This promises to be quite a moment for the world. Of course it was always going to be a moment of great historical import for Americans, but the interview in the Chicago Tribune suggests that there will be great meaning in it for a whole other part of the world.
In his first post-election newspaper interview, with reporters from the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, Obama was asked: “Do you anticipate being sworn in as Barack Obama or Barack Hussein Obama?"
He replied: “I think the tradition is that they use all three names, and I will follow the tradition, not trying to make a statement one way or the other. I'll do what everybody else does.”
Mike Allen at politico points out that it isnt always tradition to use your middle name:
in fact, all presidents have not used their middle names when taking the oath of office. Jimmy Carter famously went as “Jimmy Carter.” Ronald Wilson Reagan took the oath as simply “Ronald Reagan.”
Harry Truman, of course, didn’t have a middle name - just an initial that didn’t stand for anything — and was sworn in as “Harry S. Truman.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gerald R. Ford took the oath using their middle initials.
The last three presidents have used their middle names: George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton and George Walker Bush. So did Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, in the hasty ceremony aboard Air Force One, went nameless — prompted to say only, “I do solemnly swear.”
So it seems to me that whilst he says he is just following tradition, he is also, whether he intends it or not, making a point. It could not be a more important point either and it is what Muslims in America and around the world were hoping for. Not because it somehow means Obama is a muslim, the only people that believe that are Pam Atlas and her readers. But because it will be a powerful image for the world. A world in parts of which having a muslim name can make it more difficult to get a job, where having a muslim name can invite taunts and prejudice. In this world a President willing to embrace his muslim middle name will have ramifications from the streets of Dearborn to the slums of Cairo and beyond.
Yesterday was Eid for the worlds muslims.In New York an Imam used his Eid sermon to ask Obama to make this public statement of solidarity,
Addressing a public meeting after Eid-ul-Zuha prayers here yesterday, Sheik Ubaid has requested US President-elect to take oath of the office using his full name Barack Hussain Obama and bury "Islamophobia" in the "cemetery of other social evils."
it really is going to be a stirring moment for so many people of all races and religions, but for me, a young educated (mostly agnostic) muslim in the west, who for 8 years has had family harassed, has felt isolated and marginalized (outside of dKos) this will be a moment i will never forget.
Ultimately of course, this is just a symbol, what is more important is what else is mentioned in the interview from today. He is not interested in only symbolic gestures to the muslim world, he intends to push hard for better relations and understanding, and i for one think he is the man who could do it.
"I think we've got a unique opportunity to reboot America's image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular,'' Obama said Tuesday, promising an "unrelenting" desire to "create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of good will who want their citizens and ours to prosper together."
The world, he said, "is ready for that message."
I have never been so hopeful.
[Update] Brainwrap has a great diary on funny names and politics here http://www.dailykos.com/...