The following is by Ben Ishmael Salahuddin
the author of The Afrocentric Myth
THE ISLAMIC SOLUTION TO THE ISSUE OF "RACE"
The Human Genetic Diversity Project was recently denied
United Nations/UNESCO endorsement and, probably, funding. A
group called the Association of MultiEthnic Americans is
lobbying
Washington, D.C. to add a multiracial category to the
questionnaire for the next census. And, there are now 250
million human beings who live outside of their home country.
What do these seemingly disparate issues have in common?
All three are issues which are impacting the time-honored,
Western-born notion of "race." Before getting to the meat of
this article, let me bring you up to date regarding two of
the
above issues.
The Human Genetic Diversity Project (sometimes called
the
Human Genome Project) is an effort by scientists to compile a
database of human genetic material. Scientists claim that
this
project will yield insights into disease and "make a
significant
contribution to the elimination of racism." In some sense,
it
has accomplished this goal. In 1994 the project concluded
that
genetic variation from one individual to another of the same
so-called "race" overwhelms the average differences between
"racial"
groupings. In short, the pseudo-scientific idea of "race"
has
been shown to be without any scientific backing. It is sad,
though, that this project has been the victim of the
historical
racism which it claims it seeks to eliminate. Why? Because
the
South (meaning, third-world countries) is suspicious of the
project. The South suspects that there may be a hidden
agenda
behind this project which could include one or any combination
of
the following:
1. A commercial motivation to obtain patent rights for
genetic
materials which are found to have medicinal value for
certain diseases, and which are collected from
aboriginal
peoples (e.g., the attempt to patent a cell-line derived
from one of the Panamanian Guaymi people);
2. An attempt to create "ethnic bombs," using genetic
materials
to wage biological warfare against the ever-increasing
populations of the South (experts say this is an
impossible
feat, but third-world people are concerned due to past
mal-treatment
from the West);
3. The continued propagation of a world-view which is based
on
utilitarianism without regard to humanitarianism. The
South's argument is that the project displays more
concern
for saving the genetic material of endangered aboriginal
peoples than in saving the peoples themselves.
It seems that the above objections by the South
convinced
UNESCO to deny endorsement for the project. This shows what
the
stench of racism has done. Because even if it can be assumed
that the motivations of the project are straightforward, this
will not matter to the South: the project's work may have to
be
abandoned because the South (quite understandably) feels too
nervous due to the racialistic and materialistic history of
the
Western peoples.
Regarding the second issue, it has now been discovered
that
children born of "mixed" marriages in America (usually
children
of "black" and "white" parents) are experiencing deep
psychological problems when they fill out official forms
which
require one to identify one's ethnicity.
Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, a rule established
in
1977 (and administered by the Office of Management and
Budget)
which set the guidelines for racial and ethnic standards on
all
federal forms, breaks America down into four "racial"
categories:
American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander,
Black and White. Only one of these categories can be chosen
when
filling out forms. So if a child is of a mixed marriage
between
a "black" American and a "white" American, he or she must
choose
either Black or White--not both. A new breed of parents and
children are extremely angry with these categories. The
children
of mixed marriages view this as having to choose one parent,
while denying the existence of the other. Parents feel
frustrated because they don't know how to explain this to the
children. So they are lobbying Washington, D.C. to add a
"multi-racial"
category to the next census which comes up in the year 2000.
The issue is very confused and almost maddening. By
1924,
urged on by white supremacists, American legislators banned
whites from marring anyone with a "single drop of Negro blood."
Of course, even earlier in Virginia during the 1800s, a
person
with less than one-fourth "Negro blood" could be white. It
seems
that what has been called the "one-drop rule" has now turned
out
to be a very painful experience for children whose pure minds
cannot comprehend the racial politics of American society.
In addition, a veritable social upheaval may be on the
horizon as African-American leaders fear that large
"defections"
may occur amongst African-American people who may choose to
identity themselves on federal forms as "multi-racial" rather
than black. Why are African-American leaders fearful of this?
Federal aid to minorities is distributed based on formulas
which
use census data in order to decide the proper amount of aid
to
extend to minorities. If a significant number of
African-Americans
"defect" (as black leaders call it) to the "multi-racial"
category,
then it is believed that various programs which aid blacks will
be jeopardized.
