Africa Union Headlines

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. We give Him praise and thanks for His mercy and His goodness to the human family. That goodness is reflected in the guidance that He brings to the human family through the mouth of His prophets and messengers. And this is why as Muslims We thank Allah for Moses and the Torah. And we thank Him for Jesus and the Gospel. We thank Him for Muhammad and the Qur’an. Peace be upon these worthy servants of the Almighty God.

As a student of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad I could never thank Allah enough for His intervention in our affairs in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad to Whom praise is due forever for His raising among us one to lead, teach, and guide us into the process that would make us once again the righteous Muslims that our fathers once were. We thank Allah for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and in their names I greet all of you with the greeting words of peace, As-Salaam Alaikum.

First let me say how thankful we are that Almighty God brought us back to the United States. Our thanks to the National Press Club for allowing us the privilege of speaking to you from this platform, and our thanks to the members of the press who are present and thanks to all of you who prayed for the success of our peace mission and for our safe return for we traveled safely on the wings of your prayers and we are indebted to each of you for that.

This morning I spoke with Ambassador Burns, assistant to the Secretary of State Colin Powell, by telephone and gave him a brief report of our Peace Mission. We will follow up with a detailed report in writing to the Secretary of State Colin Powell and his assistant Ambassador Burns. As you know our peace initiative was twofold. First, we wanted to see if we could stop the carnage among the Israelis and Palestinians that we felt if it continued unabated would possibly widen the conflict, destabilize the region, and this would not be good for United States interest nor the interest of Europe and the world.

From time to time I have met with most of the Palestinian leaders including President Arafat. I believe that if I were able to go into Israel and the West Bank that I could have gotten an agreement from the Palestinians to accept a moratorium from 90-120 days on this suicide bombing. For there can really not be a peace initiative in the face of an ever increasing cycle of violence. At the same time if we had gotten such an agreement, which I believe we could have, then I would have asked Prime Minister Sharon on the base of that agreement, if he would pull his troops and tanks out of the West Bank. And since the state of Israel was mandated by the United Nations, the United Nations can not abandon its responsibility to gain peace in that area. So we suggested that in that condition of non-violence that the United Nations should sponsor then under its auspices a discussion where all the parties who have offered their peace initiatives could sit down and try to work out a basis for a Palestinian state, the cessation of conflict, and the Israelis having secure borders.

Unfortunately we were not permitted to enter Israel. The Palestinians have no control of those borders and the Israelis said that they would follow the position of the United Kingdom. As you know the United Kingdom has banned Louis Farrakhan from going there for the last, now, 17 years. And now that we won in a lower court, it was appealed to higher court and it was reversed, and then it was appealed to the House of Lords and just recently the House of Lords said no, Farrakhan would not be able to enter the United Kingdom. So the Israeli government felt that my presence would not be good for the stability and peace of the area so they refused our entrance.

Now, President Bush’s peace initiative took place while I was in Qatar and I happened to be in the studios of Al-Jazeera watching him and I was to speak on the news that night at 11 o’clock. And after his peace initiative I was greatly disappointed because his peace initiative was based on the condition of a change in Palestinian leadership and certain reforms as a condition for America using its great influence to carve out a legitimate state for the Palestinians. These conditions angered the Palestinians and made them even more solid in their support of President Arafat as their leader. The threat of no American support unless there were a change in leadership made the Palestinians feel that America wanted democracy but they wanted it by coercion, not respecting the intelligence or the will of the Palestinian people. So the situation there is not better. Unfortunately the cycle of violence continues.

And I am afraid, my dear brothers and sisters and listeners, that if America fails to use her tremendous leverage ____________ to get him to cease his plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein and a bombing campaign on Iraq, similar to that that was unleashed on Afghanistan, only America had planned that it would be even greater, according to what we have read. Well it appeared then when I first spoke of this that I was singing a solo but now a chorus has come up from the world.

