ISTANBUL – President-elect Barack Obama, who pledged to visit a Muslim capital during his first 100 days in office, should choose Turkey or Indonesia, two key Muslim-majority countries going through a steady democratic transition, according to the Washington Post.
In an article published Saturday, Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim said delivering a message of U.S. reconciliation with the rest of the world may begin with the 1.4 billion Muslims.
“Since democracy, a deeply held value of Americans, has become an aspiration for most Muslims, democracy should be central to Obama’s message Ğ and to his choice of where to deliver it,” he noted, adding that Turkey and Indonesia were the places to deliver the message. “By their example, Indonesia and Turkey have laid to rest both Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ proposition and the idea that Islam and democracy are incompatible,” he wrote.
Ibrahim argued that many of the Muslim countries’ rulers were despotic, repressive and corrupt, but some of them have also been friends or outright allies of the United States. “While the rest of the Muslim world has a long way to go toward democracy, Indonesia and Turkey should be celebrated as role models. Nothing would speak louder and clearer to that notion than an early visit by the universally popular Barack Obama,” he said.
Source : Hurriyet
