Pakistan in Media

Dawn, Pakistan

By Asghar Ali Engineer
Friday, 12 Jun, 2009
One can say this comes as a major paradigm shift in US policy towards Muslims in a post-9/11 world. America being a nation of immigrants has always created a powerful enemy to maintain its own unity. Earlier, it was Japan, then Communist Russia and China, and after the collapse of communism it was the Islamic world.

Reaction to Obama’s historic address can be divided into three categories: One, outright appreciation and applause; two, critical evaluation of what he said and guarded optimism about his pronouncements; and three, outright rejection by some sceptics. Some of sceptics even described him as a ‘Christian Zionist’.

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Daily Times, Pakistan
Saturday, June 06, 2009
VIEW: Rafia Zakaria

The extent of the Arab world’s disinterest in American policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan is notable not as much for the alleged hypocrisy it could expose between President Obama’s speech and American policy, but rather in the crude disjunct between the interest and influence of Arab issues on the Pakistani psyche

On June 4, 2009, at around 1:10 pm local time, President Barack Hussein Obama addressed the Muslim world from Cairo University in Egypt. The speech, much touted for days, even months, hit all the right notes.

In the never-ending series of analyses that ensued, expected portions of the speech were praised. Nearly every constituency tuned to the speech, from the Israelis to the Egyptians, was able to find something pleasing. A spokesman from the Israeli government hoped the speech would mark the “opening of a new era”; people on the Arab street praised the scolding President Obama delivered against the perpetuation of Israeli settlements in occupied territories.

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Editorial: Daily Times, Pakistan
Saturday, June 06, 2009

Does President Barack Obama’s speech at Cairo University mark a new phase in America’s relationship with Islam and Muslims of the world in general, and the Middle East in particular? It would be unfair to judge it in the light of the past and equally unfair to reject it in advance because of the past failure in Washington to suit action to the pronounced word. But one has to assess President Obama’s chances of getting his policy guided successfully through the US Congress where vested interests within American democracy have historically contested the authority of the president since President Woodrow Wilson’s failure to join the League of Nations.

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The News International, Pakistan

Friday, June 05, 2009

None can deny that President Obama is a rhetorician the like of which America has not seen for decades. Both Clinton and Kennedy would find him hard to match for sheer eloquence and elegant phraseology - that on the surface is free of ambiguity. His address to the Al Azhar University in Cairo on Thursday was a model of its kind, and was received by an audience who at some points cheered and clapped not unlike those who attended the election rallies that eventually put President Obama where he is today. He knows how to work an audience and from the outset his speech was littered with 'applause points' and phrases that were crafted with tomorrow's headlines in mind.

Cynicism aside, President Obama was in Cairo to mend fences with the Muslim world, sorely battered after years of willful neglect. He made several references to the Holy Koran and called for inter - and intra - faith harmony, making the point that the Muslim world needs to mend a few fences of its own. He said… "I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect" …which was nothing less than you would expect, but there was more to it than a little international grooming.

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