[Editor’s note: The following edited text is taken from a June 20, 2003 interview with Minister Louis Farrakhan by National Public Radio host Tavis Smiley. The interview took place at Min. Farrakhan’s residence in Chicago.]

Tavis Smiley (TS): As part of your 70th year milestone, you’ve also been celebrating your success and your survival in the battle against prostate cancer. Tell me, one, how you’re feeling these days, and how this experience has affected you, your family, your ministry.

Minister Louis Farrakhan (MLF):

Near death always has an impact on anyone who enters the portal of death and is brought back from it. The things that one takes for granted, like the rising of the sun, or the rain, or the thunder, or just watching the blades of grass, or watching a bird fly, and roses bud, these are things that we see, but sometimes they are so magnificent that we take them for granted. But when you’re at death’s door and God spares your life, you are cognizant of all the little things that make life the majestic gift that God has ordained for all who have it.

Because of my prostate cancer and my near death experience, and because people of many faiths, many ethnic and racial groups sincerely prayed for me, there was no way that I could come out of that experience less conscious of my commitment to the struggle of Black people for total liberation. But also, I was much more cognizant of my duty to all of humanity. Those who prayed for me caused me to see in greater depth the silliness of people of God being divided by their misunderstanding of God and His oneness, and yet we, as a people who believe in God, are so divided and filled with bitterness and hatred.

TS: The Louis Farrakhan Prostate Cancer Foundation was launched on your 70th birthday. What do you hope to do with this particular effort?

MLF: First, it will be raising money to help in making men in general, Black men in particular, more aware of this disease and the impact that it is having on our community. And then we hope to have in Washington, D.C., at Howard University, a Louis Farrakhan Prostate Cancer Center, where we will raise money for this, particularly to aid Black men who are unable to pay for this treatment, to be able to get the treatment and be examined, without fear that they won’t have money to do this. It will make the remaining years of my life more meaningful if I can help tens of thousands of Black men, if they have it, to catch it early, so that we never lose our giants, as we have up to this day lost so many.

TS: You were quoted last October as describing President Bush as being off course, victimized with the greatness of the power of America. A lot has happened since then. What is your assessment now of the Bush administration and this U.S. war on terrorism?

MLF: I think it was a mistake that America is paying for in the way the world sees this great nation. It grieved me last year this time when I was on tour in the Middle East begging the leaders of the Middle East, Muslim leaders, to unite to speak with one voice to President Bush, that our unity might be able to stop a war. I was not allowed to enter Israel, where I would have talked with Brother Arafat and to the leaders of Hamas and others, as well as, hopefully, to talk to Prime Minister Sharon. I did believe and I do believe that there is a better way than the way we have chosen to go.

Unfortunately, the war has cost America greatly politically throughout the world. And now (after the war), many Americans are dying, probably almost as many as were killed in the war itself. This is continuing to happen in Iraq and also in Afghanistan. And even though President Bush has said that this is not a war against Islam, yet (Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfeld warned the Iranian leaders not to meddle in Iraq, even though the majority of the people in Iraq are Muslims and Shias. The call for an Islamic government that rules by the Qur’an rather than rules by the precepts or doctrines of men is what disturbed Mr. Rumsfeld, so he warned Iran not to meddle in Iraq.

But this is what America is doing all over the world–meddling in the affairs of nations–and it will not bring good results. Regardless to how it seems, America is losing because of her drunkenness over her greatness and her power. And though I don’t wish to be perceived in any way as anti-Semitic or any such thing, but the neo-conservatives, or the strong Jewish influence on the American political scene, are using the might of America not to destroy America’s enemies but to destroy the enemies, perceived or real, of the state of Israel. That is why Iraq was attacked, then Syria warned, then Iran.

TS: Since you have raised the issue here of the state of Israel, and American Jews in particular, I am certain that I am not letting you in on a big secret when I suggest to you that many years later, there are still many in the Jewish community who see you as domestic public enemy number one. There are others who still point to, in particular, two comments attributed to you years ago. One in which you said, “Hitler was a very great man.” The other statement attributed to you apparently referred to Judaism as a “gutter religion.” Since you raised this issue, let me ask you about those two comments in particular.

Let me start with the comment about Hitler being a very “great man.” I dug up these quotes attributed to you. In context, I see you responding to a Jew who called you a “Black Hitler,” which I did not know. I also did not know the full context of this quote, which you also said two sentences later, “I am not proud of Hitler’s evil toward Jewish people, but don’t compare me with your wicked killers.” So I’ve seen this thing in a broader context now. I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you to talk to me about this comment, this quote, “Hitler being a very great man,” and whether or not you understand, even in context, the pain that many Jews have about this comment, and why so many of them still view you as suspect?

MLF: First, let me say for the record that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a hater or disrespecter of the Jewish people. I am not, nor have I ever been, a person that is against the Jewish people’s faith, for it is God Who revealed to them and sent them prophet after prophet. As a Muslim, we respect all of the prophets that were sent to the Children of Israel and we believe in the scriptures that they brought. These prophets were agents of correction for the Jewish people. They were agents of reform for the Jewish people that they might keep their favored position with God.

I would view myself, not as a prophet, but as one who respects this people and knows that this people can make a tremendous contribution to our rise from ignorance and savagery into the highest manifestation of civilized behavior. The Jewish people can help us to become that, because they once were in the state of condition that we are in and God raised them up through a prophetic voice.

My disagreement is with aspects of that community who seek to control Black thought, Black expression, Black talent, Black politics, Black religion, Black people. I want our people to be free of all control, except by God and ourselves. When I speak out against this control by certain elements of that community, I am looked upon with disfavor as a hater or as an anti-Semite.

Now, to your question about Hitler. I, in my spare time, always look at the Biography channel and History channel, and though Hitler has been dead for at least 60 or more years, his name, his image, his history, his life are always before the American people and the world’s people through the many stories that are told and the insights that historians give to all aspects of Hitler’s life. Greatness is not goodness, and this is what I attempted to say 17 years ago when I became persona non grata because of these alleged statements.

You said exactly what I said, that I am not proud of any evil that Hitler did to the Jewish people. I said, don’t compare me with your wicked killers because I have killed no Jew. Nor have I ever ordered those who love me, and would do as I ask, to harm one hair on the head of any Jew. We have never boycotted one Jewish store or made any Jew in business uncomfortable. But, my words, taken out of context and improperly placed before the American people, have put me in this ugly position.

There are many in America who say what I just said earlier about the strong political influence of the Jewish people on the political direction of this nation. I’m not alone in saying it. Others will speak it under their breath or say it quietly, but I am blasted because I want to correct something that I believe will lead the country to ruin and destruction.

If we, as a Black people, had people in Congress that could influence the direction of this nation, reparations would be a fact in America today and billions and trillions would be paid to the children of slaves. It is clear that any of us who attempt to use our influence to get our government to be more just where the Blacks or the Hispanics or the Native Americans are concerned, we get squashed.

The Jewish community, small in number, yet powerful in influence and wealth, has every right to seek advantage for themselves and their group, but not at the expense of America, at the expense of the greatness of this nation.

The last part of that is, I never said that Judaism was, in fact, a gutter religion. I believe in that which God revealed through the mouth of His prophets to the Jewish people. Many rabbis have come and sat at my table and we’ve discussed these things amicably and amiably. What I’m referring to is how people who claim to be religious can dirty their religion by their foul actions in contravention to what their prophets taught them.

Everybody today has to clean up their actions in order to give religion a better name. There are Muslims that have to clean up. There are Jews that have to clean up. There are Christians that have to clean up. There are Buddhists and Hindus that have to clean up. Otherwise, religion in the world is dead, because it is the number one purveyor of hatred and misunderstanding between people.

TS: What do you think are some of the greatest myths and misconceptions about the Nation of Islam?

MLF: That we are a hate group; that we are anti-American; that we are a “fifth column” within the United States that must be dealt with in this climate since 9/11; that we are anti-Christian. These are false ideas promoted in the American media and sometimes contributed to by ourselves, by our misunderstanding of the teachings, or our zeal in speaking the message.

All of the problems that Islam corrects in our socialization and in our behavior are the same problems that are undermining America’s moral and social fabric. I think that, rather than condemning Islam, Islam needs to be studied by those who are sincere; study it and see what is it in Islam that it changes us from an anti-social person, from a criminal, from a prostitute, from drug addiction, from wife-beating, from a person that had no will to do something for self into a self-reliant, self-respecting, self-loving, self-producing people.

TS: I wonder if the future of the Nation of Islam is inextricably linked to charismatic leadership like that which you have exhibited these many years?

MLF: I would hope and pray that that will not be the case. I think charismatic persons and personalities are always good in initiating a new religious idea, philosophy or direction. But when that idea and the principles that undergird it are institutionalized, then charismatic personalities are no longer necessary to fuel that entity. I would hope that my life and my death will end the need for charismatic persons and personalities to keep this movement going. To institutionalize the principles that undergird the life of Elijah Muhammad and the life of Louis Farrakhan or the life of any charismatic personality is what gives life to the movement.

TS: I don’t know if you quite see it this way, Brother Minister, but there are many who would suggest that your crown jewel was the Million Man March. What was the most significant accomplishment of the Million Man March?

MLF: It was a stunning, shocking and inspiring event for those of us who were used to call it into existence, as well as for those who heard the call and came. The most important aspect of that was it showed Black people that we, as Black men, could come together for 12, 14 or more hours and stand shoulder to shoulder without one argument, without one fight, without one bad spirit. The spirit of the Million Man March was so high, so great, so magnificent that the many lives that were there were transformed as a result of it.

TS: Speaking of public policy and Black leadership, what would you say is the single greatest challenge facing Black leadership today?

MLF: I would think that Black leadership has to recognize that principles, more than speech or character, more than acclaim, are greater in advancing the cause of our liberation than what has transpired thus far. The greatest of our leaders were always men of high character and high morals, even though moral lapses have been found in all. But overall, I would say that the challenge of leadership is both moral and one of developing the characteristics that make us respected by one another.

And this, I think, will mean that, as leaders, we need to structure a Black United Front or an African American United Front, where those in leadership of organizations should be able to sit in a room and think on the problems of our people and the problems of the nation and come up with a solution that all of us in our own spheres can work on. That can happen.

TS: One of the most fascinating things about you, for me at least, is that you are an accomplished violinist. You started playing at age 6 and by age 13, you’d played with the Boston College Orchestra and the Boston Civic Symphony. Is music still your first love?

MLF: No, God and His truth and His religion are my first love. Our people are my second love. Humanity is my third love. Then, how my gifts, skills and talents serve God, serve our people and serve humanity. God is first, always, and His way of life is first.

TS: You mentioned love a lot in our conversation. Speaking of love, 50 years now, you’ve been married to the same woman. Talk to me about that relationship.

MLF: I think my wife has been a great blessing to me, a gift to me and my children from God. Every man should have a wife like this. My teacher, Elijah Muhammad, helped my wife in a class that allowed her to help me to become a man. A man is a very delicate creature who needs care, because God has constructed the man to carry the ideals of the nation and to work to fulfill these ideals. And that means that men are, by nature, to be producers. They conquer mountains, they conquer oceans, they conquer space. There is no impediment that nature produces that man does not have the ability to overcome. When I say man, I’m speaking of the male now.

But the female is his natural consoler, comforter and helper in that which God has given to the man to perform. And when we have that proper male/female relationship, the man leaves his home with peace and contentment of mind to go out and face the challenges of life. And then can’t wait until he can get back home to that environment that relieves him of the stress and the pain of what he faces as he tries to forge progress for his family, for his community, for his nation.

I’ve tried to be a good husband, a good father, but I have not been as good as I could be or should be. There is much that I am growing to learn about mission and family. And even though I have always sensed a mission to liberate Black people, I should never have tried to do it at the expense of my family, because in the final analysis, if your mission is “out” and not “in” then, whatever you’ve done “out” you can’t reflect it back “in.”

The mission should start “in” and then go “out.” A man that has a mission “out” and doesn’t have a mission “in,” he’s only half the leader or the man or the father or the husband that he could be. So I’m only halfway there. But at 70 years of life, I’m learning now how precious my wife is, my children are, my family is, and I’m trying to achieve the balance between mission and family.

TS: I close by asking you, what, in fact, do you want your legacy to be?

MLF: I don’t give that much thought, because I’m still writing my testament. As long as I’m alive and continue to function as I do, every day that I live, God willing, I will add breath and depth to my life experience and, therefore, breath and depth in my service to our people and others. I would hope that my legacy would ultimately be that he lived his life in service, first, of God and His people. For that I am not ashamed.

I make no apologies for my love of my people and for my love of humanity. And the more that I live and grow, I would like to see all of humanity living as we should in the image and in the likeness of God. I believe with all my heart that a day like that will come. And as my dear and beloved brother Martin Luther King said, I may not be there to see it, but I’ve already seen it through the eyes of the prophets of God that such a day will come. Each of us must do our part to bring that day to fruition.

TS: Minister Louis Farrakhan, thank you so much for your time and thank you for sharing.

MLF: Thank you and thank NPR for the privilege of being a part of this broadcast.

The post Farrakhan and Tavis Smiley–One on One appeared first on Final Call News.

Minister Louis Farrakhan
NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE HONORABLE ELIJAH MUHAMMAD
AND
THE NATION OF ISLAM

IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE BENEFICENT, THE MERCIFUL.
I BEAR WITNESS THAT THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALLAH AND I BEAR
WITNESS THAT MUHAMMAD IS HIS MESSENGER

June 24, 2010

President Abraham Foxman
Anti-Defamation League
605 Third Avenue
New York, New York 10017

Dear Mr. Foxman,

Please accept these two books enclosed from our Historical Research Department.

The charge of anti-Semitism has been leveled against the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam for many years. For twenty-five of the thirty-three years of my rebuilding of the Nation of Islam, I and we, in the Nation of Islam have suffered under the charge of “anti-Semitism” because I have dared to be critical of what I and many others feel is Jewish behavior that has ill-affected Black people and others.

Our Nation of Islam Historical Research Team was motivated by these false charges to study the works of Jewish scholars, historians, and Rabbis, being very careful to omit any words written or spoken, no matter how truthful, by those who are considered “anti-Semitic.”

