'How Strong Is Our Foundation; Can We Survive?' Part 2

By The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Mar 4, 2014 - 10:07:48 AM

[Editor’s note: The following article contains edited excerpts of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s keynote address delivered live on Sunday, March 2, 2014 at Mosque Maryam in Chicago, Illinois. This message is now available in its entirety on Instant Audio/Video Download, DVD and CD at Store.Finalcall.com. We strongly encourage all of our readers to get this critical message in its entirety.]

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

I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, Who came among us as it was written, in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, The Great Mahdi of the Muslims, and the long-looked-for “Son of Man” of our Christian Family. We thank Him so much for His coming: As it is written of him, He heard “the moaning and the groaning” of The Children of Israel because of the harshness of their oppression under their tormentors and slave masters; and so, He didn’t send “somebody”—He came Himself to see after us.

We thank Allah that we were in Detroit last week where He first appeared among us; we thank Allah that Detroit has become the “Black Bottom”—and so, He comes again at a time when Detroit that gave economic life to America, industrial life to America, is now in “the throes of death”: He comes again. But he comes again in us.

The “question” that will always be asked, and has to be answered: “Is He present in you, in me, in us?”

My Christian Family: If “Christ” is “the head”—and we are “his body”—then Christ has to be in us, or we’ve been disconnected from “the head.” And if The Christ is not active in our being, in our words, in our work, then somehow Satan has disconnected the so-called “body of Christ” from “the head.” So our hands are not doing the Work of Righteousness, our feet are not walking the Path of Righteousness, nor are we actively engaged, not in “church business” or “mosque business,” but are we active in the Business of Building the Kingdom of God on Earth?

All of you were taught by your mothers and fathers, if you’re Christians, “The Lord’s Prayer.” “Our Father…”—I like that! See, if he was “the Father” of Jesus, and Jesus told you to say “Our Father,” then look at your words, look at your actions, look at your thoughts, and ask yourself the question: Is he really “the Father” of my activity today?

You cannot deny that Allah (God) was the Father of the activity of Jesus. Every day of his life he worked for the kingdom. Are we really his? Or has Satan deceived us, and we hold on to his holy and righteous name as a shield for a dirty practice that we do in his holy and righteous name?

We thank Allah for His Choice of a man from among us. God has come to deliver you from your oppressor, and settle you in a land of your own under His Presence and Guidance.

“How Strong is The Foundation; Can We Survive?”: If your “foundation” is this world and this world’s life, you’re not going to be “successful.” All that we do, all that we’ve accomplished, we’ve accomplished hoping this world would finally “accept us,” finally “do right by us,” finally “give us justice.”

But the more we try to please our open enemy, the more we try to please our oppressor, it seems like in every generation we’re fighting the same battle against the same enemy. He passes on his madness to generation after generation, and we pass our ignorance generation after generation, after generation. Somehow, this is has to stop.

I thank God that He has chosen us to put a stop to it, so that never again should another generation of Black men, women and children have to continue to suffer. But that means accepting responsibility to be an agent of change.

Don’t look for a “Mystery God” to drop down out the sky—no, no, no! We’ve searched for that “Mystery God” and we’ve tried the “Mystery God” for food, clothing and shelter—and we’ve received nothing but hell! We’re not going to lose any more time searching for that which does not exist. God is Real and we are His People, and we are real.

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“Strong”: How do you measure “strength”? The strength of a thing is measured by its ability to withstand great force or pressure. Some say, “Farrakhan, you’re a strong man.” Why do you say that? I went to buy a pair of shoes yesterday, and the man was so happy that I came in his store; he said to me: “Brother, I wanted to give you a pair of shoes … because you’ve been out there, taking all the bricks for us.” You can tell who a man is by measuring his enemies. If your enemies are little punks out there, you’re not anything—I mean you’re a little something. But if your enemy is the Government of The United States of America, there must be something to you. The Satanic Jews that control everything and mostly everybody: If they are your enemy, then you must be somebody. And if they have not been able to move you off your square; if they have thrown everything at you including “the kitchen sink”—and maybe the toilet too—and you’re still standing strong, then evidently there is a Force Field around you that is able to withstand the punktified force of this world.

