From The Final Call Newspaper

  

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: A Year End Interview For 2016 And Looking Ahead At 2017

By The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Jan 3, 2017 - 1:47:17 PM

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Richard Muhammad (FCN):  As-Salaam Alaikum. I’m Richard B. Muhammad, editor in chief of The Final Call Newspaper.  We are pleased to have our founder, publisher and the National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, with us for a year-end 2016 and looking ahead at 2017 interview.

Brother Minister as always we are pleased and honored to have any opportunity to speak with you and to hear words of insight, analysis and guidance—but especially as we go into the New Year. I thank you personally and I thank you on behalf of our staff, our readers and the F.O.I. (Fruit of Islam) who take this newspaper across America.

On January 20, 2017 a major change is scheduled to take place in America with the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States.  What does this change portend for the United States, the world and Black America? 

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (HMLF):  First let me personally thank you Brother Richard, your staff and all of those who take this paper in every part of the United States of America and even in other parts of the world.  Thank you for your service, your stellar service, in the year 2016.

We thank Allah for bringing us to this point safely through this year and we pray that Allah will be gracious and merciful to us and even make 2017 a more successful year in expanding the readership and the influence of the wonderful messages that are in this unique newspaper.

On January 20, 2017 there will be a change of the guard.  Many, many Black, Brown and Native people are worried over what may come from a Trump presidency.  Some Caucasian people are upset but many more see hope in Donald Trump, who has already broken all of the norms of what presidents say and how they say it, what they do and how they do it.  He is a huge question mark in the eyes and minds not only of many inside America but people who rely on America throughout the earth are concerned about what his presidency will bring.

We take this approach: Nothing happens but by the permissive or active Will of God.  Certainly the American people, 64 million of them, voted for Mrs. Clinton.  But Mr. Trump took the presidency and shocked the media, shocked the political pundits and shocked capitals around the world.  So what happened is from a power bigger than the powers that usually control.  We happened to see it as a possible lull, as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, predicted before the storm.  But his presidency is not going to avoid the storm and therein lies the great problem and question that his administration faces in the upcoming years of his tenure in office.

FCN:  Brother Minister you mentioned of course the extreme level of disappointment certainly within Black America.  At the State of the Black World Conference, maybe a month or so ago, you talked about what this new political reality in the U.S. means for a new reality for Black people.  Can you speak a little bit to how Black folks should consider what is happening in the country; in particular in light of what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has taught us?

HMLF:  As you may recall in that lecture and in other lectures in the time of the election I said that Mr. Trump is a wind that is blowing on the dry bones in this valley.  We have found it exceedingly difficult to unite as a people to confront the impediments in the pathway of our progress toward true freedom, justice and equality.  So we like the dry bones are in this valley and we have lost hope that we would ever unite.  And the words of the first lady of the United States of America, Mrs. Michelle Obama, in her interview with Oprah Winfrey she expressed a sense of hopelessness.

First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama

Hopeless why?  Because the thing that she, and we, and her husband, our people trusted to keep a path open of inclusion of progress for some in an administration governed by Mrs. Clinton is gone now.  But this that has happened we believe is the Will of God.  For when the Son of Man, speaking to the dry bones could not produce the unity that he desired, he was told by God to prophecy unto the winds and the winds blew on those bones and ultimately they stood up an exceedingly great army.

Donald Trump, his administration, their thoughts, their attitude and the attitude of many Whites that feel liberated by the advent of Mr. Trump—that attitude will begin to manifest greater pain and hurt for our people.  No matter what he may try to do for us; an attitude has been brought to the surface by his candidacy and is one that White people have felt a loss in these last years, loss of their position of supremacy.  Now there’s a sentiment growing; they have to put the Black, the Brown, the Red back in a place that they have cut out for us.  But God has in mind a better place for us but that can’t happen under a so-called integrated pathway; it can only happen when we are united and desire a land and a government of our own where we can be free, justified and equal.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

So Mr. Trump is a part of that wind and his way will signal other winds to blow on the bones.  But in the end he will probably be the best news for the future of a united Black people by the attitude that is taken toward our rise.

