Minister Louis Farrakhan answers questions on ...

In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Minister Louis Farrakhan (MLF): Whenever God sends a Warner or a Messenger to a people, the duty of a Messenger, first, is to deliver a message that will guide and reform a people that have been misguided and are living a life that keeps them out of the favor of Allah (God). Our fathers [were] brought into America as slaves and robbed completely of the Knowledge of Self�our names, our language, our culture, our religion and our history taken from us�and then sold as chattel for 310 years. Then, under the so-called Emancipation Proclamation, (we were) given a form of freedom but not the knowledge that would make us self-respecting, self-determined and unified that we could take advantage of the freedom that we were given. So, every ethnic and racial group that has come into the United States has been able in a short time to take advantage of what America offers and move from poverty to strength, while we, having been here longer than anyone except the Native Americans, are still struggling. That shows not that we are less human than others, but that there is something lacking that we need in order to be able, not to beg for equality, but to really make ourselves equal. This is why Allah (God) raises a Messenger. � America is today in the same position that ancient Egypt was in, in relationship to the Children of Israel who were under her rule and authority for 400 years until Allah (God) raised Moses from among the Children of Israel to guide them, to reform them, but also to warn Pharaoh that there�s something Pharaoh has to do to get out from under the judgment of Allah (God). America is in that same position.

MLF: Of course. What has to happen, first, is a recognition of wrong. There is not a real recognition of the horrible [treatment] that was done to Black people. Once there is recognition mentally, there has to be a confession openly. America has never admitted to us, "We�re sorry for what was done to you and your people." America has not repented for such. If you repent of a bad action, then you don�t do that anymore.

Repentance has to be followed by a correction of that principle or that practice that led to the grievance. Then there is atonement, something that you do in atonement for what was done. In the case of the Children of Israel, Allah (God) wanted Pharaoh to let them go because He had a plan to make (of them) a great nation unto Himself. America is in that position. She can win with Allah (God) by doing justice to those who were deprived of justice inside of her house. That includes the Native Americans who have suffered a tremendous injustice that has never been properly addressed and redressed. � And this means that America needs a voice of warning to warn her that these (acts) bring consequences. The consequences in ancient Egypt were the destruction of [Pharaoh�s] army and the destruction of Egypt as a world power. The plagues that ill-affected Egypt are seen ill-affecting the United States of America. But it is only to get her attention, that she may listen from this terribly high position that she�s in and turn and become the greatest nation that has ever been.

MLF: First, you have to analyze what was done and the effect of what was done on those to whom it was done. Then what do you do to repair that? You can�t just give a Black person who has been destroyed mentally, psychologically, even spiritually and morally, money as expiation for sin. We know that the day after, that money would be right back in the hands of White America because we don�t have the kind of mentality that would allow us to use wealth well.

Our people need, first, to be taught, to be given that knowledge that would reform us and make us civilized so that we could fit as an equal member in any civilized society and in the best of civilized society. That knowledge is with us now, but the freedom to teach it, we need that. Second, after teaching, we need institutions that will help to cultivate our gifts, skills and talents that we might use our gifts, not only for the good of ourselves, but for the good of the nation. Third, we can never become great economically without land. When there was an Emancipation Proclamation, Blacks owned millions of acres of land. Now, Blacks are almost landless in comparison to what we had. There will never be economic strength among us as a people without ownership of land. � We don�t need people to give us handouts, but we do need justice that would allow us to take whatever we�re given and do something with it to build a future for ourselves and our children. That�s what White America could do toward redemption and atonement.

MLF: The worst is self-hatred, believing that the Blackness of our skin is something of a Divine Curse and that Whiteness is something of a Divine Blessing, so that when we see ourselves in the mirror, we wish that we were White instead of being born Black.

MLF: Yes. But they are so small, because to be White is to be privileged in this world. To be Black is to be subjected�no matter how high you go in society with whatever degree you may have�to a certain kind of treatment. Self-hatred is the worst effect of slavery treatment and the slavery indoctrination. The effect of that is perpetual division, perpetual betrayal of each other, and perpetual self-destructive behavior. Right now in the Black community, we are the ones that are killing each other. You may talk about Donovan Jackson and what happened�this White (Inglewood, Calif.) policeman bouncing this young Black man off of the hood of a car and it�s seen all over America�and you see our people rise up in anger. But the night before and the day after, there were Blacks killed in that same city by Black people. When a White person does it, then we want to raise hell. That�s a sign of the self-hatred. There are a lot of things that are the effects of slavery that we have to be washed from.

