Historical precedent marred by “abeed al-beit” comment.
It was a good day. Not only did my nephew turn nine-years-old, but it was the day the first African American was elected president of the United States. Words can not express how I feel about the historic outcome of this election. I really can’t believe that President-elect Barack Obama is our 44th president! I was at an election night party with friends, and my friend Adam and I were in the middle of a conversation when at 11:03pm CNN had announced that Obama had garnered 284 electoral votes declaring him the winner. He was turning facing me when it happened so I shook the hell out of him to look at the tv. The room full of friends, black, white, southeast Asian, and French; erupted in screams of happiness. We were so excited that Obama had won that we ran into the streets of Harlem and celebrated with everyone. We weren’t too far from 125th street so went to the State Building where there was already a huge crowd and people were celebrating.
It felt good to see everybody in the streets happy over one thing.
Just recently, Al-Qaida’s number two in charge, Ayman al-Zawahri, has called President-elect Barack Obama, an “abeed al-beit”, or a “house slave”. I’m not even angry or in the least bit disturbed, but I am confused. Most citizens in countries all over the world are very happy that Obama will be sworn in January 20th, 2009 – why is Al-Qaida? Are they scared that Obama will actually make an effort to find those who are responsible for 9/11 in Afghanistan, and try them and make them pay the price for their crimes? I really think this is it. He and the rest of the Al-Qaida operatives want to belittle this historic and flawless campaign with racism and say that Obama is in the opposite of black leaders like Malcolm X. Why pull Malcolm X out of your hat when it was members of the Nation of Islam who assassinated Malcolm X because he left that sect and became a Sunni Muslim.
I think that we, everyone who believes that Obama’s foreign policy will be different from that of the Bush administration and that he is not a “house slave”, should fight against stupidity such as this from people and groups like Al-Qaida. I have friends who are Muslim, and I know they do not align themselves with the terrorist organiztion, nor do many other Muslims. To quote Colin Powell, someone al-Zawahri lumped Obama with in the “house slave” category, “It is not a bad thing to be Muslim” but with Al-Qaida making a having a huge presence in the back of the minds of many people, it is definitely hard to be one and identify yourself as a Muslim, American, and a supporter of Barack Obama.
