now that the US has had its fun
...it's Ayman al-Zawahiri's turn to play the race card!
So it seems. The news broke two days ago, and here are some samples of coverage by major players in the Western media.
Reuters | Guardian | WaPo | Time
Couple of observations here.
It seems that the Western media is milking Zawahiri's remark for more than it is worth, and taking it entirely out of context. Abid al-bayt is an abusive term. Certainly. It is dirty and derogatory; 'house slave' - abid translates literally as 'slave'. It was an obvious expression of scorn and ridicule. That much is true.
WaPo speculates that the remark will lead to al-Qaeda's alienation of rising Islamist movements in African countries, most of which include nations in the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa. Maybe, maybe not. The Western media seems bent on misleading the public - Zawahiri had chosen to express his solidarity for blacks and Africans in general, and the media has conveniently forgotten this. After all, al-Qaeda maintains a diverse, multinational front; in principle, at least.
My point is - 'abid al-bayt' was specifically directed at Obama, and nowhere else, not once, did Zawahiri express his contempt for blacks; he did quite the opposite. Moreover, it may simply have been a parallel to Malcolm X's original choice of words. On top of that, despite its waning influence in the Middle East, al-Qaeda enjoys a certain amount of leverage in the Africa.
Be as that may, dark-skinned people and individuals of African lineage are commonly held in contempt around the Arabian Peninsula. Ethnic Arabs are particularly guilty of such prejudice.
Of course, the racial divisions in the region and beyond are messier than a primary school potluck. For example:
Egypt! allow me to go off on a tangent. This hasn't anything to do with Zawahiri, but I'll finish this post with a couple of other observations.
Egypt has always been an outsider; it has always been the odd bastard child-with-spots on the block. One ought to notice that Egypt is not 'truly' African. At best, it is geographically African, but culturally Middle-Eastern. Geopolitically, it is neither - or both. That is why it was always deemed as an important front by the CIA. It was a commonly held belief that one could control both Africa and the Middle East, by means of manipulating a yielding Egypt. Of course, Sadat notwithstanding, they got Nasser, who was only too eager to spit in their eye.
- National Geographic
Egypt's awkwardness has its roots in antiquity.
Barring the original Egyptian dynasties, it never once had a distinct identity. It was ruled by the Greco-Hellenistic-Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty (all the way till the Cleopetra came along) before the Romans and the Byzantine-Romans, after which the Arabs rushed in in one fell swoop. Egypt ended its ride by gaining independence, but not before yielding to the French and the Brit-Ottoman-Mamluks.
Choice quotes from Wiki.
So it seems. The news broke two days ago, and here are some samples of coverage by major players in the Western media.
Reuters | Guardian | WaPo | Time
Couple of observations here.
It seems that the Western media is milking Zawahiri's remark for more than it is worth, and taking it entirely out of context. Abid al-bayt is an abusive term. Certainly. It is dirty and derogatory; 'house slave' - abid translates literally as 'slave'. It was an obvious expression of scorn and ridicule. That much is true.
WaPo speculates that the remark will lead to al-Qaeda's alienation of rising Islamist movements in African countries, most of which include nations in the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa. Maybe, maybe not. The Western media seems bent on misleading the public - Zawahiri had chosen to express his solidarity for blacks and Africans in general, and the media has conveniently forgotten this. After all, al-Qaeda maintains a diverse, multinational front; in principle, at least.
My point is - 'abid al-bayt' was specifically directed at Obama, and nowhere else, not once, did Zawahiri express his contempt for blacks; he did quite the opposite. Moreover, it may simply have been a parallel to Malcolm X's original choice of words. On top of that, despite its waning influence in the Middle East, al-Qaeda enjoys a certain amount of leverage in the Africa.
Be as that may, dark-skinned people and individuals of African lineage are commonly held in contempt around the Arabian Peninsula. Ethnic Arabs are particularly guilty of such prejudice.
Of course, the racial divisions in the region and beyond are messier than a primary school potluck. For example:
- Having had their experiences with foreign mujahideen during the Soviet invasion, the Pashtun maliks in Afghanistan would conclude that the Africans are no better than Arab dogs.Ah, the Middle East. It is a shambles.
- The Persians and Tajiks in the area would join in to have a hearty go at the Arabs (not the Africans, who they have little experience with), but not before spitting on the Pashtuns - and only if the Tajiks are Shi'a, not Sunni.
- The Bedouins (fuck off, you, "I and my brothers against my cousins, I and my brothers and my cousins against the world" we're rather happy being belligerent and miserable, thank you very much) and the long-suffering Kurds aside, the Arabs (we're shifting westwards) are happily flipping their fingers at everyone around them. One would think that they've stopped caring. Why bother when you're building fantasy cities and cashing in on trillions of oil dollars? But while you're at it, I suppose you could ship Africans in by the boatful. Cheap labour + reassertion of class consciousness/racial hierachy = handy feel-good trick.
- The Egyptians? (Zawahiri's one, but the following cannot be assumed of him, of course.) They're simply keeping to the historical status quo. Were the ancient Nubians not conquered by the Kushites and the Egyptians?
Egypt! allow me to go off on a tangent. This hasn't anything to do with Zawahiri, but I'll finish this post with a couple of other observations.
Egypt has always been an outsider; it has always been the odd bastard child-with-spots on the block. One ought to notice that Egypt is not 'truly' African. At best, it is geographically African, but culturally Middle-Eastern. Geopolitically, it is neither - or both. That is why it was always deemed as an important front by the CIA. It was a commonly held belief that one could control both Africa and the Middle East, by means of manipulating a yielding Egypt. Of course, Sadat notwithstanding, they got Nasser, who was only too eager to spit in their eye.
- National Geographic
Egypt's awkwardness has its roots in antiquity.
Barring the original Egyptian dynasties, it never once had a distinct identity. It was ruled by the Greco-Hellenistic-Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty (all the way till the Cleopetra came along) before the Romans and the Byzantine-Romans, after which the Arabs rushed in in one fell swoop. Egypt ended its ride by gaining independence, but not before yielding to the French and the Brit-Ottoman-Mamluks.
Choice quotes from Wiki.
- When Egypt fell under a series of foreign occupations after 343 BC, each left an indelible mark on the country's cultural landscape (you don't say).Hardly a settled country.
- Three chief ideologies came to head: ethno-territorial Egyptian nationalism, secular Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism, and Islamism.
- Arab nationalism reached a peak under Nasser but was once again relegated under Sadat; meanwhile, the ideology espoused by Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood is present in small segments of the lower-middle strata of Egyptian society.
Labels: geopolitics
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