THE ISLAM OF BLACK REVOLUTIONARIES

In this edited excerpt, from Hakeem Muhammad’s blog by the same name, the author gives a historical account of what he provocatively describes as the “Islam of Black Revolutionaries.” He argues that Black revolutionary Islam is a long tradition rooted in a deep history of Black Muslim resistance to white supremacy. His position is that this is the work Black Muslims need to return to today.

“You don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it.” — Malcolm X Speech at the Congress for Racial Equality in Detroit. [Apr. 12, 1964]

The Islam of Black revolutionaries rejects the domestication of Islam within the US Empire and instead roots Islam as the spiritual centre of larger Pan-African struggles. The Islam of Black revolutionaries was born from African resistance to the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and global white supremacy. The Islam of Black revolutionaries does not concern itself with the white gaze nor appeasing white fears about Islam. Its primary focus is the liberation, concerns and aspiration of Black people. A return to Black revolutionary Islam necessitates the end of apolitical khutbas; gives spiritual guidance informed by Black political thought, and seeks to continue the unfinished theological project of Malcolm X via the production of Islamic content for oppressed Black communities.

The Islam of Black revolutionaries is exemplified by Pacifico Licutan (hereafter Licutan), one of the suspected masterminds of the 1835 Islamic slave revolt in Bahia, Brazil. During his trial for conspiring to revolt, in February 1835, when the judge asked his name, court documents revealed that he continuously referred to himself as Bilal in honour of Bilal ibn Rabah, the famous Black companion of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)^[1]. By linking himself to Bilal ibn Rabah, Licutan affirmed the right of Black people to be freed from the judicial system of white supremacy.

Although Licutan was flogged for his contributions to the revolt, the mantle of Black revolutionary Islam continued. For example, through Imam Jamil Al-Amin (formerly known as H. Rap Brown) who, upon being brought to court on trumped up charges (a government backlash for his involvement in the Black liberation struggle of the 1960s to 1970s), refused to grant the court legitimacy and used it for a dawah opportunity. Imam Jamil Al-Amin told the jury and judges, “I invite you to Islam. Be Muslim and receive two rewards.” Like Licutan, Imam Jamil Al-Amin refused to submit to the judicial system of white supremacy.

Even as we sought to escape from slavery, we as Black people sought to maintain our salah (obligatory prayers). Detailing his escape from slavery, Omar Ibn Said stated, “I fled from the hand of Johnson and after a month came to a place called Fayd-il. There I saw some great houses. On the new moon, I went to a church to pray.” As a fugitive fleeing bondage, Omar ibn Said strived to maintain his salah even though he could be captured at any time.

A Return to Black Revolutionary Islam

“It’s undeniable that Muhammad [pbuh] was a revolutionary who turned a society upside down.” — Pan-Africanist, Thomas Sankara

Rooted in Islamic critiques of neoliberal economics and its usage of interest banking, the Islam of Black revolutionaries necessitates struggling against the International Monetary Fund’s and World Bank’s structural adjustment programs that has created and sustained poverty and destruction in Africa. Similarly, the Islam of Black revolutionaries vehemently opposes the white supremacist capitalist economic system that has led to racial wealth disparities that are so large it would take over 200 years for Black families to have wealth equal to white Americans. The Islam of Black revolutionaries seeks to turn global white supremacy upside down and eradicate it from the face of the planet.

The Islam of Black revolutionaries does not oppose the travel ban because “Muslim immigrants deserve the American dream,” but because we are under no obligation to respect the arbitrary borders of European settler-colonialists on land usurped from indigenous First Nations. Nor do we believe that these borders inhibit refugees who are fleeing the United States government’s imperialistic wars. Furthermore, the Islam of Black revolutionaries recognizes Saudi Arabia for what it is: a white supremacist proxy state. It problematizes the Islamic institutions where Blacks went to study the deen for detaching Islam from the Black liberation struggle. Black revolutionary Islam centres disenfranchised Black communities at the centre of global Islamic revival.

The Islam of Black revolutionaries is reflected within Safiya Bukhari’s pivotal chapter “Islam and Revolution Is Not a Contradiction,” from The War Before where she provides an analysis for the bankruptcy of the political system of the United States to address Black suffering. The Islam of Black revolutionaries recognizes that just as Allah enabled Moses to overcome Pharaoh and all the oppressive structures he laid out, Allah can enable them to overcome modern Pharaohs and all the oppressive structures that they lay out.

This is true whether the Pharaoh be Nixon who initiated the war on drugs on Black ghettos; Reagan whose neoliberal “trickle-down economics” devastated Black communities; Bill Clinton who cut back on social services to the Black poor and expanded Black mass incarceration; George W. Bush who presided over mass Black death during Hurricane Katrina; Barack Obama who represented white power in a Black face; or Donald J. Trump who has promised to bring backstop and frisk and a litany of other social policies working to oppress Black people.

Malcolm X, a student of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, embodies what this worldview of belief in God can do. He said, “the religion of Islam had reached down into the mud to lift me up, to save me from being what I inevitably would have been: a dead criminal in a grave.”

[1] Reis, João José. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Trans Arthur Brakel. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, p. 131-132.
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Hakeem Muhammad is a Black Muslim Public Intellectual, Law Student and Scholar-in-Residence with Muslim Empowerment Institute (MEI). His work is dedicated to Islamic revival in the black community.

Karabakh Conflict: Still No Solution in Sight

Alwaght- A couple of years before the breakup of the Soviet Union, tensions erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in a war between the two countries with consequences still impacting the two countries and the region as a whole.

