Germany's Black Holocaust: 1890-1945
Page 17
Having stated all of the above, now we can get to the crux of the title of our subheading.
Khallid Abdul Muhammad, the Nation of Islam, and the New Black Panther Party are all indicted by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance as anti-Semitic hatemongers[*****************], while not mentioning at all Irv Rubin of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) who advocated murder.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) also lists Minister Louis Farrakhan and Khallid Abdul Muhammad on their Web site as anti-Semites or hatemongers, but do not list, most interestingly, Irv Rubin.[†††††††††††††††††]
Outlined below is information on both Muhammad and Rubin. Based on this information, we invite the reader to draw his or her own conclusion as to whether or not the two individuals should be labeled hatemongers or as members of “hate groups.”
First, we will consider quotes from Muhammad that he made at various times and places primarily in connection with African American and Jewish relations.
Secondly, we will turn our attention to Irv Rubin and take a careful look at what he represented. We will also find out how others characterized him, as well as the organization he headed. Let us start with samplings from Muhammad:
Who are the slumlords in the Black community? The so-called Jews....Who is it sucking our blood in the Black community? A white imposter Arab and a white imposter Jew.
Kean College, NJ
November 29, 1993
I say you call yourself Goldstein, Silverstein and Rubinstein because you [sic] stealing all the gold and silver and rubies all over the earth...we call it jewelry but it’s really Jew-elry, Jew-elry because of your deiving [sic] and stealing and rogueing [sic] and lying all over the face of the planet earth.
Baltimore, MD
February 19, 1994
I called them [Jews] bloodsuckers. I’m not going to change that. Our lessons talk about the bloodsuckers of the poor in the supreme wisdom of the Nation of Islam. It’s that old no-good Jew, that old imposter Jew, that old hooked-nose, bagel-eating, lox-eating, Johnny-come-lately perpetrating a fraud, just crawled out of the caves and hills of Europe, so-called damn Jew. . . and I feel everything I’m saying up here is kosher.
Baltimore, MD
February 19, 1994
The practice of those freakish Rabbis [circumcision] is that they place their lips on the penis of these young boys and after they have cut the foreskin back, suck the blood from the head of the penis of their own young boys....
San Francisco State University
May 21, 1997
Well, I can’t be an anti-Semite, in the sense that they say, because they’re not the Semites. But let’s leave that to the side, whatever the hell they say they are, I’m anti- [sic]. If you say you’re a Semite—even though I know goddamn well you’re not a Semite, if you just say you’re one—I’m against you. If you say you’re white, goddammit I’m against you. If you’re a Jew, I’m against you. Whatever the hell you want to call yourself, I’m against you. Whatever the hell you want to call yourself.
XXL (Volume 1, #1)
September 1997
We came in peace, we came in unity, we came in love, they changed all of the rules, and stop asking me about the Jews being the bloodsuckers of the Black nation, the no-good bastards. They are the bloodsuckers of the Black community.
Million Youth March
Harlem, NY
September 5, 1998
Now, let us examine what has been said or written about Irv Rubin. Because of his untimely death, and the events surrounding his incarceration, much has been bantered about regarding his activities over the years.
Irv Rubin once offered a $500 reward to anyone who killed a member of the American Nazi Party. He proudly brawled with Ku Klux Klansmen on television, and publicly celebrated the murder of a prominent Arab American.
The militant chairman of the Jewish Defense League spent a lifetime waging a belligerent crusade against those he perceived as anti-Semitic. His tactics and means led him to be denounced as a hatemonger himself.
Over the years, Rubin, 56, was arrested more than 40 times, by his own account, most recently for allegedly conspiring to bomb a Culver City mosque and the office of an Arab American congressman from San Diego County.
His extreme views are reflected in the JDL’s slogans: “For every Jew a .22” and “Keep Jews alive with a .45.” But this volatile man fought a solitary cause since he took the helm of the JDL in 1985.
Mainstream Jewish leaders roundly denounced Rubin as a fanatic, a thug and a hooligan. The JDL, whose membership has dwindled to the point where it may now number only a few dozen, has been branded a hate group by organizations within and outside the Jewish community….
Ironically, Rubin and his organization are lumped into the same camp as the very hate groups he fought. The JDL fist-and-star logo appears on the Web site of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, right next to other hate graphics belonging to the Aryan Nations and the Ku Klux Klan.
“A lot of what he did was media sideshow antics—getting into tussles with white supremacists,” said Brian Levin, director of the San Bernardino center. “He never was accepted by any of the mainstream civil rights, anti-hate or Jewish organizations. They all categorically disowned any association with him and rightly so. He’s an extremist.”[208] [Emphasis supplied.]
Well, it would appear that the evidence against Mr. Rubin is clear. As the Los Angeles Times article puts it, his group “has been branded a hate group by organizations within and outside the Jewish community.”
One of those external organizations is the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. The article could not have put it any plainer when it said:
“The JDL fist-and-star logo appears on the Web site of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, right next to other hate graphics belonging to the Aryan Nations and the Ku Klux Klan.”
