Muslim Outreach" - Obsessed With Wrong Question
July 16, 2009
Obama's "Muslim Outreach" - Obsessed With Wrong Question
Obama's "Muslim Outreach" - Obsessed With Wrong Question
By WILLIAM MAYER and BEILA RABINOWITZ
July 16, 2009 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Now that the State Department has acknowledged that Farah Pandith will be the U.S.' "special representative to Muslim communities," [see, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/06a/125508.htm] several questions naturally arise. Primary among them is explaining what is the purpose of such missions and what do the architects of this form of engagement expect to accomplish?
The obvious answer is a reduction in tensions between the Muslim and non-Muslim world, but in this case that which seems to be self-evident masks a much more problematic set of considerations, perhaps one of the reasons behind the State Department making the decision not to officially announce Ms. Pandith's appointment. The timing of this move is suspicious, given the fact that Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC, a 57 nation Muslim voting bloc] chief had strongly suggested such a mission and was "coincidentally" on the scene for the announcement, as CSN states, [the] "OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu was in Washington on Tuesday when the State Department, in an internal memo, announced that it has selected a "special representative to Muslim communities." [source, http://www.cnsnews.com/PUBLIC/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=50145]
The influential Ihsanoglu had been expecting a concrete sign that the spirit of Obama's Cairo speech [which many Westerners rejected as an abject statement of dhimmitude, see http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=obamaid=6.4.09%2Ehtm] would translate into policy, "[Ihsanoglu] underlined the necessity of translating the goodwill statements of the president into policies and of implementing those policies through concrete programs and projects,"
Nominally Pandith will be replacing in function, though not necessarily in title, Sada Cumber, currently U.S. rep to the OIC, who is stepping down.
Understanding the role of the OIC is key here.
The OIC has served since its inception in 1969 as a UN based bastion of Islamist political activism and defense of Muslim terrorism, with the group issuing in 2002 this clearly unambiguous statement, "We reject any attempt to link terrorism to the struggle of the Palestinian people in the exercise of their inalienable right to establish their independent state with Al-Quds Al-Shrif [Jerusalem] as its capital," now known as the Kuala Lampur Declaration [see, http://www.oic-oci.org/english/conf/fm/11_extraordinary/declaration.htm].
The OIC rather than feeling duty bound to de-link Islam from terrorism based on Quranic interpretations, has instead pursued an offensive policy charging the West with "Islamophobia."
Not surprisingly America's Islamist organizations, CAIR, ISNA, NAIT, MAS etc., have parroted this claim and have used it quite successfully in an effort to cow the political class, enlisting along the way a passel of "useful idiots" who take at face value the palliative statements made [only in English] by radical Muslim organizations.
The folly of the United States acquiescing to such a process is indicative of a deep disconnect within the halls of government where such schemes are hatched.
At its core, Islamism is a utopian system offering a universal prescription for living, in this case, in accordance with the will of Allah. As such and because Islam is, to its adherents, based upon a revealed text and is therefore beyond the reach [even through internal Islamic review, ijtihad] of further interpretation by man.
The result is that the religion's essential triumphalism prevents the possibility of it being compromised with by temporal authorities in any meaningful way.
The effect of this should be foreboding because such a closely held position dooms to failure in advance efforts by the West or non-Muslims in general, especially proponents of "interfaith exchange," which under a clear interpretation of this process is really a one-way conversation with the intransigent.
Though the Obama administration by its moves in this area is generally following the ghost of previous administrations' policies, no previous president before Barack Obama, had ever claimed the audacious mandate to "correct" negative impressions of an exogenous religion," That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."
This is not to suggest that some level of compromise is not attainable, but until the West deals with Islam on its own terms, as it really is, the possibility of fawning entreaties ever being successful in reaching some manner of detente with the Muslim world are illusory.
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=pandith7.16.09%2Ehtm
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