EDITORIAL

Past his first year in office, United States President Obama's assurances that he would work for mending ties with the Muslim world have begun to ring hollow. His latest move to appoint Indian-American Rashad Hussain as the envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the earlier appointment of Farah Pundit as the State Department representative to the Muslim world are largely taken in ceremonial spirit. The President has done nothing different than his predecessors, the two Bushs, and seems incapable of wriggling out of the Zionist stranglehold over the American foreign policy. He continues to threaten Iran and is drumming up support from the stooges in the Arab Gulf nations. Afghanistan has only seen fresh troop surge, without a sign of withdrawal. Corrupt Karzai regime was allowed to rig the election and remain at the helms. Drones keep killing innocent people in Waziristan in Pakistan's northern areas. New front is sought to be opened in Yemen where the US scents Al-Qaeda's presence.

Most such special envoys that US Presidents appoint serve as spin doctors lending cosmetic touches to the ties with the Muslims. Few in the Islamic world, however, come to know that the same Obama appointed Hannah Rosenthal as 'Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat anti-Semitism' last November. Being directly accountable to the President, their effectiveness and performance is hard to be judged in quantifiable terms. Even as Muslims all across the Middle East receive American bombs, the Jewish settlements continue to expand across the hills of Biblical Judea and Samarra uprooting Palestinian villages. Guantanomo Bay prison is far from being shut down. Nothing deters Israel from imprisoning the Palestinians in Gaza with a helping hand from Egyptian client regime of Hosni Mubarak. Arabs emirs, khalifas and shahs are being sold obsolete arms to counter 'threat from nuclear Iran' and the US media continues to successfully peddle imaginary fears. Israel's nuclear status still eludes questioning by the US and the West in general. The President is at his rhetorical best when it comes to mouthing promises of goodwill towards the Muslim world but his vocal cords lose his company if Israeli vandalism against the historic mosque in Al-Quds (Jerusalem) demands condemnation. Widespread Islamophobia emanates from the US think tanks and no one takes notice. But denial of Holocaust and murmurings of anti-semitism attract manifold reprisals.

For all practical purposes, Obama betrays signs of becoming hostage to the lobbies that have obliterated even the hint of evenhandedness in the US foreign policy. The hope that he would prove himself different are vanishing fast.

The West Bengal Government's move to reserve 10 per cent seats in Government jobs for Muslims is unwise for being hasty. Looking at the grinding poverty in Muslim pockets of West Bengal, the move deserves commendation. But the element of undue haste has rid it of all noble intentions inasmuch as everyone could read electoral motivations behind the initiative. With Assembly elections being just 18 months away, the Marxist Government could not have thought of a better ploy to ensure the Muslim votes, 24 per cent by Census reckoning, for its kitty.

Muslims lie at the bottom of the heap of the underprivileged classes and backward communities in the poverty ridden state under Marxist rule for the last 35 years. The leftist were found no better than the right wing BJP when it came to extending reservation to the Muslims, rejecting the plea for religion based reservation. For some time they even dangled the dilemmatic choices of 'security or development' asking the community to be content with the 'paradise of peace' being offered under the Marxist rule and avoid demanding fruits of capitalist development which after all were reserved for the committed cadres.

Then came the report of the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee which placed the Gujarat Muslims, even under the BJP rule, some notches higher than the Muslims in West Bengal on socio-economic and educational scale. Statistics startled the community as well as all those who had shown interest in its welfare. Faces of the comrades grew redder. Feigning ignorance of the real plight, the Leftist began to look for some cover. Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission Report administered a few more hard knocks of realism. 'Didi's' good show at the hustings rattled the Buddhadeb government out of its wits.

The reservation for Muslim mantra is outcome of the desperation that grips the CPI(M) which finds the vote bank slipping through its fingers under the combined assault of the Trinamool Congress and the Congress. Having done no homework of their own in preparation to the announcement, any hope of it passing the judicial muster must be considered unrealistically optimistic. Similar attempts in Andhra Pradesh have backfired and despondency among the intended beneficiaries is turning into anger. The West Bengal government will soon be called to present a cogent case for the initiative whose long term benefits are undeniably welcome for any community in similar situation.