We can now present to our people and the world a true, undeniable record of the relationship between Blacks and Jews from their own mouths and pens. These scholars, Rabbis and historians have given to us an undeniable record of Jewish anti-Black behavior, starting with the horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping, the labor movement of the North and South, the unions and the misuse of our people that continues to this very moment.

As you have constantly labeled me and done everything within your power to hinder me and us from the civilizing work that Allah (God) has given to The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and myself to do, I ask you to find one act committed by me or those who follow me that has injured one Jewish person, stopped Jews from doing business, hindered their education, injured their families, sullied or desecrated their synagogues. You will not find one. So, except for our willingness to tell the truth and our unwillingness to apologize to you for telling the truth, on what basis do you charge me and us as being “anti-Semitic”?

Armed with this knowledge from the pens of Jewish scholars, Rabbis, and historians, we could now charge you with the most vehement anti-Black behavior in the annals of our history in America and the world. We could charge you with being the most deceitful so-called friend, while your history with us shows you have been our worst enemy.

I do not write this with vitriol, hatred, bitterness, or a spirit of vengeance, because One greater than you and me has permitted this for His own wise purposes.

However, what is done is done. We cannot change the past. You and I, your children and mine, your people and mine are living in the present. Your present reality is sitting on top of the world in power, with riches and influence, while the masses of my people here in America, in the Caribbean, Central and South America and elsewhere in the world are in the worst condition of any member of the human family.

I have pleaded with you over the years for a sensible, intelligent dialogue. You have rejected me, and some Rabbis have given me terms for friendship that any self-respecting person could never accept. So with this truth in our hands and yours, and soon in the hands of tens of thousands, I again ask you for a dialogue.

You are in a position to help me in the civilizing work that The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was given to do by Allah (God), whose burden and Mission —Allah and He —has made me to share. With this historical research in your hands, you may either gather your forces for an all-out struggle against me, the Nation of Islam, and the truth that I and we speak and write, or as an intelligent and civilized people, we can sit down and carve out a way forward that can obliterate the stain of the past and render us, Jews and Blacks-before Allah (God) and the world-in a new, honorable, and mutually respectful relationship.

This is an offer asking you and the gentiles whom you influence to help me in the repair of my people from the damage that has been done by your ancestors to mine. This is a wonderful way of the present generation of Jews to escape the Judgment of Allah (God) by aiding in the repair of His people.

However, should you choose to make our struggle to civilize our people more difficult, then I respectfully warn you, in the Name of Allah (God) and His Messiah, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that the more you fight and oppose me rather than help me to lift my people from their degraded state, Allah (God) and His Messiah will bring you and your people to disgrace and ruin and destroy your power and influence here and throughout the world.

I pray that you will make the wise and best choice.

Respectfully and Sincerely Submitted,

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
Servant to the Lost-Found
Nation of Islam in the West

Cc: Chairman Alan Solow, American Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations
President William Hess, American Zionist Movement
President Bob Elman, American Jewish Committee
President Dennis W. Glick, B’Nai B’Rith International
President Richard S. Gordon, American Jewish Congress
President Rabbi Moshe Kletenik, Rabbinical Council of America
President Rabbi Ellen Weinburg Dreyfus, Central Conference of American Rabbis
Executive Director Jerry Silverman, Jewish Federation of North America
President Stephen J. Savitsky, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
Executive Director Martin Schwartz, Jewish Labor Committee
President Lee Rosenberg, American Israel Public Affairs Committee
President Wayne Firestone, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
National Executive Director Herb Rosenbleeth, Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America
President Morton Klein, Zionist Organization of America
Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street

* Click here to download PDF Version of Original Letter

[Editor’s note: The above letter was sent to Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish leaders by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan prior to his monumental lecture “Who Are the Real Children of Israel?” delivered June 26 in Atlanta, Ga. It refers to two books released in Atlanta, “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2,” and “Jews Selling Blacks.” Click here for more coverage of his address and to order the historic lecture or these important books, visit http://store.finalcall.com]

The post Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Letter To ADL’s Abraham Foxman appeared first on Final Call News.

[Editor’s note: The following article contains excerpts from the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s April 1, 2011 interview on WPFW-Pacifica Radio with Spectrum Today’s Askia Muhammad, along with regular panelist Wilmer Leon, host of XM Satellite Radio’s On With Leon. Brother Askia Muhammad is also a senior correspondent for The Final Call newspaper.]

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Spectrum Today host Askia Muhammad (ST): Welcome to the airwaves of WPFW and to Spectrum Today, Minister Louis Farrakhan.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (HMLF): Thank you, my dear brother. And I’m honored to be a part of your show.

ST: We’re honored to have you. In 1995, Minister Farrakhan convened the largest gathering of Black men in U.S. history when more than two million, mostly Black men, answered his call and came to Washington Monday, a working day, October 16, 1995, assembling on The Mall for the Million Man March. There was not one single arrest in Washington that day despite official fears which prompted Congress and the Federal government to shut down that day.

Following the Million Man March, Minister Farrakhan embarked on a World Friendship Tour where he cemented his relationships with many of the governments of Africa and the Muslim world; as well as with the towering world-revolutionary figures at that time: Nelson Mandela of South Africa; Fidel Castro of Cuba; Hafez Al-Assad of Syria; Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization; and of course, Muammar Gadhafi of Libya. Today, Arafat and Assad are no longer with us. Mandela and Castro are still alive, but have both retired from public life. Only Gadhafi remains in power, and that is tenuous. His power has been challenged by an armed rebellion aided by Western military superpowers.

Colonel Gadhafi is a longtime friend of the Nation of Islam. In 1973 he loaned Mr. Muhammad, Minister Farrakhan’s mentor, $3 million to purchase what was then a Greek Orthodox Church on Chicago’s Southside. The interest-free loan was paid back by Mr. Muhammad and his followers in its entirety. Today that building is Mosque Maryam, the headquarters of the Nation of Islam. Minister Farrakhan has made several visits and trips to Libya, including one where he helped turn the valve, opening a massive project to irrigate the Libyan Desert that was called “The Man-Made River.”

Meanwhile, however, Colonel Gadhafi has seen some of his most trusted military, as well as civilian, officials defect from his government; making charges that the Libyan leader is a “despot,” who has ordered brutal campaigns of murder and repression of his own population.

Minister Farrakhan, you have referred recently [in your March 31, 2011 Press Conference] to Colonel Gadhafi as a “friend,” and a “brother.” Can you share with us any information that might enlighten us beyond the “everybody hates Gadhafi” message that is all we hear in this country? And have you spoken personally with your friend and brother, Colonel Gadhafi?

HMLF: Thank you Brother Askia. No, I have not spoken with Brother Gadhafi for a number of years. And you know, the thing that has disturbed me is that in 1985, Ronald Reagan began to refer to Muammar Gadhafi as “The Mad Dog of the Middle East.” And when you start referring to a human being as a “mad dog,” as much beloved as dogs are, when they become “mad” the only thing that solves that is some form of death for that dog.

That kind of language is back in the public, and so referring to him as a “mad man,” as a “lunatic,” as “a man who kills his own people” is creating an atmosphere in the minds of those in America, who do not know Gadhafi, who do not know Libya, and who do not know the wickedness of the policies of our own government. And it sets the tone for murder, once again.

I would say to you, Brother Askia, if you visit Libya: If he’s a “mad man,” then the people in Libya would reflect his madness. What is the crime rate in Libya? What is the rate of rape and robbery, murder, in Libya? Nothing compared to the madness that is seen on the streets of America every day. He’s a “mad man”? But if you can go and find madness in the intelligent discourse of any that would sit and talk with him, he’s a revolutionary thinker, a brilliant man. And I know him as a friend.

And in spite of the tidal wave of negative publicity coming against him, I would be less than a brother, less than a man, if I would not stand in the face of that tidal wave and say, “Wait a minute! There are other things you should consider about this brother.”

ST: Is it possible that even notwithstanding the current conflict that Colonel Gadhafi has been in power too long? And perhaps might have served himself and his country better by having groomed others to take on the mantle of leadership?

HMLF: If you study Muammar Gadhafi, he started as a protégé of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Gamal Abdel Nasser was a Muslim, but a Socialist; and therefore as a Socialist, he ignited the dislike of The Muslim Brotherhood. So when you have those who are purely religious, dealing with a governmental leader who is a Muslim, but is leaning towards Socialism, you have a dynamic in your country that you’re going to now have to repress those who are coming against you and your government.

I’ve watched Muammar Gadhafi over the last 40 years transform from a “Muslim, Socialist-leaning” leader into a Muslim who now backs away from some of the Socialist ideas that he originally had; [and] was leaning more and more and more toward understanding, transmitting, the Qur’an, and being one who would be a reformer in the world of Islam. And so that would ignite again, in the Eastern region, the Wahhabis, people who are Salafis, against him because they would see him as “a man who has gone off The Path of God,” while he would see himself as a “reformer.”

And when you say he’s been in power “too long”: You know, I was with him many years ago when he stepped back as the revolutionary leader. Once he established the popular committees, he became the “Brother Leader” and “Guide of The Revolution,” but the day-to-day work was assigned to the popular committees. His idea was another type, or form, of democracy, where the people themselves became the government. And I was with him when he sat with other revolutionary presidents in Africa, and he said to them, “If you are a revolutionary, you have to stay to guide the Revolution until the idea that produced the Revolution is cemented in the hearts and minds of the people.” This “democracy” that has been imposed on Africa, where you only have “two terms and step out,” that means that if you start something, you cannot be in power long enough to see it through.

Moses was a revolutionary prophet, if you will. He was leading at 120 years. It’s not the length of years that you lead, it’s the quality of the service that you give in the years that you lead. And I submit to you: What upset me was that our president and the secretary of state could say to a man who took his country from ignominy in 1969, and built a nation over 42 years, and these arrogant leaders of ours would tell a man like that: “You’ve outlived your usefulness. Step down and get out!”

On With Leon host Dr. Wilmer Leon (WL): [During his March 28, 2011 address at National Defense University in Washington, D.C.], President Obama referred to Colonel Gadhafi as a “tyrannical dictator,” but interestingly, Pres. Obama months before was embracing Colonel Gadhafi; [Col. Gadhafi] was welcomed in France. In fact, up until a couple of weeks [prior], the United States was going to sell him $44 million of armored personnel carriers.

What do you think has brought about this almost immediate 180-degree turnaround in the relationship between the West and Libya? And then secondly, what message do you think this sends going forward to other leaders who are engaged in relations with the United States?

HMLF: Well, it seems to me, my dear brother, that this 180-degree turn was almost all of a sudden. The Western nations that were cultivating friendship, and cultivating Muammar Gadhafi, were inside his country doing business. Not any of them were threatened; the streets in Libya were peaceful. Now, all of a sudden, France, England, Germany, Italy, Canada–all of them turned on Muammar Gadhafi. So what I found in our research was that two years ago, Gadhafi was thinking about nationalizing the oil in order to get a greater profit from the oil companies that were doing business in his country. He started re-negotiating contracts with all of these companies that were doing business in Libya; and gained an extra $5.4 billion for the Libyan people.

Now something happened when they saw a crack in the man’s strength of leadership, which started on the 15th of February in the Eastern region. And all of a sudden, all of these that were “friendly” with him, turned on him. Brother Gadhafi came in “out of the cold” under George W. Bush, where he gave up all his weapons of mass destruction; he gave up scud missiles. And then, he sat down with the West and was making himself a man, hopefully, that the West could accept.

No, I think they discovered something that all of them had to attack him, because when they joined forces against him, and thought he was going to be through; and our president said he has “lost the legitimacy” to rule in Libya, and he should step down, and get out–at that point they thought that Gadhafi was gone. But though he was not prepared for war, he summoned the strength of his loyal followers and began a march, and all of the cities that were taken by the rebels, one-by-one he took them back. So the United Nations, and our president and the White House, had to act quickly; act in such a foolish way that it disturbed the peace of his own government.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said we had to do this “on the fly.” Why “on the fly”? Because if Gadhafi was going to take Tobruk, and solidify that whole country again under his leadership … the fact that he had been betrayed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he financed that man to become president; he was betrayed by Cameron, by Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi! Well, then, if the man now wins his country back: Revenge. And Brother Gadhafi also said, “No more oil to Europe”–and Europe is the biggest buyer of the sweet crude of Libya! So he had to get him out, and get him out quick, so that they would have access to the sweetest crude in the world, which is what Europe needs to survive an energy crisis.

So, for their own success and future, they felt they had to take him out, and take him out fast; and that is why he couldn’t follow through, like he should have. When UN Resolution 1973 ordered a “No-Fly Zone”–which is an act of war, committing troops and ships to a theatre of operation–it was the duty of every signer of the United Nations Charter to go back to their respective countries and go through their constitutional mandate.

The constitutional mandate of America, of course, has been violated, because they didn’t have time. Our president did not even go before the Congress; he may have called a few of them. Believe me, this foolish action has made Brother Obama and the White House and the Administration look terrible in the eyes of wiser politicians in the government. In fact, I think it was the former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who said it was an “amateurish operation.”

WL: If President Obama is taking this action in response to Colonel Gadhafi’s wanting to nationalize oil, this takes me back to 1952 with Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, and how the CIA removed him for the same reasons, so it seems as though this is history repeating itself. And this ties into your saying in 1991 before George Herbert Walker Bush went into the Gulf War, that that was going to be the beginning of a number of precipitant events. Are we seeing, now, those events that you predicted back in 1991?

HMLF: Well, my dear brother, I really believe that what our administration has done has hurt America greatly. In the rush to destroy one man, America did not think of the range of influence of that one man in Africa and in the Middle East–despite the fact that there are some African leaders who did not trust his leadership; and there are some Arab leaders who really do not like Muammar Gadhafi. Yet, America, after a UN Security Council Resolution, thought that they had to have Arab cover for their wicked intention against Gadhafi, so they prevailed on Amr Moussa of the Arab League; and some of the members of the Arab League. And from what I understand, there are 22 members of the Arab League, but only eight of them met and voted on this–not even enough for a quorum! And Amr Moussa was convinced that there may be a humanitarian crisis, so he voted.

Barack Obama has come before the American people echoing this, that “it would have been a humanitarian crisis.” One existed in Liberia, but America did not intervene! There are thousands of refugees fleeing Liberia under a civil war. Now, there seems to be a civil war brewing in Côte d’Ivoire, and France is not intervening! There’s a humanitarian crisis developing there! This is using noble sentiments to hide wicked motivations! And so, America is losing.