The dispute between the South Caucasian states started in 1988, the year that Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. The tensions led to a war in 1992 during which the Armenian forces advanced deep into the disputed territories and seized 20 percent of the land there, including the mountainous part of Karabakh and seven other regions. The seizure remains in place to date. The clashes killed at least 30,000 people from both sides and hundreds of thousands of the civilians of the contested region were displaced. The warring sides finally signed a ceasefire deal in 1994, following regional and international mediation. A United Nations Security Council’s resolution has called on Armenia to remove its forces from the mountainous Karabakh and the areas around, an order Yerevan has not complied with to date.

The territorial struggle gave birth to regional blocs. Turkey rose in solidarity with Azerbaijan and encircled Armenia, and on the other side, the Russians supported the Armenians, despite showing some conservatism.

In April 2016 clashes, the deadliest since 1994, nearly 110 civilians and military personnel from two sides of the encounter were killed. A new truce deal was brokered by the Russians and was signed in Moscow shortly after, but the sporadic clashes remain active on the border lines.

However, despite efforts made by influential parties in the issue, the Karabakh crisis remains. The current challenge now lies in two issues: First, Baku is not poised to recognize the independence of Karabakh region. Second, the Armenian government by no means agrees with Karabakh going under the rule of Azerbaijan. Certainly, as long as no side is inclined to make compromises and step back from their stiff stances, no solution is in sight to the decades-long dispute.

Lack of end to the crisis does not mean that Baku and Yerevan have not engaged in peace negotiations with each other. In fact, failure to finish the case should be also blamed on the conflict of interests of the superpowers, something so far prevented Azerbaijan and Armenia from making tangible steps towards peace.

In the very recent development, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia met on Thursday in Krakow, Poland. The meeting, the news reports said, focused on the unresolved issues between the neighbors. The important point about the January 18 meeting is the attendance of the co-chairs of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe)-Minsk Group, an organization that despite massive pro-peace efforts has not been successful in finding a settlement for one of the most significant crises of the South Caucasus region. The attempts to settle the Karabakh dispute go on while Russia, a party possibly with the greatest role in the crisis, earlier cast doubt on the feasibility of the dispute settlement. The Russians encourage more efforts towards a de-confliction deal but are wary of extra-optimism about a rapid solution to this regional territorial dispute.

The European officials of the OSCE have reiterated that ending the ethnic disputes in Georgia and Moldova, and territorial dispute of Karabakh is high on its agenda. Italy, the current president of the OSCE, has maintained that in 2018 the negotiations between the OSCE’s members will be sped up, adding that the Karabakh dispute will be given a special concentration. The Italian chair of the OSCE said the humanitarian aspects of the Karabakh struggle are one of the serious concerns of Europe.

Anyway, the multi-party talks on a peaceful solution for Karabakh region are gaining international attention anew, with the influential parties like Europe and Russia are intending to discuss the case more. A set of challenges such as complexity of the crisis and interconnection of the superpowers’ interests make it hard to see any promising outlook for a solution. The 2017 began with a prediction by the former US envoy to the Karabakh crisis. He predicted that Baku and Yerevan will engage in the fight again, after the April 2016 week-long clashes. The International Crisis Group on Karabakh on January 1, 2017, warned that risks of conflict between Baku and Yerevan remain active because both sides show fresh backgrounds for confrontation. Despite all of the pessimistic predictions for the Azerbaijani-Armenian relations in 2017, the situation remained calm, with the border incidents being less in comparison to the year before.

Resumption of the diplomatic ties from the second half of the same year signaled the two countries’ will to cease the military conflict against each other. Still, there is no precondition for a final agreement or a mechanism for a lasting ceasefire. Azerbaijan kept a mix of military superiority advantage and discontentment with the status quo. On the side of Armenia, 2018 is a year of transition from the presidential to the parliamentary system of governance. The country will also hold its presidential election in the same year. The previous years’ experiences suggest that tensions and military encounters between the two countries subsided in the years that they hold elections. The same thing is expected to take place in the current year, as this trend of armed peace is predicted to continue standing.

Iran’s Dynamism Spells the Doom of Global Arrogance, Zionism

By: S. Nawabzadeh

Leadership, if God-oriented, not only lays the guidelines for salvation in afterlife, but charts out the proper path of peace and prosperity in the transient life of the mortal world. This is indeed a great blessing for a nation, ensuring its freedom, independence, and development in the face of the most adverse plots, as has been proven by Iran and the Iranian people. If the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), who inspired the establishment of the Islamic Republic to make Iran the cynosure of all eyes throughout the world, his worthy successor, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has ably guided the ship of Iran through the stormy seas of US piracy, Zionist devilry, Wahhabi conspiracy, human rights hypocrisy, and anti-revolutionary treachery. It is this dynamism that has continued to nip in the bud many an intricate plot to mar the spectacular scientific progress of Iran, to prevent the growing influence of Islamic Republic in the region and beyond, and to disturb the peace and security of the homeland through thugs, traitors, and terrorists of all hue and colour. On Tuesday, January 16, in his meeting with heads of parliamentary delegations of Muslim countries, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, as a devoted servant of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) and the Infallible Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt, gave a grand display of not just his insight and foresight but also his magnanimity by saying: "We’re ready to act brotherly even with those from among the Muslim World who were once openly hostile to us.” These words are ample proof of the prudence of a person who strives for the unity of the Islamic Ummah and overlooks the faults of the misled, whether at home or abroad, by having a clear conviction of the eventual defeat of the Great Satan (US) end the rooting out of the illegal Zionist entity from the region.