But guess what? You’re strong too, because we have survived everything that the enemy has put on us, and we continue to grow, to multiply, to rise—as Maya Angelou said, “And Still We Rise”! We have a great future. The enemy knows it, and he wants to deprive us of the future that God has Promised us.

Our work, or lack thereof, manifests in conditions on Earth

“Our Father…” Where are You at, “Father”? “…which art in heaven.” Where is that? Where is “heaven”? Is it a place in the sky? Or is it a condition that is “high above” the condition of your life right now?

“Our Father…” and I would rather say it like this “in the heavens.” “… hallowed (sacred) is Your Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done…” Someone has to work His Will in order for His Will to “be done.” If you are the body of Christ and you are not working His Will, then you are not bringing the Kingdom “from the heavens” to “the earth”—so you are suffering in hellish conditions in your houses, in your cars, in your schools, in your organizations, in your churches, in your mosques. So, all we can do is sing about heaven, talk about heaven, shout about heaven. But if we are not working The Will of God, then heaven will never come to the Earth.

“Heaven” is peace of mind and contentment: Not living in a lot of stress. I want that little bit of heaven. Heaven is when you can pay your bills because you’ve got enough money to pay your bills. Heaven is when you’ve got a happy home life: A good wife by your side, a good mother for your children. And if you don’t have a job, you’re wise enough, intelligent enough, creative enough, forceful enough to make a job for yourself.

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“How Strong is The Foundation:” What is a “foundation”? It’s support for a building. It’s a part of the building usually below the ground that transfers and distributes the weight of the building onto the ground. If the foundation is not strong, there are natural forces coming against the building and eventually the building is coming down.

“How Strong is Your Foundation; Can We Survive?” What is the meaning of the word “can”? It means “to be able to”; “to have the ability to”; “to have to power or the skill to”; “to know how to”; “to have the power or the means to”; “to have the right or qualification”—to survive.

Do you have the knowledge? Do you have the ability? Do you have the skill? Do you have the power or the means? Do you have the right or qualification to survive?

Evidently we’ve got something because we have lived under a condition that God has never asked another human being to live under. You have lived under the worst form of slavery and oppression of any people that ever lived—we must have something because we’re still here.

You are strong. You are mighty. So you can survive, but the bad thing is you don’t have the Knowledge of what’s coming and the Knowledge of what you must have to survive what is coming.

“How Strong is your Foundation? Can We Survive What’s Coming?”: The scripture teaches “the gates of hell will not prevail against that stone.” Stone means that community, that kingdom, that nation. It doesn’t mean the gates of hell are going to stop trying to destroy it, because “hell” can only exist if “heaven” doesn’t come in. When Heaven is at the door knocking, Hell is getting ready to put up a fight.

‘Stand your ground’: When will enough be enough?

I want to just talk a little about what some of the Black leaders appearing in the banner I presented on Saviours’ Day said before they died. Look at what Frederick Douglass came to see; after a lifetime of belief in America, he gave his last address in 1894 in which he said,“The leaders of America have shaken my faith in the nobility of the nation.”

How about your faith? Can you take more “Stand Your Ground”? Can you imagine a man killing our babies because they’re playing their music “too loud”? That man (Michael Dunn) tried to kill all of the boys—he never called the police. He went with his girlfriend and ate pizza—while the ones that survived went to the home of the father to tell him that his son Jordan Davis was dead.

How long can you build your faith in a nation where you don’t get any justice?

Wouldn’t it be something if we stood our ground and said,“I feel threatened. I’m going to shoot before he shoots me! I feel threatened!” How many Black men walk the streets and feel threatened? But, their Stand Your Ground law isn’t for you, Stand Your Ground is for White folks, to hide murder behind the law.

Police have arrested some of us for traffic violations; they get you down in the jail house and you never come out alive.

How long can you build your future, hoping in this?