I spoke to many Arab leaders, both political and spiritual and I can tell you that there is no Arab country that does not desire better relations and friendship with the United States of America. Even Iraq wants friendship with America but on conditions that are fair and just. Whether the leaders in that area agree with Saddam Hussein or not, none of them with whom we spoke wanted to see bombs fall on Iraq and the slaughter of innocent civilians just to get rid of a man that America says is some threat to the world. They thought that if such an attack took place they know that it would increase hatred for the American administration. And any Arab leader that would give approval to the United States to attack Iraq would cause a popular uprising and it would cause America to loose her moderate friend in that area of the world.

So I can tell you that I am very pleased that the Arab and Muslim world is beginning to speak with one voice on this issue. And I thank God that He gave us that desire to speak out regardless to the consequences. My appeal to the United States government is that it is very unwise to pursue this policy. America is too great and powerful a nation as the only remaining super power to do that which would destroy her credibility as any type of moral authority. The loss to America in terms of political capital would be very great. America would then appear to the world even her friends as a bully using manufactured evidence, supposition, assumptions or a set of maybes as a basis for murder and war. This is why we said that before one bomb is dropped on Iraq, and before one American soldiers life is lost, there must be congressional hearings that the matter should be debated publicly so that the American people, rather than a strong lobby, could determine what the direction of this nation should be. Such aggression in the name of a preemptive strike against anyone that the United States presumes or assumes is developing weapons of mass destruction would not only be unwise and improper, but it would place the United States opposite God, Himself.

The Holy Qur’an, which is the book of scripture of the Muslims, but also you will find it in the Bible, God demands of the righteous not to be the aggressor, either in word or deed. The Qur’an teaches that Allah loves not the aggressor. So if America would assume an aggressive posture, under the name of a preemptive strive without ever proving to the American people that it is worthy of America, then God would take a position. And that position would be against the aggressor. And then inside the armed forces of America you have over 400,000 Black soldiers, men and women, some of whom are Muslim. And they would be forced then to choose under such a policy whether they should obey God or obey the commands of their commander and chief. This would not be good for the morale of the armed forces. To have that kind of conflict within its ranks.

Our travels took us to Durban, South Africa where we witnessed the birth of the African Union. It is regrettable that such a significant event in the affairs of Africa, and Africans wherever they are in the Diaspora, got so little attention in the American media, so that there was only a handful of Africans in the Diaspora attending such a significant, historical event. This must not be because the idea of an African Union or the United States of Africa did not start on the African continent with Kwame Nkrumah and Gamel Abdul Nasser. That idea started in the Diaspora with Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, C.L.R. James. And then it was taken by Kwame Nkrumah and Gamel Abdul Nassar and others on the African continent. Now Muammar Gadhafi seeing the validity of that, knowing that Africa has 53 independent states would not be able to compete in a time of globalization. Africa would be left out totally unless Africa found a way to unite the best of itself to compete. So the European union became somewhat of the model for the African Union.

Our trip also took us to Zimbabwe where the historical injustice of the land question has to be resolved; hopefully amicably. Now the way the media in America and Great Britain and Europe have written and shown President Mugabe, they showed him as a undemocratic, wicked man who is now taking land from the white owners. I think if we really want peace we have to structure peace on the basis of justice. And we cannot have justice accept on the basis of truth. And the truth must not be hidden to vilify one or the other. Truth must be told. The land was taken from its original owners by force.

Under Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, men, women and children fought a war of liberation. They didn’t fight a war of liberation just to have a flag and a national anthem and a seat in the United Nations. They fought to liberate the land so that the resources of that land would accrue to its natural and original owners. Unfortunately, just as they were about to capture the whole country, negotiations began with Great Britain. And for three months at Lancaster House in the United Kingdom, they argued over the land question: What to do with the land settled on by Whites that originally belonged to Blacks?

