Despising America has long been a Middle East pastime, but then the country that brought war to Iraq and orange-suited prisoners to Guantanamo Bay elected a Facebook-friendly president who speaks in poems.
What's a mullah to do?
With the speed of a Twitter missive, the cultural game has shifted. Barack Obama's rise to the White House comes when the Arabs are intensely suspicious of U.S. intentions, and when Islam, through satellite TV and the Internet, is inundated with Western culture.
Eight years of President Bush gave conservative Muslims a buttress against America. But Obama, who plays as well in Hollywood as he does in the villages of Kenya, is changing Washington's image from a cowboy with snarling sound bites to a conciliator with star appeal.
The Middle East probably won't put aside its mistrust of Washington over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq and regional flash points, including Iran's nuclear program. The early elation in the Arab media over Obama's victory was later balanced with the belief that the president-elect is encumbered by entrenched U.S. policies, and that what looms before the world is a new face, one with international sensibilities, yet ultimately one that will act in American interests.
But Obama's is a multicultural face that narrows degrees of separation. He is the Christian son of a Muslim father; he seems more a citizen of the world than an Illinois senator. To many in the Middle East, he is that rare thing: a minority who, with breathtaking speed and without a military coup, has risen to political prominence. This strikes deeply in a part of the world where repression carries a twofold meaning: Western power and military dominance, and Arab regimes that silence dissent.
"His resonant, melodic voice is heard as the voice of the voiceless," Gamal Nkrumah, whose father, Kwame, led Ghana to independence from British rule in 1957, wrote in the Egyptian weekly Al Ahram. "Obama's genius is that he appeals to the well-heeled liberals in Western nations as much as the penniless peasants of impoverished nations, the teeming millions eking out a meager existence."
The president-elect presents new dangers to the established order. He is charismatic and cyber-savvy; he bridges hip-hop and Mozart; his middle name is Hussein. He built a campaign around a well-choreographed electronic populism that generated millions of dollars in Internet donations.
This strategy speaks to religious and political reformers in the Middle East, who in recent years have turned to blogs and Facebook groups to organize government protests and debate Islamic tenets.
U.S. allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco jail dissident bloggers and online commentators. These governments, which are crucial to regional stability and the stemming of terrorism, are frequently criticized by democracy advocates and human rights groups. The Internet, YouTube and message boards, which Obama navigated to win the support of steelworkers, college students and investment bankers, are viewed by leaders in this region as dangerous tools of revolt for the young.
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