Minister Abdul Akbar Muhammad asserted that the problem of Islam in the world, at the centre of which lies Iran, is because you turned your nation around on Imam Khomeini. He said everything that Iranian believed in as the sacred, the enemy took piece by piece.
In an interview with Mehr News, Akbar Muhammad answered the questions on the issue:
Since you are Muslim in the US and you know Islamophobia in the country and racism against the African-American; is this discrimination the same for Muslims and African-Americans or there are differences between the two and in what ways?
In one way it is the same and another way, it is different. The anti-Islam movement period in America is because of their fear of Islam, they have watched the power of Islam in the lives of those former slaves who accepted Islam; they become all the different, and we use the life of Malcolm X, he has been known in the world and I can use his life as a clear example. His mind set represented him as the victim of the American repressive system before he became a Muslim. Once he accepted Islam he changed completely. He became strong against the enemy. And what the American rulers, the white people that ruled land, depended on the fear in us still remaining from the time of slavery. That fear made us all look for safety zone and not the fight for our rights; but now Malcolm represented the difference. Based on it, he represented the new man, a changed man and he had a different idea of the world, and so now you have the problem of Islam in the world, and at the centre, lies your country Iran. You turned your nation around on Imam Khomeini and they had due victims of cultural imperialism. Everything that you believed in as the sacred, they took of you piece by piece through the puppet they had set up. And when Imam Khomeini came in, he turned the nation around; everybody was not in the happy camp, because you did not know what would be the future, and those who were more western, wanted to be more lenient, more pliant with western ideas that you thought represented modernity, you wanted to be three and shed everything that represented your culture in order to be there; but the change happened and that is the change came with Islam. There is a book written by a group of Jewish authors, Sharia Come into America; most American people only know what sharia is; that is a kind of (they think) evil creature that wants to capture the America and slave the country; that is their approach and the head of that is the Iranian revolution. A society that they had grips that the leader of a Muslim nation drinking alcohol publicly along Jimmy Carter, you began to accept it, that this was the way of the world; then all of a sudden in 1979 everything changed. This is the fear in the west right now. And Barack Obama is talking now about bringing in 250,000 Syrians, mainly Syrians as refugees to America, because they cannot be hypocrites when refugees are suffering all over the world and they bring a couple of thousand, may be a couple of hundreds, and so Barack is rolling a dice. But the opposition to him say that this is the beginning of an end for America, because they are going to islamicate the world, make America a Muslim state, that we will be in a sharia, will do this and so forth; that is what you face with. I know, but that is the bottom line of the situation.
You said a thing very important and very interesting here; every time that there is a new massacre in Gaza [Strip], the right wing in the Israel, especially the Rabbites who train troops, they say we are to perfectly religiously justify this, because this is what our Torah teaches us to do, and there are passages in Torah saying that kill them all, catch women and children, cattle and everything; when I was in college, I took a history course on colonial slavery and one of the things I discovered in the course was the Biblical rules of the African slave trade. It was the story of Noah and Ham. Ham was cursed to be a slave to his brothers Sham and Japheth. Ham is supposed to be father of the African people. Can you talk about it a bit, about the Bible, in particular, the Judaic roots of the African slave?
You are absolutely right. That is the root of the belief system about us, that our black skin is bad and dishonour, that we are cursed with the black skin, and that God has cursed us. So, they justify the mistreatment of us, and there is a group of people in America one of them a Mormon, running for the president now, the base of the Mormon teaching is the Bible that says we are cursed to work in water and woods, and because we left and our father in nakedness, American people who are Christians, think that it is OK with God, because He condemns these people in the Bible, and that is the root of white supremacy and racism, and the outside world, you may not understand what that represents. But that represents that the two and half million people are locked up in the jails of America, most of them black men and women. The percentage is better than half of them and they do not feel guilty when they torture us and shoot us down, they sell the idea that the God cursed them. And those who read the narrative, I am in the hand of god being executed in the name of the right God has given me. So, you have to look at Christianity, though our Quran teaches us to respect the people of the book; but they abuse Christianity as a tool to establish themselves as privileged class and we are the lower class which should be abused, misused and even enslaved; when you read the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, after they determine that slavery should be free and we should change this and should protest, they say that slavery has ended and so forth; except on committing a crime, they have never finish the whole thing, and when you commit a crime, I can re-enslave you. That is exactly what it means, and we see in America right now.
