Manuel Raimundo Querino (1851-1923): U.S. Muslim leaders denounce al Qaeda's slur toward Obama

22/11/2008

U.S. Muslim leaders denounce al Qaeda's slur toward Obama

One would think that, with all that time spent huddling in caves, Al Q's leadership would have bothered to read The Autobiography of Malcom X from beginning to end!

Story Highlights

U.S. Muslim leaders respond to comments reportedly made by al Qaeda official
Official said President-elect Barack Obama fit Malcolm X's definition of "house Negro"
Official also denigrated Secretaries of State Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Spiritual leaders of New York's African-American Muslim communities lashed out Friday at a purported al Qaeda message attacking President-elect Barack Obama and, using racist language, comparing him unfavorably to the late Malcolm X.

Ayman al-Zawahiri said Obama was the "direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X.

The imams called the recorded comments from al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, "an insult" from people who have "historically been disconnected from the African-American community generally and Muslim African-Americans in particular."

"We find it insulting when anyone speaks for our community instead of giving us the dignity and the honor of speaking for ourselves," they said in a statement read during a news conference at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center.

The al Qaeda statement, an 11-minute, 23-second audio message in Arabic with subtitles in English, appeared on the Internet on Wednesday. Its authenticity has not been confirmed.

The message said Obama represents the "direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X. Watch al Qaeda official criticize Obama »

The speaker also said Obama, former and current secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and "your likes," fit Malcolm X's description of "house slaves."

An English translation of the message used the term "house Negroes," Malcolm X's term for blacks who were subservient to whites. The term refers to slaves who worked in white masters' houses. Malcolm X said those slaves were docile compared to those who labored in the fields. iReport.com: Should Obama react to comments?

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Al Qaeda leader mocks Obama in Web posting

Malcolm X, the fiery African-American Muslim activist from the 1950s and 1960s, was an early member and leader of the Nation of Islam. He left that group in 1963 over disillusionment with its then-leader, Elijah Muhammed, but remained a Muslim.

After months of death threats, he was assassinated in 1965 by members of the Nation of Islam who shot him 16 times at close range. The three men who were convicted of the crime have since been paroled.

On Friday, Imam Al-Hajj Talib 'Abdur-Rashid, recalling Malcolm X's legacy, said that he "stood for human rights and the principle of self defense ... international law. He would have rejected, and we who are Muslim African-Americans leaders reject, acts of political extremism."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also condemned Zawahiri's comments in a statement issued on Thursday.

"As Muslims and as Americans, we will never let terrorist groups or terror leaders falsely claim to represent us or our faith," the statement said. "We once again repudiate al Qaeda's actions, rhetoric and world view and re-state our condemnation of all forms of terrorism and religious extremism."

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About Manuel Querino

ln a racial climate that was at best condescending and at worst genocidal toward blacks, Manuel Querino helped pioneer the study of the Afro-Brazilians and their culture.

This blog is dedicated to the life, work and causes of this African-Brazilian scholar. The importance of his pioneering efforts in the study of Afro-Brazilian culture can only be understood in the perspective of the environment of pseudoscientific racism in which all intellectuals lived in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Brazil.

By recognizing the contributions of Africans and their descendants to Brazil's national identity and culture, even a Brazilian "race," Querino displayed phenomenal independence of scholarship and mind. He defied the influence of European pseudoscientific racism in a country whose economy was partially based on racial slavery until 1888. Like most Brazilian intellectuals, Querino was seeking to provide a scientific or historical basis for a founding myth of Brazilian nationality and culture: in searching for the characteristic that gave their country and people their unique identity, he chose the fait accompli and undeniable fact of widespread cultural and biological miscegenation.

Quotations

> "Here it was the work of blacks that sustained the nobility and prosperity of Brazil for centuries, without fail; it was as a result of their work that we have scientific institutions, letters, arts, commerce, industry, etc. Therefore, they have played an outstanding role as a factor in Brazilian civilization.” - Manuel Querino
> "Brazil has two great glories: the bounty of its soil and the talent of the mestiço." - Manuel Querino
> "The generosity of the human spirit can overcome all adversity. Through compassion and caring, we create...hope." - Nelson Mandela
> "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice." - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
> "Until the lion writes his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." - African proverb
> "It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others.... One ever feels his twoness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." - W.E.B. DuBois
> "From a genetic perspective, all humans are Africans, either residing in Africa or in recent exile." - Svante Pääbo (Swedish biologist specialized in evolutionary genetics)
> "There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life." - Booker T. Washington
> "We have to recognize that the price of equality in pluralism, like the price of liberty, is eternal vigilance." - Carl N. Degler

Querinophiles and Querinologists

Several scholars have focussed on Querino in works published and produced in Brazil and the US over the past few decades, including Jorge Calmon, Pedro Calmon, E. Bradford Burns, Jaime Nascimento, Jaime Sodré, Maria das Graças Andrade Leal, David Brookshaw, Emanoel Araújo, Luiz Alberto Ribeiro Freire, Eliane Nunes, Kim Butler, Vivaldo da Costa Lima, Antonio Sergio Alfredo Guimarães and Waldeloir Rego. The greatest "Querinophile" of all was Jorge Amado, who drew inspiration from Querino's life and works when creating Pedro Archanjo, the protagonist of Tent of Miracles.

Background

My interest in Manuel Querino began when I was studying for my MA in Latin American Studies at UCLA in the early 1980s. After reading Jorge Amado's Tent of Miracles, I learned that the protagonist was largely inspired by Querino's life and works. My MA advisor, the late E. Bradford Burns, shared my interest in Querino and urged me to write his biography. It has taken me a long time to get around to it - I moved to Brazil shortly after graduating in 1986 and spent 28 years there making a living as a translator and raising a family before returning to the UK. In addition to researching Querino's life and Brazilian race relations in general, my PhD in Ethnic Studies at CEAO/UFBA focussed on the intellectual history of the African diaspora through two figures: Manuel R. Querino and Booker T. Washington. I recently published a version of my thesis in Portuguese and am working on the English edition. Suggestions and/or critiques of this blog will be warmly and gratefully welcomed.

-- Sabrina Gledhill