Question: Why isn't Saddam called 'Mr Hussein'?

Whether you are worried, angry or confused, there are thousands of questions surrounding the Iraq crisis. The Iraq Questions Panel is trying to give you some answers.

QUESTION
From Jonathan Morris, Plymouth
Why is Saddam Hussein referred to as Saddam? The family name, as far as I know is Hussein, so why don't we call him Mr Hussein?

ANSWER
From Roger Hardy, BBC Middle East analyst
To call him 'Mr Hussein' would be Western usage. To call him 'Saddam' is to follow Arab custom.

In Arab countries where family and tribe are the basic social units, to call the ruler by his first name is egalitarian - it puts the ruler and the ruled, notionally at least, on an equal footing.

A tribesman in Saudi Arabia is quite likely to refer to King Fahd as 'Fahd'. It is not derogatory. Whether Western journalists should follow suit can be debated. But, as you will have noticed, 'Saddam' has become commonplace.

QUESTION
From Chris Jones, London
Is it not the case that Saddam Hussein (and therefore Iraq's regime) is very much anti-fundamentalist where Islam is concerned? If so how convinced are you by recent claims that the Iraqi regime is harbouring al-Qaeda terrorists?

ANSWER
From Roger Hardy
Saddam Hussein came to power as a Baathist, and Baathism is a form of secular Arab nationalism. In recent years he's chosen to adopt an increasingly Islamic vocabulary, but this is widely considered opportunistic - an attempt to increase his appeal to Muslims around the world by a man who's still a secular nationalist at heart.

By itself, however, this neither proves nor disproves a possible connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Those who see a link argue that it's not unprecedented in the Middle East for people or groups with very different ideologies to form marriages of convenience, based on a shared hostility to the United States.

Those who are unpersuaded point out that only tenuous links have so far been alleged, without any convincing proof. Whether the Bush administration can present convincing evidence of a link next week, as it is promising to do, remains to be seen.

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