You’ve got a Black “attorney general,” but how many cases of injustice to Black men and women tried in the White court system has the Justice Department come to the aid of, with a just decision being rendered after the Justice Department looked at it?

Frederick Douglass, who was about to die, finishes: “The immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me.” This is in 1894. Can you continue to shut your eyes to the ugly facts that are in front of us?

That’s why they want you high. The more drugged you are, the more stoned out of your mind you are, the more sex-driven you are, you’re not looking at the storm clouds gathering above your head. That’s why “Thy Kingdom” can’t come, because you are disconnected from him who never got disconnected from God.

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I know “Negro History” was last month—but we should have it every day of every year, and study about ourselves—and what the Enemy has done to make us like we are today. Some of us are as cold as that White man who could go kill and eat a pizza. You drive by and kill your brother, your sister, because they’re not part of your street organization. Then you go to McDonald’s and sit down and eat a Big Mac, and talk about how you “smoked that nigga.”

The kind of hatred that’s sitting up in our hearts for each other makes us instruments of death in the hands of our Enemy.

People who want to pick up guns to kill the enemy for our freedom have always been considered “the most dangerous” among us.

Did you know it was the United States Central Intelligence Agency who called the authorities in South Africa to tell them where Nelson Mandela was and what he was dressed like? They got our brother and put him in prison. While he was in prison, Winnie Mandela, his ex-wife—a great Black woman—held the fort! And if you’ve seen the movie Mandela, Winnie wasn’t playing. She put a tire around Uncle Tom’s neck, put gasoline in the tire, and set Uncle Tom ablaze. And do you remember that scene where she met with Brother Mandela in prison, and he is telling her, “You can’t keep doing that.” Brothers and sisters, what I want you to see is that Nelson Mandela, in prison, was growing into a real deep thinker—and sometimes you can think beyond the ability of your followers to perceive your thought pattern and then your followers begin to fall away because they want to kill White folks.

I can’t blame anybody who thinks like that. Do you know why? Because you would not be a natural man if you didn’t want to kill those who kill you and get away with it.

The Whites in South Africa controlled all the weapons and the Whites were the masters of the intelligence apparatus not only there, but linked together nations in Africa through whose borders weapons would come. Nelson Mandela knew if he were released and started an armed struggle, there would be no South Africa for the Blacks to inherit.

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Brother Malcolm X: Brother Malcolm was my teacher I grew up under him. I didn’t know how to be a man, I was in music, playing the violin, singing, dancing—it can make you soft, you know what I mean? When I met Brother Malcolm, I met a man—the first man in my life. I never heard a Black man talk like Brother Malcolm. At one point, I said, “Well, they say God is a ‘man.’ That must be him.” He would teach on Sunday and I would be in the barber shop on Monday. I memorized his whole subject.

I didn’t ask anybody for their permission. You don’t need anyone’s permission to tell the truth to your people who are dying in ignorance. And that is “what must be done”!

A ‘perfect love’ for God makes menand women fearless

One of our brothers was killed in California when police raided the mosque. In those early days, it wasn’t “easy” being a Muslim: Police would come to the door, and we would fight. We don’t carry any weapons but we’d beat the heck out of anything that came to our door. We don’t carry any weapons. We don’t have them in our houses, and if you do, get them out of there, because Allah is God!

We have fought, and some of us have died, but they, the aggressors, have died too! We would not allow any man to mistreat our woman, because that was a “death sentence”—and we carried it out.

I’m going to tell you something about the kind of man Malcolm’s Teacher is! One of the things that “Islam does for you” is it takes out of you fear. And if you look at yourself, you’ll see fear is your worst enemy—not the White man. It is your fear of the White man that gives him power over you. We didn’t have any fear. We would fight knowing that our oppressor sometimes was armed and we were not, we never backed down. Because our God had power over the gun, the mind of the shooter and the finger that’s on the trigger.

And He (God in Person of Master Fard Muhammad) told Elijah Muhammad: “They haven’t made a gun big enough to shoot you!” Elijah Muhammad said things that Black people are scared to even think—and he did it for 44 years in our midst.

