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America at the crossroads: War is not the answer
The Final Call
[Editor’s note: The following text is excerpted from Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Saviours’ Day message delivered Feb. 23, 2003 at the University of Illinois-Chicago Pavilion. Click here to purchase this speech.]
In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
This is indeed a very dangerous time. We have entered into a period of darkness that President Bush’s leadership is going to lead America to her fall. I have on the stage with me scriptural scientists, and there is no way to clock President Bush and the actions of the U.S. Government unless you can compare what he is saying and what he’s doing to what is prophesied in both the Bible and Holy Qur’an.
These books, Bible and Qur’an, are books that contain a plan of Allah (God) for the salvation of His people, warnings for the rulers of the world and warning for the government of the United States of America. You cannot read the Bible or the Qur’an and not ask yourself, “Where is the greatest nation that ever existed in the history of the world in the Bible or Qur’an?” If you don’t know where to place America in the Bible and in the Qur’an, then you do not know how to guide the people in such an hour.
The United States of America is at the crossroads. And we, too, are at the crossroads. The Muslim world is at the crossroads. What is a crossroad? It is a crucial point, especially where a decision must be made. America is in the valley of decision and you are also in that same valley. You cannot follow your leaders blindly, regardless to their being in positions of power that you have elected them to, or that they, in revolution, came to power. Power today is in the Hands of God. If you allow yourself, with patriotic zeal, to follow that which is in error, then, as the Bible says, “If the blind lead the blind, both fall in the ditch.” The ditch represents hell. I hasten to tell you that the President of the United States is spiritually blind.
The arrogance of power and wealth and the lofty position that Allah (God) has allowed America to attain, the power that God has allowed America to amass, the influence that God has allowed America to wheel, all of these are like heady wines. If you drink of the wine of power, the wine of wealth, the wine of influence, you could become drunk and not be able to assess properly your thinking, your actions, your policies or your programs. The masses of the people will see you drunk, but you can’t see yourself.
The masses of the people are trying to say something to the president. But the president is even more emboldened after millions and millions of people have protested against the war. He said (their protests) would not sway him. President Bush came into office with a determined idea to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Sadly, he does not see that, though Iraq looks easy to America, Iraq is only a trigger. The real thing will happen after Iraq. America will start rolling down the hill to total destruction. The America that you think you know now, you will never know her again as a world power. Mark my humble words to you.
The country has to make a decision, the importance of which may bring death or continued life. Moses told his people, “I call Heaven and Earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” The decision that our government makes today is so weighty that if the decision to go to war is a decision in error, not only does death come to the persons that make the wrong decisions, but that person sentences their offspring to the consequences of their decisions. Every one of us has a decision to make. This book, Qur’an, says that every deed has a consequence and no human being will escape judgement in the Day of Judgement.
I told you, based on an experience that I had (in 1985), that I was shown the mind of (then President Ronald) Reagan, but that extended to Bush. Reagan came into office with a determined idea to kill (Libyan President) Muammar Gadhafi and destroy that regime. He failed, and every president since Reagan has had some altercation with the Muslim world. President Bush says he’s not against Islam; he’s against the “radicals in Islam”. It is true that there are radicals that have hijacked Islam. But I want to say to Mr. Bush, you are a radical that has hijacked Christianity. I want to say to (Ariel) Sharon, (Benyamin) Netanyahu and that crowd, you are a group that claims to be Jews but you have hijacked Judaism. It is time now for the righteous Jews to stand up; the righteous Christians to stand up; the righteous Muslims to stand up against those who have hijacked our religion.
In the Qur’an, we are told that you will see every nation kneeling down. Every nation will be called to its record. And Allah (God) says, “This day you are requited for what you did. This is our record that speaks against you with truth. Surely we wrote down what you did.” If every nation will be called to its record, what is the record of America? If every deed has its consequence and everything that America has done has been written down, what does that book look like? But, not only does every nation have to fall down before its record, the Holy Qur’an says, “And we have made every man’s actions to cling to his neck. And we shall bring forth to him, on the day of resurrection, a book which he will find wide open.” It says, “Thine own soul is sufficient as a reckoner against you this day.” Everything that we have done that is other than right is recorded. Not only have the angels recorded it, but also your own mind has recorded your own evil.
Presidents of the United States and Members of Congress have been lying for years and years to manipulate the ignorance of the masses to use your flesh and blood, supposedly for a noble principle, but in reality it was to advance imperialistic, colonial ideas. Cuba was a possession of the Spanish along with Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Hawaii, but America did not want Spain in the Western Hemisphere. How did they manage that war? They sent a ship off the coast of Havana called the Maine. It was a huge and powerful ship. Somehow, the ship blew up. How convenient was that? The warmongers in Congress whipped it up and innocent American lives were lost because we were fighting for Cuban independence against the Spanish. Suddenly, America had Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, Hawaii and the Spanish were kicked out.
