Zawahiri – Exit of Bush and Arrival of Obama

Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism.

The Associated Press: Al-Qaida No. 2 insults Obama in new audio message

Ayman al-Zawahri insulted Barack Obama in the terror group’s first reaction to his election, calling him a demeaning racial term implying that the president-elect is a black American who does the bidding of whites.

The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies. Al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday, that Obama is “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.

Al-Zawahri also called Obama — along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — “house negroes.”

Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term “abeed al-beit,” which literally translates as “house slaves.” But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as “house negroes.”

The message also includes old footage of speeches by Malcolm X in which he explains the term, saying black slaves who worked in their white masters’ house were more servile than those who worked in the fields. Malcolm X used the term to criticize black leaders he accused of not standing up to whites.

The phrase referred to is ‘house negro’:Malcolm X – Wikiquote:

If you’re afraid of black nationalism, you’re afraid of revolution. And if you love revolution, you love black nationalism. To understand this, you have to go back to what the young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro back during slavery. There were two kinds of slaves, the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes — they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good because they ate his food — what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved the master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house — quicker than the master would. If the master said, “We got a good house here,” the house Negro would say, “Yeah, we got a good house here.” Whenever the master said “we,” he said “we.” That’s how you can tell a house Negro.

* If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight
harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got
sick, the house Negro would say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” We
sick! He identified himself with his master, more than his master
identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said,
“Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,” the house Negro would
look at you and say, “Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is
there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than
this? Where can I eat better food than this?” That was that house
Negro. In those days he was called a “house nigger.” And that’s what we
call them today, because we’ve still got some house niggers running
around here.

* This modern house Negro loves his master. He
wants to live near him. He’ll pay three times as much as the house is
worth just to live near his master, and then brag about “I’m the only
Negro out here.” “I’m the only one on my job.” “I’m the only one in
this school.” You’re nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to
you right now and says, “Let’s separate,” you say the same thing that
the house Negro said on the plantation. “What you mean, separate? From
America, this good white man? Where you going to get a better job than
you get here?” I mean, this is what you say. “I ain’t left nothing in
Africa,” that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.

* On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negroes
— those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field
than there were Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught
hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The
Negro in the field didn’t get anything but what was left of the insides
of the hog.

* The field Negro was beaten from morning to night;
he lived in a shack, in a hut; he wore old, castoff clothes. He hated
his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house
Negro loved his master, but that field Negro — remember, they were in
the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on fire,
he didn’t try to put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a
breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he’d die.
If someone came to the field Negro and said, “Let’s separate, let’s
run,” he didn’t say, “Where we going?” He’d say, “Any place is better
than here.”
o Speech (9 November 1963).

The video of As Sahab Media featuring Zawahiri with subtitles in Arabic includes clips of Malcolm X (subtitled in English); the meaning however is slightly changed. You can find a copy of video HERE, the Arabic transcript HERE. For the complete transcript in English read after the break: (more…)

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