Father Frank’s Rants - Obama of Arabia

Rant Number 381 18 January 2010

Lawrence of Arabia and Barack Obama – are they by any chance related? I think we should be told.

Physically and professionally, there does not seem to be any resemblance at all. Lawrence was short, fair, a fine leader of warriors and sexually ambiguous. Obama is tall, half-African, straight and probably hasn’t fired a shot in his life. Besides, Lawrence was unmarried and ascetical. Neither drank not smoked, while Obama engages in both. And he rejoices in beautiful Michelle. So, what might they have in common? But being good at conning Arabs & Muslims, of course.

During WWI Lawrence led the daring and bloody Arab revolt against the Turks. He liked the Arabs and wished them to have some kind of independence. He promised Mecca’s Amir Faisal that much. When he learnt of the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement, by which France and Britain had decided to gobble up the Middle East and swindle the Arabs, Lawrence confessed: ‘I was bitterly ashamed’. Yet, he went to assure Faisal that England would keep her word. So in the end the legendary hero showed himself like any diplomat of the old school - a man sent abroad to lie for his country.

Obama’s Cairo speech was a masterpiece of rhetoric. The President embarked on a fulsome praise of all things Islamic. He greeted his audience with a resounding ‘Assalamu alaykum’. ‘Islam is part of America’, he proclaimed. Then he went on to quote or refer to the Qur’an five times. He boasted of his personal & family Islamic connections. Reminded his audience that the US government had gone to court ‘to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and punish those who would deny it’. (Should have a chat with hijabophobic President Sarkozy, methinks.) Islam ‘paved the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment’, he enthused. And listed a whole catalogue of historical Muslim achievements, from science to religion, sport, architecture, politics, poetry, music, medicine, technology, tolerance, justice, equality... Al hamdulillah! Why not also adding the invention of sliced bread and the zip?

Naturally, Muslims have lapped all that up. Yet my friend Ahmed looked deeply discontented. ‘What’s wrong?’ I inquired. ‘Surely you agree?’ ‘I do, Frank. But I don’t get this guy. If he really likes Islam, if he admires my religion as much as he pretends, he should become a Muslim. Otherwise he is a phoney.’ Quite. A sensible remark. Obama should embrace Islam. Yes, bit funny the priest should say that but what bloody good is this President as a nominal Christian? Has he gone court to save unborn babies from abortion? Or upheld the sanctity of marriage and the family? And punished those who don’t? None of them. So, maybe Islam would put hair on his chest. Force him to be more serious about his faith. Besides, Saudi King Abdullah would be pleased. Send the high convert a few baubles – oil wells, gold, trinkets like that. Well, just a thought.

Lawrence was a bit more straightforward about religion. To better bamboozle the Arabs, he could have faked being a Muslim, like Sir Richard F. Burton did before him. Instead, he did not garble his Christianity. He focussed on the job. Exploited racial rivalries. If Christians like English and Germans fight each other, why can’t Arabs and Turks? Moreover, despite his inadequate Arabic, Lawrence really did understand Arabs and Muslims. Hussein Obama, I fear, does not.

Obama’s position on Palestine reminds me, mutatis mutandis, of the old chestnut about God and the problem of evil. God exists. He is omnipotent and wholly good. But evil exists, too. So, is God unwilling to abolish evil from his creation? Then he is not all-good. Is he incapable of doing so? Then he is not omnipotent. Either way, such a flawed deity is unworthy of worship.

Obama is a little like that. In Cairo, he backed a Palestinian state. As well as renewing his country’s unstinted support for Israel. The bond between America and Israel is ‘unbreakable’, he stated. Fine, if that means defending Israel’s right to exist, but what else does it mean? Is this President unwilling to compel Israel to make real concessions, like removing the illegal settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank? Then he is cheating the Arabs, like Lawrence did. Is he powerless to challenge ‘the Lobby’? To force Israel to do his bidding? Then he is a useless, ineffectual leader, a sort of pathetic King Log. Either way, he cops out.

Tertium datur. Logically, there is of course a third possibility. The President does not really mean it. He does not want a Palestinian state, anymore than Netanyahu does. Unlike Lawrence, with his penchant for Arab youths, Obama does not like the sons of the desert. Not at all impossible...

The Arabs evince a regular tendency to be taken for a ride by the West, swallowing its fashionable ruling ideas and trends. In the past, many intellectuals fell into the arms of Marxist-Leninist ideology. It is hard to imagine a doctrine less compatible with Islam but Western secularism and its idols have always exercised a strong lure. Hence the rise of Baath parties and radical movements like that led by the defunct George Habash. Marxism now is dead, too, but there are new, irresistible fleshpots. Like the ideologies of democracy, human rights and consumerism. Check out the absurd Gulf States, with their soaring, glittering skyscrapers, trendy shopping malls, financial razzmatazz and slave labourers. Sheer monstrosities, freaks projected into Arabia by the West, what else?

Lawrence and Obama. In the sad tale of Western duplicity and obfuscation, the Englishman at least showed a certain moral consistency, even dignity. After the war he refused to accept all British honours and decorations. According to Robert Graves, Colonel Lawrence personally told King George V that the role he had played in Arab revolt was ‘dishonourable to himself and to his country and government. He had, by order, fed Arabs with false hopes’. He also respectfully told his monarch that he was determined to fight on, even militarily, until the Arabs achieved a fair settlement of their claims.

Admirable, is it not? The fruit of an Oxford classical education. I love that. Lawrence spoke like a Roman, a character in Plutarch. And he really meant it.

I now look forward to Obama returning his Nobel Peace Prize to the Norwegian Committee. It would be honourable thing to do. Of course, he won’t, but he should.

Revd Frank Gelli