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You don’t forgive anyone who has ill-affected you—you go to your grave cursing them. But you’ll turn around and forgive White people for all the evil that they put on us. You have nothing in your heart for your own Black brother who came from your mother. You’ve got a heart that’s cold so God has to operate on you. He said, “I, even I, will take out of them a heart of stone, and I’ll give them a heart of flesh.” God is after you—He’s not going to let you win against Him.

You think you’re going to smoke reefer forever? You think you’re going to mistreat your woman forever? You think you’re going to be a non-paying father, “baby-making machine” forever? You think you’re going to rape your woman and get away with it forever? You think you’re going to abuse your children sexually, and get away with it? No! All of us deserve a whipping!

Muslims: Do you think that you’re safe? Oh, yes you do! Because if you didn’t think you were safe, you would be working hard, to work off the effect of the sins that you have committed. The worst sin you have committed as a Muslim is to see your people in the street, suffering and dying, and walk by them and never offer them the Knowledge that was offered to you. The whipping is now in the house—take it or let it alone! I’ve done my job!

I want you to know: There’s not going to be anymore “good days.”

And you can say, “Allahu Akbar” (God is The Greatest), I hope you’ll say it when that whipping gets on your behind. You’re not going to use His Name in vain, saying you believe—but we can’t find any works to prove it.

We’ve all got to pay for what we’ve done and for what we have not done—meaning the Sins of Omission and the Sins of Commission.

You’ve had your free ride. I have been a mercy but you don’t love mercy. You work the hell out of mercy. You don’t have any mercy on me. You see me pouring my life out, and you still want me to keep pouring. That’s not somebody who’s caring about his Teacher, that’s somebody who wants the Teacher to keep on feeding him, and he’s going to eat and crap—and then get up and do nothing.

I think I’m going to ask Allah if He wants me to keep on teaching. I’ve told you all that you need to know to get up and do something for yourself; so, you can’t walk around here sisters in holy garments practicing foolishness. You’re going to clean up, or the whipping is coming.

What’s going to happen? The intensity of the whipping is going to increase. The weather is going to get worse, and the calamities are going to get worse. The White man is going to kill some more of us. In fact about it, he’s preparing now to kill our young people.

I’ve been trying to warn you that killing your brothers that God came to save—both you and the one you’re killing—will earn you the Wrath of God. It’s already written that those who rebelled against Moses and Aaron were bitten by fiery serpents and cockatrices. (Jeremiah 8:17; Numbers 21:6-8; and Isaiah 14:29). “Fiery serpents” only mean angry White folks.

Can’t you see how angry White folk are, looking at you? They know the future for you is great if you come to God. But, if you’re going to go back, maybe, and do the same old stupid thing you were doing before we talked—you may not make it out of the day, the week, or the month, if you go back to practicing foolishness after you’ve heard this Word. Some of you will die before next week, because you don’t believe that God is angry with you. Death is already in our community, and you are the agents of death to yourself.

Preaching has not made you better—you don’t even want to hear good preaching. The Enemy said he wanted to jail 18,000 members of The Gangster Disciples. Illinois senators Mark Kirk (R.-Ill.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) already agreed and went to Washington to get the money to come in the Black community to kill our babies.

Do you think I want to see that? Do you know what war looks like, with a lot of bodies strewn in the streets? Do you know that they’re planning to bring heavy arms into the city against our young people? They’ve been testing it in San Francisco, Oakland, and in other places. They bring actual soldiers with percussion weapons that they throw that are like a bomb. It just messes with you where you can’t hear, and you can’t see. They’re prepared for us. They’re coming.

And to the Muslims: You know, they don’t like Farrakhan! And some of you think the Minister is saying things that are bringing the White man to anger. I have to say what God has asked me to say. You don’t have any preachers talking like this. I’m trying to save your life, and mine, because if I don’t speak to you like this, and you lose your life, your life will be on my soul. You can’t say that I didn’t tell you. I can say I’ve been a faithful warner to you.

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