In his address to participants of the 13th Summit of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Tehran, he rightly remarked: "The World of Islam, with such a large population and plenty of facilities, can certainly create a great power in the world and become influential through unity. Internecine wars among Muslims must be stopped and we should not allow a safe haven be created for the Zionist entity.” At a time, when the frustrated US failed miserably in its plot to stir sedition in Iran, following the failure of Donald Trump’s quixotic declaration of the occupied Islamic city of Bayt al-Moqaddas as capital of the illegal Zionist entity, Iran, its leadership, and its people, have firmly demonstrated their unshaken resolve to brave all difficulties in order to liberate Islam’s first qibla. This is not a tall dream, as is evident by the setbacks Global Arrogance, the Zionists and their lackeys have continued to suffer, as those inspired by the Islamic Republic of Iran are emerging victorious in all scenes of the struggle, whether in diplomatic circles or on the battlegrounds – in Syria, in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Palestine, and in several other places, despite the treason of the Takfiris and their godfathers the Wahhabi cult ruling British-created Saudi Arabia.

As Ayatollah Khamenei said, the Zionists who are being beaten in the war of explosive weapons – despite their claim to possess state-of-the-art military technology – are about to be defeated in the soft war as well – of cyber technology, which Iranians and other Muslims have mastered, as is clear by the Islamic Republic’s astounding progress in medicine, aerospace, nano technology, nuclear energy, stem cells, and etc. The gist of the latest message of the enlightened leader was that Muslims, if they close ranks and overcome the problems in their midst, including the crises in Yemen and Bahrain, they are capable of soon materializing the cherished goal of a single Palestinian state, without the presence of the Zionist usurpers, stretching from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. This means, the satanic plots of the traitors to the cause of Islam and Muslims, in any place, will never succeed. -Kayhan International

Understanding the True Nature of Zionism

Israel and Zionism go hand in hand By Zafar Bangash

This article was first published in the CI April 2010 issue. It is being reproduced here in view of recent developments in the Holy Land. In its long tortuous history, Europe has spawned many de-monic ideologies — colonialism, imperialism, na-tionalism, fascism, Nazism, and Zionism, to name just a few — but while most have been repudiated, at least theoretically, Zionism is venerated as a religion. Zionists masquerade it as a badge of honor. It would be difficult to find anyone calling himself a colonialist or imperialist these days, although there are plenty of countries peddling these ideologies under the guise of other labels (humanitarian intervention, the right to protect, etc). Nor would one find anyone openly proclaiming to be a fascist or a Nazi. Yet there are plenty of people who proudly claim to be Zionists. They come in all stripes: Jewish, Christian, Hindu, atheist and (yes) Muslim. It is important to clarify at the outset what Zionism, or to call it by its correct name, political Zionism, is not. Despite strenuous efforts by its proponents, Zionism has little or nothing to do with Judaism, the religion of millions of people. True, Zionist ideology was first propounded by people of Jewish background — Theodore Herzl, Ze’ev Jabotinsky et al. — but they were not religious at all. In fact, they considered Judaism as an impediment in their colonial enterprise. Herzl was a racist. He propounded the idea, in the wake of the Dreyfus affair in France (year 1894), that Jews could not assimilate in other, primarily Christian European societies; they needed a separate homeland of their own. Even before Herzl announced his racist idea at the first Zionist Conference in Basle, Switzerland (1897), most rabbis had condemned political Zionism. The Philadelphia Conference of November 3–6, 1869 adopted a resolution that stressed the radical opposition between the universalist principles of Judaism and those of political Zionism. So how did political Zionism, a racist colonial enterprise, succeed in establishing itself in the heartland of Islam despite strong opposition from leading rabbis and the indigenous population of Palestine? By the turn of the last century, British and French colonialists were busy instigating revolts in the Muslim East (aka the Middle East) by buying the loyalty of Arabian tribal chiefs to use them against the Ottoman Sultanate. The toxic brew of Western colonialism, Arabian nationalism, and political Zionism facilitated the imposition of the Zionist entity in Palestine through the infamous Balfour Declaration. On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour, in a letter to Baron Walter de Rothschild, outlined the British government’s favorable view of establishing “in Palestine a home for the Jewish people…” While Balfour stated, “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” he deliberately ignored their political rights. That the overwhelming majority of inhabitants of Palestine were Muslims and Christians whose fundamental rights were being violated was of little consequence. In typical colonial style, Balfour promised the Palestinians’ land to European Zionist Jews. Unlike European racists that have a long and gory history of persecuting Jews and other minorities in their midst, Muslims have not perpetrated any pogroms or indulged in inquisitions against religious or other minorities. Whenever Jews suffered persecution in Europe or Russia, they found refuge among Muslims, hence the presence of Jewish communities in North Africa, Turkey, and Iran to this day. Yet European racists transferred their “Jewish problem” to Palestine. The tiny minority of Jews in Palestine — 7% in 1919 and even at the time of Israel’s creation in May 1948 through a scandalous vote in the United Nations General Assembly (November 1947) — the 30% Jewish population owned a mere 6.5% of the land. Yet it was given 56% of Palestinian territory. The rapid increase in Jewish population from 7% to 30% in 29 years (1919–1948) was not the result of natural growth; it was achieved through illegal Jewish immigration into Palestine. Even Hitler’s WWII bloodbath did not convince the overwhelming majority of Jewish people to settle in Palestine. But Zionist leaders missed no opportunity to emphasize the importance of Jewish migration to Palestine and lamented the lack of interest among European and North American Jews.