FCN:  Brother Minister I think you may have answered this question but if you would, I would like to explore it just a little more, maybe have you expand on it just a little more.  Eight-years-ago we saw President Obama come into office with an incredible amount of enthusiasm, positive energy and hope. He was able to appeal across racial, age and gender lines.  He campaigned on the theme ‘Change We Can Believe In.’  Mr. Trump—of course—a totally different even divisive message ‘Make America Great Again’ which most Blacks saw as heralding back to the bad old days.  In that eight-year period what happened that has had such impact, what one person called a white lash?  What happened in the last eight years?

HMLF:  Why would there be a white lash?  Most of us have not understood the nature of the people in whose hands we have been for the last 460 years.  We have fallen in love with our open enemy because we have hope that one day they will receive us as an equal or treat us as an equal.  And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to us that is not going to happen.  Any kind of unity with our former slave masters and their children has to be on their terms and not on ours.  Otherwise their power and their arms and their will, will be against our rise as it always has been.

So now the white lash is based upon the nature that they were made to rule and to rule for a specific period of time which is now up.  So the darker people of the earth are challenging the rule of Whites over them.  And that challenge is coming up in the rise of our people and our desire for justice, our desire for equity and our desire for greater freedom, greater equality of opportunity. So our desire for all these things that should come to us, and it looked like in the advent of the presidency of  Barack Obama we were on the way to achieve more of that.  But after eight years in office the lullaby of what he represented is now leading to a rude awakening and White people are now lashing out because making America Great Again to many means Make America White Again. 

‘Bring back White Power, bring back this idea that no one is better than we and we are better than all.’  So this wind will blow on Black people from every direction to force us to come to the realization that we cannot get along in peace with this people after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment ever accorded to a human being.  This is going to pick up with greater force, these winds, and so the bones will ultimately be forced to come together.

And when they see this mask of civility taken off and now you see an enemy that hates our shadow.  And like Abraham Lincoln said, ‘you suffer from being here with us and we suffer from your presence among us.’  This is going to come to a head and the Will of God will be carried out which is that the Black and the Brown and the Red we must go free in a land of our own; not under White supremacy but ruled under our own wisdom, knowledge, understanding and the guidance of God.

FCN:  Brother Minister thank you. I can really just go and explore more and more, the answer to that question was so magnificent. But I’m going to try and contain myself and move forward with another question. We just saw recently in Fort Worth, Texas, a Black mother manhandled by a White police officer.  She and her daughters were arrested after she called 911 because a White man had allegedly choked her son.  She was a victim yet she ended up victimized.  We saw a mistrial in the trial of officer Michael Slager accused in the shooting death of Walter Scott in South Carolina. We saw no charges in the killing of Keith Lamont Scott by police in Charlotte, North Carolina.  We have seen other instances where Black men and women were shot and killed by police yet nothing happened; the officers were not charged.  Without justice, but with these continued assaults and loss of life, where do you see things headed in this country?

HMLF:  If wisdom does not prevail we’re headed for revolution.  Black people can’t take much more of this kind of treatment.  And there are Whites in this nation that are angry with their government.  Mr. Trump has successfully destroyed the influence of the media which has been used by corporate powers that control the media to set up or sit down whomsoever they please.  That power has been broken. 

And now the media and its acceptance is probably, according to one pundit, lower than the esteem afforded to members of Congress which has teetered at 14 percent down to as low as nine percent—and the media is below that.  So all the forces that can be used to produce trends or curtail trends—now those forces have been broken.

Mr. Trump is the first president that has the ability to change the ultimate course of American politics; that is national and foreign policy.  But he, if he yields more to Israel in the quest of  Israel to continue settlements and to deny Palestinians their right of self-determination in a nation of their own, there will be a conflagration in the Middle East which is going to bring China, Russia and every nation into the War of Armageddon.