And while all “mainstream civil rights, anti-hate or Jewish organizations…categorically disowned any association with him,” the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance, as well as the Anti-Defamation League have yet to include him as a hatemonger, and his group, the Jewish Defense League, as a hate group.[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡]
And now we turn our critical eye back to Khallid Abdul Muhammad, and we ask, from the quotations listed above (the very same ones listed on the Anti-Defamation League’s Web site), can we truthfully conclude that he advocated violence against the Jews, or anyone else for that matter? The answer is no.
I am not at all suggesting that he never advocated violence. When he did, it was usually in the context of Black people defending themselves. Our point here is that, as the saying goes, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
If organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance were going to list Khallid Abdul Muhammad and his group as a hate group, surely, given the overwhelming evidence here, it would be incumbent upon these same organizations to list Irv Rubin and his group right alongside Muhammad’s.
Frankly, many Blacks, including Black peace officers, believe Muhammad’s organization should not be listed at all.
Neo-Nazis and Muslims—
A Growing Attraction?
Another improbable alliance between two groups involves the neo-Nazis and a group that has been described as “Islamic militants” by some observers. The catalyst that brings them together? Their dislike for Jews.
An article appearing in the January 11, 2003, edition of the Los Angeles Times states in part:
They are unlikely allies, but right-wing extremists and Islamic militants share a hatred for Israel and the United States that has drawn the attention of German authorities.[209]
But why would neo-Nazis and “Islamic militants” be “unlikely allies” in the first place? Since both have shared “a hatred for Israel and the United Sta
tes,” why is it that they have not joined forces sooner than now?
Surely, they must have been aware of each other’s presence before the dawn of the 21st century; before the year 2003. Well, what say the press?
Though extremists in both camps have been eyeing each other for decades, many are skeptical that such an alliance can advance very far, given broad religious and philosophical differences and the strong racism among right-wing extremists.
Neo-Nazis and skinheads historically have attacked immigrant Muslims and other foreigners for spoiling their dream of a pure German state.
The street-level thugs of the right wing, according to some officials, will not easily abandon anti-foreigner sentiments in favor of joining Islamists in a campaign of violence against the U.S. and Israel.[210]
And what was the singular significant event that has possibly ignited a galvanization of the two groups? Yes, what has caused them to take an even closer look at each other? The Times article offers us the following as an answer:
Since 2001, when Islamic extremists and neo-Nazis cheered the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the two camps have echoed one another’s abhorrence of what they view as a world controlled by Jews and enforced by Washington’s military power. There are no links suggesting that right-wing and Islamic groups are collaborating on terrorism-related strategies, but law enforcement officials are concerned over the growing, and sometimes surreal, attraction between the two.[211]
The “sometimes surreal, attraction between the two” surprisingly, at least to some, goes back for decades. Adolf Hitler felt so strongly that his National Socialist party had so much in common with Islam that, in the 1940s, he met with a well-respected Muslim scholar called a mufti.
More recently, in Gulf-war fighting during the elder Bush presidency, neo-Nazi sentiment was so strong that they made overtures to the Iraqis to fight alongside them against the United States, and by extension, Israel. The article continues:
Hitler entertained the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, in the 1940s because of their mutual hatred for Jews. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, neo-Nazis attempted to form a contingent to fight alongside the Iraqis.[212]
Some neo-Nazis see a familiar, comfortable resemblance in the styles of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein.
And last summer, members of the far-right fringe group Fighting Union of German Socialists attended a ceremony at the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin to receive an award from Saddam Hussein’s regime. “For us,” a member of the group, Tomas Behl, was quoted as saying, “Iraq is of special importance because in Saddam Hussein there is a person who reminds us of our leader, Adolf Hitler, who is standing up against superpower America and who is not willing to bend his knees.”[213]
Finally, certain neo-Nazis were so enthusiastic, yes, even energetic about the growing attraction between White supremacists and Islamic zealots that some neo-Nazis even donned what is universally categorize by a number of observers as Islamic apparel on one occasion.
But there is evidence of attraction between the radical views of East and West. Islamic fashion has even added a dash of color to the drab skinhead uniform of high boots and jeans. Neo-Nazis have been appearing at German rallies wearing Palestinian scarves and calling for worldwide intifada.[214]
It is not at all too difficult to conceive of neo-Nazis and other White supremacist groups rooting for Saddam Hussein during the war launched against Iraq by the younger Bush. They were doubtlessly sadden by the Iraqi defeat, but gladdened by the damage Saddam was able to inflict on the American psyche.
This has been a quasi-detailed review of several unlikely bedfellows who make up some of the strangest, most convoluted liaisons that many sociologists have ever seen, observed, tracked, or even studied.
What situations these marriages will ultimately give birth to has yet to be seen. End of story.
Final Thoughts
It appears that many people sincerely believe that one day all humanity will indeed live in a world, yes, an earthly paradise even, where everyone will love one another. Where, absent the threat of war and violence, everyone will live in peace, security, and harmony. Where the human race will truly be one. Where happiness will abound.