While Zionists denounce anti-Semitism and advance it as the principal justification for the creation of a separate homeland for the “Jewish people,” anti-Semitism is a twin of Zionism and needed for its survival. Herzl himself wrote, “The Jews constitute a single people and cannot be integrated into other peoples. But they do become assimilated by any society if they find themselves secure in it for a long period. And that will never be to our interest.” Thus, Herzl considered anti-Semites as indispensible allies in his quest to create the Zionist State in Palestine. Today’s Zionists are no less eager to align themselves with racists and bigots. In fact many Zionists, especially in the US, are leading Islamophobes. In Palestine, the Zionists have not only expropriated Palestinian land — today the Zionists control more than 93% of the original land of Palestine through theft, forcible occupation, and other illegal means — they have also built roads, neighborhoods, communities, and settlements reserved exclusively for theJews. This is what apartheid South Africa had done, hence the designation of Israel as an apartheid state. The apartheid wall through which the Zionists have cut off Palestinian families and villages, stealing in the process more Palestinian land, caps it all. In a ruling handed down in July 2004, the International Court of Justice described Israel’s apartheid wall as illegal. Zionists are also masters at forging history. From the biblical claims that “God promised them this land” described as a “land without a people” (Palestinians are non-people in Zionist mythology), they have gone about uprooting Palestinian families from their homes and villages, often at gunpoint and frequently using it as well, to indulging in mass starvation and killings. By using the Bible as a real estate manual, ironically by people that do not even believe in God, the Zionists have added the myth of selective history to their spurious claims to Palestine. They claim that they have a historic link with Palestine because Prophets David and Solomon (a) ruled the Holy Land 3,000 years ago. It is as if in Zionist mythology, nobody existed before the Hebrew tribes arrived in Palestine — not the Philistines (hence the name Palestinians), the Moabites, the Hittites, the Amorites, or others — and subsequent to the 73-year rule of David and Solomon nobody else inhabited this land until the Zionists arrived to inhabit it. The guilt-ridden Christian West that has historically perpetrated bloodbaths against the Jewish people accepted such infantile claims at face value. Nothing could be more spurious than the claim of Christian charity assuaging the guilt of European Christendom. Christian charity requires the good believer to give from what he has; nothing could be more un-Christian than to “give” stolen property to someone else. Similarly, nothing could be more personal than Christian morality, and so how is Christian dogma appropriated to govern the behavior of nation-states, which in reality wanted to solve the Jewish problem through expulsion? The fact is, Europe and the numerous squatter/colonial entities it spawned — America, Australia, New Zealand, to name a few — never stopped being racist; long before the Third Reich, the so-called “final solution” was discussed in Britain, and a thoroughly assimilated Jew, constrained most of the time to live in his own ghetto, was still not tolerable to the European racist. And so European racism set upon a course to solve two problems with one master stroke. Perceiving themselves to be locked in a life-and-death struggle with Islam, the real purpose of the creation of the Zionist State of Israel was to position a colonial beachhead in the heartland of Islam that would empty Europe of all its Jews and simultaneously act as a permanent impediment to peace and progress in the Muslim world. Israel admirers never tire of reminding the world that it is the “only democracy” in the Middle East. Hitler’s Third Reich was also a democracy yet it perpetrated the biggest bloodbath in European history. The Zionists are busy replicating the Nazis’ horrible record in the Holy Land. There are also a number of racist laws in force in Zionist Israel. One is the Law of Return. Under this law, any Jew living anywhere in the world is automatically entitled to Israeli citizenship upon setting foot there. That the overwhelming majority of Jewish people who occupy Palestine today have no links with the land whatsoever is of little consequence. Palestinians who have lived there for millennia, have to prove their ownership to land or property before they are given any rights. Their papers were often stolen or destroyed by the very Zionist marauders who invaded Palestinian villages and towns in 1947–1948. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were murdered and others driven out through a campaign of terror — and this was before 1948. This is even more critical for Palestinians in Jerusalem; if they are away from the city for more than three months, they lose the right of return. Similarly, every effort is made, fair and foul, to force them to leave. Palestinians are denied building permits not only for new homes but are also refused permission to rebuild. Palestinian home demolitions are a common practice of the Zionists to target Palestinians involved in resistance activity. Concurrent with this was the policy of land grab, the most important consideration after illegal Jewish immigration into Palestine. If a core group of Jewish settlers, the vanguard of the Zionist movement, did not occupy a core area of territory, the Zionist enterprise would not succeed. This is what the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling referred to as “territoriality” being at the centre of the Zionist project. At the time of Israel’s creation, the 30% Jewish/Zionist population owned only 6.5% of the land yet they grabbed 56% of the territory, quickly expanding it further through terror. Three instruments were particularly effective in this theft: the Jewish National Fund (set up in 1901), the Land Ordinance Act of 1943 and, the Emergency Laws decreed in 1945, the latter two courtesy of the British colonial occupation of Palestine. The first stipulated, in typical colonial style, that land acquired by it cannot be resold or even leased to non-Jews. The Land Ordinance Act was applied under the rubric of the “public interest” while under Emergency Law the military governor was given powers to suspend all the rights of citizens. The most convenient pretext used was that of “security” or by declaring certain areas “prohibited.” The Zionist occupiers of Palestine have all these repressive instruments to dispossess the indigenous Palestinian population. All this is done under the absurd and bogus claim that Jewish people are superior to Palestinians and they cannot live side by side with them as neighbors. How else should one describe racism? And regardless of what the cowardly Western rulers and their puppets say, Zionism is racism. What most people — and unfortunately the bulk of Muslims falls into this category as well — fail to recognise is that Israeli racism is integrally connected to the Israeli nation-state. Were it not for the state apparatus, the military, political, economic, and criminal resources required to pull off this grand deception and occupation of the Holy Land would not be possible. Zionism will never become a bitter historical memory unless its eradication is coupled with the dismemberment of the State of Israel and the thorough dezionisation of its Jewish inhabitants. However even this is not enough, as the tentacles of Zionism extend far beyond the borderless pariah State of Israel into the Arabian and imperialist capitals of the world. It is not enough to say that imperialist America and colonialist Europe prop up the Zionist cancer in the Muslim world. The Zionists would never have lasted a day without the willing 80-year complicity of Arabian despots, dictators, presidents, and princes from Morocco to the Persian Gulf. And we are witnessing this complicity explode into the open with the Arabians’ embrace of Zionist Israel. Thus the will to make Israel disappear into the pages of history must also be the will to look for an Islamic post-national alternative to the nation-state fiasco that currently grips the whole world. Were such a will to reassert itself into people-to-people associations across the world, then Jews would once again be free to settle anywhere in the Muslim world, not just in the walled-off military bunkers of Tel Aviv and Haifa. And this directional course has its starting point at the heart of the Arab world, indeed the entire Muslim world: Makkah. Jerusalem will never be free so long as its sister holy precincts in Makkah are not liberated from the crypto-Zionist clan of Saud and its people are not cleansed of their tribal-cum-nationalistic perversions acquired from the sons of Israel. This is the only way to eradicate Zionism — as ideology and as social construct. All partial solutions will land us in the same spot we are in today. Until this racist ideology is uprooted and eliminated utterly and irrevocably, there will be no peace in Palestine or anywhere else in the world.