Another problem which African-American leaders worry
about
is representation in American government. Congressional
districts are created to comply with The Voting Rights Act
which
prohibits districting plans that systematically dilute
minority
voting strength. After the 1990 census, 13 new
majority-black
districts were created and each one elected an
African-American
in both 1992 and 1994. African-American leaders fear that
the
new multi-racial category will threaten their political
representation after the next census, because it is suspected
that 10% of African-Americans will choose the "multiracial"
category.
As Wade Henderson, director of NAACP's Washington, D.C.
governmental Relations Office said,
"Well, we signed a letter against creating a
multiracial category of the census because we
believe that that category will eviscerate
protections that now exist in the law for
African Americans..."
But leaders in the multiracial community point out that
their rights should not be overlooked in preference to
another
group's rights. As Charles Michael Byrd, the Editor and
Publisher of Interracial Voice, said,
"Henderson unmistakably believes that it's
all right to trample on the rights of
individuals of mixed-heritage to prevent, as
he sees it, the constitutional rights of
others being overridden."
Another fear expressed by African-American leaders is
that
the drive to create a multiracial category might lead to a
"colored" class similar to the class which existed under the
former apartheid system of South Africa. It is said that
this
could create a "buffer zone" between blacks and whites. It
is
feared that the "colored" class would enjoy more privileges
than
the blacks.
Were it not so painful, this issue would almost be comical.
In fact, it is beginning to border on the ridiculous. German
Americans argue that they have suffered discrimination;
Hispanics
want "race" to be distinguished within their ethnic
classification (e.g., "Black" Puerto Rican or "white" Puerto
Rican as opposed to just "Puerto Rican"); Hawaiians want to
be
shifted from the Pacific Islander category to the Native
American
category; Arabs from the middle east don't want to be white.
My God! How did this mess begin? Well, in point of fact
it
did have a beginning. Before we examine the simple Islamic
solution to this perplexing, modern-day problem, let us look at
a
very brief history of the issue of "race."
For 97% of human history, the idea of "race" did not exist.
There were tribes, of course. But, historically, the notion
of
"race" is a modern one. Opponents of racism have tried to
suggest that this "European" invention was ancient. Well,
although "race" was created by certain Europeans, it is not
true
that Europeans were historically "racist." In 1970, Frank M.
Snowden, Jr., a professor of classics at Howard University
published a book called Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in
the
Greco-Roman Experience.
This book was a detailed and scholarly study of the
early
encounters of Europeans and Ethiopians in the Mediterranean
region. Mr. Snowden discovered that the Greeks and Romans
did
not possess racial attitudes like we find in the modern world.
He showed that in ordering the form of state that emerged
between
1000 B.C. and 300 B.C., they did not link skin color and
other
physical traits to assessments of a man's worth.
Another scholar named Ivan Hannoford wrote an essay
entitled, The Idiocy of Race in which he argued that European
ancients such as Aristotle, Hesiod, Cicero, Virgil, etc.
argued
that a man's worth was measured chiefly by his participation
in
political life. So we can see by the above two examples that
the
idea or race, as I stated before, is relatively new in human
history. How did it start?
The history of the development of the concept of "race"
is
extremely intricate, and the number of people and ideas which
contributed to this concept is large. So, I will give only a
brief summary of this history so that I can present the
refreshing and thirst quenching Islamic solution to this
tragic
problem.
Modern scholars trace the origins of the idea of "race"
to
certain Spanish scholars of the 16th century. After the end
of
Muslim rule in Spain, Spanish exploration of the New World began.
The year 1492 is cited as the beginning of this exploration
as
that is the year Christopher Columbus "discovered" this New
World. The Spanish explorers, or conquistadors, were
searching
for gold. The natives they encountered in the New World were
dealt with by the conquistadors in a ruthless manner. They
were
either enslaved or killed. If they lived, they were forcibly
converted to Christianity.
In Spain, scholars tried to justify these atrocities by
inventing the idea that these New World natives were a
different
type of human being from the conquistadors. It is said that
this
was the first attempt in human history to divide groups of
people
on strictly biological grounds [the Hindu caste system is an
entirely different story, and too intricate to detail in this
article]. This idea did not succeed in Spain because, prior
to
the expulsion of the Muslims, many generations of Spaniards
were
produced as the result of the intermarriage of native
Spaniards
with the Muslims, and they could not digest this idea of
"race"
since they were of mixed heritage (much the same way that
many
American multicultural families today cannot digest the idea
of
racial distinctions).