And if they kill Brother Gadhafi, I submit to you that American interests in Africa will come under severe strain. That man has invested in Africa more than any other leader in the recent history of Africa’s coming to political independence. It is Muammar Gadhafi who took the OAU from the “Organization of African Unity”; and I was there present with him when he projected onto the OAU the ideas of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and Gamal Abdel Nasser of a “United States of Africa.” So the first step in that process was the African Union–I was present at the launching of the Union!

And from the day that that Union was launched, Europe was upset! They set up NEPAD, and they were setting up among the North African nations a Mediterranean-kind of coalition between South Europe and North Africa. Again, to fracture Africa, because with a Unified Africa, the West would not easily have access to the strong mineral resources of Africa which America needs to be a world power in the 21st Century. They made a tremendous blunder.

ST: Minister Farrakhan, I must ask you about another really controversial topic. The Nation of Islam Research Group has published a new volume of The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews (Volume 2). Not surprisingly, the Anti-Defamation League has denounced it as “anti-Semitic.”

Among Blacks there has been the predictable “knee-jerk” reaction against you as well. But there are some thoughtful Black intellectuals who have posed these questions which I would like you to address: “Why would you pick a fight with a group that is viewed as having been an ally of Blacks in modern times in the Civil Rights Movement?” And more importantly they ask: “As well-researched and documented as the book may be, what does this book, as well as the quarrel with the American Jewish Community, do to advance the struggle for Black liberation?”

HMLF: I think we have made a grave mistake. We have been deceived into thinking that the Jews have been our allies in our recent Civil Rights struggle.

“Allies” for what purpose? When the NAACP was founded by Joel Spingarn, several Jews, and Ralph Bunche and a few other Blacks, I think W.E.B. DuBois, as well, it was never to be anything that would be economic development to Black people. The theme of the Civil Rights Movement, according to our research, was “non-economic liberalism.” So even though we got the right to vote, and we have all of these mayors, a few governors and sheriffs and city council persons, and whatnot, what is the condition of Black people under this so-called political advancement?

We’ve had 40 years in the Congress with some of the most brilliant Black men and women in the Black Caucus–but what is the advantage to the “little man” in the street? We have a Black president for the first time, but what is the meaning of that to the economic development, jobs and justice for Black people in the street? You have been deceived, Black America!

Yes, he poses as your “friend”: He’s with you as an agent! He’s with you as a manager! He’s with you as an investor! He’s with you as a guide in economic development! But he has never asked you to do what he has done! He networks with other rich, influential Jews; and he buys, he invests! He’s in trade and commerce! When have our Black millionaires and billionaires even come together to discuss the plight of Black people economically; and then used that influence to create jobs, and trade and commerce when a whole world is outside waiting for us to emerge? No! You’ve been deceived! And as Malcolm says, “You’ve been hooked! You’ve been bamboozled!” A real friend would guide you to the way that they were guided to become rich, powerful and influential!

ST: The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. We are so grateful that you have taken time to be with us on this program, on our “News View” of Spectrum Today.

HMLF: Thank you, Brother Askia, for the honor and privilege of being on your show. I thank your guest who was on this show, and thank your wonderful listening audience. I hope, Brother Askia, we can do this again, and soon. God bless you.

The post Spectrum Today Interviews the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan appeared first on Final Call News.

[Editor’s note: On Sunday, January 2, 2011, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan was interviewed by Bob Slade, James Mtume and Bob Pickett, co-hosts of New York’s 98.7 KISS FM Open Line show, to share his thoughts and offer guidance on the escalation of crime and violence in Newark, New Jersey in advance of a scheduled Town Hall meeting there to address these concerns. The following article contains edited excerpts of this live broadcast.]

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

OPEN LINE: Why do you feel as Black adults we’ve started to become so distant from the conditions of our children, and many of us begin to look at our children as though they are “The Enemy”?

HMLF: First, we all must look at ourselves. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, way back in the 1960s through the Muhammad Speaks newspaper, and through his many representatives, was warning us as a people that we would have to come together, pool our resources, and do something for ourselves before we were forced to do it. There were pictures in the Muhammad Speaks newspaper of factories closed down, with locks on their gates and Black men and women standing outside the gate looking for jobs. When the “Public Accommodations” bill was passed, the “Voting Rights” bill was passed, Civil Rights legislation was on the books, many of us as elders started looking at how we could enjoy the things that so-called Integration would give us, rather than planning for our future.

Now what has happened? Our children have come into the world. What place have we, as their elders, and their leaders, provided for these children? We went after the money! We went after nice things; nice homes. Yes, you deserve that; we should have that! But we never came together as a people to pool resources and begin to build Economic Development for ourselves and our people.

So here are our children, now: They’re born into the world. They didn’t ask to come here; we brought them here, and what we have done is we have failed to provide a future for them.

We sent them to college, giving them an education expecting that when they came out of college there would be a job waiting for them. But there are no jobs now, not even for White people with doctorate degrees! There are no jobs for us!

So when you ask, “What shall we say? Why aren’t we speaking out?”–“speaking” is over! What can we do to stem the tide that is now come upon us? I fear we are too late.

OPEN LINE: What are you saying, Minister Farrakhan? We are too late? So everybody understands …

HMLF: I’m saying that we are reaping the recompense of our failure as a people to do something for ourselves. That is what we’re looking at. Our children are angry! They come into the world; there’s no home life! The homes are broken! A mother is in the house trying to rear her children; she’s working and coming home. The children are “warehoused”! They are, now, in the streets. There’s not a good relationship between brothers and sisters in the home, so they go out in the street, and they find in their peers, the “love,” the “brotherhood” that they didn’t find at home, or in the church. But it’s a brotherhood, now, with a gang instinct.

There are no jobs, so The Enemy has planned for our children to be “warehoused,” and to come into the criminal justice system from the kindergarten. They have made prisons “big business”; many of them are privately-owned, and they’re warehousing our children into the prisons. And the others on the street are being programmed for prison.

But guess what? The State of New Jersey, the State of New York, the State of Ohio, the State of California, the State of Illinois–all of these states are darn near bankrupt! The cities have no more money! So now, they have to lay off people that should be working: The police should be working! The firemen should be working! The teachers should be working! But there’s no money, so they are the “soft line.” I don’t know how the government can, in a time like this, let police go, let firemen go and let teachers go. Jobs are leaving the country, going overseas to a cheap labor market, and here we are, left in the lurch.

And now, governments are so poor, they can’t keep up the federal or state prison systems, so now they’re thinking: “Oh God! What shall we do? We have to let some of these non-violent criminals out into the street.” You designed to put our babies in jail for a little crack cocaine; and giving others who have powdered cocaine shorter sentence reprimand! But our children were warehoused and put into prison! Now, you want to let them out in the street because you cannot afford to keep them in prison, and they have no interest in your decadent, dying educational system! Yes … America is reaping what she has sown, and so are we.

OPEN LINE: Brother Minister, one of the reasons why we’re going to go into Newark and do this is because we don’t really believe it’s “too late” to turn things around–you can turn things around! It has happened before; we can still do it. And, we have faith that we can probably pull this off. All we have to do is sort of energize the people to do for themselves, and I know you believe in that!

HMLF: No, Brother. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that you’re going to “turn this around”–I would be deceitful. And, it’s an illusion, now. You know, when somebody has not done something for cancer when they find it, and they wait, and wait and wait. When they’re in a “Stage 4” cancer situation, and cancer has metastasized and gone through the body: You can “hope” that you can change things around, and bring them back to life. But it’s the negligence of not doing what you should do in a timely fashion, that when you decide to do it, it’s too late.

Do you know that right now you can preach to our people, and only the best of our people will hear a word and change their behavior? This is written in the scripture! You “scriptural scientists,” you “preachers” and “teachers”: You preach this that is in the Book of Ezekiel, the 37th Chapter, of “The Dry Bones in The Valley.” The Son of Man preached the word to them, they heard the Word; they shook in The Valley, they rattled their bones in the Valley–but they never stood up! So he went back to his Sender and said, “I preached to them, but they are not moving!” The Sender said, “Prophesy”–not to them anymore, but–“to the winds to blow on these bones.” And it was not The Word that made these bones stand up, it was The Winds blowing on them.

I fear to tell you, brothers, that The Winds are blowing; and They’re not blowing as hard as They’re going to blow in this year 2011, and 2012. America is on her way down! And we have been depending on others rather than ourselves and God! So as that ship goes down, ours is going down with it! This is not “my” prediction; this is what the prophets have predicted. We’re living in a Time of Trouble like there never was since there was a Time and a Nation! If you look at Newark, which is a sign of things to come: The whole society is gradually breaking down.

What about the millions that are now unemployed? When their unemployment benefits run out, how do they react? Look in London: When the children saw that they had to pay more money for their education, they began rioting in the streets. Look at the austere budgets: Now, the people have been so spoiled, when you have to cut back, they can’t take it so they resort to anarchy! What you’re seeing in Newark you will see it in major cities. Not just in the urban part of it where we predominate, but you’re going to see White folk doing this … The “Tea Party” is just a start of something. America is in trouble, and we are, too!

And now, our children are out there with no hope, angry, violent! Who gives them the guns? It’s the same Enemy that’s arming the world, is arming our babies! Who brings the drugs in? There are no jobs, so can you offer them, when you talk to them, employment? Can you offer them a job with meaningful pay, that they will not have to beat up the elderly; rob them on the buses; kill our young and our old? Can you do that? No you can’t! All you can do is appeal to us … and I’m afraid that only the best of us will listen.

But the condition of the streets is such, now, that when Essex County is asking for the National Guard to step in: This is a cry, now, that’s going on throughout America! The National Guard is not there to “serve and protect,” they’re trained to kill! And so since our youth are bathing each other in blood, then if blood is what we want, I’m sorry to tell you: Blood is exactly what we’re going to get. I’m sorry to talk like this to us, because we’re looking for hope; we’re looking for guidance–but we have rejected guidance! We’ve rejected good instruction! We have walked out on our great teachers and leaders, and now here we are, still looking to the slave master, or, to a Black man in the White House, to change our terrible condition.

Yes, it is we. It is we who have done this. And it is The Enemy who has done this, programming us for destruction. And now what is happening to us is killing them as well as us. Everybody is going to get what we deserve! And remember the Bible’s prophecy that blood will flow in the streets, up to the horse’s bridle. You have seen nothing yet! But it is coming.

OPEN LINE: Minister Farrakhan, what would you say to Black men in order to stop this rise in crime in our urban areas? What do you say to Black men, and how do they step up to protect their own communities?

HMLF: Before the Million Man March, Brother Farrakhan toured the country telling the people to “Stop The Killing.” I warned us way back then that there was a Government Conspiracy against our young people. People look at Farrakhan, you know, as if he is like a “nice song” that is sung; and then we go away, and we do nothing. Jesus said the same thing: “I piped to you all the day long, but you have not danced! And I have mourned unto you, but you have not lamented.”

When the Million Man March took place, that was a chance for us to Reverse The Condition. But guess what, Brother Slade, and Brother Pickett and Brother Mtume: Because it was led by a Muslim–and 82 percent of the people that were there were Christians–do you know that they took to the airwaves saying that Farrakhan is the “Anti-Christ”? The same Enemy that you want to lay down in bed with as your “friend” worked against what we were trying to do, so that it could not bear all the fruit that it was designed to do.

We are in the midst of an Enemy! And we are not recognizing that Enemy! And the worst part about it is The Enemy outside is working with The Enemy inside. And the Internal Enemy is worse than the External Enemy. I would hope that we as men, in this late, late, late, late hour, would not just “appeal” to our children, but go out in the streets where they are! What can you tell them? “Stop the violence!” “Stop killing one another!” But we have descended into a savage state, where we have lost the knowledge that all the teachers have given us, and now we’re acting like beasts!

I’ve been taught what’s coming; and, it’s all there written in the scriptures. And it’s frightening to me that a people that I love, that I would give my life for to see us in a better state … But we have neglected good preaching. I went to Newark: I had the gangs in a church with Ras Baraka; I preached to the Crips and the Bloods to put the guns down. And for a minute, they listened; and when they went out of the church, guess what! They were set upon by some of the police.

There are some police who don’t want to see peace in the Black community. There are some police who cover our young people, and they sell drugs for police! This is real! And if the police are not going to get rid of the rogue cops, the wicked cops and the murderous cops, then how in the hell can the people respect “law and order” when “law and order” is no law at all!

Yes. Something has to be done. But it won’t be you doing it. It won’t be me doing it. God’s Hand is here now! And He intends to wipe this slate clean. There’ll be a New Heaven, and a New Earth, and the former things will pass away.

OPEN LINE: Where are those voices in the religious, political and civil rights community that are so obviously absent, so silent? No Black leadership on any level is dealing with what is happening with our children, this whole divide; and not addressing this violence. Could you tell us why that is?

HMLF: I know that there are many out there that in their way are addressing this. I can’t say that religious leaders are “not” speaking out, because there are many who are. But there are not enough. I can’t say that our organizations are not doing what they can. But organizations, as we have them constructed, are limited.

Many of us right now are so beholden to others for a job, for favor, for recognition. Even when we know the truth, Brother Mtume, we can’t do it. … And I’m telling you: When we start coming together to pool our resources to create economic development for our people, The Enemy–The Real Enemy–will rise.

Look at our players in the NBA, multi-millionaires! And you know what? Our football players, our basketball players; our wonderful rappers and entertainers: You know they all want to give something back to our community. But those who guide their dollars will not allow them to come together, and pool their resources, and purchase millions of acres of land. America is for sale! You can’t be “economically independent” and you have no Earth that you can call your own?

We’ve got the ability to do it, but we don’t have the unity! We’re all up in the bosom of those who never want to see us economically powerful, because when we become economically powerful, the money that they take from our community will come back into our community. Then, we won’t have to beg others to do this for ourselves.

The post Open Line Interviews the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan appeared first on Final Call News.