This is the storm that Elijah Muhammad said America is going to face and couple that with divine judgment that has entered America because of her consistent mistreatment of Black people.  Now that they have no jobs for us and they can’t make jobs for us, the policy then is to find a way to get rid of as many of us as they can.  And this is kindling a greater anger in the God who is present today to bring us into the sphere of freedom and justice.  The battle is His and He is able to fight it and none can hinder him.

So the forces of nature; rain, hail, snow, earthquakes, wind, sleet, heat, cold—all of this is being brought to bear.  Famine is coming to America like no nation has ever seen in fulfilling the prophecies of Jesus and other prophets of both the Bible and Holy Qur’an.  This is a serious time.  So if Mr. Trump, who loves to make a deal, is a wise leader and sees the handwriting on the wall which it was in the time of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar: ‘Your kingdom has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.’ What is the way out?  What will give America a greater extension of time?  What will cause some of these forces of judgment to be diminished and even put away for a while?  It is giving us justice; letting us go and giving us a final settlement for what we have done to make America great; to make her rich and powerful and fight in all her wars to keep her in that position even though we have not advanced as a people to real freedom with land and opportunity to build a nation of our own.
Well America, the choice is yours.

Mr. Trump can facilitate that separation once he sees that the war is right at our door and once he sees that the calamities are increasing, let’s make a deal.  And the deal is what it was with Moses—let us go and give us a good send-off and God will remove the clouds of war that are hanging over our heads and remove the judgment and delay it and give America time again.  Never to be as great as she once was, but it’s not greatness, it is to exist as a nation.  The choice is America’s. The choice is Mr. Trump’s, the choice is his government’s to make.  Whatever choice they make nothing, nothing will turn the Will of God and make God’s Will of non-effect.

May God bless us in the New Year to understand more of God’s Will and may Allah bless us to come together with all of the scholarship that we have been blessed to gain in America; all of the wealth that we have been able to accumulate and now turn that toward self in our own development.  Otherwise we’re going to suffer great, great pain as these winds blow from the four corners of the earth.

FCN:  Brother Minister these challenges and losses that Black folks suffered in 2016 are one side of our experience.  But on the other side there was I think what could be called a banner-year for the Reawakening of the Black Athlete, notably Colin Kaepernick with his protest against police violence, but others were part of that.  What does this reawakening or this growing into consciousness among athletes and even celebrities mean?  Certainly we’ve seen you talk with brothers like The Game, Snoop and others and we have seen them speak, like Killer Mike, speak to the injustice and the need for justice for our people.

HMLF:  What it does Brother Editor it brings us into a clash with the forces that want to keep things as they are or put them back where they were where White supremacists will be more comfortable with our presence.  That’s not going to happen.  Our people are not going back to that; they’re not going to accept that.  So the more we awaken, the more we challenge the powers that have kept us down, the more we challenge those powers it brings great pain and suffering to us.  These are the winds that are blowing now that will force America to make a decision.  What shall we do with 40 million to 50 million Blacks?  What shall we do with 50 million Hispanics?  What shall we do with five or six or eight million Native Americans?  What shall we do?  You can’t kill us all.  So at some point the art of the deal will have to come to the table.  And no cowardly Negro who doesn’t know what justice looks like can be at a table negotiating for us.

FCN: Even as you were talking about us not understanding the nature of these people whose hands we have been in, I was thinking, “My God what does it take for a people who have suffered like this to come to that ultimate conclusion?”  Is it almost only utter destruction that will make us recognize the truth?

HMLF:  Yes. That’s why the Scripture says those who did not heed the call of Moses and Aaron God cause them to be bitten by fiery serpents which the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said are angry White people.  So all Colin Kaepernick and all the brothers that are standing up and Black Lives Matter pushing up, all of this is bringing about anger to the forces that have controlled us but now see how difficult it’s going to be.  So they have to either beat us all the way down and kill us or let us go.  There’s no other alternative because they can’t stop the rise, they can’t stop the awakening—they can’t.

May Allah bless us.  Thank you brother.  As-Salaam Alaikum.

FCN:  Walaikum Salaam. Thank you, sir.