Former Gitmo Prisoner Moazzam Begg

Who could have imagined that the next president of the U.S. would be a black man with the Muslim name Barack Hussein Obama? The president-elect, reached the White House under the banner of "change." The Sam Cooke civil rights classic "A Change is Gonna Come" was Obama's campaign-trail song and was paraphrased in his victory speech: "It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America."

Cooke's protest song was also played upon the death of Malcolm X, and featured in Spike Lee's epic film of his life. Malcolm X embraced his Islamic roots and chose a Muslim name. He saw Islam as a panacea for the problems facing America -- not as a menace.

During my years in Guantanamo I came across many African-American U.S. soldiers who understood something of their roots. They even acknowledged that the last time Muslims were taken across the Atlantic, en masse and in chains, was during the enslavement of their ancestors.

In fact, rendition, extraordinary as it is today, was, they accepted, originally used to recapture fugitive slaves. And in Guantanamo, it was not surprising to see some black soldiers reading classics like The Autobiography of Malcolm X or The Souls of Black Folk. Since several detainees were English-speakers of African origin -- including all three Britons who returned with me and one UK resident, Binyam Mohammed, who is still there -- the Guantanamo mission triggered among those U.S. soldiers a desire to learn more about themselves.