*** Web Video Programming note: The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan Speaks at Jackson State Univeristy, Live via Webcast: Friday (03/25) 7:30pm Central Time @ http://NOI.org/Webcast/***

[Editor’s note: The following contains edited excerpts of the Honorable Louis Farrakhan’s interview with WVON 1690 AM radio host Cliff Kelley in Chicago on Thursday, March 10, 2011. This important radio interview is the most recent of several Min. Farrakhan granted before and after his Saviours’ Day 2011 address Feb. 27. The Final Call plans to run edited transcripts of interviews conducted with Karriem & Co. on WTWG 1050 AM in early February and an interview conducted very early this year with New York’s 98.7 KISS FM Open Line Show over the next few weeks. Make sure you get your copy of The Final Call to read and feed on these insightful, enlightening and inspiring messages. Click here to order this interview in its entirety on CD and DVD or call 1.866.602.1230, ext. 200.]

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Cliff Kelley (CK): A lot of people are unaware of the fact that there’s a lot more to Saviours’ Day than the keynote address. It’s a convention, with all kinds of activities and workshops.

HMLF: We had great Plenary Sessions. We opened it with our book The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, and it was a Plenary Session with the erudite scholars of the Nation of Islam that did the fantastic research from the pens of Jewish scholars, historians and rabbis to write a history that we believe not only Black people should know, but White people should know as well; and many Jews who do not know what happened to Black people.

The book came into existence not because we were looking for “controversy.” The Muslims were so upset that every time my name was mentioned, it was mentioned that Farrakhan is an “anti-Semite.” And because of that charge leveled over the last 25 years continuously, many things that we could have done successfully were interfered with because of that label. So the scholars and historians in The Nation decided that they would make a serious study of Jewish history to see whether that charge of “anti-Semitism” could be dispelled by a profound book on the truth from their lips, their pens, and their scholarship. So when they say that it is “all lies,” it’s “terrible,” it’s because they are afraid of the truth that is in it, that is so clear; and 1,800 footnotes, which any scholar can go back and read the writings out of which this book was developed.

And I humbly say that all of us as Black people, and Gentile Whites, and Asians and Hispanics: We have all read of the horror of the Holocaust. We know that something terrible happened under the Third Reich in Nazi Germany, and each of us reads it, hears it, sees documentaries on it; we have to know about it in all our classrooms so that this will never happen again, and no one will stand idly by on the sidelines while an entire ethnic or racial group is attacked.

So, we wanted America and the world to know that if we could study their tragic history, why shouldn’t the American people know, and why shouldn’t Black people know how we got into this condition and position?

CK: One of the things that I think you do, which I think is just great: You bring so many people together. When I was out in Rosemont at the venue for Saviours’ Day, I saw so many people out there that I know aren’t “Muslims”; and people of different colors. You mentioned the fact during your speech that there are a lot of Caucasian people that write to The Nation of Islam, asking for all kinds of information and so forth. Tell us about that.

HMLF: Because The Enemy has tried to make the people think that we’re behind closed doors, planning insurrection and rebellion against the government of the United States, and White people and Jewish people, we decided to webcast our Sunday broadcast all over the world so that if people wanted to listen to what we teach, they can tune in to www.noi.org, and really see what we teach. We are not planning any evil.

In fact, when I was looking at the hearings that are going on in Washington, D.C. under the guidance of Peter King and Homeland Security, where they’re talking about the “radicalization” of Muslims and terror groups. Well, The Nation of Islam has been here for 80 years and if anybody has a “beef,” it should be us! But you don’t find Black people throwing things, killing people, bombing bridges, talking like that! And I want America to know: If we in The Nation of Islam found somebody trying to blow up a bridge that would kill innocent people, you wouldn’t have to call Homeland Security–by the time they got to us, he would need some kind of security!

We hate that kind of thing, the killing of innocent people “in the name of God or religion”! You may be angry, but how do you handle your anger, your frustration? This is where we live! This is where we breathe! These are the people that we live next to, and if we can’t get along, there are ways that we can handle things. But to make bombs and kill innocent people? Heck no!

No, The Followers of Elijah Muhammad will stop that wherever we see it! We won’t just “report” it, but we’ll stop the hand of those that we know would do anything like that, that would kill innocent men, women and children no matter what their color is!

God is sufficient as The Avenger! So if it snowed like it did in Chicago on the 2nd of February, with winds blowing at 70 miles an hour, God didn’t care whether you were “White” or “Black”–He dropped the snow on you! If you couldn’t get out of your house, that’s your problem; but it affected Black, it affected Brown, it affected Red, it affected Yellow; it affected rich, it affected poor, because that’s the way God does! God is an “Equal Destroyer Opportunity Man”–so that’s The One we need to be afraid of. Not somebody with a little bomb in their backpack!

CK: I want to talk a little about this “radicalization” hearing. We know about Peter King’s background, of course; he’s there now because the Republicans took over the House, and he’s the head of the Homeland Security. We’ve got radicals in all groups, not just Muslims. What is your opinion of what is the purpose of what this whole thing was about?

HMLF: This hearing was very, very interesting because the great fear that is expressed is a fear that Muslims will begin to institute Sharia Law in the United States of America.

I humbly say that we [who are Muslims] live in America: We don’t live in our own land where we are free to live the full extent of our faith, including Sharia Law, but we live in America. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “We respect the laws that govern this nation.”

Yes, we are Muslims; and if we just lived The Moral Code of Islam, a lot of people would find it difficult. Imagine a nation of people that don’t smoke: What happens to the tobacco industry? A nation of people who don’t drink: What happens to the liquor industry; and the people arrested for drunk driving? What happens to the dope dealers, and the dope industry when you’ve got people so clean that you could drop a mound of cocaine in front of the mosque, and the Believers would sweep it up, burn it, destroy it–never sell it–because we want for our brother what we want for ourselves! And since we don’t want it for ourselves, why would we want that for any member of the Human Family?

For instance: We do not display our women in a way that makes men lust after their beauty. When Allah says in the Qur’an to the woman, to lower the hems of your garment, and cover your bosom; and “do not display your adornments,” we, as men, don’t have the adornment that the female has. A breast is adornment; and the beautiful shape of the rear end is [adornment], “good to look at,” so when you put that in a man’s face, how can he think sanely? How can he think progressively? So the Muslim says, “No. Cover the woman.” It protects her, but it also protects the man from the aggressive nature that a man has toward a woman who is unclad. And so these kinds of Teachings would benefit the society! This kind of Way of Life would increase the life span of the American people; decrease accidents on the highway!

Muslims are a blessing to America, and not a curse! However, when you have people who are so quote-unquote radicalized that they will strap a bomb on themselves because they’re angry, and their grievances have not been addressed properly; then they wish to go out and harm innocent people. That kind of thing we have to speak against. And so I thought Peter King may have had some idea in mind, but, if you listen to (Congressional representative) Sheila Jackson Lee, if you listen to Danny Davis, if you listen to Congressman Keith Ellison, and you listen to people who are Muslims, they have nothing in their heart against the country in which they have been afforded an opportunity to become who they are, then they take umbrage at the fact.

After 9/11 the F.B.I. moved on Muslims, this is a fact! They broke into the homes of some immigrant Muslims, took their computers and whatnot. Muslims after 9/11–I’m speaking more of immigrant Muslims–felt that they were under siege! And that’s why CAIR said, “Don’t talk to the F.B.I.” But under proper circumstances, why shouldn’t you talk to the authorities if you have nothing to hide?

Well, we never talked to the F.B.I., but, they followed us; they came to our homes, and they tried to frighten us out of Islam! They would go to our neighbors, and show our neighbors pictures of us as though we were “criminals.” And so the neighbors said, “My God! These Moslems–the F.B.I. came and left their card…” You know that the F.B.I. under J. Edgar Hoover targeted more than Muslims, they targeted Black leadership! Black groups! Nationalist groups! So, no: We didn’t have any “good feeling” about the F.B.I.–why should we?

But if you come with respect, you get respect, and that is what we teach!

CK: Do you think that Chairman Peter King’s idea was allegedly to do something “positive”? He made the comment that 80 percent of the mosques in the U.S. are run by “radical imams.”

HMLF: Well, I’m sure they’re moving gently and swiftly toward Louis Farrakhan and The Nation of Islam. We don’t carry any weapons, but The Greatest Weapon that we have is in our mouth, and it is The Truth.

When you speak Truth, and you’re unafraid of the consequences of speaking the Truth, people that have lied and have built their house on lies, fear Truth! They don’t fear guns because they have bigger guns! But a Lie is always afraid when Truth comes in the room.

CK: Brother Minister, about Libya: France has now recognized a national transitional council; and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is saying that they are telling the Libyan Embassy to leave out of D.C. What is your opinion as to what is happening with Libya?

HMLF: Muammar Gadhafi and the problem in Libya is much more complex than what the news is saying. Muammar Gadhafi has always been hated by Western, European, Neo-Colonial, Imperialistic governments.

That man, Muammar Gadhafi, came to power in Libya not in a coup that killed people–it was a bloodless coup. And when he took power, America was there, Britain was there; they had bases there! They controlled the sweetest crude oil in the world from Libya. And if you notice, when you study the “Marines” song: “From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country’s battle on the land and on the sea!”–what were you doing in Montezuma? And, what were you doing in Tripoli?

See, this attitude that somehow Western powers have a right to the resources of weaker nations in Africa, in Central and South America: Gadhafi rejected that notion. And, under Reagan’s Administration, the media called him “the mad dog of the Middle East.” Well, what do you do with “mad” dogs? You kill them.

I [have told the world] that in 1985 I had an Experience that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to me on that Wheel–you take it, or let it alone–that: “Reagan had met with his Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan a war.” He didn’t tell me where the war was gonna take place, or who the war was planned against, but he told me to hold a Press Conference and make it known that I got it from him, Elijah Muhammad, on The Wheel. Well, I didn’t know exactly where this war was, but I kept watching how things developed. And while I was on a World Tour, I was in Belize in Central America, and President Reagan came on the television announcing that “no Americans should go to Libya”; “no Americans should do business with Libya”–that’s when it started! When I got to Africa, by the time I was in Ghana, it crystallized for me that it was Libya that America was going to war with. So when I got to Benin, I sent my family home; got on a Russian jet and flew to Tripoli to warn Brother Gadhafi of what America was planning to do.

Yes, I did that! Why? Because that man was a friend of The Nation of Islam; he was a friend of Elijah Muhammad. He helped Elijah Muhammad get the mosque on Stony Island Avenue originally; he loaned us $5 million to put personal care products up for the members of the Nation of Islam. And I know Muammar Gadhafi as a revolutionary: I know him as a man that has helped governments throughout Africa; he helped the IRA, he helped others, so others did not like him for his revolutionary stand! He finally kicked out the British, he kicked out the Americans. He took the oil and then used it for the benefit of the Libyan people. And, he wrote in his Green Book that he saw the future of the world in the hands of Black people. So, to harm this man because you’re angry with him …

Dear listeners, look: Whatever you may think of him, most of our thinking of great Black men, or White men that “power” does not agree with, the media has always been used to destroy their image and their reputation.

CK: I want to go right into the situation with our president, Commander-in-Chief Obama, and his treatment of the situation in Libya. I recall what you said on Saviours’ Day, that “all of this turmoil that’s going on in the world will come to your shores here in America,” and then you told the president, “Be prepared, because it will be coming to your shores; to your door.” Your advice to President Obama was to “remember the words you’re making to other nations.”

HMLF: Our dear brother has to be very, very careful in this decision that he and his Secretary of State, French President Nikolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron and others are planning. They would love to go into Libya and kill Brother Gadhafi, and kill his children as they did with Saddam Hussein and his sons, Qusay and Uday. You must remember, dear people of America, that whenever government wants you to think and act in a certain way that would bring justification to an action that they are already planning to make, they must make the person that they hate a “boogey man.”

Now, nobody wants civil war–it is the bloodiest of all kinds of wars, because you are fighting your own brothers: You’re fighting the people of your own language and culture and history. So, in every nation, brothers and sisters, there is dissatisfaction. And what the CIA does is go into a country and move among the people that are dissatisfied to stimulate a revolt against a leader that they don’t like, because they want regime change.

When George W. Bush was president, he said they wanted “regime change” in Iran, and in Korea. How do you get regime change, honest America? How do you do that? The Congress of the United States voted to spend $150 million to replace the government in Iran that America doesn’t like, so they send their agents in to work among the dissatisfied. So when Iran had this election, and the people in Iran rose up: They have legitimate grievances, all right–but stimulated from the outside. So President Obama didn’t want to put his foot into that cage lest somebody say “America inspired it,” because it was America’s policy to destabilize that government.

Well, what about Libya? How much money is being spent to arm the so-called rebels? They’re dissatisfied, but what is their “dissatisfaction” about? Do they have jobs? Yes. Do they have food? Yes. Has Gadhafi used the oil money to build Libya? Yes. Did Gadhafi use oil money and discover water under the Sahara Desert, and brought that water to the surface; and brought water from Benghazi all the way, to the border, almost, of Tunisia? Did he impose farming in the Desert so that they could feed their own people? Yes. Are there billions of dollars that he’s spending building homes, building apartments for his people? Yes … So something is under this! And so when America, England, France, three Imperialist Powers, want to destabilize that country, is it that you’re “so concerned”?

Listen to this Hypocrisy, American people! Is it that American government is “so concerned” over the blood that is being shed in Libya, but you looked the other way when the Israeli Defense Force was bombing the innocent people of Gaza, unarmed men, women and children? You looked the other way when the Israeli Defense Force went into Lebanon thinking that they were going to have an “easy” victory, then you had to come out with your tail between your legs? Don’t tell me, and wise Black people or White people, that you’re interested in Black suffering! Where were you in Rwanda? Where are you in The Congo? Why did you go to Darfur? Because oil is there! No … You don’t want to “save” the Libyan people–that’s your noble motive to hide your wicked agenda!

I warn you, In The Name of Allah, that this is more complex than what you think! Go into Libya if you want to. The Libyans do not want foreign occupation on their land. And when you make that kind of move, if you’re not careful, you’ll unite the Libyan people against you! Again, Gadhafi wasn’t sitting in any tent, twiddling his thumbs over these last 10 years! This man has been investing in African development. This man has been moving throughout Africa. This man has friends all over the world! He may not be your friend–but, if you take him out, and kill him like he’s some “rotten fella” that wants to kill his own people:

What did you, American government, do in Waco? What did you do when your people rose up? Did you talk ’em out of it? NO! They had weapons; you bombed them! What did you do in Philadelphia with the MOVE movement? Did you talk them out of their home, or did you bomb them? We didn’t hear any “outcry” from you religious hypocrites that “love” the lives of human beings! You’re a liar! And a hypocrite!

