Louis Farrakhan addresses 20,000 people Sunday at McCormick Place.

Louis Farrakhan’s return as the head of the Nation of Islam was met with an audience 20,000 strong, cash support totaling more than $25,000 and a religious nation looking to him for solutions – none of which had anything to do with Barack Obama.

 In fact, some Nation of Islam officials told the Medill News Service that they were not aware that the minister’s keynote speech at the annual Saviours Day 2008 celebration would be dominated by support for the senator.

“Obama was an important factor, but this event was about making sure we were all united in our struggle” said Ashahed Muhammad, assistant editor of The Final Call, the organization’s official newspaper.

“We’re living here in the United States; we have the same questions and concerns as everyone else. The emphasis was on uniting the oppressed people.”

But despite the surprise, Muhammad said he knew that Farrakhan planned to address a prevalent concern among members: There are some evils, internal and external, facing the Nation of Islam.

The weekend celebration, to commemorate the Feb. 26 birth of Master Fard Muhammad, the Founder of the Nation of Islam, focused on family, identity, economic hardship and the challenges that face the younger generations who will carry the nation’s ideals.

The theme, “The Gods at War: The Future is All about Youth,” addressed the fear that younger generations are facing a slow demise by their own hands and those who are enemies of the Nation of Islam, which Ashahed Muhammad defined as “anyone who is against justice for our people, anyone who uses manipulative tactics to keep people down. They can be any color.”

Farrakhan’s anticipated address capped off a weekend of workshops focusing on various topics from relationships to the mortgage crisis. And Islamic youth came out in hopes of a morale boost and unified support from the organization’s members.

“I am hoping to gain a consensus with the rest of the believers across the nation,” Sharifah Muhammad, 20, said during a town hall meeting at McCormick Place on Saturday.

“Minister Farrakhan always delivers as if he can read the minds of the people in the audience. He always says what we need to hear. We just need to make sure that all the believers across the nation are on the same page.”

Farrakhan admitted that the presence of the nation has diminished since the 74-year-old leader underwent life-threatening surgery in January 2007 to battle prostate cancer. But now proclaiming health and stealth, he said he is ready to return and build the infrastructure of the nation.

“You know how it is when you go to the bathroom. You don’t invite a lot of people in when you go in,” Farrakhan said. “I wanted by the grace of God to put the Nation on the best road possible to make up true and better servants of our people … so, that internal work is still going on. But I cannot stay on the inside, when there’s so much to do on the outside.”

The outside work began not with a call to support Obama, but rather with a call to the members to take notice of the world around them – the part of the speech that the minister aptly titled: “The world in peril.”

Citing the War in Iraq, extreme weather patterns and economic crises as signs of the end of days, Farrakhan said he is seeking to guide a nation that he suggested in his absence may not have known they were in peril.

“We see floods, drought, famine. There are new and incurable diseases, viruses and plagues sweeping across the country – this is no longer biblical prophecies,” Farrakhan said. “These things are here – right in America. In just the last month, there were rare, winter tornadoes right here in the Midwest, fires, mudslides. In 2007, the U.S. experienced the second-highest level of extreme weather events since they started keeping records.”

The minister continued, “We see the drying up of lakes and rivers. Every day they are reporting more and more sightings of these so-called unidentifiable, foreign objects. It’s hard for America to admit that a greater intelligence, a greater technology, a greater science is in the world than anything that they know or ever conceived of.”

This, Farrakhan said, led to him urging members to embrace and master the technological age and secure economic investments such as land and other indispensable resources. He criticized President Bush’s economic policies, which he said will dupe members into economic turmoil.

The minister even suggested a Chinese conspiracy in the recent toy recalls that poisoned American children to illustrate the tumultuous relationship America has with the rest of the world.

“What’s going on? Why is all of this happening at this time?” Farrakhan asked. “It is because … The Gods are at War. And you don’t even know that the war has already started and you are being victimized right now by the arch-deceiver.”

He even used recent events seen as progress in international affairs to warn members.

“A few nights ago Kosovo declared its independence. That doesn’t mean anything to you. You haven’t declared yours yet,” he said.

That independence, Farrakhan said, would be captured by the youth if they could survive long enough.

“The country is spiraling downward,” Farrakhan said. “There’s a high level of stress that we see manifested in children, 10 years old, having strokes. Diabetes. Lethal obesity. Heart problems.”

He also criticized hip-hop artists, whom he deemed responsible for the glamorization of sex, drugs and violence. But even some he criticized were in the audience in support of the minister’s words.

Mitchell “Divine” Diggs of the popular rap group Wu-Tang Clan, who joined the Nation of Islam at 14 years old, attended Saviour’s Day events, including town hall meetings at which he addressed his role in the negative effects of hip-hop on youth.

