St. Petersburg Independent Tuesday, November 6, 1979 [19-A]
| “The question of financial aid from the Arabs could raise a few extremely interesting questions booth inside and outside the black (American) community.” |
 |
Will Arabs Back
Ties To Blacks
With Cash?
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
VERNON JARRETT
What about those rumored billions of dollars the oil-
rich Arab nations are supposed to unload on American
black leaders and minority institutions? “It’s not just a
rumor. Aid will come from some of the Arab states,” pre-
dicted a black San Francisco lawyer who has close ties to
officials of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC).
“The first indications of Arab help to American blacks
may be announced December,” said Khalid Abdullah
Tariq Al-Mansour, formerly known as Donald Warden, of
the Holmes and Warden law firm.
Al-Mansour is the lawyer who filed a friend-of-the-
court brief in support of OPEC last winter when the Inter-
national Association of Machinists and Aerospace Work-
ers (IAM) field an antitrust suit against the 13 OPEC
countries in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
The OPEC countries did not answer the price-fixing
charges on the g rounds that a U.S. court did not have ju-
risdiction over a foreign country. However, Al-Mansour
argued for OPEC as chairman of the Concerned Black
Americans in Support of Africa and the Middle East. The
suit was dismissed on Aug. 22.
Al-Mansour, 39, for several years has urged the rich
Arab kingdoms to cultivate stronger ties to America’s
blacks by supporting black businesses and black colleges
and giving financial help to disadvantaged students.
In September, Al-Mansour said, he presented a pro-
posed special aid program to OPEC Secretary-General
Rene Ortiz when he visited OPEC headquarters in Vien-
na. Al-Mansour urged the establishment of a fund that
would provide $20-million per year for 10 years to aid 10,-
000 minority students each year, including blacks, Arabs,
Hispanics, Asians, and native Americans.
“The idea was fully endorsed by Ortiz and other
OPEC administrators,” Al-Mansour said by telephone
from San Francisco last week. He said the decision on his
educational fund will be made by the OPEC ministers
when they meet in Caracas, Venezuela, in December.
I also spoke with a representative of the information
center for the League of Arab Nations in Chicago concern-
ing rumors of “heavy Arab contributions and invest-
ments” in black communities in the wake of Andrew
Young’s resignation as United Nations ambassador this
summer.
“It is quite possible,” an Arab spokesman said. “How-
ever, I don’t think any money will be given to individu-
als.” But he said he also had heard that Moammar Khad-
afy, the leader of Libya, is planning to support black
organizations “or institutions.” The spokesman did not
name any individuals or institutions.
The question of financial aid from the Arabs could
raise a few extremely interesting questions both inside
and outside the black community. If such contributions
are large and sustained, the money angle may become sec-
ondary to the sociology and politics of such an occurrence.
What will be the response in white America to the rec-
ognition that Americans blacks have influential support-
ers in foreign lands?
Several of my media colleagues argue that such mas-
sive support will not come from the Arabs. But suppose it
does? How many black colleges could afford to announce
they are rejecting several million dollars annually in aid
not only to their students but to the tottering colleges
themselves?
And what will happen if those college boards that do
accept Arab aid are threatened with the loss of domestic
support?
Of course, there is another question that focuses on
how the black citizen is viewed by the American majority.
Can the average American live with the thought of blacks
being anything other than helpless — a people without
any other resources than domestic “tolerance” and chari-
ty and their own bootstraps?
I’m not about to hazard a guess as to what the Arabs
are going to do now that they have discovered that blacks
do have an interest in the Middle East. But I strongly sus-
pect their advisers have made it clear that they must do
something to support those rumors.
The new black advocacy of a homeland for the Pales-
tinians and recognition of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) has put the Arabs as well as certain
black leaders on the spot. Suppose those black leaders
who openly embraced Yasser Arafat suffer extreme short-
ages in financial contributions because of their pro-Arab
stands. And suppose the Arabs do not come to their res-
cue.
Such a failure could cause American blacks to adopt a
slogan made famous by the Jews: “Never Again.”
Vernon Jarrett is a distinguished journalist, histori-
an, sociologist, televisiom producer and host of a TV
talk show.