(Editor’s note: We are pleased this week to share on our Editorial page a defense of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered in writing by a member of the Nation of Islam Executive Council, a student minister and the spokesperson for the Minister and Nation of Islam.)
Over the years, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has been headlined as an “extremist,” especially as it relates to Jewish people, the economy, and American politics. Recently, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told members of the Republican Jewish Coalition that he did not want their money, a sentiment long-shared by Minister Farrakhan.
The difference? Trump has not been called an extremist for making the statement and the Jerusalem Post has not been called extremist for publishing the statement.
Clearly, it is not a matter of what is being said, but who is saying it.
For the past 31 years, Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam have suffered and endured the defamatory charge of “anti-Semitism” and other labels designed to hinder us from the civilizing work that Allah has given the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation to do.
These bigoted and unjustified attacks have continued right up to the Feb. 29 blog published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) under the headline “Louis Farrakhan Joins List of Extremists Praising Trump.”
The intent of the article is two-fold; first, to raise funds by demonizing us, second, to intrude upon and interfere with our efforts to achieve freedom, justice, and equality for Black people and for all of the disenfranchised in this society, regardless of class, creed, or color.
Significantly, Minister Farrakhan’s reference to Senator Bernie Sanders as “a Jew, not a so-called Jew,” who is “trying to be decent. But … can’t do what he is saying,” is completely absent. Adding further insult to injury, the Nation of Islam’s sacred and annual celebration of the birth of our Savior, Master W. Fard Muhammad, is derisively called an “annual platform to display his hatred for Jews.”
As with everything the ADL has published about Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, the blog goes on and on in an effort to disgrace us and openly interfere with our freedom to be critical of policies and actions that have ill-affected Black people and other people around the world.
Where is the “hatred” in the references to former Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and the Bush Administration in 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq? What did Minister Farrakhan say that is not true?
In his open letter to former ADL president, Abraham Fox, in June of 2010, he asked, “… except for our willingness to tell the truth and unwillingness to apologize to you for telling the truth, on what basis do you charge me and us as being ‘anti-Semitic’?”
The method of operation the ADL has employed is not only intrusive, it violates the most basic constitutional rights of individuals. Minister Farrakhan issued a statement providing the clearest explanation of this type of strategy following the controversy surrounding David Duke and his endorsement of Donald Trump:
“This tactic of forcing people in public life to renounce, disavow people who would vote for them in order to please another group of people, is absolute folly. The question should be asked: Is David Duke an American citizen? Are the white supremacists American citizens? Do they, as citizens, have the right of free thought, free speech, free association and freedom to believe what they believe? If you are not going to strip them of their citizenship and someone is trying to become president–not of some, but of all–then if that person should win, he or she is the president of everyone: president of the Ku Klux Klan, president of white supremacists, president of Black haters, president of the LBGTQ community, president of all. It is not necessary to disavow any segment of the American people until America says ‘we are going to take away their citizenship.’”
It should be self-evident to all intelligent, civilized people, that we have an inherent right to express our dislike for those policies and actions of U.S. and Israeli governments that are oppressive and debilitating for marginalized people both here and in other countries, without being labeled hateful and anti-Semitic.
(Attorney Ava Muhammad is national spokesperson for the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.)