And I warn my brother, President Barack Obama: Don’t you let these wicked demons move you in a direction that will absolutely ruin your future with your people in Africa and throughout the world! They don’t like the way you handled (former Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak! They don’t like the way you’re handling the situation in the Arab world!

So I would advise you to be careful; and move with wisdom and skill.

The post WVON interview with The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan appeared first on Final Call News.

[Editor’s note: The following article contains excerpts of an interview which took place on September 13, 2010, that was aired live on Al-Jazeera’s English language channel. Click here for full web video.]

In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Riz Khan (RK): Hello and welcome. Tensions are rising and divisions growing, but what is fueling hostility to Muslims in America? A new survey reveals that 40 percent of people in the U.S. have a negative perception of Muslims something that’s being highlighted in the media by the latest controversies.

The pastor of a small church in Gainesville, Florida threatened to burn copies of the Qur’an on September the 11th as a message to, quote: “radical Muslims.” Pastor Terry Jones did eventually back down after intense global pressure, including an appeal from the U.S. President Barack Obama. But copies of the Qur’an were desecrated in Tennessee and New York City, where another issue is dividing the population: Tensions remain high over the proposal to build an Islamic center in Manhattan near the site of the 9/11 attacks by Muslim extremists nine years ago. So today we ask: “Is there an organized effort to fan the flames of ‘Islamophobia’ in the United States?”

Joining me from Chicago is Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam; a controversial sect for the Muslim faith in the United States. Minister Farrakhan, I welcome you to the show. It’s good to speak with you again, sir.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (HMLF): Thank you. It’s a pleasure and honor to be with you again.

RK: I have to start by asking, sir: What sort of reaction has there been among the Muslims you know, and members of the Nation of Islam as well, to these incidents; especially the Qur’an burning over the weekends? Has there been an effort to reach out to non-Muslims to promote better understanding rather than perhaps react in anger?

HMLF: Yes, there has been. We had a press conference at the National Press Club, where a coalition of African American Muslims came together to dialogue and allow our voices to be heard in this very serious time of increasing anger, fear and hatred of the presence of Islam in America.

If I might say, Brother Riz: We have been in America–the Nation of Islam–now for 80 years. And in the beginning of our journey toward Islam in the ’30s, we were persecuted because our names were changed from our former slave names to Islamic names. And our women who changed their form of dress, and covered their hair and their bodies, were mocked and scorned as they walked the streets of Detroit and Chicago. This mainly was the followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and Fard Muhammad, who is the Founder of the Nation of Islam.

In 1941, when Japan attacked the United States of America, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was arrested; sent to prison. Not because he was a “criminal,” but America, the president of the United States, did not want him on the streets of America preaching Islam during a time that America was prosecuting a war.

The early Muslims who set up the University of Islam were arrested because we took our children out of the public schools, and put them in an Islamic school to be taught by their own teachers.

RK: What the interesting thing about what’s been going on recently is I know there have been comparisons made about the burning of the Qur’an with what many see in the media from overseas, and some other Muslim countries where there are people burning the American flag.

And I wonder if there’s anything to even equate the two?

HMLF: No, there’s not. But, in finishing that point: We have suffered in America because we wanted to practice Islam.

You know that Muhammad Ali was called “Cassius Clay.” And when his name was changed to “Muhammad Ali,” although he was loved in the Muslim world, he was hated for his change of name. Now you can look at basketball games, football games, and you can see the names of Allah on the jersey of many Black American athletes. And there is no persecution for them, but we suffered that.

Now, since 9/11: Yes, the flames of hatred for Islam are being fanned. And even though we have a Black president, who has spoken out very forcefully, that America will not go to war with Islam; that it is not Islam that is the problem, it is those who are fanatic in their zeal, supposedly for Islam, that America sees, and the Islamic world sees, as the problem.

But under President Barack Obama, there’s the FBI that have been planting agents in mosques around the country, stimulating those who are hateful of Israel, hateful of Jewish people; inspiring them to acts of terror. And then capturing them, and putting that on the television as though this is the “norm” in mosques throughout this country.

RK: Sir, I’ll put an email about that issue of the media that we got in from Louisiana in the U.S.A. here. “Amy Luna” wrote in, saying, “I believe the U.S. mainstream media holds some responsibility in the Qur’an burning issue as this is the type of story that brings ratings.”

Now, of course, the media has been blamed for giving too much attention to that Qur’an burning proposal by Pastor Terry Jones. And I wonder, even though he did back down after some high-level intervention, how much do you feel the media played a part in this?

HMLF: Well, first of all, the gentleman, or, the pastor is a non-descript person that did not deserve the media attention that he received. So when the media catapulted this man’s thinking of burning Qur’ans to the entire world, this is provoking an Islamic reaction because of our deep love and devotion for Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Our deep love and devotion for this book, Qur’an: That raised the Arabs from a state of ignominy to eminence; and Muslims ruled the known world from the 7th to the 11th century based on the wisdom of this Qur’an. And this Qur’an is what sparked the Renaissance in Europe. So, to burn a book that has meant so much to so many is an act of sacrilege. That, of course, would stimulate and provoke serious reaction in the Islamic world.

RK: Now, of course, Pastor Terry Jones, as you say, wasn’t known at all before this incident. You, yourself, have always been in the media for a long time; you’re often a controversial figure to many. And I wonder how much pressure there’s been on you not to say too much; to keep a low profile in order perhaps not to inflame either side?

HMLF: Well, it’s time for Muslims, especially African America Muslims, to make our voices heard.

Many of our Muslim brothers and sisters who are immigrant Muslims may be somewhat timid, because they have a “Green Card,” and they’ve been spied on by the FBI, and they don’t want to be deported. They have been good, upstanding American citizens.

We were born here! We live here! We’ve suffered here! We’ve bled here! We’ve died here! So, it is our time, now, to speak up for the hurt and the pain of the Islamic community. But I would say, Riz, to all Muslims: Don’t over react, because, to harm people; because in their ignorance they burned a book that they may never have read, I caution you the 48th Surah of the Qur’an is called “The Victory.”

And what made it a victory? Because, at Hudaibiya, three miles from Mecca, when the Prophet and his Companions were trying to go to Mecca, an Accord was struck with the members of the Quraish who ruled Mecca; and on that piece of paper it said “Muhammad ibn Abdullah, Messenger of Allah.” And, the members of the Quraish said, “If we had believed that you were in fact the Messenger of God, we never would have attacked you, so strike that from the Accord.”

None of the Companions would strike his title from the Accord, so the Prophet himself took the Accord, and struck the title “Messenger of Allah” from that Accord. Why? Because he’s the Messenger of God whether it is on paper, or not, Allah is a Witness!

So you can burn the Qur’an, but you cannot burn the zeal that the Qur’an has burned into the hearts of 1.6 billion Muslims around the Earth. And all it did was give the Muslims a victory; and when you burn our Holy Book, more Americans who don’t know anything about the Qur’an, want to know, “What’s in this book? Let me study this book.”

So in the end, we’re the winner.

RK: “Guilty until proven innocent”–that appears to be the plight of millions of Muslims living in the United States. Many say they’ve been living under constant suspicion since the attacks of 9/11 which were carried out by Arab Muslim men. So what can the Islamic community in the U.S. do to reach out to Americans of other faiths?

Minister, one of the issues that’s been ongoing is the Park 51 Islamic Center that’s being proposed for to be built very close to the Ground Zero location in New York City. We had an email from a viewer in Israel, if I can put this to you, sir. From “Karina Robbins-Bronstein,” who wrote in saying: “What would Muslims do if, in Saudi Arabia, if a church was to be built next to the site of an attack carried out by a Westerner? There is very little tolerance in Arab countries for other religions.” Now, how valid do you think that is as a point about the lack of tolerance there is in some Muslim countries to other religions?

HMLF: Maybe in some, but I was in Iraq while Saddam Hussein was its president. And I visited Shiite mosques, I visited Sunni mosques. There [were] Christian churches that I didn’t visit, but I saw; and there were Jewish synagogues. And there never was violence between Christians and Jews and various Islamic sects.

There have been Jews and Muslims and Christians living together in the Middle East for hundreds of years, and they have not killed each other. But this is a recent phenomenon by Europeans who accepted Judaism, and then used their view of this Holy Land as theirs.

And since in, [19]48, the United Nations, mainly European countries–with only Ethiopia representing the Black Africa–giving Israel a home in Palestine. So now you have Europeans coming into Palestine, who are not Semitic–they are “Europeans.” And in Israel, they are persecuting the Semitic Jews who have been there for thousands of years, and they’re persecuting the Falasha, the Ethiopian Jews.

And in fact, just about a month ago I read where some European Jews did not even want darker-skinned Jews to go to school with them. This is not “Judaism,” this is racism masquerading under the name of Judaism!

RK: Minister, a caller from Saudi Arabia; “Omar” is on the line.

Omar: Sir, as an American working, or being in Saudi Arabia, what can I do to improve relations between our people and the Muslim world?

HMLF: You know, dear brother, our people are going through what the Arabs went through prior to the advent of the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him.

We are in a state of jahiliyya: We are in a state of mass ignorance. And as the Bible teaches, “My people are destroyed”–not because they’re Black, but they’re destroyed “for the lack of knowledge.” So the more we improve our growth in knowledge; and as you know, the first words that the Holy Prophet heard [were] Iqra–“Read.” And when reading becomes the standard in America, we’ll grow from being the ugliness of a clot to the beauty of an embryo and a fetus, ready to be embraced by the entire world.

It’s our growth, and our development; and the banishment of ignorance from our words and our deeds that will make us accepted and acceptable among the civilized nations of the Earth.

RK: Let me get your view on the issue of the Islamic Center near Ground Zero; the Park 51 issue. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf had this comment to make about the way that the situation has been handled.

“The events of the past few weeks have truly saddened me to my very core. I regret that some have misunderstood our intentions. I’m deeply distressed that in this heated political season some have exploited this issue for their own agendas. And I’m deeply disappointed that so many of the arguments have been based on deliberate misinformation and harmful stereotypes.”

–Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf during a Sept. 13, 2010 press conference held at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York

RK: Minister Farrakhan, I wonder to what degree you feel what the imam is saying there reflects what’s happening in the U.S. to some degree with the midterm elections coming up. And how much, I guess, Muslims are caught in the middle of this political wrangling that’s occurring.

HMLF: I agree with Imam Rauf. I think he handled himself magnificently on CNN. He has shown that he is a Muslim. He is “Moderate”; he’s seeking peace between Jews and Christians and others, and he has every right to build a cultural center where they have that building. And he has every right to feel that the constitutional guarantees of “freedom of religion” and “freedom of assembly” should prevail over the sensitivity of people who lost lives.

Muslims lost their lives! Christians, Jews, people from all over the world lost their lives in that tragic event! So, it should not be that Islam is held hostage for the acts of some who are claimed to be Muslims.

I put this before the world: Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader of Afghanistan, said to President George W. Bush while Osama Bin Laden was living in Afghanistan; he said, “Show me the proof that this man is guilty of this heinous act, and I will turn him over to you.”

What proof have we heard from these wicked deceivers that in fact it was Osama Bin Laden?! As a Muslim, we should force them to show us the proof!!

RK: I’m sorry to have to stop you. There’s so much more I’d like to discuss, but we’re out of time. Minister Farrakhan, thank you very much for being on the show.

HMLF: We are out of time?

RK: Yes sir. I’m sorry.

HMLF: The world is too. Thank you.

RK: Thank you for being with us.

The post Al-Jazeera’s Riz Khan Interviews the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan appeared first on Final Call News.

Al-Jazeera’s Abderrahim Foukara Interviews the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

[Editor’s note: The following article contains excerpts of an interview which took place on September 10, 2010 at the National House in Chicago, Illinois.]

In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Abderrahim Foukara (AF): Minister, the situation of Muslims in this country: Of late, there’s been a wave of “Islamophobia” in light of the project to erect the Islamic Center in New York; the United States is on the verge of mid-term election. In all these circumstances, how do you see the conditions of Muslims in the United States today?

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (HMLF): Since 9/11, Muslims in America have been the victims of FBI watching Muslims, arresting Muslims, breaking into Muslim homes. Muslims have suffered in the airports; being stopped because of their names. Searched once, searched twice; and sometimes even if they spoke Arabic, something would come up that might even deny them a flight.

Since 9/11, the way the government has acted toward Muslims, many Islamic scholars who would come to the United States to lecture, have found it difficult. And some, even now, do not wish to come because of what they have to go through to enter the United States. So the climate is getting increasingly more difficult.

AF: You said the “so-called Muslims” in reference to the people who are supposed to have carried out those attacks. Does that mean you don’t believe that 9/11 [was] carried out by Muslims? Or, does that simply mean that they think that you’re Muslims, but you, personally, Minister Louis Farrakhan, don’t think that they are the right kind of Muslim?

HMLF: I’m not here to be a judge of Muslims.

September 11th was very, very strange: 19 Muslims were put before the American public and the world two days after this heinous attack. Qur’ans were found, but before this, the Neo-Cons that were surrounding President Bush, who were the architects of something called a “Project For The New American Century,” said that America needed something like “Pearl Harbor”–9/11 was America’s new Pearl Harbor. To summon the American people in their anger and horror over what happened; now there are too many strange things that we question.

Five of the 19 so-called terrorists are alive and well in Saudi [Arabia]. Tell me: If airplanes crashed into the building, scientists have said that the amount of heat from the fuel in the planes could never melt steel. It would take something else. Those buildings fell in free-fall, like you see implosions that are controlled demolition. The Second Tower fell; there was no plane that attacked the third tower, but it, too, fell, heh? Something is wrong with that picture.

The American people, I believe, are being deceived by a government that was absolutely afraid of the growth of Islam in America. And they needed something to gather the American people, and under Zionist influence, stop the spread of Islam; stop funding for legitimate Islamic projects, and frighten the immigrant Muslims in America so that they would not speak up.

