Posted on 02/25/2002 2:38:08 PM PST by NC Conservative
Islam has been in the news for the last twenty years, and almost always for the wrong reasons. Before the days of MTV and Charles and Diana, Islam, its people, nations, and activities were usually relegated to brief "world news" segments of the network newscasts. Besides the fact that the Islamic holy book is called the Koran (Now - with our celebration of multiculturalism - the Q¹uran), the prophet is Mohammed, and Islamic nations seemed to fight a lot with Israel, few of us knew anything of any great importance about the world of Islam.
Even with the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, which ousted the Shah, brought in Ayatullah Khomeini, and lead to the storming of the American embassy in Tehran and a 444 day hostage crisis, we certainly could not have known then that Islam would become the dominate threat to our people and to world peace and security anymore than we can equate today¹s far off and little reported Maoist uprisings in Nepal as an eventual threat to our people and to world peace and security. The connection to Islam was slow in coming because American might had always raised the ire of backwards and corrupt Third World countries, why would Iran be any different? Since the early eighties we have slowly and painfully learned that the nations of the Islamic world have been almost totally against what they see as Western values, Western Influence, Western encroachment on their people, and most of all, Western success. There have been very uneasy exceptions, like Turkey's membership in NATO and an extremely unfriendly "alliance" with Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. By and large, however, most Americans do not see friends when looking toward the lands of the Star and Crescent. Most, except a large number of American blacks, that is.
Islam has gained a foothold among American blacks, many of whom see the faith as non-Western, non-exploitive of Third World people, non-American, and most importantly, non-white. Islam is certainly non-Western, non-American, and overwhelmingly non-white, but Islam has a long history of exploiting Third World people in Asia and especially Africa.
This news is a rude shock to black American Muslims, most of whom deny the (contemporary and) historical place Islam has played in exploiting black people from Los Angeles to Lagos, claiming such "stories" are "white history," not theirs. The current level of black American enchantment with Islam could, like Kwanza candles, Hip Hop trousers, and faux gold Mercedes necklaces, be brushed aside, hardly a blip on the national radar except for two serious realities; Fifth column concerns within the war on terror and the current drive for reparations for slavery many blacks are demanding from the American treasury. Reparations for slavery, a domestic American issue may not, at first, seem related to Islam. However, in two significant ways it is. First, Black Muslims are among the loudest proponents of reparations for the descendents of slaves, second, Islam has a little know legacy of African slavery, which started before European and American involvement in the slave trade and ended long after, and then, only under the force of Victorian England. This is significant because black cries for reparations for slavery ring hollow when Islam's central place in the history of slavery is reveled. Currently, Muslim nations in Africa such as Nigeria, Sudan, and Mauritania are involved in trading African slaves, many of them children. How can supporters of reparations for slavery have any legitimacy if the reality of the current African slave trade or Islam's legacy of enslaving Africans comes to light? Although the world of Islam has been successful at hiding its legacy of African slavery and has championed itself as an alternative to European evil to many black American Muslims, it is time for a little history lesson: one which takes us to the East African Island of Zanzibar.
Zanzibar, the clove island, along with its small associated islands, is a part of the East African nation of Tanzania (The name of the country being a combination of the mainland name of Tanganyika and the island name of Zanzibar) and was settled by Arab slave traders in the 8th century. They were ousted by the Portuguese in 1498, then two hundred years later, returned to reestablish firm control. The Portuguese moved down the coast and established the country that is now known as Mozambique. The Arabs ruled much of the East African mainland and the Islands of Zanzibar and had financed the imperialist adventure doing heavy business trading slaves and spices to all takers. The Arabs left a lasting mark on the future nation of Tanzania in many ways. The language called Swahili, Tanzania's Lingua Franca, is a combination of the Arabic spoken in the southern Arabian peninsula and the endemic languages spoken along Africa's eastern coast. The name of the former capital (the new Tanzanian capital is Dodoma), Dar es Salaam, comes from the Arabic and means "Haven of Peace" (very similar to the full name of the Asian country of Brunei (known as Darussalam - Abode of Peace - Brunei).
In addition, cloves, the most important crop on the island of Zanzibar, were introduced there by Sayyid Sa'id Sultan. He died in 1865 and his legacy brings up serious historical and social issues relevant to today's racial environment.
Sayyid Sa'id Sultan was an Arab from Oman who was also a shrewd businessman and an adherent to the Islamic faith. He was able to exploit great wealth from his African territory by the extensive use of African slave labor. Many slaves harvested the cloves the Arabs introduced while others were sold outright. Even before Sa'id Sultan, Arabs had been taking slaves from Northern and Eastern Africa as far back as the 8th century. Remember, in the 8th century the Kingdom of England did not yet exist, Paris and Berlin were mere villages, and the Roman empire died only of late. The important fact here, is that Arabs, not Europeans nor Americans, but Arabs, invented and perfected the art of African slavery. Many blacks in the United States have embraced Islam as a faith, with particular attention being paid to the Arab version of that religion, and have taken Arab names as a show of unity against the evilness of the West and for the solidarity of oppressed non-Christian, non-European peoples. The truth about the Arab connection to black slavery is clear evidence that black Americans have been duped by history; black history.
The United States outlawed slavery in 1865, the year of Sa'id Sultan's death, and did so of its own accord. No foreign armies had to invade, no foreign embargo brought the country to its knees. Americans ended American slavery. The Arabs in Zanzibar continued their slave trade until 1897, and then only stopped because the British forced them to do so. Islamic Arabs, a group embraced by many blacks as allies and liberators, were forced out of the African slave trade by Christian Europeans, a group seen by many blacks as their oppressors. In addition, after independence, the black lead government of Tanzania took out its frustrations of nearly a millennium of Arab oppression, by both expelling and murdering thousands of Arabs in the mid 1960s.
The greatest damage to the credibility of all fighting the futile and irrelevant battle for reparations for slavery comes from the bitter realization that those they look to for their positive advantages actually have a legacy of negative liabilities. Perhaps reparations chasers would be better off holding out their tin cups in Muscat, Sana, or Riyadh before trying their luck in Washington D.C.
AMAZING, ain't it? :-(
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