[Editor’s note: The following article contains a distillation of the hour-long message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as Part 15 of his 5 8-week Lecture Series “The Time and What Must Be Done.” This message originally aired on Saturday, April 20, 2013.]
There are nearly 50 million Americans living in poverty: Where is their “voice” in the Congress, when Congress is bowing to the industrialists, bowing to corporate America, bowing to those who would destroy “democracy”?
Where is the voice for the “little man,” the “little woman”? The little White man and woman that works hard; the little Brown man, the little Black man? The little Asian that works hard? Where is their “voice” today?
Soon we will talk to you about the bill H.R. 933 just signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 26, 2013—a law that was written by Monsanto [an agriculture corporation], and then carried to Congress by U.S. Senator Roy Blunt. It is a law that now allows “Genetically Modified Organisms”
[GMOs] to be put on the people of America, and the people of the world, to consume. And, if we get sick, or die, from eating these “organisms,” this law has already stripped those who might suffer from any recourse or redress in the federal courts of America!
Oh, America: Look at what you are becoming. … And soon we will also go into the “Prison Industrial Complex,” and show you why today you have 2.3 million Black men, Brown men and poor White men, and women, in prison!
And why this “prison corporation,” that is now on Wall Street, wants to buy up the state prisons, and even federal prisons; however, “the caveat” in that is you “must keep your prisons filled to 90 percent of occupancy.” Who are you going to fill your prisons with? Oh, “The Recompense,” “The Law of Requital.”…
America, do you think you can “take” what you have delighted in “dishing out” to others?
In the Holy Qur’an, in the 22nd Surah titled “The Pilgrimage,” it begins with two verses that I would like to talk about: “O people, keep your duty to your Lord; surely the shock of the Hour is a grievous thing.
The day you see it, every woman giving suck will forget her suckling and every pregnant one will lay down her burden, and thou wilt see men as drunken, yet they will not be drunken, but the chastisement of Allah will be severe.”
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, again, writes in his monumental book, The Fall of America, in Chapter 39 titled “The House Doomed To Fall” on page 168:
“The great deceivers of the world will reap what they have sown. Have they not corrupted many people and nations under the guise of good, peaceful, loving Christians?
The [so-called] Christian West is [guilty] of the worst crimes, practicing evils and indecencies to the fullest and seeking to practice them [in] [and] on other nations as well. Universal tempters are ever parading before the world their bold half-nude girls and women.
They are before your eyes in almost everything.” Not even “half-nude” anymore; nearly “all-the-way” nude! And we, The Aboriginal People of the Earth, born of The Righteous, are following them in this disgraceful manner of showing ourselves before the world;
Dressing like the harlots that are on the street corners of every major city and town in America! He continues: “Murder, gambling, robbery, drunkenness, drugs, adultery, lying, [drug addiction]—there is hardly any end to it.”
“Their lands and seas are filled with deadly weapons of war; their islands of the sea are afloat with corruption by all the nations of earth, for they are proud and boastful and [are now hated and] despised according to their wishes. …They command the sea with their powerful navies, parking them off the shores of other nations”
As they are doing now in Asia; as they’ve done in the Gulf of Sirte, or Sidra, in The Mediterranean, and as they are doing in other parts of the world. “They secure air bases on their soils to place their deadly bomb-carrying planes within easy striking distances of those whom they fear to be their enemies.
Is this not the easy way to make more enemies?” Don’t you have enough? “Is this the act of a real Christian, the followers of Jesus whom they preach came into the world for the peace of mankind and to teach the sheathing of the sword and the turning of the other cheek?
When did you ever become a “Christian”? To be a “Christian” means to be Christ-like…
Do you think that these actions of our government toward the people and nations of the Earth are “the actions of Jesus Christ”? Or are they the actions of a Devil “posing”—and using The Good Name of a Righteous Servant of God to shield dirty actions behind The Noble Name of “Jesus”?
You mock Jesus! And that’s why Jesus said, “God is not mocked,” for you will reap what you have sown.
‘Sport and play,’ transitory life, used to divert us away from Divine Guidance, Warning
My beloved brothers and sisters: The world in which we live is called a “transitory world,” and its life is a “transitory life.” “Transitory” means that of a “passing nature”—not enduring, not permanent, but “temporary,” “fleeting.” There is nothing “permanent” about this world … It is referred to in the Holy Qur’an as “a life” of “sport” and “play.”
Well, let’s look at the definition of “sport”: “Any activity or experience that gives enjoyment and/or recreation; a pastime for diversion”; “such an activity, especially when competitive, requiring more or less vigorous bodily exertion; and carried on sometimes as a profession”; and, “an object of ‘ridicule,’ ‘laughing stock’”; “as a thing or person buffeted about as though ‘a plaything’.”
We live in a world that doesn’t take Life seriously. People jumping over high hills on snowmobiles—they call them “daredevils”—doing things that are intriguing to look at, but not what Life’s Purpose is all about. It’s a “diversion.” In biology, “sport” means:
“A plant or animal showing some marked variation from the normal type, usually as a result of mutation.” See, this is a people that show “a marked variation” from The Original Type as a result of “a mutation.”
This world is a “joke,” and the people in it just tell jokes, and trifle, and make mockery and ridicule. Well, the definition of “play” is the same: “Engaging in an activity for enjoyment and recreation, other than for serious or practical purposes.” Even sexual activity is called “play.” The whole idea of “sport and play” is a diversion.
To “divert” you away from what? To keep you blind to “The Time and What Must Be Done”—if we are to escape loss; “for surely man is in loss, except those who believe” in the preaching of “The Time” and change their way, and start “the doing of good,” and who believe in “exhorting man to patience, and to truth” (Holy Qur’an, Surah 103)!
Well, America: Nebuchadnezzar used “sport and play,” and “music,” to divert peoples’ attention away from The Fall of Babylon.
So to my beloved musicians, and rappers, and my great artists and cultural icons; you great athletes: You fascinate the world with the majesty of your playing. But every time we look at a game.
We spend hours of diversion; we look at a “fight,” and that is hours of diversion! We look at “sport and play” as diversion—and while our head is watching the majesty of the talented people of God, we are diverted away from the suffering that’s going on all around us:
We’re diverted from the crashing dollar that is falling! We are diverted from the soon-to-come crash of the stock market! We are diverted from the suffering of our own poverty, and lack of necessities.
But soon, “The Shock” of The Hour will be here, and you won’t be able to watch a “game.” This is The Time in which we live.
“The Principle of Justice” is “fair dealing,” because justice lies down with you when you “lie down,” and justice gets up with you when you “wake up.” And what does that mean? It means we can never escape the consequences of our actions.
So, to The People of God, my beloved Black brothers and sisters, and to all those who wish to change and practice righteousness:
- Don’t you think “it’s time” that we made a serious thought about changing the way we think, the way we act, the way we live, the way we eat, the way we treat one another?
- Don’t you think “it’s time” to “take off the old man” that is according to Adam and The Rebellion of This World, and “put on the new man” which is after Christ Jesus—that Great One Who comes in The Sabbath to set up a Kingdom of Righteousness?
- Don’t you want to be a part of that which God makes “new”?
Then my counsel, my advice, my Warning to you in The Name of Allah—in The Name of The Great Mahdi, Master Fard Muhammad, and in The Name of His Great Messiah, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Both of Whom are Alive and Present, and in Power: Don’t you think you should pay attention to what They are Guiding me to say, and act accordingly?
If you do, God will aid you in making a change. We are living in The Doom of this world, and we will be requited for what we do. Let us pray that The Mercy of God, and God’s Protection, will be with all who seek Righteousness.
