Posted on 10/24/2002 3:52:17 AM PDT by spycatcher
An odd controversy briefly dominated the sports pages in March 1996. A player in the National Basketball Association, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, refused to follow the league's rule requiring that players stand in a "dignified posture" during the national anthem. Instead, since the beginning of the 1995-96 season, Abdul-Rauf had remained seated during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. A black, 27-year-old former Baptist from Mississippi who had converted to Islam in 1991, he declared that as a Muslim, he could not pay homage to the American flag--which he called a "symbol of oppression, of tyranny." He argued further that the flag directly contradicted his Islamic faith: "This country has a long history of [oppression]. I don't think you can argue the facts. You can't be for God and for oppression. It's clear in the Koran. Islam is the only way."
The NBA responded firmly, suspending Abdul-Rauf until he agreed to obey league rules. He missed one game, then capitulated. Two factors probably weighed most heavily on him: losing a cool $31,707 for each game missed, and facing wide opposition to his decision from other Muslims.
Though soon forgotten, this act of defiance raised important questions. When a successful young man earning almost $3 million a year and enjoying wide adulation talks publicly of hating his own country, something is afoot. What that might be is hinted at by a similar case a whole generation earlier, that of the boxer Muhammad Ali. After his conversion in 1960 to a form of Islam (Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam), the former Cassius Clay adopted a set of intensely anti-American attitudes. Most famously, he refused to be drafted by the U.S. military, which led to the forfeit of his heavyweight title. As Muhammad Ali later put it, he stood against "the entire power structure" in the United States, one dominated by Zionists who "are really against the Islam religion."
Stories such as these have given American converts to Islam a reputation for hating their own country. But is this accurate?
Although numbers about religious affiliation in the United States are soft, Americans who have converted to Islam--plus their descendants--probably total about a million. This makes them by far the largest convert population of Muslims in the Western world; but, using the conventional figure of six million Muslims residing in the United States, converts are far outnumbered by immigrants. Of the million, whites number maybe 50,000; the overwhelming majority is black. Given that African-Americans constitute a small minority of the U.S. population, this implies that a black person is over a hundred times more likely to embrace Islam than is a white person.
A convert's attitude toward the United States depends on what form of Islam he adopts. If it is a tolerant and moderate variant, then he probably has mild views. His Islam will be an act of private faith with few political consequences. This moderate spirit is widely found among those (most of them female) who convert because they are marrying a Muslim, and those (most of them white) who convert because they are attracted to the mystical Sufi movement within Islam. The same goes for converts drawn to Islam as an old-fashioned way of life, or for its emphatic monotheism. Clearly, there is nothing inherently antagonistic between the faith of Islam and good American citizenship.
Well-known moderate Muslim converts include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the basketball player, who has a positive view of the United States and a constructive attitude towards its problems. Mike Tyson, for all his troubles with the law, has found in Islam a soothing and civilizing influence; Islam, he says, is "going to make me a better person." Robert Crane, a one-time foreign-policy adviser to Richard Nixon and Muslim convert, holds that the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were implicitly based on the Islamic principles of equality and justice for all. He concludes from this that the United States and Islam are totally compatible: "To be the best Muslim is to be a good American, and to be the best American is to be Islamic." In fact, "both paradigms, the overtly Islamic and the traditionalist American, are the same."
But there are often less happy results when a convert adopts two specific types of Islam: the Nation of Islam (the black-nationalist sect that originated in Detroit in 1930) or the fundamentalist variety (now usually known as Islamism) imported from the Middle East and South Asia. Converts to these forms of Islam are much more likely to turn anti-American.
From its inception, the Nation of Islam has promoted a black-nationalist outlook hostile to mainstream American culture and politics. "You are not American citizens," Elijah Muhammad, its longtime leader, told his followers. He went to jail for draft evasion instead of enlisting to fight in World War II, and even forbade Nation of Islam members to accept Social Security numbers. Malcolm X, his most famous disciple, contrasted the pure evil of America with the pure good of Islam, saying that an American passport "signifies the exact opposite of what Islam stands for." Continuing in this spirit, the group's current leader, Louis Farrakhan, threatened some years ago to "lead an army of black men and women to Washington, D.C., and we will sit down with the president, whoever he may be, and will negotiate for a separate state or territory of our own." On a 1996 visit to the virulently anti-American regime in Teheran, Farrakhan declared that "God will destroy America at the hands of Muslims."