Shadow Armies: The Unseen, But Real US War in Africa

BY RAMZY BAROUD  

*(A Marine with Africa Partnership Station 13 fires his weapon during a battle sight zero range Sept. 8, 2013. Image credit: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Marco Mancha/ flickr)

There is a real - but largely concealed - war which is taking place throughout the African continent. It involves the United States, an invigorated Russia and a rising China. The outcome of the war is likely to define the future of the continent and its global outlook.

It is easy to pin the blame on US President Donald Trump, his erratic agenda and impulsive statements. But the truth is, the current US military expansion in Africa is just another step in the wrong direction. It is part of a strategy that had been implemented a decade ago, during the administration of President George W. Bush, and actively pursued by President Barack Obama.

In 2007, under the pretext of the 'war on terror', the US consolidated its various military operations in Africa to establish the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM). With a starting budget of half a billion dollars, AFRICOM was supposedly launched to engage with African countries in terms of diplomacy and aid. But, over the course of the last 10 years, AFRICOM has been transformed into a central command for military incursions and interventions.

However, that violent role has rapidly worsened during the first year of Trump's term in office. Indeed, there is a hidden US war in Africa, and it is fought in the name of ‘counter-terrorism’.

According to a VICE News special investigation, US troops are now conducting 3,500 exercises and military engagements throughout Africa per year, an average of 10 per day. US mainstream media rarely discusses this ongoing war, thus giving the military ample space to destabilize any of the continent’s 54 countries as it pleases.

"Today’s figure of 3,500 marks an astounding 1,900 percent increase since the command was activated less than a decade ago, and suggests a major expansion of US military activities on the African continent," VICE reported.

Following the death of four US Special Forces soldiers in Niger on October 4, US Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, made an ominous declaration to a Senate committee: these numbers are likely to increase as the US is expanding its military activities in Africa.

Mattis, like other defense officials in the previous two administrations, justifies the US military transgressions as part of ongoing 'counter-terrorism' efforts. But such coded reference has served as a pretense for the US to intervene in, and exploit, a massive region with a great economic potential.

The old colonial 'Scramble for Africa' is being reinvented by global powers that fully fathom the extent of the untapped economic largesse of the continent. While China, India and Russia are each developing a unique approach to wooing Africa, the US is invested mostly in the military option, which promises to inflict untold harm and destabilize many nations.

The 2012 coup in Mali, carried out by a US-trained army captain, Amadou Haya Sanogo, is only one example.

In a 2013 speech, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cautioned against a "new colonialism in Africa (in which it is) easy to come in, take out natural resources, pay off leaders and leave." While Clinton is, of course, correct, she was disingenuously referring to China, not her own country.

China's increasing influence in Africa is obvious, and Beijing’s practices can be unfair. However, China's policy towards Africa is far more civil and trade-focused than the military-centered US approach.

The growth in the China-Africa trade figures are, as per a UN News report in 2013, happening at a truly "breathtaking pace", as they jumped from around $10.5 billion per year in 2000 to $166 billion in 2011. Since then, it has continued at the same impressive pace.

But that growth was coupled with many initiatives, entailing many billions of dollars in Chinese credit to African countries to develop badly needed infrastructure. More went to finance the 'African Talents Program', which is designed to train 30,000 African professionals in various sectors.

It should come as no surprise, then, that China surpassed the US as Africa's largest trading partner in 2009.

The real colonialism, which Clinton referred to in her speech, is, however, under way in the US's own perception and behavior towards Africa. This is not a hyperbole, but in fact a statement that echoes the words of US President Trump himself.

