Affect Blog

In a tape released this month al-Qaida number two, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, addressed a message to President elect Barack Obama. Playing up the racial theme, the video referenced the late black Muslim leader Malcolm X. Honouring him with the posthumous prayer rahmullah (May God be merciful to him), a prayer traditionally awarded exclusively to the righteous, al-Zawahiri’s speech was interspersed with the black leader’s rhetoric.

In the eleven minute long address al-Zahwiri made five points, three of which were addressed to Muslims, one of which was addressed to the world at large, while the longest and central portion was addressed to the incoming President. He compared the President-elect (a committed Christian born to a Muslim father) to Malcolm X (a converted Muslim born to a Christian father), and taunted him as a ‘House Slave’ (abeed al-bayt), a phrase recalling Malcolm X’s ‘House Negro’ – an Uncle Tom who betrays his race. For good measure, he lumped the two successive Afro-American Secretary of States, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, alongside.

What did al-Zahwari’s address tell us? A great deal. Consistent with al-Qaida’s track record, the speech continued to talk over the West and directly to the Muslims. Obama was a dummy figure – the speech may have seemed addressed to him – but in reality the speech’s intended audience were sitting in Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus watching excerpts played over satellite transmissions. There are several indicators which could be used to argue the proposition that al-Qaida is not interested in dialogue with the West, some of which are covered in a forthcoming article for Affect Journal. The absolute proof here however must be that al-Zawahiri’s chose to address Obama in Arabic. True, the language is the Egyptian’s mother tongue and naturally therefore the one in which he is best able to express himself. Yet we would ill forget that al-Zahwiri is bilingual. His spoken English is grammatically impeccable. Had he so chosen to engage in a genuine conversation with the West, he would have surely opted to engage in his second tongue. Earlier this year he released a tape in the English language trying to win over a Pakistani nation. There is a reason why he chose to ignore his talent here. In truth al-Qaida has little interest of engaging with non-Muslims. It is the Muslims upon whom they are focussed on.

Al-Zawahiri is a literate man. His referencing of Malcolm X shows up this erudition. And we also should accede that the video production was clever. Chillingly so. The frame contained 3 still photographs. Placing al-Zawahiri in the centre it had, to the viewer’s left, a picture of Obama, in amidst observant Jews. On the right it had a picture of Malcolm X – in the Muslim prayer posture. For a tape playing to a radicalised Islamic world who are ever looking for Muslim heroes and Jewish villains – the propaganda value was immense.

How genuine was al-Zahawiri’s referencing of Malcolm X? The Egyptian must have known that he was distorting history. The whole argument was intellectually fallacious. Malcolm X, a former pimp turned radical black Nation of Islam leader, renounced much of the aggression in his politics when he embraced moderate Sunni Islam – shortly before his death. True, he remained an activist – but his activism was based on a secular pan-Africanism. He was there at the forefront of political engagement. Within the fractious civil rights movement he was moving closer to Obama’s hero, Dr. King. Having disparaged King’s attempts earlier, towards the end of his life he saw his newly found self-sufficiency agenda as the natural counterfoil to King’s interracial pacifism. They only met once – briefly – but by that time were moving towards an intellectual rapprochement. One of the greatest political tragedies of the period was the two assassinations that robbed both men of their lives, stunting the nascent movement. As a digression, perhaps – and one can only hope – the Obama presidency will reap the fruits of their sacrifices.

Of course al-Zawahiri seems not to care much for the truth. If he had little grasp of the currents of the civil rights movement, he could have at least done better with the Arabic. He called the black leader both by the names Malcolm X and Malik al-Shabbaz. Why Malik al-Shabbaz? Malik al-Shabazz was Malcolm X’s  ‘Muslim’ Arabic name and calling him by that title immediately reminds one that Malcolm X died an orthodox Muslim. However the latter name has long troubled black scholars and researchers. Malik truly is a proper Arabic noun, but al-Shabazz has a more difficult linguistic history. Probably chosen because of its rhyme with razzmatazz, it gives off a foreign flavour without having any direct Arabic equivalent. The name is allegedly derived from the tribe of Shabazz – a non-existent African people. Again al-Zawahiri is playing on a name that he, a speaker of Arabic and a knowledgeable historian, knows to be intellectually dubious.

Can we then agree that the latest tape was directed neither to Obama, nor to the Afro-American community nor even to the US? It was cheap propaganda for an Arabic speaking Muslim audience who have little exposure to the thought of Malcolm X. That conclusion allows a natural follow on question. If al-Zawahiri could misrepresent the black leader so appallingly, then how do you think he is representing the Quran?

T. Sami is co-editor of affectjournal.co.uk. His forthcoming work on the rhetoric of al-Qaida is scheduled to appear in the next edition of Affect Journal.

Any thoughts?