The British wanted Zimbabweans to buy the land back from somebody who never used a dollar to get it. That was an insult. So they founded a constitution and the land question in that constitution was, that the land would be bought back but the people of Zimbabwe had no money to pay for the land. So under the administration of Margaret Thatcher and Jimmy Carter, there was an agreement, not written but verbal, that they would help to buy the land back from the British settlers. Well, that went along pretty good for a while. Then Margaret Thatcher had no more to give. President Carter was only in office for four years then Ronald Reagan for eight. And all during that time money was given to buy back land and it was proceeding, but slowly.

So the Zimbabweans changed an aspect of the constitution, which at first said that if the White settlers wanted to sell the land the land could be bought. But if they refused to sell, you could not force them to sell. But after 10 years of that the constitution said the land would be bought in the national interest. Now after 20 years, I want you to see this, Robert Mugabe when he was fighting for the land we saw old newspaper articles that depicted him as a terrorist. And all the man was doing was fighting to liberate his land. When he allowed Ian Smith who was brutal in his suppression of Black people after independence Ian Smith was allowed to still live there on a large track of land. He still lives there. And as long as the Whites ownership of land was undisturbed Mugabe was a gentlemen. From a terrorist he became a gentlemen.

But after 20 years some of the soldiers that fought with him felt betrayed and that’s when they settled on the land to say that the revolution is not complete until the land is back in the ownership of the original owners. Now Mugabe had two things to do. He could either fight them and throw them off the land or recognize the rightness of them and the slowness of justice coming. And when Mugabe took the latter position that the soldiers were right, the revolution was not completed, 4,500 Whites owned 12 million hectares of land and a hectare is 2.7 acres. So when you have 4,500 Whites owning 12 million hectares and millions of Blacks living huddled together with no real economic substance, that is an injustice that must be rectified.

So Great Britain has no money to give. Under the Bush administration of the elder Bush they gave money for a while and then they watched the way Zimbabwe was voting and since Zimbabwe seem to be voting more on the side of the soviet union than the United States, President Bush, the elder, decided no more money. So the land question then gets bogged down until that man who was a soldier stood on that land and said we are claiming this. This is what we fought for.

Now instead of Britain and America recognizing that it was two billion and some odd dollars it would take to buy back all the land. Now what is better—two billion dollars or extended war. Because nothing is going to stop Black people in Africa from wanting what belongs to them. And it is wiser for the Whites who live there well to want to share the resources. They don’t want to just kick the Whites all together out but they can not live as they are living anymore. One man owns 40 percent of the wealth of South Africa and that same man owns 130,000 hectares in Zimbabwe the size of Belgium and doesn’t want to give anything back to the indigenous people. Well, what will that cause?

To the Whites of Europe and America I am pleading with you to think with wisdom. Justice is not what you are being offered. You are being mercy. And if you reject mercy then justice comes. And what is justice? The Prophet Obadiah said, as thou hast done so shall it be done unto you. That’s not what you want. You have given something to Africa so why not accept a merciful solution that allows you something but does not deprive the indigenous people of what belongs to them; what they rightfully deserve.

South Africa the wealth is not in the hands of the Blacks. We can’t live with a national anthem and a flag and no food, clothing, shelter, electricity, running water, and decent homes. The impatience of Africans now to resolve the land question and the mindset of Europe and America to make Mugabe an example so that Thabo Mbeki or Sam Ujomo in Namibia and others would not follow suit. So they want to pounce on Mugabe. Now what right does a Black congressman have to vote for a democracy bill that sanctions Zimbabwe? As a Black person in congress to represent the rights of Black people, when you hear Whites saying that Mugabe is wrong for what he is doing, why don’t you get on a plane and go on the ground and see for yourself and come back and report to those of us who sent you to congress.

