The city was recently attacked by a terrorist group which has defied the concept of the "nation-state" -- defining the nation instead as a community of believers -- and has churned out a political ideology derived from religion that has molded their minds and spirits to be lethal weapons to serve causes that even their religion forbids. But then this is the nature of belief, as long as you believe, your belief has the force of material existence.The carnage in Mumbai, carried out in the name of religion, has once again cast a shadow on Islam by a group of fanatics that have added their beliefs to the arsenal of their criminal acts. This perverted fringe group has been bitterly criticized by the majority of the adherents of that religion, who sincerely believe that their religion is a creed of peace and compassion and who plead with world leaders not to brand their faith as a source of criminality.
Now that Barack Obama has been elected president of the US, still the most influential country in the world, the Muslims who detest the fact that their religion has been turned into an ideology of opposition and violence by extremists have expectations of the new world leader.
The Obama government's mode of conduct concerning Muslims and Muslim leaders is the primary concern of both moderate Muslims and authoritarian rulers in the wider Middle East. They all know that the Bush administration's tragic mistakes in the Middle East have played an important role in alienating Muslims and helped the rise of Arab and Islamist radicalism. The moderates have suffered a lot from Islamist radicalism that initially targeted them as heretics and "sellouts" before reaching out for the "distant enemy," namely the West in general and the US in particular.
On the other side of the coin, rulers in authoritarian Muslim countries fear that Mr. Obama may adopt a policy of defense of individual freedom and pluralist democracies. This would really pose a threat to their power and privilege.
Moderate or non-ideological Muslims expect Mr. Obama to support democratic trends in their countries, but not to push them from above using ruling elites that will never adopt a democratic agenda but rather will simply play for time, making only cosmetic changes. This will, in turn, further reinforce the power of autocratic regimes that are threatened by genuine democracy.
Muslim moderates look at religion as a cultural affair, wanting to render it autonomous of politics so that it will be protected from political power and in the same way, preventing it from seeking political power. So they want the Obama administration to press their governments to enact reforms that will pave the way to democratic politics and legal changes that will allow for more individual freedoms. They do not want a hypocritical stance from an America which advocates democracy but supports the most authoritarian regimes in the Arab world for the sake of oil deals and other strategic ends. The Bush administration set a very bad example of paying lip service to democracy, which, in fact, worked as a vehicle to blackmail Arab regimes and served America's strategic interests.
Moderate Muslims see that as long as there is great disruption in the world that is caused by exclusion, marginalization, poverty and ignorance, there will be resistance or even hatred against the existing world order and its domestic actors. So Muslims plead with Mr. Obama not to consider all Muslims as terrorists, but to be aware of the dire conditions which give rise to inequality and injustice -- the real sources of a radicalism that threatens all nations. They call on Mr. Obama and world leaders with the rationale that the best protection of individuals and society is social justice and inclusion, not just armed forces and the police.
President Bush has not cared much about the violations of human rights and government repression in many friendly Arab and Muslim countries. The US army's conduct in Iraq and elsewhere, in places such as Guantanamo, has eroded America's credibility as a country that respects democratic ideals and the rule of law. Muslims all around the world sincerely hope that the Obama government does not repeat these gross mistakes, which have cost America its respect and moral weight in the Middle East and more generally around the globe.
It will indeed be a major mistake for the Obama administration to believe that American national security can be protected through tolerating the suppression of moderate and democratic Muslims in return for their repressive governments' support of American strategic interests. If it incurs the wrath of young Muslims who may start to label the US as the real cause of their misery and repression, it may make the world a very narrow place for US citizens and for all those who could be brandished as "enemies of Islam." No group may be as dangerous as the one whose members feel that life has no worth unless it is sacrificed, dedicating it to a sublime cause. I hope that we do not push our youth to those extremes by making their lives miserable, for they may make everyone else's lives even more miserable.