But, would you say that blacks in America who is superficially freed by the 13th Amendment, they have just gone from one form of slavery to another kind, because when you seek the deliberate plans to fill the black neighbourhood with crime, drugs, the garbage on the media that poisons the mind of the young people and destroys the families the communities. This is deliberate, and something to perpetuate the backward religious notion that because of the black skin, God has cursed them to be slaves and we can enslave them like we did before the 13th Amendment, but we should see the more sophisticated forms of slavery now.
Yes. It is call free in the mind. They took chains from our hands and feet, but they keep our minds in chains, and to make ourselves free from that chain, we will always be in their feet.
You talked about destroying Iran from within, it is a hot topic that Americans are trying to infiltrate into Iranian politics, culture, everything. In your point of view, how such an infiltration would happen?
How do you destroy Iran? At the time of the Soviet Union, they wanted to start a challenge between the West and the Soviet Union, and the more they boarded outside force against the Soviet Union, the stronger it became. So they devised a plan and the very man that the plan was based on his work is Daniel Pipes. His ideal strategy for breaking the Muslim world into parts came from his father, Richard Pipes by whose theory we can analyse what the West is trying to do. Richard pipe said that you need to explode them from the inside, you have to get inside and divide them, and this was his strategy. His son employed the same strategy. The one who started the cartoons, was Daniel Pipe’s going to the editor of the Danish newspaper and they wanted to put it up but they needed to find what they called ‘a soft target’ to see how they respond and they did those detestable cartoons of the Prophet (PBUH) and he encouraged them to do it and see the results and see how many Muslims in riots, in streets and things that happen. And then inside the Muslins, the intellects, the so-called thinkers and some of our religious leaders thought that this is not the right way to stop this and so forth. But the man who couldn’t afford a decent education, who couldn’t sit down and respond to this intellectually, from his heart he responded! He rebelled because he couldn’t sit at a table to debate about the cartoon; therefore he watched it and he exploded. They didn’t stop with the Danish cartoons, they began the challenge of so-called free press to put it in and they angered the sensitivity of the Muslim world. The last Pope who stepped down was also a part of it because he went to Germany saying that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) didn’t say that, but he didn’t bring anything new. They offended the sensibilities of the Muslims to see how they reacted with the idea that we must never allow them to unite. So, they created Shiite and Sunni when Imam Khomeini came into power. Being a Muslim, we had never had that kind of argument; we may have had a debate like ‘he’s a Shiite, he’s a Sunni; we never had that kind of fight but they heightened that! So that’s one thing that you are faced with.
Then, we have an 80-million-people market, Iran and all you have to do is to look at the history of Vietnam which was a 90-million-people market! So, they sent the man who was the secretary of defense from Macedonia to open a way back into Vietnam after the death of nearly 20 thousand of American soldiers, after they were defeated by Vietnam, they needed a way back in now and the way back in is the so-called technology of the West; they want to use it to get in your country because there is no doubt that what they have got is money. And, in America when Bush came in, he used Condoleezza Rice and the war he started in Iraq, they wanted to get Hollywood to make pictures so that the people of America would see they would justify them whatever they were doing to Muslims and to Muslim countries across the world. So, you see that and only believe that. Barak Obama wants to leave a legacy, so the first thing was Cuba that the sanctions against it were totally unjustified throughout all these years. A country of 12 million people 90 miles from America like it was some threat to America. So, he lifted the sanctions. Now, the UN is in the same old kind of position. If you ask me, my personal opinion is that maybe the sanctions could be lifted but you keep your integrity as a nation and people. 36 years have passed from your Revolution and you are still intact. What you said is right. One election that you had recently, they thought they had it! They deployed Shah to your country to turn your society around. So how do you protect yourself? You need to stand and you have to be principled. You’re not going to be left behind in the modern world. Did you see Steve Jobs who became famous in America? Did they ever mention that his father was a Muslim? He was Syrian. No one knows that.
