Britain: appreciation for Obama's nuanced view of 'Muslim-majority countries'

If he had a criticism, however, it was that Obama had failed to address the poor record on human rights and democracy by many Arab “dictators and despots,” including the government of Egypt itself.

The speech also went down well among an invited audience at the US Embassy, according to Riazat Butt, religious affairs correspondent for the Guardian newspaper.

“I think that people were impressed and the reaction was generally positive, because he was basically doing something that Bush would never do,” she said.

“For much of the first half of the speech, there were a lot of comments which were very general in nature, but then he started to talk about Al Qaeda, then about Israel and Palestine, and about Iran, which I thought he would not do.”

Overall, she expected that British Muslims would take notice.“I think that people here on the street will be talking about it because it has been very eagerly awaited. But how people judge what he had to say will ultimately come down to whether he follows through on his words with actions.”

The Quilliam Foundation, a London-based counterextremism think tank made up of former Islamist activists, described the speech as “groundbreaking and courageous.”

Welcoming a “nuanced but significant change” in Obama’s language, it added that he “avoided any use of the term ‘the Muslim world’ and instead adopted ‘Muslim-majority countries’ and ‘Muslim communities.’ ”

The statement continued, “There is no monolithic ‘Muslim community,’ nor is there a singular homogeneous entity known as ‘the Muslim world,’ rather there are diverse and distinctive Muslim communities that need to be reflected in our discourse. Using the term ‘the Muslim world’ only serves to bolster the Islamist and Al Qaeda narrative of ‘the West’ against ‘Islam’ – of a battle of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ or ‘good’ versus ‘evil.’

“By omitting this, Obama has taken a positive step in the battle of ideas and in realizing his promise that America is not fighting a war against Islam.”

Other reactions around the world

• Israel
• France
• Italy
• Iran
• Albania
• Pakistan

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