The Middle East is a hot button. We pray for the resolution of that conflict. But Africa is another hot button. And if something is not done among wise White people to recognize the injustice of what you have done and then offer back to the Africans some of what you have taken and you keep what is commissary to your population and give to the Africans what is commissary with theirs then there won’t be bloodshed anymore. You will together and there will be peace in the valley. But if this is rejected because you feel you own it, you took it, it’s yours, then I warn you in the Name of Allah that a curtain of blood will rise from South Africa. I want you to hear me please. I don’t want this but it will precipitate race war. Now listen to me. In Africa the Whites are the minority. You have weapons in South Africa but you are the minority. If the Blacks loose patience because they are suffering and living under terrible conditions, if they start throwing the Whites off the land and blood begins to flow, that will affect how Blacks survive in Great Britain, how Blacks survive in Belgium, in Harland, in France, in Germany, in Italy. Because whatever happens in Africa you see a repercussion or something as they say, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You will find a reaction on the African continent but the greater reaction will be where Whites are the majority and Blacks are the minority. And then the scriptures of the Bible will be fulfilled. That in that day every man shall go to his own and find refuge under his own vine and fig tree. And as the Whites are pushed out, when they come back to Europe and they see you, they won’t look good at even their neighbors and that will have an effect in the United States of America with race relations. I think the time to stop all of this is now and the wise Whites and the wise Blacks should plan for peace and the acceptance of mercy rather than the harshness of justice.

Now all of southern Africa is suffering from AIDS. And the sad thing about that is that they are in Botswana trading diamonds for medicine. We have to stop this. So we are sending a team of doctors to Zimbabwe because we believe there is a cheaper way to do this. And we intend to encourage Muammar Gadhafi to open that facility that he was accused of making chemical and biological weapons. But we want to encourage him to open that facility and let the world come and see that he is manufacturing vaccines and manufacturing a low cost or producing rather, not manufacturing, producing a low cost remedy for the AIDS pandemic that is killing our people wholesale in Africa.

We have taken our video cameras and taken pictures and we are sending a team back to make a documentary because the American people, Black and White and Brown and Asian, must know what is really going on. I personally believe that the American Whites, if they knew, they would stand with us for a better solution than what the government is presently advocating. But getting the truth of the situation to our people is the problem but its something that we have to do.

Now in closing, unfortunately it was reported in the Washington Times, UPI that I prayed for an Iraqi victory in a military conflict with the United States. I want the American people and the world to know that the only victory that those of us who were in this delegation and on this peace mission prayed for was the victory of peace over war, the victory of right over wrong, the victory of justice over injustice, tempered with the mercy of God. I would never go on a peace mission and pray for victory in a war. A war that would see American soldiers loose their lives and Iraqi people get slaughtered. That was designed in this atmosphere of patriotism to make Farrakhan look like an enemy of the United States of America. I want to make it very clear. I am a citizen of the world but this is my land. And I was most happy to get back here safe. I love this land and I see myself as one that has to take, you said I was a citizen, so I’m taking my citizenship very serious. I believe that as a citizen I have a responsibility. And since this is suppose to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and since I’m one of the people, then if I see my government doing something that doesn’t have the consent of the governed, but are being manipulated by those who want war so they can extract more money out of congress to feed the war machine, then I think as a citizen I should speak. The guarantee of freedom of speech is the beauty of American life. Not speaking freely and stupidly. But speaking freely and responsibly. In standing up against the will of our government for war and the lack of the use of her strength and leverage in the pursuit of peace, I know that in this climate of patriotism that I and we can be accused of being unpatriotic.

I want to start first with the word patriot. It comes from a Latin word patir, which means father and you have taught me a prayer, Our Father. So I can’t be patriotic to the fathers of the nation until I’m first patriotic to our father. Now being patriotic to our father means that His will is above the will of the president. His will is greater than the will of the president even though the president is our commander and chief. But I being true to The Father have a duty to Him as well as He has a duty to all of us. Thomas Jefferson said that he trembles for this country when he reflected that God was just and that His justice could not sleep forever. He knew that the question of slavery and how the question was dealt with could be the undoing of this nation. He said this but John Brown acted upon it. As a result John Brown was evilly spoken of. But history has rewarded John Brown. Martin Luther King took an unpopular position against the war in Viet Nam and Jane Fonda took a similar position and even visited Hanoi and spoke with Ho Chi Men and they both were castigated and evilly spoken of, maligned, called traitors. And they lost many friends but in the end history has rewarded Dr. King. And when Jane Fonda comes in a room nobody even mentions it.

