High-level Hypocrisy: Scapegoating targets Nation of Islam Prison Reform Ministry
by Demetric Muhammad
On June 26, 2010, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a major address from Atlanta’s Civic Center auditorium to hundreds of thousands of eager listeners via a national webcast. This speech, titled The Real Children of Israel, explained and displayed before the world the reason why the followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s teachings believe that the Black people of America are the very people described in the Bible as the Children of Israel. This speech also debuted the publication of volume 2 of the book series The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews.
Since that speech and the book debut, there has been an increase in propaganda aimed at making mockery of The Minister so that the general public will not listen to his message and accept his guidance. The Minister’s speech—which included strong criticism of the Jewish role in the slave trade and in the destructive Compromise of 1877, known as the “Great Betrayal of the Negro”—included a challenge to scholars and academics to dialogue on the contents of volume 2. This challenge has gone unanswered.
In truth, criticism of the Jewish community and the state of Israel is deemed forbidden in America and so The Minister’s efforts to set the historical record straight have not gone unpunished. Initial criticism and condemnation came from the ADL, its leader Abraham Foxman and other voices from the Zionist lobby. But in a recent move that parallels the collaboration of the Roman authorities with the Jewish Sanhedrin leadership in the crucifixion of Jesus, members of the U.S. House of Representatives have joined the Zionist lobby in the “Crucify Farrakhan” crusade.
Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf and New York Rep. Peter King have written a recent letter addressed to the Acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Thomas Kane. They write:
It is absolutely unacceptable that BOP would provide convicted al Qaeda terrorists…with anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda. We ask you to immediately remove all written, audio and video materials produced by the “Nation of Islam” and Louis Farrakhan from all BOP facilities. We also request that you launch an immediate and comprehensive audit of all other Islamic texts and sermons made available to inmates in BOP facilities, including a review of your procedures for vetting such materials.
If the BOP complies with this recommendation, this would be a complete denial of the right of incarcerated members of the Nation of Islam to freely practice their religion. And inmates who are normally concerned with study and self-improvement will be forced to turn their attention to using their considerable legal expertise to file lawsuits seeking to have their basic constitutional rights restored and protected. This move by the Presbyterian Wolf and the Catholic King is for certain a move down a slippery slope that ultimately places all religious texts into question.
Since King and Wolf have stepped outside the 1st Amendment to challenge the religions of the incarcerated, should we not be more concerned with the religious affiliations of the powerful rulers of America, given their ability to shape policy that affects the lives of hundreds of millions? Reps. King and Wolf say they are Catholic and Presbyterian, respectively.
Followers of these faiths are adherents of the Bible. Penn State University Professor Peter Jenkins writes in the Boston Globe the following:
In fact, the Bible overflows with “texts of terror,” to borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. The Koran often urges believers to fight, yet it also commands that enemies be shown mercy when they surrender. Some frightful portions of the Bible, by contrast, go much further in ordering the total extermination of enemies, of whole families and races of men, women, and children, and even their livestock, with no quarter granted….The Bible also alleges divine approval of racism and segregation. If you had to choose the single biblical story that most conspicuously outrages modern sentiment, it might well be the tale of Phinehas, a story that remains unknown to most Christian readers today (Numbers 25: 1-15). The story begins when the children of Israel are threatened by a plague. Phinehas, however, shrewdly identifies the cause of God’s anger: God is outraged at the fact that a Hebrew man has found a wife among the people of Midian, and through her has imported an alien religion. Phinehas slaughters the offending couple—and, mollified, God ends the plague and blesses Phinehas and his descendants. Modern American racists love this passage. In 1990, Richard Kelly Hoskins used the story as the basis for his manifesto “Vigilantes of Christendom.”
Hoskins advocated the creation of a new order of militant white supremacists, the Phinehas Priesthood, and since then a number of groups have assumed this title, claiming Phinehas as the justification for terrorist attacks on mixed-race couples and abortion clinics.
How many Christian, Catholic and Presbyterian “imams” are in the prisons? Maybe Reps. King and Wolf should hold hearings? Richard Kelly Hoskins is actually based in Lynchburg, Virginia, Representative Wolf’s home state! The Jewish Talmud also includes many inflammatory passages against Blacks and non-Jews in general. The Talmud is the origin of the infamous “Curse of Ham” myth, which states Blacks are evil and divinely cursed by God to be a prey in the hands of Jews and Whites. The “Curse of Ham” was used as the religious justification for the enslavement of Blacks. But neither the Talmud nor the Bible has been marked for removal from the prisons by the federal Bureau of Prisons. And in truth they should not be removed.