How did (the U.S. Government) get Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and California? They started sending so-called Americans into Texas, which was not a part of the Union; she was independent; she was sovereign. Texans have that kind of spirit even today. Texas got into a little problem where American lives were lost, and here comes the warmongers in Congress and the Mexican-American war broke out. American soldiers went into Mexico all the way to Mexico City. Finally, they signed a treaty with Mexico and new borders for Texas were set. After it was over, America had Texas, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and California.
How did America get into World War I? It was another ship. This ship was called the Lucitania. It was a British luxury ship that was carrying 127 or more rich Americans. According to history, it was dangerous going navigating the channel near Ireland–the U-boats were there. I read recently that some of (the people in Congress) knew that the U-boats were going to attack the ship and over 1,000 lives were lost. The point is, while you cry over the 3,000 lives at the World Trade Center, the wise policy-makers manipulate your grief and use you to further policies that you think are in your interest, but they are in the interests of the wealthy and the powerful people of America.
We had to get involved in Vietnam, and it was another ship that got America involved–the USS Maddox. Pres. Johnson lied to Congress, saying the Vietnamese had attacked this U.S. ship. After that lie was told, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf resolution and over 500,000 American GIs, 30 percent of whom were Black, were in Vietnam.
To those of you who feel that America does not need a message and a Messenger and a Warner, Allah (God) says in the Qur’an, “I have sent a messenger to every nation.” Is America a nation? Is it not the greatest nation in the history of the world? Then, who will deliver the warning to the United States of America? Don’t you think America should be warned of her inordinate, degenerate, immoral behavior? What is the pattern of Allah (God)? He doesn’t come to the college graduate. He doesn’t come to the powerful rulers of the day. He comes to the abject, the poor, the oppressed, and the enslaved. He raises one from among them and He sends him to the Pharaohs of the world and the oppressed. Somebody has to be anointed of Allah (God) to say to America, “your time has come”. You cannot placate America or Bush or the leaders of this world with soft, sweet talk. Somebody has to speak straight words.
In the 32nd surah of the Holy Qur’an, called “The Adoration”, Allah (God) says, “Do the people say he has invented it, he has made it up? It is not so. It is the truth from your Lord that you may warn the people to whom no Warner before you has come that they may receive guidance and walk aright.” Prophet Muhammad was not the first Warner to Mecca. Abraham and Ishmael were in Mecca and raised the foundation of the Kabba in Mecca. Hud and Salih came to the people of Ad and Thamud there in that peninsula. But America has had no Warner from Allah (God) that would warn her of her day of reckoning that was divinely backed. Elijah Muhammad was such a man.
For the 40 years that he was among us, he never failed to warn America of her fall. He showed us America in the Torah, in the Gospel and in the Qur’an. Read the Book of Revelation: “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hole of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” Pick up the 51st chapter of Jeremiah and read what Allah (God) did for ancient Babylon. He turned the neighboring nations against her and destroyed her power. In the Book of Revelation, that last Babylon is called a “mystery Babylon”. That mystery Babylon, the Hon. Elijah Muhammad said, is the United States of America.
Now she is fallen. Her stock market, her dollar is falling against the yen and the Euro and you have seen nothing yet. Her prestige in the world under Bush is going down. The nations are afraid of her but they don’t like her. She is trying to buy China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey. She’s gone to the little African nations in the UN, tempting them with little promises of wealth. I say to the governments of the world that you are a fool if you believe that America will fulfill her promise to you. She promises you only to deceive.
I have a notebook in front of me of notes that I took from a meeting with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad back in 1967. I want to read to you what a man said back then. He said America is a preserved area, that no foreign nation will destroy America lest they get credit. Just as Allah (God) raised Pharaoh up that He (God) could prove to the world that He was God and beside him there was no God, Allah (God) allowed America to become the most powerful nation on the earth so that He could deal with her. He won’t let China do it. He won’t let Russia do it. There are no silly terrorists who can destroy America. This area has been carved out for the Lord of the Worlds to prove that He is Allah (God).
The Hon. Elijah Muhammad said America is number one on God’s list. The Hon. Elijah Muhammad said the Bible talks about four beasts and one was taken and destroyed outright. Its body was given to the burning flame. He said the more you fight against Elijah, the more Allah (God) makes perfect the work of Elijah. What does he mean? It is to say that every word that the Hon. Elijah Muhammad spoke, you are going to run into it.
The Hon. Elijah Muhammad taught us from the book of Revelation, “Count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, six hundred, three score and six.” He taught us that that verse has deep scientific meaning having to do with the creation of this world and its end. After 6,000 years of rule of the wicked, Allah (God) is going to come and interfere with their rule.
The last six, the Hon. Elijah Muhammad said, represents 60 years of Grace, not to exceed 70 years, to give America time to repent and the Black man time to reform. If you count 60 from 1934 and add 10 more, it brings us to 2004. This Qur’an says, “Whenever Allah (God) sends a Warner, He (God) seizes the nation with distress and affliction that they might humble themselves to the call for repentance.”
The Bible says, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” How many of us have turned? How many of us have humbled ourselves? How many of us would be worthy for Allah (God) to forgive us and heal this land in which we live?
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