During a lunch with nine African leaders last September at the UN, Trump spoke with the kind of mindset that inspired western leaders’ colonial approach to Africa for centuries.

Soon after he invented the none-existent country of 'Nambia', Trump boasted of his "many friends (who are) going to your (African) countries trying to get rich." "I congratulate you," he said, "they are spending a lot of money."

The following month, Trump added Chad, his country's devoted 'counter-terrorism' partner to the list of countries whose citizens are banned from entering the US.

Keeping in mind that Africa has 22 Muslim majority countries, the US government is divesting from any long-term diplomatic vision in Africa, and is, instead increasingly thrusting further into the military path.

The US military push does not seem to be part of a comprehensive policy approach, either. It is as alarming as it is erratic, reflecting the US constant over-reliance on military solutions to all sorts of problems, including trade and political rivalries.

Compare this to Russia's strategic approach to Africa. Reigniting old camaraderie with the continent, Russia is following China's strategy of engagement (or in this case, re-engagement) through development and favorable trade terms.

But, unlike China, Russia has a wide-ranging agenda that includes arms exports, which are replacing US weaponry in various parts of the continent. For Moscow, Africa also has untapped and tremendous potential as a political partner that can bolster Russia’s standing at the UN.

Aware of the evident global competition, some African leaders are now laboring to find new allies outside the traditional western framework, which has controlled much of Africa since the end of traditional colonialism decades ago.

A stark example was the late November visit by Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir to Russia and his high-level meeting with President Vladimir Putin. "We have been dreaming about this visit for a long time," al-Bashir told Putin, and "we are in need of protection from the aggressive acts of the United States."

The coveted 'protection' includes Russia's promised involvement in modernizing the Sudanese army.

Wary of Russia’s Africa outreach, the US is fighting back with a military stratagem and little diplomacy. The ongoing US mini war on the continent will push the continent further into the abyss of violence and corruption, which may suit Washington well, but will bring about untold misery to millions of people.

There is no question that Africa is no longer an exclusive western 'turf', to be exploited at will. But it will be many years before Africa and its 54 nations are truly free from the stubborn neocolonial mindset, which is grounded in racism, economic exploitation and military interventions.

 US Africa Policy

RAMZY BAROUD

Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include Searching Jenin, The Second Palestinian Intifada and his latest My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story. 

Al-Quds: Heart of Islamic Unity

At the heart of Islam’s mission is tawhid, the concept of absolute, indivisible divine Oneness. Before Allah’s (swt) revelation to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), Jews and Christians had strayed from this teaching, which was at the core of all of the messages of all of the countless prophets sent to humanity. Jews fell into the error of seeing the one and only God as merely their own tribal idol — one god among many. They have stubbornly continued to confuse their tribal identity with the universal divine Creator. Christians, for their part, fell into the error of confusing the Prophet ‘Isa (a) with the one unique God. This led to such erroneous doctrines as the trinity and, later, secular humanism, the false worship of the merely human.

Just five years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) Muslim armies defeated the Byzantines, and Khalifah ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab formally liberated al-Quds. The seemingly improbable Muslim liberation of Jerusalem/al-Quds was made possible by the sectarianism, mutual persecutions, and oppressions that had become endemic under the Byzantines. Christians persecuted Christians based on arcane sectarian dogmas. Christians persecuted Jews; Jews persecuted Christians (and slaughtered tens of thousands of them when Persian conquests gave them the chance). The Byzantine emperor who presided over all this strife, and indeed contributed to it, taxed his subjects into penury.

For these and other reasons, the Muslim liberation of al-Quds was welcomed or tolerated by a significant portion of the Byzantine population. These Jewish and Christian sympathizers, who viewed the coming of Islam as liberation from oppression, were proven right when the new Muslim rulers proceeded to live simply, lower taxes, and enforce religious toleration. The Muslims soon set to work rebuilding al-Masjid al-Aqsa, and a few short years later, the magnificent Dome of the Rock, which has stood as a symbol of divine unity — and as Islam’s greatest historical and architectural monument — ever since.

Muslim stewardship of Jerusalem/ al-Quds has existed almost as long as the religion of Islam itself. It is a symbol of tawhid in the realm of earthly affairs. Muslims, professing divine Oneness while tolerating and protecting other faiths, have for the most part proved just and able guardians of the holy city and its sacred sites.

Only two bloody historical interludes have interrupted Muslim stewardship of the Holy Land: the Medieval Christian crusades, and today’s ongoing Zionist genocide. Both of these two ill-fated ventures represent blasphemous betrayals of the perpetrators’ own core religious values.

Christians claim to follow a prophet known as the Prince of Peace — a prophet who taught absolute non-attachment to worldly power and material goods. Yet the Crusaders took greed and indiscriminate mass murder to new levels of barbarism. The nominally Christian Crusaders, on their way to the Holy Land, massacred Jewish communities while sparing a few survivors from the banking elites, who (at swordpoint) taught the Crusaders the fine arts of usury. The result was the world’s first international “Christian” usury syndicate, the Knights Templar. Then when they arrived in Jerusalem/al-Quds, the Crusaders massacred all of the inhabitants they could find — men, women, and children alike. 

As Karen Armstrong writes in Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths,

The streets literally ran with blood. “Piles of heads, hands, and feet were to be seen,” says the Provençal eyewitness Raymond of Aguiles. He felt no shame: the massacre was a sign of the triumph of Christianity, especially on the Haram, “If I tell the truth it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much, at least, that in the Temple and the Porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies.”