Lastly, I want to say, sir: There has to be in the future some real independent investigation of 9/11. Why do you say that, Farrakhan? Hitler blew up The Reichstag to gain power both militarily and politically over the German people. After 9/11 was done, the Patriot Act was passed; many of the American civil liberties were being curtailed. And so, Mr. [Larry] Silverstein, a few years before, bought the World Trade Center for a little over $3 billion. That building was filled with asbestos. It was not safe for dwelling.

He had in a clause in the contract that should a terrorist attack take place, he would be paid. So he made a fortune from that event. People had put-options on American Airlines, on United Airlines. For what? See, these are things that make me suspicious that this never was Osama Bin Laden, but it was something designed; and 3,000 deaths mean nothing to a political agenda that wishes to deceive the American people, and stop the spread of Islam in America.

AF: Minister, many people in the Arab world, in the Muslim world, believe in the things that you have said just now. But there are also a lot of other people who think that this is “conspiracy theory,” and that no matter how un-democratic the American political system may seem to be: For the government of the United States to commit such crimes as you said against its own people, in the kind of society and system that Americans live in, would be total lunacy.

And therefore, what you’re saying may seem to compound the problems that Muslims have not just in the Muslim world, but particularly here in the United States.

HMLF: If truth, and the search for truth, will compound the problem, then Allah Himself is the truth. And the Qur’an teaches if what is done is the weight of an atom, and hidden in the earth yet will Allah bring it forth. The Bible says the same thing. You cannot deceive the people forever!

America, the government: How did we get control of Cuba? Was it not a government plot to attack a ship called the “USS Maine” in the Cuban harbor, and claim that it was the Cubans, or the Spanish, who did this, so that they could go to war with Spain and take Spanish territories? This is a fact! Lyndon Johnson lied to the American people about an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, and it sent American children to war in Vietnam. And thousands of lives were lost on the basis of a lie!

Now, you are a Muslim! And I am a Muslim! I believe in the Qur’an! Satan is not an accident. He’s real. Satan is at the head of conspiracies against The Righteous. The Christians also believe that there’s such a thing as a “devil,” and a “devil” will work with others to deceive the people!

The people of America and the people of the world, are being deceived, and have been deceived. And it’s only somebody that has been taught of God; that believes in God and will stand up for the truth, that will reveal that truth even if it costs his life.

AF: Minister Farrakhan, as you know, a lot of the Families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks will hear what you’re saying, and they will obviously be totally outraged. A lot of people in the Muslim world will hear what you’re saying, and they will say, as long as we don’t have ultimate evidence to support what you’re saying, “Minister Louis Farrakhan is trying to mislead us.”

HMLF: You’ve already been misled!

AF: What you could say to them to help them deal with that question?

HMLF: Well, let’s look at facts. Let’s call together an independent group of scientists and scholars to examine the evidence if so many people believe what I am saying, both in America and in the Muslim world. And there is some government commission that has done their so-called work, and they said, “Yes. It was these terrorists,” but let’s have a commission of inquiry! What is wrong with that? If so many people believe it, you can’t dismiss it, and say, “Well, these are just ‘conspiracy theories.’” No!

When this thing came up in New York, it came out in the New York Times in December. This is eight, nine months later. Why didn’t this “hue and cry” come up after it was announced in December? So now you have 70-something percent of the American people not in favor of that mosque. Why?

Why is it that we could send aid to Haiti, aid to other places? Pakistan is suffering! Pakistanis are dying–but the aid is not there! Why? Is it because we’re tired of sacrificing for the destruction of human life? Or, is it because they are Muslims, and our government is presently sending drones in to bomb areas of Pakistan? I think, as a Muslim, that we need to open our eyes. There’s nothing wrong with questioning government decrees–that’s the blessing of living in America. I’m not being irresponsible for what I am saying. I’m asking for answers! And we, the American people, deserve answers!

It wasn’t only those few White families that died in that attack! It was Muslims, it was Christians, it was Jews, it was Hindus, it was Buddhists, it was people from all over the world! How, then, would single out Muslims and say, “You are too close to this. This is hallowed ground.”

What makes it “hallowed,” see? Is this your determination, that it’s now “holy ground”? What about all of the lives that were lost in World War I; the lives that were lost in the Civil War? The soil of America is soaked with blood! All of this should be hallowed ground against war and violence!

AF: The issue of the Islamic Center in New York: Is the problem in Americans who are opposed to having the center at such close proximity to the site of the 9/11 attacks? Or is the problem actually in the Muslims themselves, who should have had their finger on the pulse of the American people, so that they would know and think and act strategically?

HMLF: I cannot blame the Muslims for believing in the Constitution of the United States of America, that guarantees freedom of religion, freedom of assembly. So if they believed in that supreme law of the United States, they could not foresee the anger, the vitriol that would build as a result of their desire to build that cultural center in which, they say, would be a place of worship for Muslims, Christians and Jews; a place of fellowship. I think it’s a wonderful idea.

And I thought Imam [Feisal Abdul] Rauf handled himself on CNN the other night in a magnificent way; and when they asked him, “If you knew that it would bring about this, would you have done it?” And I think after thought, he said, “No. I would not have done it.” It’s not his fault for believing in America more than America believes in its Constitution. But, now that the hue and the cry has arisen, the next step, of course, is his. I liked what he said; he didn’t want to embolden “radicals.”

The lady on television that lost a member of her family: She’s not a “radical.” You could listen to her; she’s not an “extremist.” She’s a good American woman. But there are others that take the sentiment, the emotion, the hurt, the pain of the American people, and raise it to a level where, now, having a mosque there is like quote-unquote a sign said, “Spitting on the grave of those who lost their lives that day.”

So, I don’t blame the Muslims for not seeing what they could not see; what they did not expect. Nor do I blame the innocent Americans who have been ill-affected by anti-Islamic propaganda.

AF: What is the state of bridges between African American Muslims and Muslims of Arab descent, or of Asian descent?

HMLF: Well first, my dear brother, we have to understand what has happened to Black people in America. Many of us who came to this country in the hulls of ships: We did not come seeking the “American Dream.” We were slaves. But, we were slaves not in the sense that the Qur’an speaks of “slavery”; or, that slavery existed in other parts of the world.

We were chattel slaves; we came with Islamic names, and African names; Islamic culture, African culture; Islamic history, African history, and all of that was stripped from us, so that out of all of these Black people in America, none of us speak our original language, none of us wear our original names. None of us worship the God that we worshiped before we came, or were brought, to America. So now, we are in a state, if you don’t mind my saying, of jahiliyya: abominable ignorance.

I know we have an African American president, many brilliant Black men and women in government. They are not the “norm.” They are out of the norm. It’s the masses of Black people that are suffering. So, the masses of us in ignorance really need Islam. We need a civilizing message.

Unfortunately, there are Palestinians, who are Christians; Palestinians who are Muslims: Some of them come in our community, they set up their business. They sell liquor, they sell pork, they abuse our women. This is not the way of Allah, and Islam. So in many cases, the Blacks in the ghettoes don’t have a favorable opinion of Arabs. And, Black people have been fed that Arabs were involved in the slave trade. That Arabs misused Africans. That Arabs abused, and have this superior thought over Black people. So, the bridge-building is difficult. But it is being built.

An Arab came to us from Mecca: Fard Muhammad. We love that Man with a pure, unadulterated love, because He came and offered us not only Islam, but a methodology to raise us from a savage state. We thank Allah for Him.

I am a Muslim! I thank Allah for the Arabs, because of all the people that have received divine revelation, the Arab has kept the Qur’an pure. So, for me, there is a bridge; and we will continue to work on building that bridge. But there also is a racist poison that exists in the Arab mind that was seen in the time of the prophet: When Bilal accepted Islam, he was persecuted by the early Muslims. So this sense that we are “inferior,” that we are “less than” White Arabs, or, other Arabs, or Muslims–that feeling will be done away with as we rise into civilized Islamic behavior and culture.

So I am hopeful. In fact, I know that a bridge will be built between us and the Arab world; us, and the Islamic world, because Allah has said it. And Allah speaks the truth.

AF: Do you subscribe to the notion held by some Muslims who say that when they look at the ills that plague Muslim societies today, in the Muslim world; and they compare them with some of the problems that Muslims face in this country, they have greater hope for the future of Muslims in this country than they do for the future of Muslims in the Muslim world?

HMLF: Well, I can understand that. The constitutional guarantees of this country are superior to the nationalistic constitutions that are in the Arab and Islamic world.

There are many wonderful things in our world of Islam that the West could learn from. And there are many wonderful things in the West that our Islamic world can learn from. So Allah says He’s the Lord of the East and the West; and in Surah [16], “The Bee”: We take the best out of this world, and the best out of our world, and produce a healing.

So, you know, the hope of Islam is that every race, every ethnicity, every people that are on this Earth will one day live under a Universal Government of Peace, where all of us can exist as brothers and sisters. That’s the hope of Jesus Christ. That’s the hope of Prophet Muhammad. And that is the reason for the Coming of Mahdi: To master the Day of Religion, that all of these divisions that have created so much hatred, that these divisions will be obliterated by The Presence of a Supreme Truth.

And the Qur’an says, “When truth comes, falsehood vanishes. And falsehood is forever a vanishing thing.”

AF: When you’re talking about the inflamed situation in the Muslim world with regard to the way that [there’s] Islamophobia in the United States, how do you rate President Barack Obama’s handling of the Terry Jones issue?

HMLF: First, during Iftar at the White House, when President Obama said that these Muslims should be able to build a mosque or center wherever they would desire, Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg agreed; Rabbi [Marc] Schneier, and others that are with Rabbi Schneier, agreed.

There are many Christians and Jews, and members of other faith traditions that felt that he should be free to build that mosque. But the more they said that, the greater the “anti-feeling” developed.

Reverend Jones, who admitted he never read the Qur’an; he doesn’t know that in the Qur’an we believe that Jesus, the son of Mary, is The Messiah. He doesn’t know of our respect and honor for Jesus and the Christians. And, Allah’s respect and honor for them that is seen in the Holy Book. However, that poor young man, or, older man who wished to burn the Qur’an, has inflamed the world.

How did it inflame the world? Here’s a man in some non-descript part of Florida, with a very small congregation, and the media blew him up, and the incident. If we paid him no attention, even if he burned 100 Qur’ans, he would not have affected the world. But such an act of disrespect of Islam, and a billion, six hundred million Muslims: Once it becomes viral, then the whole world sees it; it inflames. … And you know, people act out of what they think they know or believe. That man was acting out of a state of ignorance about this book, Qur’an, and about what Islam is.

So when people act out of their ignorance, the thing that disturbed me more than Rev. Jones, was the fact that somebody like Franklin Graham didn’t weigh in on this. Or, Pat Robertson of the 700 Club didn’t weigh in. The Pope, all the way from the Vatican weighs in, but strong religious leaders in America didn’t say anything–the strongest. And it’s like they’re encouraging this. So thanks be to God! I pray that he will not burn the Qur’an.

But in closing our discourse: This is not new. When the Americans occupied Iraq, what happened at Abu Ghraib? Were not Qur’ans flushed in toilets, and urinated on? Not only there, but in Guantanamo Bay, under American supervision? Were not Iraqi women raped, and men forced into homosexual acts in Abu Ghraib? So much so that the president refused to release the pictures that they have of what happened, because he knew that if he released those pictures, it would bring about terrible results within the American society, not just with Muslims.

So there’s a hatred that’s building. And it didn’t start with Rev. Jones. His idea of burning the Qur’an–we have to go back to eight, nine, 10 years ago with the horror of 9/11; and all of the propaganda that came up about Islam and Muslims.

***

I am not sure that I heard everything that President Obama said. But if he spoke to the issue, you know, he’s the highest elected official in the land.

Naturally, to bring him out to speak against this–General Petraeus, [Defense] Secretary [Robert] Gates: These are people that know something about the Islamic world; they know something about the Islamic zeal for the Qur’an, the Islamic zeal for Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. So when you do things to stimulate that–and American interests are all over the world!–you’re stirring up something that could be disastrous.

And so to say that “fear”–someone on CNN was saying they’re trying to stoke fear in the American people. Look: If you’re intelligent, you don’t jump into a lion’s den, and say, “I’m not afraid!” Well, you won’t be in there long. So the idea is intelligent people fear consequences of their actions!

This is very unintelligent; and the whole world of intelligence spoke against it! So if it happens, I pray that the Muslim world will see it like this: This is a man whose hatred of Islam drove him to disobey the guidance of all those who advised him.

And the Islamic world should not feel that if he burns this Qur’an, that that is the consensus of all Americans. Take the consensus from the Pope, the president, the European rulers and leaders who have Muslims throughout their nations: They don’t wanna see anything like that.

And neither do the masses of the American people.

AF: Minister, thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

HMLF: No, I appreciate you and your questions.

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Dr. Michael Eric Dyson (MED): We have a Black man in the White House, unprecedented unemployment among African American people, especially Black men; four out of five jobs lost in the current economic crisis for men, and Black men are disproportionate to that.

What’s your assessment of where we are now?

HMLF: I think, dear brother, and those who are listening: In spite of the fact that we are blessed to have a Black president, and a Black head of the Justice Department, and Black people in so many positions of authority and influence; and in spite of the fact that we have more millionaires than ever, multi-millionaires than ever, more billionaires than ever; and in spite of the fact that we are graduating more Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts and Science, and Doctorate degrees, yet, dear brother, the masses of our people are going down at an alarming rate.

So even though we have this wonderful show of tremendous progress, progress is never judged by the few that seem to make it. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said these words to us: “No one man can rise above the condition of his people.” So, if the masses of our people are in the worst condition that we have been in, in our history here, then we can look at the condition of the middle class, the upper middle class, and the wealthy and learned of our people, and ask the question: “Why are we this way, and what can be done to change the reality of poverty and want among the masses of our people?”

And there, dear brother, I feel that we have to call our learned and our brilliant from corporate America, and call the wealthy of our people to study how others have lived the American Dream, and made it successfully, so that we can apply this knowledge to help the masses of our people rise from a degraded state.

MED: Given the fact that there is such devastation among especially the Black urban poor, the Black ghetto poor; those who are nearly lodged permanently at the bottom, what effective measures can we exert to get those people out of the conditions that continue to trap them?

HMLF: The Honorable Elijah Muhammad in writing an Economic Blueprint for us as a people, raised this statement; he said, “Study the White man. He is successful. He makes no excuses for his failures, and he acts in a united way. We must do the same.”

