Al Qaeda Calls Obama “House Negro”

After an election campaign in which the wingnut right tried repeatedly to raise the spectre of Barack Hussein Obama as crypto-Islamist sleeper sent by the terrorists to destroy the republic from within – a sort of Mohammedan candidate, if you will – it’s kinda refreshing to see normal service resumed this morning, now that the newbie’s back to being attacked as a tool of the Jews. That, at least, is the subliminal message of Al Qaeda’s latest video message, in which Ayman Al-Zawahiri deploys what the media are coyly referring to as a “racial epithet” to describe the President-elect:

The phrase that has caught everyone’s attention, of course, is the punchline; Obama is portrayed, like Colin and Condi, as compliant “house Negroes”, who in Malcolm X’s infamous categorization were too docile to rise up against their oppressors, unlike their counterparts “in the field”. (As news outlets have carefully pointed out, the Arabic word used in the message, “abed”, does not actually mean “Negro”, though it’s rendered as such in the subtitles. In fact it can mean either “slave” or “black”; Arabs use the same word fairly interchangeable for both ideas. One wonders what Malcolm would have made of that.)

Lest there was any doubt that he was sharing the Al Qaeda perspective on African-Americans’ long march to freedom, though, Zawahiri (if indeed it is he) hammers the real point home with characteristic subtlety:

“You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews”

…accompanied by obligatory photo of Obama wearing a kippah.

As a reminder that we are dealing with antediluvian minds, this is at least welcome, if (one would hope) redundant. But while the crass use of racially loaded language may jar horribly to western ears, at least we have some idea now of the narrative that Islamists intend to construct around America’s first mixed-race President, and the implicit threat to Muslims who seek accommodation with Israel and the West, rather than conflict.

Still, at least they didn’t call him an Uncle Tom. Endorsing McCain was bad enough, but if I thought Al Qaeda were Naderites I’d be starting to question their judgement.