AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI'S COMMENTS ON BARACK OBAMA AS "HOUSE SLAVE"

I take interest in Ayman Al Zawahiri's characterization of Barack Obama as the "house slave." Some American media report this phrase in a much different sense, "house nigger." However, Juan Cole who is fluent in Arabic confirms the "house slave."

For me, "house slave" has a much "richer" meaning against the background of the Middle East and Islam. For anyone familiar with Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes, well-off Muslims at least through the 18th Century would establish their own harems or seraglios. The important connection is that the harems were guarded by "house slaves" or eunuchs, whose job it was to keep the women in almost absolute imprisonment and bondage as well as fight off competing males.