In the wake of US President Trump’s announcement about the status of Jerusalem, a pro-justice protester holds a banner as he marches toward the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 12-8-2017. All across the Muslim world, in particular, protests decrying the new US policy spontaneously erupted. However, sadly, even weeks after the announcement was made, no majority Muslim country in an official capacity has severed diplomatic or economic ties with the US — just another indicator of the disconnect between the hearts of the people and the loyalties of their rulers.

Today’s even bloodier Jewish-Zionist conquest and ethnic cleansing of the Holy Land — which, like the Crusades, has been perpetrated with the help of an international usury syndicate — follows the Crusader example of betraying the invaders’ own core religious principles. Judaism has always taught that the Jewish “return” to the Holy Land would be accomplished by God, not man. Heretics like Shabtai Tsvi and Jacob Frank taught that Jews should make it happen themselves, rather than waiting for God; but they were satanists, not Jews, and their teachings were repudiated by a consensus of rabbinical authorities. This rejection of Zionism as a satanic heresy remained central to majoritarian Judaism until the 1940s.

It was only after World War II that the shock effect of German crimes against Jews jolted the global Jewish community into relinquishing this central tenet of its religion and embracing the crimes of Zionism. Today, a small remnant of faithful Jews, Naturei Karta, upholds the traditional Jewish faith; while the vast majority of those who call themselves Jews have retreated from that faith, many of them embracing one variety or another of Zionist idolatry.

Today, the 9/11-instigated 32-million-Muslim genocide against Israel’s enemies, alongside recent attempts to secure total Zionist hegemony over Jerusalem/al-Quds, have brought us to a level of barbarism, division, and strife far beyond that of the medieval Crusades. The Holy City, long a symbol of unity-in-diversity under Muslim rule, has become an emblem of hatred and disunity under Zionism. Ironically, this is happening at a moment when communications technologies have brought the world together, allowing us all to witness the chaos as it unfolds.

How should Muslims react to this appalling situation? The key concept is unity. We must remain devoted to tawhid and work for unity on the pan-Islamic and human levels. We must make every effort to unite with all fellow Muslims — and with justice-loving non-Muslims as well — in defense of al-Quds. Differences of race, language, nationality, and religious school of thought should be de-emphasized and put on the back burner as we come together to defend the Holy Land.

Al-Masjid al-Aqsa is built on the site where the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) ascended through the heavens during his night journey to the Divine Presence. On the way he had friendly meetings with the earlier prophets including Musa, considered by Jews the founder of Judaism, and ‘Isa (a), considered by Christians the founder of Christianity. Al-Masjid al-Aqsa thus represents the coming together, in peaceful self-submission to the one God, of the founding figures of the three main branches of Middle Eastern monotheism… and by extension, the coming together in friendship of all monotheists.

This is not the vision of Zionism. The Jewish Zionist movement openly professes its aim to destroy al-Masjid al-Aqsa and build a blood sacrifice temple in its place. The completion of their blood sacrifice temple, they believe, will coincide with the arrival of a Zionist Messiah to rule the world, imposing global Jewish-Zionist hegemony, from that site.

The Christian Zionist movement has a slightly different aim. They believe that by building the blood sacrifice temple, Zionists will “force God’s hand” and compel Him to send Jesus(a) back to earth to wage nuclear war and kill all Jews along with the majority of the rest of the human race.

Obviously both the Jewish Zionist and Christian Zionist plans for the Holy Land are unholy, indeed satanic. They aim at strife and division, not peace and unity. They will insha’Allah be defeated in our lifetime, and Jerusalem/al-Quds will reassume its place as a beautiful symbol of peace, friendship, and unity on earth under the One God.

 

Kevin Barrett

Source: Crescent International

Contrasting Leadership Styles In The Saudi-Iran Conflict

by Seyed Hossein Mousavian

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) is steadily consolidating power in Riyadh and positioning himself to become the most powerful ruler in Saudi history. His rise has been accompanied with a ratcheting up of hostilities against Iran and even war rhetoric. As Saudi-Iran tensions increase, the lived experiences and leadership styles of the 78-year-old Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 32-year-old MBS will decide the future of peace and stability in the region.

Before Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei was a political activist who opposed the dictatorship of the Shah and endured 15 years of prison, torture, and exile. He rose through the revolutionary ranks after the revolution and in 1981, was elected president. During the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988)—which saw the United States and other global powers as well as regional Arab states support the aggressor Saddam Hussein—Ayatollah Khamenei played a key role in overseeing and leading the war effort. MBS, on the other hand, was just born in 1985 and has no comparable experience.

During the 1980s, Iran also faced a wave of terrorism, with the MEK group alone responsible for over 17,000 deaths. Ayatollah Khamenei is himself a victim of terrorism, with one his arms left paralyzed after a bomb attack in 1981. The silver lining of Iran’s history of falling victim to terrorism is that its leaders have become counterterrorism veterans—another reason for Iran’s success in combatting terrorist groups throughout the region. MBS, meanwhile, does not have a counterterrorism track record and was preparing to take the reins of power at a time when, according to a 2014 email by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his country was “providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL.”

Divergent Foreign Policies

Ayatollah Khamenei has for 28 years presided over a state that has been subject to every form of economic, political, and security pressure by outside powers—chiefly the United States—aimed at spurring regime change. However, not only has Iran’s security and stability endured during this period, but the country has emerged as an influential regional power. Policies of sanctions, pressure, and threats of war against Tehran have in fact resulted in Iran consolidating its position as the only regional state not beholden to foreign powers for its security.