One of the questions to me at the University yesterday from one of the Youth was that technology and what we have in the Western world is what we need to advance. And when you think like that you disregard yourself even. You don’t think you have the ability of the Europeans or the Americans and you need to their technology to advance.
There was a British lawyer who went to Africa. When the British went to Africa they said how can we concur so many people? There is just too many of them; we can’t put enough soldiers or army into Africa to fight and master these people. They said a rule through counselor would stay sure. And the king, sends people from far provinces to bring him information and the counselor would be best to handle the people. “what if we become the king’s advisors?! Gathering all our advisors around him making him powerful and we could rule him,” they thought. The same case was with the Shah. They put him in but they put their people around him not to decide for the people but they became his advisors. And through that, they were able to master and rule the African culture. A British man started that. They introduce you to the Western form of democracy and think it’s the greatest thing and you want to be a part of it to be a part of the modern world. They tell you in order for us to help you must open the door for foreign entities to come in and own things that you should own, your roads, your hospitals, your schools; so, your people have to be smart enough because those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. Just as the Revolution turned this country around, they say we are going to have our revolution. We want to get in from the inside; we are going to feed the children and make them feel that they really have the desire that they are not really free and that they need to go to West and get rid of the Mullahs and the religious leader.
I was sitting in a hotel in Syria and there was a man named Patrick, a British man who wrote biographies, more secular than religious, and he said to me I’m going to make my prayers and he said it sometimes bothers my knees because I’ve been praying for so long and I listened to him, as a black American I was a real novelty to him sitting in a hotel in Syria. And he said something about his culture; that their culture was being taken away but they had found the way back to their culture which was to have faith. But they had given up having faith in order to be a part of the modern world. And they tried every way to get it back. You have the family structure and the Muslim world is a part of your culture and your faith. But the break-up of your family, the introduction of abortions to make it a part of the system; in America they argue about it saying that it’s a part of my freedom, it’s the right of a woman to abort a child if she wants to; not asking: how does God look at it? God is out of the window. So, all the things that you are challenged with are the moralities of your society. Some people come here and feel that the women are imprisoned, but I saw the women smile; the outside world shapes it that they are poor women, they have to put on this to go on the street, they wish they could get rid of it and dress like we dress in the West, is that freedom?!! That’s the enslavement of the West the end of the society that you are trying to build for the benefit of your people.
All that you see happening around you, they have all targeted your society and what they want is a victory. They want to break the Muslim society. We turned those Iranians around. Now, you have orange juice and some biscuits on the table and they want to turn the table so that you will have bear and wine and you drink it and you feel that you are a part of the modern world. And that’s your fight. And the fight is not with guns but with ideas. You have to claim your victory. You have to blow your horn because nobody else is going to blow it for you. Whatever accomplishments that Iran has made in these 36 years, the world needs to know and understand that because it has been your success. And if you find something as successful, you don’t throw it away because somebody has influenced you to make your success look like nothing.
You have been in Iran for a while and you have seen different types of people like the people in the universities, on the streets as well as different officials; all of you talked about the plots and the ways the US has used to penetrate Iranian society; two main factors that can block their trying are the wisdom of people and the role of the leadership; how did you find the wisdom of people and how would you assess the role of the Iranian Leader in this regard?