“I’m a product of moving out of the ghetto, but returning to the ghetto to refine it, to dignify it, to moralize it,” Diggs said. “That’s what I want [the youth] to see when they look at Wu-Tang. I want them to see we made it out as a family, we remain a family and through trials and tribulations we return as a family. And that’s what makes Wu-Tang different from any other rap group.”

Diggs acknowledged that there is still a lot to be done and said he supported Farrakhan with $5,000 for more programming to address the topic. He joined hundreds of others who enthusiastically gave money to the Nation of Islam to replenish Farrakhan’s resources as he looks to carry out a new vision.

According to Ashahed Muhammad, this vision entails using the momentum of Farrakhan’s speech in re-establishing the nation’s identity. “We’re not struggling for our existence; we’re struggling for what it really means – to define who we are.”

“People don’t give their money if they don’t believe in you and say: Whatever you decide,” Ashahed Muhammad said. “Because of his vision, he is able to do what we can’t do for ourselves. They are making a statement that I am willing to invest in the survival of our nation.”

Despite a backlash over Farrakhan’s speech, Ashahed said that feedback from members indicated that Farrakhan’s keynote address was a success.

“He is what we call an organic leader – leadership that is not elected and placed before you, based on Democrats or Republicans,” Ashahed Muhammad said. “Leadership based on the will of the people. Clearly the U.S. hasn’t made him a leader. Clearly, the media hasn’t made him a leader. The people have made him a leader.”

In his own words: The Obama Factor

We are witnessing the phenomenal rise of a man of color in a country that has persecuted because of our color. Yet, this young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow and Native Americans and Asians.”

“If you look at Barack Obama’s audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed from what they were--his language is raising them above their racial, ethnic, cultural, religious differences and he is welding people into a ball that has never been seen before!”

“Now, you know, you might say ‘gee, I don’t think Barack is black enough,’ He wasn’t supposed to be. If you want a black leader, there’s Rev.Jackson, there’s Rev.Sharpton, there’s Louis Farrakhan. We are black, we know it, and we don’t apologize.”

“It’s difficult for somebody who has an all-black district to understand the skill and wisdom of a man who is not the black candidate, but the American candidate, who wants to unite the American people. You may not agree with him. Then stand on the sidelines and watch because it has never been done before.”

“A lot of impediments have been thrown in his path. He sees them. And there’s more to come between now and the primaries in Ohio, Texas and Long Island. But I have to be very careful in what I say. But I think I see what I’m looking at. And I never try to look at my hand. I always look to see where God’s hand is. Where’s God in this?”

“We have never seen Caucasian people vote like this for a man of color. What’s going on? Who is this young man?”

“There are Caucasian people right now who don’t see Barack Obama’s color. They see that man as the only one able to save this country from itself. I’m a dispassionate person; I ain’t asking nobody to vote for nobody because I know in the end the outcome is all in the hands of God. And those are the hands I want to be in. But when I see Republicans say, ‘You know, this Obama guy, he’s got something.’”

“I saw Ted Kennedy introduce Barack Obama with a passion that I had not seen in Mr. Kennedy for a long time.”

“Nobody, white or black, has the experience to deal with the fall and decline of a world and the greatest nation in that world.”

“Listen brothers and sisters. He can’t be black like some of us. Don’t be mad. You came up out of Mississippi. You know what suffering is – torture is. You come up out of Georgia, Louisiana, Texas. Barack didn’t have that. He had an African father and white mother. He’s truly an African-American. There’s no hate in that man.”

“How’s he going to be a racist? When the mother that taught him and the grandmother that raised him and gave him the love that nurtured him are white and his father’s black. Who is this guy? Don’t look to him to be a hater. That man has empathy for people who are African, black but he has empathy and love for people who are white. Don’t try to make him into you. Accept him for who he is, or leave him alone.”

“The Devil and God have talks. That’s why Barack said he’s not afraid of negotiating. And he’s not negotiating out of fear.”

“Obama doesn’t represent the politics of yesterday. I fear for my brother. We don’t want to see another Coretta Scott King.”

“This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better because a black man may become president.”

“Some people thought that Barack should wait about 10-20 years. Become more seasoned. America doesn’t have that long.”

“When you bring race into it, you defile Islam”

“Brothers and sisters, Barack Obama to me is a trumpet that alerts me that something new, something better, is on the way.”

“If he loses, all of us are lost.”

“Anytime he gives you a sign of uniting voices, ethnic groups, ideologies, religions and makes people feel a sense of oneness. That’s not necessarily Satan’s work. That is, I believe the work of God.”

“Young people, you are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about change. That’s why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process they didn’t care anything about. That’s a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will heed. And the Messiah is absolutely speaking.”

Northwestern.edu 

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=79673