The Bible, Qur’an, and the sacred texts of religious communities normally grow out of the prophetic tradition and are considered “revelation.” As a result they are controversial by nature because no prophet ever appears with a congratulatory message. Prophets have always appeared when corruption reaches the point where it imbalances a nation, and God raises a prophet from among the people to warn them and their governments that if they continue with business as usual divine destruction is soon to follow. So most of the prophets were killed and all were deemed troublesome and creating problems to be dealt with by the corrupt governments of their day. That Reps. Wolf and King would be blind to how much their actions against Minister Farrakhan mirror the actions of Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod and the wicked leaders of the past is stunning.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, in keeping with Nation of Islam tradition, has forbidden his followers to carry so much as a penknife as a weapon. He says that when you carry weapons you are expressing lack of confidence and even disbelief in the ability of Allah (God) to protect you. The Nation of Islam has never advocated that violence or harm be done to innocent people. In fact, two years ago when it was revealed that Homeland Security had been illegally conducting espionage on the NOI, the federal department concluded the following, which is excerpted from an April 9, 2011, New York Times article:
Charles E. Allen, who was then the under secretary for intelligence and analysis at the department, later softened this view. “The organization—despite its highly volatile and extreme rhetoric—has neither advocated violence nor engaged in violence,” Mr. Allen wrote in 2008. “Moreover, we have no indications that it will change goals and priorities. …”
This is very significant because this opinion by Mr. Allen is taken from his secret monitoring of the Nation of Islam, which did not have foreknowledge of his investigation and as a result could not pretend to be nonviolent just to be seen in a favorable light.
Why, then, is Peter King on such a witch-hunt, using Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam as a target? His hearings on Islamic Radicalization in Prisons have been the primary vehicle for his modern-day crusade against Minister Farrakhan and Muslims. But during this hearing it was Purdue University professor Dr. Bert Useem who, when grilled on the question of the Nation of Islam’s role in subversive behavior in prisons, admitted that there was none! When asked by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, “Do you view the Nation of Islam as promoting in this current 21st century the undermining of this nation?” Professor Useem testified, “No, I don’t.” Rep. Lee went further to ask, “Are their underpinnings to your knowledge (of the NOI) about improving lives or trying to straighten out (lives)? Is that your assessment or do you know that?” Professor Useem testified: “That is correct.”
Professor Useem spoke the truth and the NOI record inside and outside the prison is one of establishing peace. This is a fact that has been lauded by countless local and state agencies that have worked closely with the NOI to be the recipients of its work and commitment to equality, justice and social change. Minister Farrakhan is on record several times communicating the same thing he communicated on September 2, 2010, at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The Minister stated:
We are not terrorists. We will not allow anyone on our watch to do some silly act to deprive an innocent human being of their life. And if we see it, we’ll stop it. We will arrest them.
A better strategy for Reps. King and Wolf to focus on would be increasing funding for educational programming in prisons across the country that are being constantly cut and in many cases eliminated. The Nation of Islam offers as its primary text in the prison system Self–Improvement: The Basis for Community Development. This series of 21 study guides is designed to produce “self-examination, self-analysis and self-correction.” These Study Guides help the inmate to turn inward, relying on God and him/herself to help him/her in the transformation of his/her life. The success and benefit of the Nation of Islam’s approach and self-improvement emphasis are underscored by what was observed in a study of Muslim converts in prisons in the United Kingdom. In an article published in the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, authors Basia Spalek and Salah El-Hassan report:
The main findings indicated that inmates who converted to Islam while within prison fared better at prison adjustment and community reintegration because Islam provided a moral framework from which inmates could rebuild their lives.
Since 1995 one of the main events and religious observances for Nation of Islam members inside a federal prison is the Holy Day of Atonement. This observance, growing out of the historic Million Man March, is a time when Nation of Islam inmates reach out to Christians, Jews, Rastafarians, Latinos, Whites and all inmates of good will to have programs centered around the 8 steps of Atonement originally articulated by Minister Farrakhan and based on Bible and Qur’an scriptures. The 8 steps of Atonement include:
1. Point out the wrong.
2. Acknowledge the wrong.
3. Confess the Fault.
4. Repent.
5. Atone.
6. Forgive.
7. Reconcile and Restore.
8. Perfect Union with God.
Rep. Wolf and Rep. King are involved in nothing more than hypocritical fear-mongering aimed at manufacturing “the consent of the governed” to persecute and crucify Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. All religions have texts that lend themselves to misinterpretation and abuse. But any decision to censure and silence the faith-based community who volunteer to minister to those convicted of crimes would be a huge mistake. Any decision to censure and silence the presence of Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam in the federal prisons would be akin to removing a light in the midst of triple darkness, a light that for many in the Black community is the only torchlight bright enough to make a difference.
Editors’ Note: Learn more about the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL)]