Moreover, Ayatollah Khamenei’s national security strategy has been premised on the belief that resisting U.S. hegemonic aspirations in the Middle East is not only the source of Iran’s strength, but allows it to maintain its independence.

On the contrary, the Saudi royal family views the United States as its security guarantor and has relied on U.S. military, political, and economic patronage for decades. In May, MBS signaled his aim to continue this dependency by signing the largest arms deal in U.S. history for $350 billion—and thereby winning full support for his regional and domestic agenda from the White House.

Within the region, Tehran has formed a strategic partnership with Russia. At the behest of the Syrian and Iraqi governments, Tehran has played a key role in those countries to secure their territorial integrity and defeat terrorist organizations in the vein of the Islamic State (ISIS or IS). Saudi Arabia, despite being given carte blanche by the Trump White House, has waded into a quagmire in Yemen, creating the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe with its ferocious bombing campaign. It has failed in its attempt to orchestrate regime change in Qatar and Syria, witnessed its effort to undermine the Lebanese government backfire in full view of the international community, and maintains an ever-more precarious hold over Bahrain. Such actions have earned MBS a reputation as hotheaded and impulsive, with The New York Times noting how many in Saudi Arabia view him as “brash, power-hungry and inexperienced.” Other analysts have stated how under MBS, “Saudi Arabia has become an irrational actor in the Middle East.”

Another vital aspect of Iran’s national and regional security strategy has been its experience in successfully mobilizing popular forces to complement its professional armed forces. Ayatollah Khomeini initiated this policy after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980, which led to the creation of popular militia units that would eventually become the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Basij. Ayatollah Sistani, Iraq’s most senior religious leader, emulated this model of mobilizing popular forces in 2014  after IS overran large parts of the country. The ensuing “Popular Mobilization Forces” played a decisive role in the fight against IS. A similar model has also been implemented in Syria with the National Defense Forces and other groups.

Iran has also made opposition to Israel a core aspect of its foreign policy and has paid a high cost for its support of the Palestinians. On the other side, MBS is rapidly fostering ties with Israel in an attempt to confront Iranian regional influence. Saudi Arabia’s green light to President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel will contribute dramatically to the erosion of the king’s popularity and legitimacy while making it easier for Iran to influence the Muslim world to stand together to resist the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia in defense of the Palestinians and the holy sites.

Ayatollah Khamenei is well entrenched in his position, coming into it by way of a majority vote from Iran’s Assembly of Experts—a popularly elected body. He maintains legitimacy as a political figure and, as a Shia marja, is a religious guide to millions around the world. As recent purges indicate, MBS is sidelining his rivals to ward off potential obstacles to the crown once his father passes away or abdicates.

On matters of the economy, Ayatollah Khamenei and MBS also differ fundamentally. Although both Iran and Saudi Arabia suffer from corruption, chronic unemployment, and an oil-price plunge, Iran has in the face of these challenges taken steps to reform its inefficient subsidy system and diversify its economy. The World Bank has noted how oil accounts for roughly 30 percent of government revenues in Iran, as opposed to nearly 90 percent in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the IMF has said that Saudi Arabia will again this year run a deficit, further draining its foreign reserves. Given that traditionally Saudi Arabia’s influence in the Arab world has been based on its financial power, this declining financial prowess will undermine Saudi political leadership in the Arab world.

The recent protests in various Iranian cities that have claimed a number of lives and injuries are rooted in economic grievances. At the same time, the Trump White House has coordinated belligerent actions against Iran with Israel and Saudi Arabia to more aggressive ends than in the past. MBS, whose consolidation of power in the kingdom Trump has emphatically supported, has explicitly declared that he would take “the battle” inside Iran. After the failures of the coup d’états in Turkey, Qatar, and most recently reportedly in Jordan—as well as the effective hostage taking of the Lebanese prime minister by Saudi Arabia—the Washington-Riyadh-Abu Dhabi-Tel Aviv axis is now seeking to exploit peaceful protests in Iran and stoke instability and chaos inside the country.

Divergent Leadership Styles

Iran’s leader was raised in a poor household and has maintained a modest lifestyle since assuming official positions after the revolution. In contrast, MBS has from birth lived in ornate palaces and never tasted personal hardship or poverty. Last year, The New York Times even reported that he owned a $500 million yacht.

With over 50 years of political, military, and security experience, the Iranian leader is well versed in geopolitics and strategic decision-making and presides over a relatively efficient state with a rich civilization heritage. This is chiefly why, within the region, Iran has been able to make maximum gains with minimum costs, while Saudi Arabia has paid maximum costs and made minimum gains.

Nevertheless, Mohammad bin Salman is a young and ambitious leader who has an unprecedented reform plan to transform Saudi Arabia into a more open society and curb the power of its fundamentalist Wahhabi religious establishment. This is precisely what Saudi Arabia needs. If he manages to succeed, the country will become a major force for stability and development in the region and the Arab world. On the other hand, the entire Middle East will witness a new wave of havoc if Saudi Arabia succumbs to chaos.

After the eruption of the Arab uprisings in 2011, a major change in the region’s geopolitical landscape is inevitable. A zero-sum Iran-Saudi relationship will not only be detrimental to regional stability, it will diminish—not enhance—prospects for Saudi reform. Cooperation between these two major regional heavyweights remains the key element to shape a new peaceful Middle Eastern order and enable MBS to manage Saudi Arabia’s domestic challenges.

Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian is Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at Princeton University and a former Iranian diplomat. His latest book, Iran and the United States: An Insider’s view on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace, was released in May 2014.