Many converts eventually leave the Nation of Islam and join mainstream Islam; those of them who become Islamists are especially likely to continue to disassociate themselves from the surrounding culture in a radical way. Even after his break with the Nation of Islam, for example, Malcolm X announced, "I'm not an American." Similarly, the one-time radical H. Rap Brown, now known as Jamil Al-Amin, declares, "When we begin to look critically at the Constitution of the United States . . . we see that in its main essence it is diametrically opposed to what Allah has commanded."
Imam Siraj Wahhaj is considered one of the most respected Muslim leaders in America, and he holds a host of prominent positions (e.g., vice president of the Islamic Society of North America). Yet he not only calls for replacing the U.S. government with a caliphate, but has taken practical steps in this direction. He served as a character witness when the Sheikh Abdel Rahman was on trial for--and found guilty of--conspiracy to blow up New York bridges and buildings, and even was listed by the U.S. attorney for New York as one of the "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the blind sheikh's case.
Those American converts who went to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s may now be the most extreme in their hatred of the United States. After imbibing the mujahedin vision of destroying both superpowers, they vowed to do their part on returning home. As one such man put it to a Pakistani magazine in 1989: "It is the duty of all Muslims to complete the march of jihad until we reach America and liberate her. And I will be a guide for them."
Other converts went further. Clement Rodney Hampton-el, a New Jersey hospital technician, was a wounded veteran of the war in Afghanistan against Russia. He came back to the U.S. and helped set off the February 1993 explosion at the World Trade Center in New York.
White Islamists also typically condemn America for its immorality, consumerism, tolerant social policies, and warm relations with Israel. They talk about "our society's unrelenting greed" and its neglect for the downtrodden. In some cases, they associate with hostile governments. Mohammad Al-Asi, leader of the Washington Mosque in the nation's capital, explicitly called on Muslims to vanquish the United States during the Kuwait crisis of 1990 (note how he uses the pronoun "we"): "If the Americans are placing their forces in the Persian Gulf, we should be creating another war front for the Americans in the Muslim world--and specifically where American interests are concentrated. In Egypt, in Turkey, in the Indian subcontinent, just to mention a few. Strike against American interests there."
Why do some converts become so hostile toward their own country? There are two main reasons: personal temperament and the immigrant-Muslim milieu. Americans drawn to Islamism tend to be discontented with their lives or alienated from their society. For them, Islam's reputation as Christianity's historic arch-rival is an attraction; accepting Muhammad and the Koran offers a protest vehicle that is far larger than themselves and much deeper than politics.
Converts are also influenced by the contempt for America that many immigrant Muslims bring from their homelands. Because accepting Islam is a major step, one that often means breaking with family and friends, the new Muslim typically feels vulnerable and particularly in need of his new community's favor. This weakness makes him susceptible to the views of the immigrants, including their negative outlook on America. The immigrants, to be sure, do appreciate America's economic opportunities and political freedom, but survey research suggests that at least half of them, and usually the more pious among them, despise American politics and ethics. If anything, their firsthand experience in the United States enhances their sense that Christian America has lost its faith and lacks moral strength.
This outlook affects the new convert. Jeffrey Lang, a white professor of mathematics at the University of Kansas, recounts attending a lecture in a San Francisco mosque not long after his conversion. An immigrant medical student concluded his talk with this call to arms: "We must never forget--and this is extremely important--that as Muslims, we are obligated to desire, and when possible to participate in, the overthrow of any non-Islamic government--anywhere in the world--in order to replace it by an Islamic one." Lang protested to the lecturer that if Muslims are obligated to overthrow the U.S. government, accepting Islam is tantamount to an act of political treason. "Yes, that's true," the lecturer blithely responded. Lang candidly admits how, in an effort to win acceptance from his new co-religionists, he became "a passionate denouncer of everything American and a staunch defender of Middle-Eastern culture," propagating wild-eyed conspiracy theories about the U.S. government. (He has since moderated his views.
)This kind of ideology presents a great challenge to America. No other body of ideas claims blanket superiority over the culture, customs, laws, and policies of the United States; even the fascist and Marxist-Leninist ideologies dealt only with politics.
What is to be done?
