Enlightened Commentary on Islam

Asalamu Aliakum.

"I think everything on this earth is being modernized; religious principles and practices, as well as politics..."

Malcolm X remains one of the best examples of the African-American's struggle for a political and cultural independence within the American milieu. His example is always valued, even in these times. Recently, none other than a top leader of Al Queda attempted to lecture President Obama about his authenticity as a black man in America. Image that! Indeed, a figure of backward humanity, female oppression, and violent insurrection would make such narrow comments about race relations in America. Why? Because (some) Arabs have the same paternalistic ideas about Africans that (some) Whites held -- here and in places like South Africa.

Sadly, too many people, of all races, including muslims, have little familiarity with the true dictates of Islam, as evidenced by the Quran. Were African Americans to be influenced by such comments from Islamic extremists, or others who think like them, our fate would have been not unlike those people of the Sudan or Tanzania - where Africans moved toward an invader's interpretation of Islam, but not toward brotherhood among our people and those around us.

Thank Allah for Malcolm's example. Allahu Akbar!

Marcus Mosiah Garvey

I have been eager to write a comment about the early 20th century Negro (Black) leader Marcus Garvey for a long time. I always defer, however, because I am never confident that I can do a just commentary on his contribution to the maturation of Black people for [these] modern times. I recently read a selection from a book I keep near my bedside -- "Selected Speeches and Writings of Marcus Garvey." His speech on unemployment from that book is what motivated this installment.

Garvey was certainly a man of his times. He was a "race man." His speeches are colored with the racial vanacular of that period -- when 'Jim Crow' was dominant throughout all of America. As a result those who are unfamiliar with his many comments on race and economy may well be put off at first. However, one must note that Garvey was reacting to the prevalent racial attitudes of his time, not fomenting them. Indeed, Garvey was controversial among Black people and among Whites. He chastised the leaders of Black people for not responding more effectively to the many afflictions facing the masses of African-Americans, such as mob violence and poverty. His platform -- like that of his idiological mentor, Booker T. Washington -- was primarily economical when the established leadership among Blacks were concerned with social equality and academic achievement.

A very good example of this was his speech on unemplyment given in New York City on February 11, 1921. Garvey gives a brilliant analysis of the tendencies of [White] employers and [Black] employees that could very well be given today, and with almost as much accuracy as it had then. I have often mused that a thorough education for black people -- indeed all people in a capitalist economy -- must include a lesson on fundemental economics, at least.

In some measure, Garvey was a forerunner to, among others, Elijah Muhammed, Tony Brown, Malcolm X, and Earl Graves. His stance on race relations, economic mobility and cultural pride have been vindicated by the publications, exhortations and commentaries of such diverse contemporaries as the National Urban League, Tavis Smiley, Ebony magazine, Louis Farrakahn and many more.