The most successful of Caucasian people are the members of the Jewish community. And if we look at how they became wealthy and powerful, they are politically powerful now, but they didn’t start politically powerful–they went after economics. And, as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “Politics without economics is symbol without substance.” And so, what we need to do is see how others capitalized on what they had in America, and used it to advance a people rather than advance individuals.

And so, as I look at the future of us, and I see the learned of our people, the wealthy of our people, what I don’t see is the networking of wealth; that that wealth may be used to create economic opportunities for our people as it was done, and is being done, by other people. And this, others have not shown us how to do, but this is something that we must do if we’re going to change the reality of our people’s condition, because I don’t think we can depend on White America to create jobs for their millions of unemployed, and ours as well.

We, Dr. Dyson, according to figures that I have recently read, get out of the American economy over $800 billion a year! We are not poor! We are divided, and we’re distrustful. But if we found a way to get 10 or 20 percent of what we get out of the American economy, and turn it back into our communities, we then would not have to keep begging others to do for us what our unity, and, our pooled resources intellectually will allow us to do for ourselves.

And I pray, Dr. Dyson, that we will learn how to network wealth, and create industry. And then network with people all over the world as the world is open to us, if we are ready to do business, trade and commerce, on an international level.

MED: Does that ignore, or, in one sense, under-emphasize the necessity for political engagement and to use the resources of the world?

HMLF: Absolutely not! No, sir! Our tax dollars are interwoven with the tax dollars of every other citizen of America; and therefore, we cannot abdicate a political responsibility to put pressure on government to yield, to create opportunity, to create an atmosphere; to try to create a level playing field so that we have as much of a chance to advance in the society as others.

And we can’t do that without political inclusion, political activism–but activism on a political front must be matched by activism on the economic front. Otherwise, we’ll have political power that looks powerful, but in the end, if you can’t back it up with economic power, then our voice is very, very weak in the political sphere in America.

MED: What is your assessment of President Barack Obama’s handling of the issue of race in America?

HMLF: As we all know, when Pres. Obama was campaigning for the presidency of the United States; and, Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s statements taken out of context were cast into the political debate, our brother, in Philadelphia, went to himself and wrote a speech that as I’m even talking about it, I get chills because he faced the racial problem squarely, spoke to it forcefully and effectively. And he did not alienate White people, nor did he alienate Black people. He spoke to an issue that divides this country, and he did it well.

Now that he is president; and, of course, his becoming president has ignited some of the darker elements in the racist community of the 57 million who voted against him. And so now he’s in a dilemma because he’s being called “anti-Semitic,” he’s being called a “socialist,” it is being said that he never was born in America. His wife is being castigated. It does not appear that there’s anything that our brother has done that is appreciated.

Now, as far as to your specific question, I believe he is a little too timid now in dealing with the problem of race. And if he could deal with it, in the manner that he dealt with it before he was president, he would not lose those Whites that voted for him knowing that he was Black; hearing him address “race” in his candidacy, on in his quest for the presidency. So, why would they think less of him if he dealt forthrightly with the problem?

For instance, in the troubled Asset Relief Program: This man got $800 billion to bail out who? The banks, and bail out the American people who were suffering the loss of their homes, and whatnot. But he didn’t speak to the bureaucracy and the racism that is between his words and the money; and how that money gets down to those who need it most. That, to me, is what the “bully pulpit” is made for! Why would good-hearted Americans of all races feel negative toward him if he tried to make an even playing field that those who needed the money most would get it?

So I believe, whether he is a one-term president, or a two-term president, he must do what a president should do who wants to save America from itself. And so I would urge our brother not to be timid in speaking forthrightly to the relationship between Blacks and Whites in America that is deteriorating.

MED: Recently, you sent an “Open Letter To Black Leadership” where you spoke about the need for Black people to re-examine our relationship with the Jewish community; and, [with] “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews: How Jews Gained Control of the Black American Economy, Volume 2,” and “Jews Selling Blacks;” you have indicated that these books will be distributed and shared with Black people to show how we were “completely undone, and how others have benefited from what has happened, and continues to happen to us.”

Minister Farrakhan, why the need to focus on Jewish brothers and sisters among many ethnicities of European extraction who have done devastating things to African people in America and indeed around the globe? Why single out Jews in particular to focus on, and why not talk about the devastation of White Supremacy without reference to a particular White ethnicity?

HMLF: Thank you so much for the question. You know, whenever somebody is desirous of achieving a political office, or an office in corporate America, there’s a process that is called “vetting”; and it is a thorough and diligent review of a prospective person or project prior to a hiring or investment decision. “Vetting” often refers to an individual or group, and it is to gain a knowledge of that person, so that when you make a decision, you make the decision based upon knowledge.

We have always read that it was Africans that sold our people into bondage, and that is true, as it is recorded in the history of Joseph in the Bible, and his brethren selling him into bondage. We have often read about Muslims, and the Slave Trade; and that Muslims were involved, Arab Muslims were involved in the Slave Trade yesterday–and even today! But what has remained a secret, and not spoken of, is the Jewish involvement in the undoing of Black people, and the Slave Trade, and the owners of ships, and the selling and dehumanizing of Black people. How then can we have real friendship if it is absent of real knowledge of what has happened, and who did it?

There is no respectful Jewish person who entered into a dialogue, with Germany after the war, that didn’t bring to the forefront those who did what they did, and the effect of what they did; and then asked for repair of the damage for what they did. And many present-day Germans, who were not involved in the Holocaust of the Jews at all, are paying reparations for what their ancestors did.

Here we are in America: We have Black History Month; we have people purporting to teach Black Studies, but they don’t know the real history of what happened to us! So, the Qur’an says it like this, Dr. Dyson, that you’ll see “every nation kneeling down before its book,” so most nations keep a record of what they do in their history.

Jewish people have kept a record of their dealings, so we went into their libraries, and we looked at scholars, historians and rabbis, none of whom were “anti-Semitic,” and we compiled a document with 1,800 footnotes so that our people, and others, can read scholarship from their pens, from their lips! That we can see what was done to us, who did it, so that we don’t go into these discourses with our so-called friends blind to the history! That is why we study history. It is not to undo friendships, but to come to the table armed with the knowledge of what was done, and how we can undo it, and make a new beginning for Blacks and Jews, and, Blacks and Whites.

White people, although they hated us, are not the Architect of White Supremacy. That started in Europe, and it is here in America, and we document the Architecture of White Supremacy in this volume, “Volume 2: The Secret Relation[ship] Between Blacks and Jews.” I know it is upsetting. I know it is hurtful for us to learn truths that are painful. Many Jews do not know what has been done to Black people by members of their people who claim to be the “Chosen of God,” who claim to be “righteous.” How in the world could any “righteous” person do to another human being what was done to us? And that’s why I’m encouraging us to read the book.

Don’t judge me! Don’t attack me! Read the history from their lips, from their pens; and then let’s sit down and have an intelligent dialogue–not based on our ignorance, and our fear of the power of Jewish people to inflict pain on us!

They can inflict pain, but they also have the power to help get us up out of this condition. And I’m appealing to them, and I’m appealing to the government that they have influence over: Let’s look, really, at the mass condition of our people and stop “playing” with it. Let’s deal with it! Or, it will become destructive to the future of this nation.

MED: But don’t you understand why Jewish brothers and sisters would be sensitive, some may even argue “hypersensitive,” to claims that specifically focus on them given the vicious history of anti-Semitism that has riddled the world, that has rendered them insecure. So the balance between your legitimate critique, which can be offered against any people, including Jewish brothers and sisters, versus what they perceive to be you “singling them out,” how would you respond to that?

HMLF: I would say that their four to six years under Hitler, and the pogroms against them in Europe, would make them sensitive. But now, does that negate the sensitivity of Black people and what we have suffered? Should not we come to the table of discussion, armed with the full knowledge of the history of who did what?

We are not “singling out” Jews! They singled out Africans, Muslims, and Gentiles, but they do not talk about their role! I’m bringing it up, not because I want trouble with them–I’ve been trying to have a dialogue with them for many years. But the dialogue has to be an informed dialogue, based on an accurate account of history.

And lastly, I said to them what’s done is done; we can’t undo the past. But we can, today, have a better future! I’m not interested in anybody hating Jewish people, or, punishing Jewish people. What I am asking, though, is that a serious dialogue between them and us.

And not weak-kneed Negroes in the dialogue! We’re not looking for Uncle Toms who are on their payroll! We’re looking for people who are unafraid to face them, and face the truth! I have offered my life! And since members of the Jewish community in the days of the Jesse Jackson campaign, members of the Jewish Defense League were saying, “Who do want? Farrakhan! How do you want him? Dead!” Well, I’m offering you my life.

If you can face the record of your history, and prove that we are incorrect, you can have my life!

MED: When Jewish brothers and sisters who are Progressive say, “Look. We are critical of Israel as well … , and so we are not slipping down the slippery slope of ‘ethnic cheerleading’ for our own brothers and sisters.” And yet, some of them seem appalled and resentful of what they consider to be your “mono-maniacal obsession” with Jewish brothers and sisters.

Yes, there can be some definite disclosures and engagements with Jewish failure, but they think you are exaggerating the nature of Jewish participation not only in the African Slave Trade, which we can debate forever, but even in the Black American economy right now. Can you bring it home to why you think that Jewish brothers and sisters control the Black American economy right now?

HMLF: That is why I’m urging us to read the book. These people that say that I’m exaggerating: Why don’t you come out in the public with me?

See, I’m not afraid to put our scholarship up against any Jewish scholar, any professor, any rabbi! Come on out in the public! Don’t send your Negroes out to me–come on out yourself! Scholar-to-scholar, historian-to-historian, rabbi-to-imam, or minister: Let’s sit down and talk!

I’m not doing something that I’m not inspired to do, brother! God is backing me in what I’m doing! Every prophetic voice that has ever risen up in history has always given a Warning to The Wicked, that if they fail to take the Course of Truth and Justice, Judgment will come on them! Judgment is on America now as we speak, and Judgment is on the Jewish people!

I know that there are good Jews, and I know that there are honest Jews, and I know that there are Jews who will speak forcibly against the injustice to the Palestinian people–and yet those Jews are called anti-Semitic by their own brethren. This thing called “anti-Semitism”: This is what I want to deal with, so that never again, when somebody is critical of Israeli policy, or Jewish misbehavior, all of a sudden, we are called “anti-Semitic.”

I will prove to the world that those who even use the term are not Semitic at all! Let’s go before the world and have the argument! Let’s have the dialogue! Let’s have the religious scholars! I’m saying to the world that the Black man and woman of America are the Real Children of Israel! We are the ones that are to receive the Promise of God!

Come before the world, and let’s speak before the world! You find your Jewish scholars, you find your Islamic scholars and your Christian scholars.Not one of you, as Christians, speak about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade! Why? Why don’t you address something as horrible as that?

And don’t you think that the prophets could see that? Where is it in the Bible? Where is it in the Torah? Where is it in the Gospel? Where is it in the Qur’an? Let’s sit down and talk about it like intelligent, civilized people; and then come to an equitable agreement as to the way forward.

But if you continue to call me “anti-Semitic,” and seek to impose your will on a government that you already have under your control to do me harm, you do whatever you think you are powerful enough to do. But I’m here to prove to Black people in America that God is real, and He’s with me! So the more you attack me, the more God will attack you. Do it and see!

***

I know I’m on a perilous journey, Dr. Dyson. And I know that by singling out not “all Jews”–no, no, no!–but those specific irreligious Jews, that the scripture calls “The Synagogue of Satan”; those who use their power to influence people away from The Way of God, making evil fairseeming to them.

Those irreligious Jews; and Mr. Abraham Foxman, who is like the “attack dog” for The Synagogue of Satan: I want to deal with those kinds of Jews! Not rabbis who study their scriptures and want to be good, and follow the law of Moses–no! Those are good people, and they have their reward from their Lord. But they have to speak out against these irreligious Jews, who claim they are Jews, and are they not! They blaspheme the name of a “Jew.”

A “Jew” is a good name; to be a “Jew” is to have a covenant relationship with God, in obedience to His Laws, Statutes and Commandments. And if you are a Christian, Paul gave a whole new definition for “Jew”; he said, “The Jew is not the Jew outwardly by the circumcision of the flesh. The Jew is the Jew inwardly by the circumcision of the heart.” That all the diseases of the heart may be taken away; washed clean, that we may enter a New World of Peace, Freedom, Justice and Equality.

That’s The World that I want us to bring in, where no man, as Martin Luther King said, is judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of character. And I speak as I speak because there’s deception here; and The Deceiver and The Deception, has to be exposed. And that’s why Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

MED: Minister Farrakhan, thank you so very kindly for coming on The Michael Eric Dyson Show.

HMLF: Oh, thank you, Dr. Dyson. And, I pray that my passion, which is not out of hate at all, but it is out of a desire to correct the wrong. And the most difficult part in correcting a wrong is pointing the wrong out. And none of us want to be wrong.

But I’ve asked the Jewish people, if you can show me that I’m wrong, I’ll go before the entire world and apologize, and ask your forgiveness. And I’ve added to that, if you can show me where I’m wrong, you can have my life.

It’s not worth living if I can’t live it on the basis of The Truth, and die for the sake of The Truth, because The Truth is that which our Universe is built upon. And if we’re going to build a solid future, the Kingdom of God–it has to be built on Truth.

God bless you, Dr. Dyson.

MED: Thank you, my friend.

Related web links:

An Open Letter To Black Leadership by Minister Louis Farrakhan (FCN, 07-20-2010)

Web Video – Jewish leaders demand Farrakhan denounce book (FCN, 07-16-2010)

Web Video – Exposed: The “Black Anti-Semite” Myth (FCN, 07-11-2010)

Text of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s letter to ADL’s Abraham Foxman (FCN, 07-01-2010)

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BET’s Historic Presidential Inauguration Interview with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

[FinalCall.com – Editor’s note: The following are excerpts of a BET interview with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on December 18, 2008, which was scheduled to be aired during BET’s coverage of the historic presidential inauguration of Mr. Barack H. Obama on January 20, 2009. Click here to view the webcast and order the CD/DVD.]

Jeff Johnson (JJ): When this excellent Black man was elected on that excellent night, where were you?

