First and foremost, US President Barack Hussein Obama should be complimented for initiating a dialogue with the "Muslim World" in a bid to restore peace across the world.  But after reading the text of his speech at the Al Azhar University, Cairo, on 4^th June 2009, it was greatly disappointing to note that it contained no reference, absolutely none, to the rampant discrimination practiced in Islamic countries and Muslim societies against non-Muslims, especially the one billion strong Hindu community and millions of Buddhists - the so-called "kaffirs", uniformly considered as children of a lesser God by Islamic societies.   In every Muslim country, they are denied the freedom to practice and preach their religious beliefs. There is no tolerance for the religious beliefs and sacred shrines of Hindus in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and most other Muslim countries. In sharp contrast, the Muslims have always enjoyed complete religious freedom in India and most Buddhist countries, nay, in almost all non-Muslim countries. During the last 50 years, there has been a systematic ethnic cleansing of Hindus and Buddhists from two Islamic countries, namely, Pakistan and Bangladesh. While the international community slumbered, Islamists continued to kill, convert and drive out millions of hapless Hindus.  Their share in the population has come down to barely 2 percent in Pakistan from 23 percent in 1947, while in Bangladesh their proportion is now down to 8 percent from nearly 27 percent in 1947. This ethnic cleansing of millions of innocent Hindus and Buddhists is far worse than the suffering of the people of Darfur!  Unfortunately, the world leaders took no notice of it!  On top of it, in most Muslim countries no temple or place of worship for Hindus and Buddhists is allowed. One is left wondering how such diabolical discrimination has been ignored in Obama's Cairo speech. 

President Obama should be reminded that it was in the same historic city of  Cairo, where he decided to launch his overture to woo the Muslim world , that the Organization of Islamic Countries unveiled in the year 1990 their version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, known as the Cairo Declaration of  Human Rights in Islam, categorically stipulating in Article 24 that in Islamic countries, "All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration" will be subject to the Islamic Shari'ah.  Article 25 of that Declaration further asserted that "The Islamic Shariah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration". The Preamble of that Declaration stated that its objective was to reaffirm "the civilizing and historical role of Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation" for guiding the humanity.

President Obama cannot be unaware of the fact that Islam has very little tolerance even for the Christians and the Jews with the result that their proportion in population is dwindling fast across the Middle East and most other Muslim countries, a fact to which the present Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, drew pointed attention during his recent visit to the Middle East.   It would have surely enhanced Obama's prestige if he had called upon the Islamic world to respect the religious beliefs of non-Muslims and grant equal rights to them in the same measure and on the same scale in which Muslims have been enjoying civil rights in secular societies like India and other non-Muslim countries.

Last update : 27-07-2009 00:23

Keywords : Wooing Islamists Will Not Help Obama, Ram Kumar Ohri

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