The first priority is for journalists, intellectuals, clergy, and academic specialists to awaken Americans to this still-incipient but rapidly growing problem. Once they recognize the danger, the remedy is clear: While acknowledging that turning against one's own country is legal--though acting on this hatred, through sedition or treason, is not--Americans must combat this self-hatred. Because sitting out the national anthem, or defaming the Constitution, falls under the category of protected speech, this will be a task not for law enforcement but for moral suasion; a challenge less for the government than for the citizenry. Of course, politicians should use their bully pulpits to decry anti-American sentiments--but private institutions will have to take the lead.
There's a place for nearly everyone--business executives, union leaders, Hollywood producers, investigative journalists, columnists, scholars and teachers, clergy, moderate Muslims --to debate with the self-hating Americans and the organizations they form. These Americans are using free speech to influence America malignly; others should use free speech to oppose them.
One might think it obvious that life in this country is immeasurably preferable to that in Iran, Sudan, or Afghanistan; but clearly, not everyone realizes it. It is up to those of us who grasp this simple truth to explain it to our fellow citizens.
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H. Rap Brown: Idealism To Nihilistic Violence
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by Earl Ofari Hutchinson
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| LOS ANGELES - I was disappointed, but not totally surprised, to hear that Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin — better known by his radical trademark name, H. Rap Brown — is the suspected shooter of two Atlanta sheriff's deputies, one dead and one seriously wounded. (Al-Amin was arrested in Alabama's Lowndes County, west of Montgomery, on March 21 — several days after the shooting. Authorities said he was hiding in a shed, fired shots at U.S. marshals, then ran into a nearby wood. The FBI said federal and state agents circled him, then released dogs. Al-Amin was arrested, uninjured.) Though it's dangerous and irresponsible to convict Brown of murder before all the facts are in, I still immediately thought of the evening in 1968 when I and a small knot of black journalists stood near the podium at the Los Angeles Sports Arena at a Black Panther fund-raiser. Brown sat in the middle of the stage, garbed in a shiny black leather jacket with a black beret cocked at an angle and flanked by a small army of black leather-jacketed bodyguards and assorted hangers-on. The crowd of several thousand roared with delight when a speaker announced that Brown had been "appointed" and had accepted the title of Minister of Justice of the Black Panther Party. This was the culmination of Brown's militant odyssey from student dissident, to civil rights worker, to chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. By then black radicals regarded SNCC as a badly tainted relic of the civil rights movement that they deeply reviled. His speech to the crowd was defiant, brash, laced with profanities and filled with threats to kill the police. He called for blacks to burn down America's cities. As I soaked in his performance with a mixture of awe and fascination, I still wondered whether he really believed this fantasy vision of violent revolution that he was selling the crowd. His speech was designed to stir the red hot emotions of the audience. The warning flares soared higher the more I heard him speak during the next few months. Brown, at times, seemed to take special delight in picking words that had maximum shock value on crowds. Yet what was needed were not bold threats to destroy the "white establishment," "the white man," "white devil," or "white oppressor," but concrete activities and programs for those genuinely committed to change. Even the title of his book, "Die Nigger Die," was calculated for hyper shock effect. It was long on attacks on those moderate black leaders Brown branded "Negro sell-outs" and "Uncle Toms." Lengthy exhortations urged blacks to kill and die for the revolution. Yet it was devoid of any strategy or program for black political and economic empowerment. By the mid-1970s, the Panther organization was in its final agonies. Leaders dropped like flies from police bullets or their own bullets; some degenerated into dope dealing, hustling and extortion. Others drifted away, afflicted with terminal disillusionment with the failed promises of the black movement. A few managed to swap their black jackets for Brooks Brothers suits and slide neatly into posts at universities, corporations and elected office. The programs devised by early Panther organizers that had given so much hope to so many - the free clinics, free breakfast programs, legal aid, voter registration, business development and community organizing campaigns to combat police abuse - had become faded memories. Brown was unrepentant. He remained trapped by his tough guy image. He seemed destined to be a permanent casualty of his violent rhetoric. He seemed utterly incapable of making the transition from radical mouthpiece to effective community organizer and leader. There were repeated brushes with the law that ended in a bungled robbery attempt (at a tavern patronized by African Americans) and a subsequent shootout with New York police. This landed him in prison for five years. Brown reversed his downhill slide in 1976. He embraced Islam, re-christened himself with a Muslim name, did his mea culpas for his past and made his peace with America. He took seriously his new role as spiritual leader and as a tireless worker for community betterment and against drugs and prostitution. Yet an arrest for assault and possession of illegal weapons, though the charges were dropped, sent up another warning flare that he was still prone to act out the violent rhetoric of the 1960s that had caused him and so many other blacks such terrible personal grief and pain. Brown may or may not be the triggerman in the murder of a black sheriff's deputy and the wounding of another, also black. And I sincerely pray that he isn't. But his capture will almost certainly trigger another round of media reflection on how he, the Panthers and other 1960s black radicals drowned the genuine idealism and passion for social change of thousands of blacks in an ocean of selfishness, greed, opportunism and nihilistic violence. Some of this will be true, but what it misses is the sacrifice and struggle of thousands of men and women against injustice. And for a time that included Brown. Copyright 2000 San Francisco Examiner |
Where did this immigrant speaker come from? Also, why are there so many academics falling for this?