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (HMLF): I was in front of my television, with my wife and some of my children, with tears streaming down our faces. And when I saw my brother come out on that stage with his wife and his children; and I watched his demeanor, because now he had fought for this. Now he has it.

***

JJ: In the very beginning of this process when Barack Obama announced his candidacy, did you ever believe that we would be at this place and time celebrating the soon-to-be inauguration of the first African American president?

HMLF: No, I didn’t believe it, but I’m happy for it. This young man seems to be driven by a force that’s bigger than politics.

Watching him ascend four years ago, he spoke at a Democratic convention, and electrified the convention and the country. Four years later, he’s the president-elect of the United States of America.

This is a meteoric rise. It’s something that I thought I would never live to see.

***

JJ: You typically–and correct me if I’m wrong–don’t normally endorse candidates. I haven’t typically seen you endorse candidates, but you came out and endorsed Senator–

HMLF: No, I never did endorse him.

JJ: No?

HMLF: No. I was very careful, because I knew that if I endorsed him, that would create a problem for him.

So at Saviours’ Day last year, I talked about him–but, in very beautiful and glowing terms, stopping short of endorsing him. And unfortunately, or fortunately, however we look at it, the media said I “endorsed” him, so he renounced my so-called endorsement and support. But that didn’t stop me from supporting him.

JJ: No, it didn’t.

***

JJ: Can you talk a little bit about the wisdom that you felt was necessary at that time, in your response not only to the Nation of Islam, but to the United States, so that you couldn’t be further used by the media to create greater division between Senator Obama and his people.

HMLF: Barack is the bigger picture. I have never seen any Black man in our history attract our people; give them hope in the way that Barack has done.

If you love your people, and you want to see your people rise, and you see someone who is doing that for your people, then you subordinate your personal pain to the greater mission, which was Brother ascending to the top of the mountain.

***

JJ: The first time I got emotional about this campaign was the night of the DNC when Michelle spoke. And after Michelle spoke, those babies came up on stage. And after the babies came up on stage, then Obama comes via satellite. And to me there was this message that “Even though my wife and my babies are on stage, I need to make sure I’m with them.”

And there was this picture of the “Black family,” that Americans–some Black Americans, some White Americans; Asian Americans, Latino Americans–had never seen before in real life.

What is the real potential of a Barack in the White House? Will we really be able to quantify how that will impact men and women in communities that were lacking hope?

HMLF: A loving husband, a loving wife; a loving father, a loving mother, and two very beautiful children: That gave us as a people, with broken families, some hope that we, too, can produce a family like that.

When you see gang bangers, young teenage boys that never thought they might live to see 20 or 21, stand in line four and five hours to vote for him; when I see the impact that he has had on children–little Black children who no longer have to feel “I’ve got to be a NBA basketball player; NFL football player to escape the ghetto, or escape the conditions under which I have grown; but now I can aspire to be a world leader”–that’s a genie that you can never put back in the bottle.

So our job, it seems to me, in backing him, is to be more earnest, more dedicated, more zealous in working in our communities to build our people.

***

JJ: Is there any truth to the fact that an Obama election means that America is becoming less racist?

HMLF: Yes. The nitty-gritty is probably the same, but America is changing. Again, that’s puts more burden on us.

Barack represents Black excellence. Michelle Obama represents Black excellence. As a family, they represent Black excellence. It’s very hard for you to accentuate White Supremacy in the face of Black Excellence.

Are we capable of becoming excellent? Absolutely. All we need is a level playing field, and if we are cream, we will rise to the top. And once we begin to do this and demonstrate this excellence that we have the capacity to do, and the potential to do, then race will begin to diminish, diminish, diminish, and we really might be living, then, in a post-racial America.

View this interview on the web @ http://www.finalcallmedia.com/media/3/BET_Interview/

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Exclusive Interview with Al Jazeera host Riz Khan

[Editor’s note: On November 13, approximately 130 million people from around the world viewed Al Jazeera host Riz Khan’s exclusive interview with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan about his perspective on U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama’s win and what it means for America and the world.

Minister Farrakhan also took questions from the international community representing the countries of the United Kingdom, Germany, Malawi, the United States, Iran, Norway and Saudi Arabia, via live call-in and AlJazeera.net’s online chat room. The following article contains excerpts from that interview. Click here to view web video of interview.]

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Al Jazeera Interviewer Riz Khan (RK): Minister welcome! Good to speak with you!

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (HMLF): Thank you very much. I’m honored to be apart of your show.

RK: Thank you sir. I know you described the task that President-Elect Barack Obama has in leading America as a “horrible burden.” In what way, sir?

HMLF: In the Qur’an, it is written that “Allah never lays on a soul a burden beyond its scope.” “Scope” actually means “mental capacity,” and we believe that after looking at Barack Obama, who just four years ago spoke at the Democratic Convention and was hardly known; four years later, he has had a meteoric rise to become the President-Elect of the United States of America.

We believe that Almighty God, Allah, had a hand in his rise, and therefore we say that God has laid on him a burden. He has the mental capacity to cope with that burden, but what he needs is a united Congress; a united people to help him get America up out of the mess that America is presently in.

RK: Now Minister, when we announced you were coming on the show, we had many e-mails, and no doubt the phone calls will also start. But let’s get an e-mail in to you that came in from Nigeria … from “Hamza” who [asks]: “What challenges do you think Obama faces ahead as president of the world’s strongest country?”

HMLF: First, the challenge is to remain alive. With 57 million Americans voting for Senator McCain, most of those Americans that voted for him were mainly in the South. The attitudes of southern Whites are different from the attitudes of those that voted for Barack Obama; and there is a significant group within that group that might not want to see Barack Obama take the Oath of Office on the 20th of January.

Our hope is that the Secret Service will be on their watch, and that the American people who hope for change in him will be watchful so that this young man might do for America and the world that which America and the world hope for.

RK: Minister, we already have the phones ringing: “Hilary” is on the line from the UK. Hilary, what would you like to ask?

Hilary Egrauagu: Could you please tell me what you think in terms of what starts the problem? Who are those who don’t want Obama to be president? I mean, people voted for him. Why wouldn’t someone allow him to take the Oath of Office? Why would someone want to stop him? Can you tell us that? Thank you very much.

HMLF: Evidently, sir, you are not familiar with the racial problem that exists in America. While much progress has been made, there is no one–Black or White–who doesn’t agree that much more progress needs to be made. And his election is a sign of change in America that is good for America and the world.

However, we yet have a big burden on our shoulders because the Black masses in America really are the “Achilles Heel” of this nation. And even though Barack Obama has ascended to the highest office in the land, it does not relieve Black leaders, Black teachers, Black activists, Black preachers of the burden of raising our people up from where they are, that whatever opportunities Barack Obama might create for the American people, we would be able to take advantage of some of those opportunities.

RK: Minister, I’ll get back to the theme in a second, but we have a chat room that runs live as we go live on the air, and there is some great discussion going on in there right now. “[Mr.] Thomas” from Germany [asks]: “Can Obama function as a bridge between White and Black people, as well as the Muslim and Western world?”

HMLF: Absolutely. The very fact that Barack Obama has a White mother and an African father, and he grew up in Hawaii; and even though his African father left him at two years old, his mother married an Indonesian, and moved him to Indonesia where he spent four or five years growing up, again, in a Muslim country.

Although he is a Christian, he has great depth of understanding of the Muslim world. He has grown up in a multi-cultural and multi-racial setting, so who is better to build a bridge between Black and White? Between religious differences and different ethnicities?

We thank God for this young man, and I hope that the American people will realize that he is a mercy from God to the United States of America, to help America come up out of the condition that America’s leadership has placed the American people in.

RK: Now Minister, I know you always advocated against mixed marriages, and of course, it’s ironic that Barack Obama is a product of an interracial marriage. How does that sit with you? Doesn’t that go against your core values?

HMLF: So is the Founder of the Nation of Islam, Fard Muhammad–He had a Black father and a White mother, as well. The only reason that we are against interracial marriage is because the Black woman is really in need of a strong Black man. But love exalts us beyond race or ethnicities; even though we would prefer that a Black man marry a Black woman, what can we say when love enters the picture?

RK: Let’s get a couple of phone calls in. “Wahhab” in Malawi: Your question, please.

Wahhab: I would like to ask do you see any similarity between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton?

HMLF: In one sense, yes: They’re both Democrats. But in another sense: No indeed.

Barack Obama is very, very unique. As you know, when he traveled to Kenya to meet his paternal grandmother, look at the outpouring of love for him in Kenya and throughout Africa. Look at the congratulatory messages that have come in for him from all over the world.

This young man represents hope for Africa, hope for the Caribbean, hope for Central and South America, hope for Asia; and hopefully, he represents hope for Europe and America as well.

RK: “Shafi” is on the line from Washington. Shafi, what would you like to ask?

Shafi: I have a question for Louis Farrakhan about Islam: Do you believe that Muhammad, ‘salla Allaahu ‘alayhi wa salaam (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is the last and final messenger of Allah? If that’s so, then why do you keep the Nation of Islam separate from mainstream of Islam, because we should all be one nation, should we not?

HMLF: Yes, we are one nation. And yes, we do believe that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is the end of the prophets. However, we also believe that the Black man of America is in a very unique position and condition; and, as Allah has said in the Qur’an, He has raised a messenger in every nation.

America is the greatest nation on earth; and is, unfortunately, guilty of some of the sins that Sodom and Gomorrah, Ancient Babylon, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt was guilty of. So, America, too, needs a Warner and a Messenger to guide [her] back to the Straight Path of God, and we believe that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is that Warner.

We are not trying to stay away from the Muslim world; we love the Muslim world, and we are trying our best to link up with Muslims all over the world, for we share a common faith; a common practice. And also today, in a world that, in the West, is increasingly becoming anti-Islam, we face common threats.

RK: “Pejay” is on the line from Iran. Good to hear from Iran. What would you like to ask?

Pejay: In Sharia (Islamic law), the Muslims are not supposed to choose a leader [who is in] Islam, and converts to a different religion. Do you think it’s going to be quite an obstacle for President-Elect Obama … to link Muslims in the United States?

HMLF: No, I don’t believe that. I believe that as Allah has said in the Qur’an, “Those who are Christians, those who are Jews, those who are Sabians, those who believe in Allah and the last day, they have their reward from their Lord.”

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was very clear in his respect for Christians and the Injil (The Gospel); in his respect for Jews and The Torah; and so, we find in Barack Obama his universal, cosmopolitan understanding of religion will allow him to do so much better for the Islamic and Muslim world. And I believe he will have a better chance of solving the problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians more so than any of his predecessors.

RK: Minister Farrakhan, I mentioned in the beginning of the show how you intended to stay away from the campaign because you were worried any kind of endorsement you made might be taken the wrong way. What was your biggest fear?

HMLF: In The Washington Post, a writer said, “We ought to give Barack Obama the ‘Farrakhan Litmus Test.’” A few days later, Mr. Abe Foxman of the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) issued that “test” to Barack Obama; and, of course, his campaign said, “We are against all forms of bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism.” But that didn’t go far enough for the Anti-Defamation League.

And so, at my Saviours’ Day message [February 2008], in front of 20,000 people, I spoke highly of Barack Obama, but I did not give an endorsement. And a few days later at a debate, he was forced to renounce my kind words toward him.

I did not mind, because I understand the bigger picture. So I decided that if I wanted to help Barack Obama, I needed to be quiet, and not be drawn into the controversy because Fox News and others kept trying to bring Farrakhan into the controversy with Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Father Michael Pfleger and others. So I just remained quiet. Now that he is where we hoped he would be, I am much freer to say about him the things that I believe; and the hope that we have that he can help America to change.

I believe he can help change America’s domestic policy, and help America change her foreign policy. Eighty percent of the American people are against the present government; and nearly 90 percent of the American people are against the present Congress. The outside world has “tanked” in terms of their respect for the United States of America, and this is why America hopes that Barack Obama will restore America’s image at home and abroad.

RK: Norway [is] next, and “Kazeem” is on the line with a question. Kazeem, what would you like to ask?

Kazeem: I just want to ask Dr. Farrakhan, you know that a lot of African people were so happy when Barack Obama won the election; so, I’m just wondering, maybe they’re going to get disappointed because I don’t really know what they are hoping from Barack Obama?

RK: That’s actually a good question, Kazeem; let me put that to Minister Farrakhan: Everyone seems to be claiming, obviously, some kind of victory with the election of Barack Obama. Libya, even: Muammar Ghadafi has said that this represents something very big.

What is the expectation? How is it going to be met? It’s a lot of burden on his shoulders.

HMLF: I don’t think we should put too much on him more than what he has.

The American economy is in bad shape. There are 10 million Americans out of work. Three hundred thousand (300,000) American homes were foreclosed on last August, and it is expected that 2.8 million will be foreclosed on by next year.

With factories closing, and people being out of work–and suffering–the hope is that Barack Obama, with the help of Congress; with the help of a strong Cabinet; and with the help of the American people, might be able to solve some of these problems. But it will be difficult for him because America, as I understand it, is possibly going to lose her “AAA Standing” in the world in terms of her country. She is almost bankrupt; or, she might very well be. She is $10 trillion in debt, and when you count Medicare, Medicaid [and] Social Security, it mounts up to $60 trillion.

In the last two months, America has borrowed $550 billion, and over a $1 trillion this year so far. Where is America getting this money? The Federal Reserve? Foreign governments? Half of everything that America gets in taxes has to be paid to foreign governments to service the debt that foreign governments have lent to America. Our hope is that we can turn this around.

RK: Let’s get a call infrom Saudi Arabia. “Saud” has a question.

Saud: Because you sound very optimistic regarding Barack Obama trying to help solve the problems in the Middle East in respect to Palestine, or the Palestinians, I waswondering where is that [optimism] coming from?

RK: That’s one big issue: That the people are worried that he’ll be manacled to the lobbies; to the big business; corporate business in America. How can Barack Obama get free of those manacles, and actually be his own man?

HMLF: Well, you know that he has some manacles, and that might limit him. However, he’s the first American president to raise $600 million for his campaign. That frees him from lobbyists; it frees him from special interests, and it could free him from those who would manipulate him.

If he is going to solve the problem, he has to be free enough to solve the problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

RK: Minister Louis Farrakhan, thank you very much for being with us. We’re unfortunately out of time, but, thank you very much for sharing your views.

HMLF: Thank you for having me.

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