Andrew Young was the first Black man to ever hold the position of America’s Ambassador to the United Nations. But because he spoke to a representative of the Palestinians during a time of a foolish no-talk policy he was forced to resign his post but history is kind to him. We have taken this anti-murder, anti-war stance, not because we wish to be popular and not because we need to be unpopular but because we desire the United States to be right. And no matter what we suffer from being called unpatriotic and even having our lives threatened, I believe like those who took a right position in the past, history will also be kind to us. And lastly, it is written in the Holy Qur’an that whenever God sends a messenger he seizes that nation with distress and affliction that it might humble itself. Whenever God raises a messenger or a warner His pattern is that he raises the warner from among the slaves, from among the abject, the oppressed, and the poor, and He sends that one to speak to the mighty and the powerful and the wise of that nation but because of the humbleness of that person and his background and position, the arrogantly proud dismiss the warner and his warning as inconsequential. So it forces God then to seize that nation with distress and affliction that it might humble itself to the wise guidance coming from one from among the slaves, the abject, the poor, and the weak of the society. This is mercy from God to a great and powerful nation.

According to yesterdays newspaper 49 states are under a condition of drought. Rivers are drying up leaving fish stinking on the banks in the dry, parch, mud. Cattle are dying by the thousands under snow and intense heat. Wind, rain, snow, hail, storms, floods and soon earthquakes, these are mercies coming to the greatest nation on earth to make you humble yourself and say wait a minute, maybe we should examine our policies. Maybe we should be a better nation, a more just nation. The crisis of confidence that has caused the stock market to plunge. Enron and the world com scandal which has not been created by Saddam Hussein or any foreign power. But these are calamities coming from within based on greed and corruption causing thousands of Americans to loose their life savings while corporate executives are making millions at the expense of the poor and weak investors.

The crisis of confidence has caused the investors to loose well over a trillion dollars. And this crisis of confidence is now causing foreign investors to back away from the stock market. And as there were trillion of dollars in we say surplus which Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush were arguing about how to spend now all of that is gone and now there is a deficit. What is happening to America? Open your eyes American people and stop dancing and playing and partying and drinking and smoking dope while your country is going to hell. Wake up and take your responsibility.

The government can not make Saddam Hussein or anybody else a boogy man and focus Americas attend on Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. That’s not going to solve the internal problems in America. There are 15 million Americans that are homeless. Saddam Hussein didn’t do that. There are 42 million Americans that have no life insurance. Saddam Hussein didn’t do that. Millions of Americans are incarcerated and they have very little education and 30 percent of those graduating from high school are functional illiterates. Saddam Hussein didn’t do that. There are mob attacks and police brutality on Black people, racial profiling, that our president has not spoken against. Saddam didn’t call us no Nigger. Saddam didn’t beat us down in the street. Our fight is not in Iraq. Our fight is in the streets of America for justice.
There is a drug epidemic now that even snared members of the presidents family. Saddam hasn’t sent no drugs to America. Whose bringing in the drugs? Whose selling guns to the gang bangers? It’s not Saddam Hussein. No, these are internal problems that the American administration must deal with and making Saddam the enemy and inflaming the passion of the American people and the soldiers whose patriotism is unquestioned, whose love of this country is unquestioned. But it should not be manipulated. So America is seized with distress an affliction and our prayer is that she will humble herself to listen to voices that speak to her that desire to see America fulfill her potential—not fulfill a destiny of former sister nations: Rome, Babylon, Sodom and Gomorrah and Ancient Egypt that refused to heed guidance from a warner from God in their midst.

Thank you for listening.