Although the idea of "race" was dropped in Spain, it was
taken up later--through a gradual process--in England and
elsewhere. Many so-called scholars had been trying to
explain
the discoveries of 16th and 17th century explorers. Who were
these new people being discovered by the explorers? That was
the
question. Frangois Bernier, Georges Buffon, and Carolus
Linneaus
were just a few of the people who were toying around with the
idea of classifying human-kind into various, rather
arbitrary,
groupings.
In 1775 Mr. Johann Blumenbach wrote a book called, On
the
Natural Varieties of Mankind. Blumenbach is widely
considered
the "father" of anthropology, and his book synthesized the
earlier attempts of the individuals mentioned in the previous
paragraph. Blumenbach distinguished five varieties of
mankind
determined by climate, pigmentation, and skull size:
Mongolian,
Ethiopian, American, Malay, and Caucasian.
It does not appear that Blumenbach was a racist, for he
stated, regarding mankind, that "you see that all do so run
into
one another, and that one variety of mankind does so sensibly
pass into the other, that you cannot mark them out the limits
between them." But, as Mr. Hannaford points out, Blumenbach
left
a "door ajar," which others used later to push their racial
views.
In order to assuage the doubts surrounding how to
account
for the differences between mankind which did remain,
Blumenbach
suggested the existence of a force called the nisus
formatives
(formative force). To Blumenbach, this force responded to
things
such as climate and mode of life, and it would alter human
beings
accordingly. Blumenbach saw this force as one which unified
our
species. So how was this idea used later to promote
racialism
and division?
This idea of the "life force" began to spread in Germany
and
elsewhere in Europe. Johann Fichte, for instance, in his
Addresses to the German Nation (1807-08) claimed that the
"life
force" was realized through personal quality in the blood.
In
fact, Mr. Fichte went on to suggest that the German race had
been
naturally selected by God for eminence [Did this idea
influence
Adolph Hitler later?], since Germany's geographic,
biological,
and climatic "advantages" must naturally give them a superior
nisus formatives.
This idea began to be expanded. Not only Fichte, but
others
like Kant, Hume, Wordsworth, etc. began to suggest that
German,
French and English peoples were descended from ancient and
noble
peoples who carried a superior nisus formatives. It was the
next
natural step for Europeans to begin to see their outer
physiognomical features as superior, due to the superior state
of
their nisus formatives--their superior "life force."
The next figure to help shape the European concept of
"race"
was Bartold Niebuhr (1716-1831). His book, History of Rome
(1811-32), was powerfully influential for generations of
English
historians. He re-interpreted the history of Rome as a
history
of racial conflict between Romans and Etruscans, rather than as
a
conflict between classes or religions. Now one had ever done
this before! It was an arbitrary re-interpretation to suit
his
ideas of race. He wrote that "the order of the history of
the
world" was "to fuse the numberless original races together,
and
to exterminate such as cannot be amalgamated." As Hannaford
points out: "This reinterpretation of the history of Rome set
the
stage for the racialization of history."
Later, Herbert Spencer's Proper Sphere of Government
(1842)
and Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species (1859) seemed to
lend
even more credibility to the idea of distinct "races" amongst
human beings, each fighting not in the competitive spirit
which
is outlined in Islam, where competition is considered good
but
where the competitors help each other even as they compete
against one another. On the contrary, competition between
the
"races" became a part of the philosophy of Social Darwinism;
a
philosophy which stated that certain peoples had "defective
natures" (to use Herbert Spencer's phrase) which doomed them
to
an immutable condition of inferiority. [It must be stated
that
scholars have indicated that Charles's Darwin's theories of
nature were abused by others after him to construct a social
agenda which ranked human beings according to race].
Around this same time, Joseph Arthur, comte de Gobineau
published his book, The Inequality of Human Races (1853),
which
claimed that the Aryan race is the derivative of civilized man.
He also stated that the purity of the race can only be
preserved
if the blood of the Aryans is maintained, unmixed with any
other
inferior blood. So here again we see how the concept of
nisus
formatives remained a thread in the pseudo-scientific fabric
used
to weave the racial garment which continues to threaten the
peace
and security of the entire earth to this very day.
