No Aussie Obama in sight | The Daily Telegraph
By Steve PriceSome Arab 'friends' need a lesson in democracy | theage.com.au
January 25, 2009 12:00am
A CALL from a young woman in Alice Springs near the end of Wednesday's radio program said a lot about how far Australia still has to go before we can celebrate the rise of our own Barack Obama.
She had been listening for three hours as we heaped praise on the new President and a nation brave enough to take a gamble on him.
Alice Springs, she said, was the Aboriginal capital of Australia, but it was unlikely they would produce an Obama of their own with the sort of attitudes she still encounters.
The caller complained about a local motel owner turning away an out-of-town swim team because they were Aboriginal.
But it was the incident at her local shopping centre that really got her angry.
A nephew had been visiting and they decided to do some shopping, including a new pair of shoes for the little boy.
As they walked in, the youngster stopped his aunt and said he feared going in because the security guards had stopped him before for not having shoes on. The boy had been kicked out.
She was having none of it.
She grabbed his hand and marched into the shoe store. Next time she goes there, she says, she's going to go barefoot.
Tuesday (US time) was a day to treasure in the US - one of those rare, where-were-you-when-that-happened kind of days.
Filtering it through Australian eyes did bring you back to earth.
Witnessing history as an African American was inaugurated into the highest office made you think about our own indigenous population and wonder where their leaders are and why they're not in Parliament.
Standing, as I was, on Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, you couldn't help but think of "the Block'' in Redfern and wonder if, as Harlem has been, it will ever be cleaned up and made safe.
Taking the subway to Harlem would have been unthinkable 15 years ago, but today it's a two-dollar train ride to 125th St and a four-block walk down to the old Apollo Theatre.
No one appears threatening, and the streets around Malcolm X Boulevard - where riots broke out after King was assassinated - have largely been gentrified.
Sylvia's, a famous soul-food restaurant, was playing King's haunting ``I had a dream'' speech on a continous loop the day before the inauguration.
Sylvia's son, Kenny Woods, went to school across the road from the restaurant. He can recall when it was a dangerous place to live.
Now he talks about how Bill and Hillary Clinton drop in for lunch from Clinton's office around the corner. Harlem is a nicer place than Redfern.
Australians watching the day unfold were also struck by just how good an orator the new President is compared with our own politicians.
A senior Cabinet minister, pressed to nominate any Australian politician who came close to Obama, offered up Robert Menzies and Gough Whitlam.
\I can't judge Menzies and I remember Whitlam's off-the-cuff challenge to the governor-general the day he was sacked, but not much else.
Australia has had some great speechwriters but, Paul Keating aside, very few memorable speech-givers.
And inauguration day showed us up when it comes to ceremony and parades.
The Americans are world-class when it comes to recognising their history and showing off.
Can you imagine two million people turning out in Canberra, packing the space between the War Memorial and old Parliament House to celebrate the election of Kevin Rudd or John Howard?
We'd be lucky to get two thousand.
Obama is obviously a charismatic, once-in-a-generation leader. He's the JFK of our time, with a little Bill Clinton rolled in there. A BlackBerry-carrying leader who can even dance.
Let's hope he can also inspire the little kids in our country, such as that barefoot boy in Alice Springs, to do great things.
* Irfan YusufSome Arab 'friends' need a lesson in democracy | theage.com.au
* January 26, 2009
* Page 1 of 3 | Single Page View
An Islamic heritage does not preclude having an elected government.
IN MAY 2008, prominent conservative Edward Luttwak wrote in The New York Times that Barack Obama was an apostate in Muslim eyes, deserving of death under sharia law.
I saw no evidence of this as I flicked between three Pakistani cable news channels on Obama's inauguration day. Instead, Pakistani TV hosts spoke with pride of the 44th US president whose name and heritage would otherwise subject him to the same security checks Pakistanis endure when visiting the US. Obama's election will leave a particularly deep impact in Arab League states, where changes in leadership happen either via military coups, royal succession or, in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign intervention.
The absurd reality of Arab politics was reflected in the recent arrest in Kuwait of 43-year-old Sydney woman Nasrah Alshamery, who faces a possible five-year jail sentence for allegedly insulting Kuwaiti monarch Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah.
During an argument with Kuwait airport guards, Ms Alshamery mentioned George Bush saving Kuwait in the first Gulf War of 1991, at the time allegedly motivated by protecting tiny Kuwait from mighty Iraq. Saddam Hussein, for years an ally of the West, which bankrolled his war against Iran, had morphed into "that evil dictator". After liberation, Kuwait almost overnight expelled most of its 450,000 Palestinian residents — a telling example of how minorities are so often treated by "moderate" Arab regimes.
Governments of Arab League states are, with few exceptions, characterised by brutal dictatorship, near-complete absence of the rule of law, widespread corruption and little respect for human rights. To divert attention from their own failures, Arab governments frequently use anti-Semitism or religious wedge issues. The hysterical response to the 2006 Danish cartoons in some Arab states was a classic example of this diversion tactic. No doubt Obama's words ("To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy") were designed to embolden nascent democratic forces, and will have sent shivers down the spines of many an Arab autocrat.
* Irfan Yusuf
* January 26, 2009
* Page 1 of 3 | Single Page View
An Islamic heritage does not preclude having an elected government.
IN MAY 2008, prominent conservative Edward Luttwak wrote in The New York Times that Barack Obama was an apostate in Muslim eyes, deserving of death under sharia law.
I saw no evidence of this as I flicked between three Pakistani cable news channels on Obama's inauguration day. Instead, Pakistani TV hosts spoke with pride of the 44th US president whose name and heritage would otherwise subject him to the same security checks Pakistanis endure when visiting the US. Obama's election will leave a particularly deep impact in Arab League states, where changes in leadership happen either via military coups, royal succession or, in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign intervention.
The absurd reality of Arab politics was reflected in the recent arrest in Kuwait of 43-year-old Sydney woman Nasrah Alshamery, who faces a possible five-year jail sentence for allegedly insulting Kuwaiti monarch Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah.
During an argument with Kuwait airport guards, Ms Alshamery mentioned George Bush saving Kuwait in the first Gulf War of 1991, at the time allegedly motivated by protecting tiny Kuwait from mighty Iraq. Saddam Hussein, for years an ally of the West, which bankrolled his war against Iran, had morphed into "that evil dictator". After liberation, Kuwait almost overnight expelled most of its 450,000 Palestinian residents — a telling example of how minorities are so often treated by "moderate" Arab regimes.
Governments of Arab League states are, with few exceptions, characterised by brutal dictatorship, near-complete absence of the rule of law, widespread corruption and little respect for human rights. To divert attention from their own failures, Arab governments frequently use anti-Semitism or religious wedge issues. The hysterical response to the 2006 Danish cartoons in some Arab states was a classic example of this diversion tactic. No doubt Obama's words ("To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy") were designed to embolden nascent democratic forces, and will have sent shivers down the spines of many an Arab autocrat.
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