Some Wars Never End
Revelations of FBI, police operation against Jamil Al-Amin are troublesome

by El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
-Guest Columnist-

A few years ago, Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin and I were having a casual conversation as I drove him to the airport following a speaking engagement in the Washington area, when suddenly I posed a question ... one that I had been eager to raise with someone of his background and stature for a long time.

What were his most vivid recollections of the "Civil Rights" era? What was it like? His immediate response was: "It was a war."

In order to understand this response, one would have to know something about that struggle, and this particular brother�s role in it. While the mainstream media harps on his being a former Black Panther, while regurgitating some of his most sensationalistic rhetoric, they rarely give any context to their reports. For example, in the 1960s, H. Rap Brown (as he was known then) had become politically involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an organization which had courageously initiated peaceful protests and demonstrations to accelerate desegregation in the South.

SNCC was on the front line; the young activists were engaged in the most dangerous part of the civil rights struggle�subjected to police beatings, vicious dogs, high pressure fire hoses (which could literally rip the clothes off your back), and the occasional loss of life. In many instances only then�after the most dangerous work had been done�would some of the mainstream civil rights leaders come in and bask in the spotlight.

By 1966, under the leadership of Stokely Carmichael, SNCC rejected its earlier policy of nonviolence. In May 1967 (at the age of 23) Brown was elected chairman of SNCC, succeeding Carmichael; and by 1968, much of SNCC�s leadership had merged into the Black Panther Party.

The transition of young civil rights activists like Brown and Carmichael, from the methodology of confrontational nonviolence to the use of self-defense, was summed up in H. Rap Brown�s oft-repeated quote: "Violence is as American as cherry pie. ... This country has delivered an ultimatum to Black people. America says to Blacks, �You either fight to live or you will live to die.� I say to America, Freedom or death."

The late J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI labeled the Black Panthers, "the most dangerous and violence prone of all extremist groups," and proceeded to mount an undeclared war against the organization and its leaders. Some wars never end. For more than two decades the man once known as H. Rap Brown, has been Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin�a practicing Muslim, a stabilizing force in his West End Atlanta community, and one of the most recognized and respected leaders in America. Despite this, however, we now learn that Imam Al-Amin has been the subject of an ongoing government investigation for the better part of the 1990s ("Eye on Al-Amin," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 1, 2000).

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution report states that Imam Al-Amin (and his community in Atlanta) was investigated by the FBI as a possible "domestic terrorist" from 1992 to 1996, and by the intelligence squad of the Atlanta Police Department for unresolved homicides in the city from 1992 to 1997. The FBI reportedly had paid informants inside Al-Amin�s Community Mosque, and given the history of the FBI in such intrigues, it would stand to reason that the Bureau had agent-provocateurs planted as well. The question is, why? In a recently published article in the National Review (February 21, 2000, pp.40-41), noted commentator Daniel Pipes, an influential voice in U.S. policymaking circles and a virulent anti "political Islam" demagogue, takes aim at a number of American born Muslims whom he considers a threat to the "American way of life." He observes, "... The one time radical H. Rap Brown, now known as Jamil Al-Amin, declares, �When we begin to look critically at the Constitution of the United States ... we see that in its main essence it is diametrically opposed to what Allah has commanded.� "

This, supposedly Constitutionally-protected sentiment, may be at the heart of Imam Al-Amin�s troubles. If so, he is not unlike a growing number of immigrant Muslims who have been victimized by the U.S. government�s selective and unconstitutional use of secret evidence solely because of their beliefs and/or alleged political affiliations. He joins persons like the Algerian Parliamentarian Dr. Anwar Haddam (imprisoned without charge in the Commonwealth of Virginia since December 1996), or Palestinian university professor Dr. Mazen Al-Najjar (imprisoned in Florida without charge since May 1997).

Imam Al-Amin was clearly targeted because of his religious convictions, and while the U.S. Attorneys� office declined to file charges after the FBI turned over its findings ("We proceed on federal charges only when we believe we have actual evidence," said Gentry Shelnut, chief of the criminal division), those investigations could still factor into the Imam�s current criminal case. Some wars never end.

(El-Hajj Mauri� Saalakhan, a human rights advocate based in Washington, D.C., serves as director of the Peace and Justice Foundation.)