In 1913, Houston Chamberlain (1855-1927) wrote a book
entitled, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. This is the
book which is generally considered to have directly impacted
upon
the thoughts of 20th century's most vicious criminal--Adolph
Hitler. This book influenced thousands of people in Germany,
Britain and the United States, especially between the years
1899
and 1914. The first edition of his book sold 60,000 copies.
Yet
again, the notion of nisus formatives emerges in his book in
his
belief that certain forces resided in certain wandering
peoples,
such as the Celts, Slavs, Germans and Romans. The eugenics
movement was directly influenced by the entire history of the
development of race. The eugenics movement began to suggest
that, for the good of the human species, inferior people
should
simply be exterminated. Hitler took the suggestion quite
seriously and quite literally.
The above was a brief outline of the sordid history of
"race," and modern racism. It is the Will of Allah ("and
Allah
would bring to light what they were hiding") that modern
science--specifically, molecular biology--has exploded the notion
that
human beings can be logically classified on the basis of
distinct
genetic traits and assigned fixed "racial identities" based
on
such traits. The work of people like Rebecca Cahn of the
University of Hawaii has proven that all human beings were
derived from one person.
Of course, it took hundreds of years of unnecessary
social
turmoil before modern science finally proved what Allah had
said
in the Holy Qur'an 1400 years ago:
"Mankind were one community, then they
differed among themselves, so Allah raised
Prophets as bearers of good tidings and as
warners, and sent down with them the book
containing the truth that He might judge
between the people wherein they differed.
but then they began to differ about the Book,
and none differed about it except those to
whom it was given, after clear Signs had come
to them, out of envy towards one another.
Now has Allah, by His command, guided the
believers to the truth in regard to which
they (the unbelievers) differed; and Allah
guides whomsoever He pleases to the right
path." (2:214)
What is the Islamic solution? It is a simple solution,
and
does not take all the time which I took above in explaining
the
history of the concept of "race." Allah says in the Holy
Qur'an,
"O mankind, We have created you from a male
and a female; and We have made you tribes and
subtribes that you may know one another.
Verily, the most honorable among you, in the
sight of Allah, is he who is the most
righteous among you. Surely, Allah is All-Knowing,
All-Aware." (49:14)
This verse explains that Allah distinguishes human
beings
based on considerations which have nothing to do with genetics.
So in this verse lies the key to the problem of "race."
People
must see each other through the light of the Divine Attributes
of
God. And the person who best reflected those attributes was
the
Holy Prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah of Arabia. What was his
identity? Early in his life he was identified by the Arab
tribes
not according to which tribe he belonged, but by the quality
of
his character. Even before he was a prophet he was called
Al-Amin (the truthful).
We must recognize the historical basis for the creation
of
"race" as a purely social construct (with a little
pseudo-science
and hocus pocus thrown in for good measure!). After that, we
must return to a primary definition of ourselves which is
rooted
in the sunna (practice) of the most perfect man--the Holy
Prophet
Muhammad (sas). For it is he against whom we measure
ourselves
when trying to establish an "identity." As I stated in my
book,
The Afrocentric Myth or Islam: The Liberator of the American
People,
"Humbleness, courage, love, courtesy,
tolerance, patience, honesty, chastity,
munificence, etc., are the qualities that
establish true primary identity and we find
the best example of those qualities in the
life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (sas)."
For those who have a problem with religion, I have said
nothing different from what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated
when he pointed to the equality of human beings as the
benchmark
for social justice by pointing out that people should be
judged
by the "content of their character" rather than the "color of
their skin."
[Incidentally, don't assume from the above quotes that
the
book is simply "touchy-feely." The Afrocentric Myth covers
some
very important rock-hard issues and reveals some cutting-edge
information and analysis on current thinking in the areas of
"race," religion, and the politics of "world-views."]
If I as a member of one of the most historically
despised
people in America--the so-called "African-Americans"--can find
my
way through the dark clouds of racism which have hung over
human
history, then certainly anyone else can choose the identity
which
Almighty Allah chose for his creatures in the Holy
Qur'an--Muslim.
Be sure to visit the other links on my page. I hope you
will join the hundreds of others who have purchased my book,
The Afrocentric Myth. I am certain that you will be
satisfied
with the general message of the book. But whether Muslim,
Christian, Hindu or Atheist, we all must realize that our
world
is shrinking rapidly. Whatever your belief system, I'm sure
you
will agree that the principles of your particular belief
which
point to unity are the principles which must be highlighted
in
this day in order to bring peace and harmony to this world.
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