WORDS TO CONSIDER CAREFULLY, FROM JUAN COLE: I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obamas name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages! ...Barack Obamas middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a SECULAR resident of Nairobi. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph. There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of Americas most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel, The Kite Runner, is Khaled Hosseini. But in Obamas case, it is just a reference to his grandfather.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 10:01:06 +0000
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