Earlier today, President Barack Obama delivered an historic speech at Cairo University. Obama told Muslims:
I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles -- principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
Good luck with that.
A new Rasmussen poll found that only 28 percent of U.S. voters think America’s relationship with the Muslim world will be better this time next year. Twenty-one percent say the relationship will be worse.
Similarly, a Gallup poll found that 80 percent of Americans believe Muslims have an unfavorable view of the U.S.
Truth be told, the United States has been seeking a “new beginning” and “common ground” with Muslims for quite a while.
Last weekend, I checked out “Jam Session: American Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World” at the Jazz Heritage Center in San Francisco. The photo collection documents Foggy Bottom’s “quest to win the hearts and minds of the world with jazz.”
In 1956, at the request of then-Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the State Department sent Dizzy Gillespie on the first jazz tour of the Middle East. The “Kool Kat Diplomat” visited Iran Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan.
The jazz ambassadors included Louis Armstrong, who visited Cairo in 1961 (the year Obama was born), Count Basie, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson and Sarah Vaughn. Also, Duke Ellington, who toured for the State Department more than any other musician.
American diplomats embraced musical diplomacy because they were “eager to present a positive image of America abroad.”
It is said that “music has charms that soothe the savage breast.” Jazz didn’t change many hearts and minds in the Middle East. Time will tell whether Obama’s respectful tone will remake U.S.-Muslim relations.
For info on Obama in Cairo, go here.