Turns out, islamic states are giving massive amounts of cash to colleges and universities, with a string attached: It is to be used for "islamic studies", and those studies can only be taught by imported and approved muslim "professors".
Folks, the enemy is within our gates. A fifth column has been placed and they're doing their dirty work. If the schools can't wean themselves from the money and clean themselves up, then maybe the government should (I can't believe I just said that!). I am sick of these spies enjoying all this country has to offer, and at the same time attacking it at every turn.
Round them up. Every Muslim in this country. Rid our nation of that filth.
But isn't converting to Mohammadism a natural reaction of people whose labor under western imperialist oppression have enriched the masters? And isn't profiling unjustly intolerant of those who have suffered so long?
Yet in spite of such unjust treatment, members of the Religion of Peace, regardless of their country of origin, are still willing to sacrifice themselves by running our airliners into high rises and gunning down our children entering school in order to benefit our nation by bringing the benefits of Islam to western culture so we can all live in the harmony of an Islamist way of life such as that enjoyed by Islamist nations such as Saudi Arabia (which sacrificed 15 of it's own for us on 9-11)?
AND SHOULD WE NOT ALL VOTE DEMOCRATIC ON 11-5 IN ORDER TO THANK THOSE OF THE MOST POLITICALLY ADVANCED PARTY OF OUR NATION. THE PARTY WHOSE FORESIGHT AT THE BENEFITS OF DIVERSITY, TOLERANCE, OPEN BORDERS, ACTIVIST JUDGES WHO RELEASE OPPRESSED ISLAMISTS AWAITING DEPORTATION, AND BLOCKAGE OF AN EFFICIENT HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT HAVE BROUGHT US THE BENEFITS OF ISLAMIST ENLIGHTENMENT THAT WE NOW ENJOY AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO AS THEY FURTHUR THE IDEALS OF A PROGRESSIVE AND TOLERANT LEFT? WITH ALLAH'S BLESSINGS, WE COULD IN TWO YEARS HAVE THE ENLIGHTENED JUSTICE DEPT AGAIN IN PLACE, THE ONE WHO REFUSED TO WASTE PRECIOUS RESOURCES FURTHUR OPPRESSING MUSLIMS, INSTEAD DEVOTING IT'S TIME AND OUR MONEY TO CRUSH THE EVIL CORPORATION MICROSOFT AND ITS IMPERIALIST LEADER BILL GATES.
Allah Akbar and 72 Virgins for All
This is an excellent point: it's up to the citizens at an individual level to set a good example--wear your flag pin, tell people you can't find a better country, politely inform someone wearing a headscarf that women are treated well in this country, unlike some other places. And get some teachers in the public schools who have a little common sense and who can illustrate the uniqueness of Western civilization in bringing freedom and happiness to so many people (since the usual norm throughout history is the lack of freedom!).
Ali complained about the Zionists, and was made a hero by a traitor Jewish sport reporter by the name of Howard Cosselle. The liberal media including many Jews supported this anti-America/anti-Zionist attitude by Ali, who was paid by foreign power, namely Egypt to agitate an anti-America movement in Black Moslems!
This whole episode is a taboo; first' because the media has painted this stupid Ali as an Icon, and the stupid hillbillies of America believed them, and second, because the liberals (specially the liberal Jews)don't like to oppologize for being communists/traitors?
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