MLF: First, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, as a master psychologist, had to break the magnetic attraction between Black and White, the (law of) unalike attracts. He had to force us to look at ourselves. He went into history to show us the best of what we had done, to show us the best of what we could do in modern history. Our anger that was against White people, he turned it against cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, fornication, adultery and all of the negative things that have accrued to us as a result of slavery. Then he used that anger to make us see that we could make ourselves into a self-respecting people. He made us clean ourselves up. And whenever you saw a Muslim, you saw them well dressed, groomed, courteous, respectful, but productive. He made us to love knowledge, to seek knowledge. Every day of our lives we were striving to know more. Then he showed us the value of land and we purchased land. He showed us the value of doing business, to create business to serve our own people. He did a marvelous job of helping to wash us of the ill-effects of slavery and that work is still going on and it still needs to go on, with the help of Allah (God).

AF: (There is) a new proposed policy called the White Paper. Are you familiar with that at all? The Institute for Strategic and Political Studies, or something along those lines, (is) proposing that we (U.S.) make Africa one of our main oil suppliers in the wake of September 11, that we divert our focus from the Middle East and focus on Africa as our main oil supply. � I want to get your take on what that could mean for Africa? The Congressman who�s sponsoring the bill, I talked with his aide, and she says the idea is to establish the same kind of alliance with Africa that we have with Israel.

MLF: That�s not true.

MLF: They don�t have the same alliance with Africa that they have with Israel.

MLF: It still wouldn�t be the same. Even though Israel has been the recipient of 54 years of aid, they will never give that kind of aid to Africa. Israel has no oil or anything to offer America. Africa has much wealth to offer America. This is the reason why there is bloodshed in the Sudan, because they found oil reserves in the Southern Sudan greater than what is in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. They want to annex Southern Sudan away from the North by exacerbating the conflict between the South and the North. � The West, in talking about Africa, is talking about Africa completely from the position of a dominating mastery of the wealth and resources of Africa and the purposeful elimination of African people so that Africa could be a continent of White people rather than a continent of Black people. That�s going on right now as we speak. I don�t trust anything that a White American in Congress would say about Africa without our intervention in it, our oversight of it.

MLF: He is not Black; he only looks that way. We have many like that and that is the disease of slavery. That�s why we are easy to betray our own best interest, because � we love and want the friendship of White people to the detriment of ourselves. That came out of a White man�s head using a Black man. He�s like a frog in the mouth of the dragon. � The book of Revelation says the dragon swallowed up the frog and the frog was in the mouth of the dragon. So you hear the frog saying, "bleep-bleep, bleep-bleep," but he�s really talking the thoughts of the dragon. Here you have a Black man out in front on a bill, but who benefits from that bill? It appears that Black people will benefit, but the real beneficiary is the dragon that swallowed that frog. It�s my duty to expose the frog and get the frog out of the mouth of the dragon. � Black people are not vindictive toward White people. Enlightened Black people will do what they have to do and allow Whites to have a share in that, but not exploit it to the detriment of Africa.

MLF: I know we�re living in Revelation times and I know we�re living at the end of the present world of White rule and domination. There is going to be a new world and if White people are going to live in it, they will have to live in it as a partner with human beings under the rule of Allah (God). If not, then the war that is coming will destroy many, many, many, many people from the face of the earth. You know already that Allah (God) is acting. � According to Pat Buchanan, the population growth in Europe right now is not zero population, but it is less than zero. Zero population growth would mean that for every White child that�s born, a White person would die, but now it�s less than that. He�s saying that in 50 to 75 years, if this continues, there would be very few Whites left in Europe. This is going on in America as well. If Allah (God) sets His hand against the womb, then it doesn�t have to be race war. Time itself is going to take those that Allah (God) is angry with off the planet. The enemy now is saying, "Well, if I�m going, you�re going with me." So Africa is being depopulated, the Caribbean is being depopulated through AIDS. And that�s afflicting our community moreso than anyone�s in the United States of America. But all of that will come to a halt. It is our hope that those warmongers who are in positions of power, that if we can wake up America, Black and White and Brown, we can take back the government that has been hijacked by powerful lobbies and make America what America could become.

At the end of Revelation, Babylon was gone and a new world was set up. It wasn�t set up by Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney and the G-8. It was Allah (God) and His Christ setting up a New World Order that I want to live under that I hope you and other decent Whites would want to live under where there would not be hatred, where there would not be violence, where there would be brotherhood and love between human beings. That�s the world I hope for. That�s the world I want to help Allah (God) to bring in with the help of many, many others. Thank you so very much.