| In sharp contrast to the unwelcoming shoe hurled at | | | | Security Forces parked on the right side of the main |
| President Bush in his last media conference in the | | | | entrance. They never go away - 24/7. Al-Azhar as an |
| Middle East, President Obama and his speech were | | | | institution is not hospitable to political correctness or |
| very well-received in Egypt and the rest of the | | | | Egyptian democrats. It did establish itself, however, as |
| Muslim-majority world. | | | | a leading authority behind censorship of book and |
| The audience in Cairo University interrupted the | | | | creative ideas. It is also the institution that constantly |
| speech 23 times by waves of applause (that is just | | | | calls on punishing and harassing secular intellectuals, |
| slightly above average by Middle Eastern standards, | | | | most notably Dr Nasr Abu Zeid. |
| especially when the cheering crowd is hand-picked by | | | | Dr. Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's second-in-command, |
| the Egyptian State Security Investigations). | | | | and Dr. Omar Abd al-Rahman, the radical cleric |
| Outside of the university, reactions were also quite | | | | imprisoned in the U.S. for the WTC bombing in 1993, |
| positive. Speaking to my apolitical mother and two of | | | | were both radicalized in, and graduated from, Cairo |
| her friends in Cairo, the reaction was: "he is such a | | | | and al-Azhar Universities. The constant cycles of |
| beautiful kid," "we love him," and "we are praying for | | | | repression that plagued the two universities between |
| God to protect him." | | | | 1960s and the 2000s made them strongholds for |
| There are several reasons for this Middle East | | | | radical groups. |
| Obama-mania. The crowd in Cairo has no recollection | | | | Yet the core idea of repressive autocrats breeding |
| of Clinton's eloquent speeches and did not care to | | | | violent theocrats was absent from the President's |
| hear Bush's. In other words, they have few | | | | speech. |
| comparative references. | | | | What the Obama administration will probably |
| But much more important, this is the first time Arabs | | | | understand from the outpouring of applause the |
| and Muslims are hearing a very eloquent, "politically | | | | President received is that Arabs and Muslims are |
| correct" speech from a Black American President | | | | yearning for democracy, not the Caliphate; and |
| who has Muslim relatives. For many, that is | | | | abhorring repression, not America. |
| revolutionary in content and rhetoric -if not necessarily | | | | The administration, however, should also understand |
| in policies. | | | | that the Arab-majority world has known eloquent |
| But let us not dance around this jarring disconnect: On | | | | leaders before. Those leaders raised the hopes and |
| a normal day in Cairo or al-Azhar Universities (the two | | | | the expectation of Arabs and Muslims but never |
| institutions that sponsored the speech), there is little | | | | delivered on their promises. Nasser comes to mind. |
| time and space for genuine, open-minded | | | | President Obama'a speech was historical. |
| contemplation or debate. | | | | It raised the hopes and the expectations of many |
| Both universities are big intellectual prisons ruled by the | | | | Arabs and Muslims and they will look back to it and |
| State Security Services. State Security Generals | | | | measure his policies against it. The hope now is that |
| decide which professor gets hired, which one gets | | | | the President will not sacrifice America's core values |
| promoted, which one gets fired, and which one gets | | | | of freedom and self-determination for short-term |
| detained. | | | | political expediency by supporting repressive autocrats. |
| If President Obama were to visit Cairo University on a | | | | Only then can the United States reclaim its moral force |
| normal day, he would find four trucks of Central | | | | in the Arab- and Muslim-majority world. |