The spiritual strength is a must, because it produces morality in the people. The Supreme Leader didn’t say he had descended from Heaven with a halo on his head. He is a human being that is trying to do what is right by God for the benefit of these people who look to him. Do you think that America is looking to make people free and respect the human rights? No, that’s not on their agenda, but they have to look the part, like they are actually concerned about what is going on with Iranian people; whether it’s human rights violations, whether people have been jailed. I know for a fact that they don’t care. Look at how they treat us after we worked for them for nearly 500 years and gave them our sweat and blood and fought in every war that they were involved in. My father fought in WWII, came home and couldn’t get a job. He was segregated against. Capitalism is organized greed and they will do anything necessary to gain capital and use that capital as a tool to control the world. But Iran took the right path by rejecting capitalism for 36 years. You made an example of the Trojan horse. The Americans pretended that they were giving you a gift, but on the other side it’s something that would destroy you. I look at our black community and see how it was destroy by crack cocaine, as young people became like zombies and are locked up in jail right now. They make it appear to the world that these black people just got involved in drugs, that they are no good, when they started it by using drugs to target young black people to make money to support their contras. US also used opium to exploit China by drugging the whole nation to get in. So this history repeats itself. That’s what they would like to turn Iranian society into. People wish to migrate to America because America offers higher education but you have to ask yourself in exchange for what? So that they can rob you of your soul. Iran has a lot of thinking to do on where to draw a line in order to resist American influence. Your people must learn about the history of your struggles so that they would not choose the wrong path. That’s your responsibility to educate them on your history; you may think let’s leave behind that ancient history but that history is what will make your tomorrow.
Although the United States has come a long way since the days of slavery, and steps were made towards granting equal rights on the basis of race in the 1960s, racism is still a very pressing problem in the US today, why the racism remains alive and well in America?
Mistreatment always continues, but it moves to different levels. There was one of the slave masters speaking in 1600 and 1700; he made a statement that can be found in a message to the Black man. He said we have closed every avenue of light coming to the slaves. That means we live in a complete darkness and darkness is the lack of education, the ability to think and the ability to move freely; so, anyone who says that they have made progress, they have not made progress, they have just switched gears. And they try to make impression unseen by the average person; but the people who suffered the most of the pain they realized that they are being kept in complete darkness and have been abused in that darkness and not find the door out, it is bad; but now they’re coming to a-bulling it because the world has become smaller, they can see what they have done in other societies, thus, for me, this means dismantling that kind of mentality; and you have to dismantle racism and privilege, and white supremacy. That is what happens in America.
Have the African-Americans ever did any movements to fight discriminations and if so, why they have not been so successful?
Of course, there has been many movements, and the struggle is not new but very old; from the day they brought back our parents from Africa to America, we have been struggling since that time and in few cases that slaves revolt, because we are human beings, we realize that it was not a kind of capturing slavery that was known in Africa; slavery has always existed, but the kind of slavery which you rub the soul of the man, that was new to Africans, they knew nothing about it. They captured people, they held people if you want to say it slavery, but they did not rob them of their soul, they did not brutalize them, and tried to make them less than the man, and they exchanged them as prisoners which went on for years; but what they did in the west was based on the idea of Capitalism, that destroyed the human being. A book I read when I was a young man, Capitalism and Slavery, by Eric Williams, in the Caribbean from Trinidad and Tobago [the prime minister of the country] and he got the right to know the root cause what slavery represented. My brother comes from Africa, from Benin, he has the name that represents him and his people and his culture; they had their own language, they have been seen themselves less than other people because of the colour of their skin. This is the white supremacy has done in America, and now the America has begun to pay the price, we have agonized, but when you try to agonize people with the loss of identity and have been taught to feel they as formal enemy, who made them hate themselves, it is hard for us to move forward, but I think that we have crossed that bridge now.
Americans are not as political as people in Iran are, people in Iran are all political and you can talk to everyone about politics on the streets, on train, everywhere. But it’s not like that in United States, Americans as far as I have seen are not much familiar with the politics and developments around the world, is it just cultural or the system wants the people to be like that?
Americans are dumb in politics. There are many distractions to keep them away from political dynamics that shape their life, from the football, baseball, to music. They would rather hear Beyoncé, in both communities, than to sit down and look at news analysis on Sunday morning. So it’s dumb down in America and that’s what you do to the people, to keep the masses dumb. 5000 Americans lost their lives based on a lie told by the leaders of the country. Killed, wounded, come back home, all minds messed up!
Akbar Muhammad is an associate professor of history and Africana studies at Binghamton University in New York. He specializes in African history, as well as the study of Islam in Africa and the Americas. He is the co-editor of Racism, Sexism, and the World-System. His own writings have been focused on slavery in Muslim Africa, Muslims in the United States, and integration in Nigeria through the use of education. He holds a notable role in the history of the Nation of Islam.
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