Ironically, in varying degrees, this is what the Nazis wanted for their families. This is what the Africans wanted. This is what the communists wanted. This is what the Jews wanted. This is what Black nationalists wanted. This is what White supremacists wanted. This is what the Muslims wanted.
Observers say the problem arises when someone wants to take these basic human rights, needs, and desires from someone else. Some go even further and state that greed, corruption, hatred, selfishness and other bad qualities are so ingrained in man’s psyche, so entrenched in his soul, that the world describe above is only a dream.
Martin Luther King, Jr. had that dream, but he is dead. And, as they see, his dream died with him.
Nevertheless, what he, Ghandi, the Biblical prophet Isaiah, and many others firmly believed is that the dream still binds us, as much as some of us may hate it, together as the human race.
In conclusion, perhaps we would do well to latch on to that dream, hope, and desire that tugs at us.
The simple words of the most famous person to have ever walked the earth, and whose sayings are, ironically, universally accepted, come to mind.
The meek shall inherit the earth.
Beginning of story?
Appendix A
Shocking Revelations: Part I
The following information was taken from the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. An anonymous person who was very thorough in his/her investigation conducted the research itself…
As a result of this early Namibian struggle for survival, about half of the Nama population of 20,000 had been killed. As prisoners of war, they suffered the same fate as the Hereros. Many died of maltreatment in camps or as forced laborers. They were also deported to German colonies in Cameroon and Togo.[215]
Historian Horst Dreschler[?] commented: While the German imperialists evinced some interest in the surviving Hereros as potential slave labor, their attitude toward the Nama was quite different. In the pseudo-scientific racist thinking of their colonial masters, the Nama figured as a lazy and work-shy breed doomed to extinction.”[216]
The files of the Imperial Colonial Office reveal that the official policy of the German government was to deport and destroy the Nama. Until mid-1906, the Witboois and Bethanie people were held in concentration camps at Windhoek and Karibib. When Colonel Berthold von Deimling took over as the new commander-in-chief in South-West Africa, he ordered them to be transferred to Shark Island in Luderitz Bay, apparently because no guards would be needed there.[217]
Most Nama, unaccustomed to the conditions on Shark Island, with its chilly and humid climate, died soon after arrival. A missionary reporting on the situation of the Nama on Shark Island wrote, “If things go on like this it will not be long before they have died out altogether.”[218]
Although the colonial administration in Berlin did not always agree with the local colonial commander on this genocidal policy, it was the representative “on the ground” who gave the orders accordingly as he perceived the threat of rebellion. Eventually the human cost of German colonial rule in Deutsch Süd-West Africa resulted in the killings of no fewer than 80 percent of the Herero and 50 percent of the Nama.
The uprisings gave the German colonialists a welcome excuse to conquer militarily. The defeat of the Namibian resistance in 1907 marked the end of any independent tribal social and political life in the South-West territory. From this point on, Germany systematically took over the land and effectively eliminated the civil rights of the remaining indigenous population.
The “Imperial Decree of December” (Dec. 26, 1905)[219] gave the governor legal excuse to “sequester” the African’s land at this own discretion. The German Colonial Governor Friedrich von Lindquist—who later became secretary of the state for the Colonial Ministry o
f the Third Reich—declared the whole Hereroland as German Crownland.
South-West Africa was not immediately confiscated because Chief Morenga was still alive and retribution, in the form of rebellion, was feared from the Namas. Later, after Morenga was gunned down by the British, a new directive was issued to include taking over the land of the Namas. With confiscation of their land, the Africans were unable to raise cattle. The only territory spared was that of the Rehobothers, since they had not participated in the uprising they were permitted to keep their native land and cattle.
The Imperial Decree was severely criticized in the German Reichstag. Matthias Erzberger, a young deputy of the Center Party, who was the leader of the party’s imperialist wing, characterized the Decree as large-scale robbery allowing the blacks only to be toilers for the white man. The taking of slaves from Africa had continued for some 400 years from the mid-15th into the 19th century. Only decades back.
Now Erzberger, calling the Imperial Decree the entry of modern slavery into South-West Africa, opposed the incompetence and shiftiness in German colonial rule in Africa. As one means of uniting his split party, he sought to make joint cause against colonial scandals reported from other German colonies. The decree was issued amid revelations of atrocities against the indigenous peoples in other German colonies and amidst news of corruption and personal scandals of the colonial administrators.[220]
The Social Democrats in the Reichstag were also split on the colonial issue. However, August Bebel, the leader of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag, condemned the imperial colonial policies as a mere pretext to wrest the land from the natives so as to profit the settlers. His conclusion: “We are well aware that the Government would be only too happy to grab the whole of Africa if we were given a chance.”[221]
The Reichstag, in turn, issued a resolution, on May 30, 1906, calling on the government to hand back to the Nama and Herero as much land as they needed for living. Even this resolution, however, provided ample room for interpretation. In the years to follow, Germany began transforming Namibia’s colonial economic system into one geared solely to advance the profit of the German economy. Surviving Namas and Hereros were used exclusively as farm laborers and cattle herders on German farms. The indigenous population of Namibia was subjected to the entire list of racial, social, and economic discrimination.