America must join the community of nations

The United States of America, carrying a big stick and leaving heavy shoe prints as she walks among the community of nations, must learn to live with her neighbors and not just dictate to them.

Take Cuba, for example. For nearly four decades the United States with its 250-plus millions has threatened her tiny neighbor simply because Cuba won�t play ball the way America demands. Cuba has a leader in Fidel Castro who loves his people and whose people love him, despite what State Department propaganda proclaims.

Certainly Mr. Castro has not been a perfect leader (U.S. presidents have made some of the most horrific mistakes and conscious decisions known to man). Castro, too, has made mistakes, but considering the tremendous obstacles he has faced under a U.S.-led embargo, he must be applauded for the progress he has been able to make for his people.

It is, therefore, heartening to see Illinois Gov. George Ryan visit Cuba, taking humanitarian supplies, entering dialogue with Mr. Castro, and calling back to U.S. policy-makers to rethink their madness�to stop causing women, children and the elderly to suffer hardships just because you despise the head of state of a nation.

Why must the defenseless of the world�those Third World Countries like Iraq, Libya, Sudan and others�continue to bury their children simply because enough food and medicine could not come across their borders because America does not like something about the way that country conducts its internal affairs?

In a speech at the University of Havana, Gov. Ryan quoted President Lincoln:

�We are not enemies,� he said, �but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passions may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.�

Those words were uttered in an attempt to quell the mounting rage in an angry young America that was being torn apart by the threat of war. Those words of consolation are appropriate today.

When Min. Farrakhan met Brother Castro for the first time during the Minister�s visit to Cuba in September 1996, he called for the lifting of the embargo. Since then, Pope John Paul II also has made a similar call. And now Gov. Ryan has made the call.

But Min. Farrakhan went a step further and warned America of the consequences of her errant ways, a warning that she has yet to heed.

�As a Muslim, I�m very concerned about human suffering imposed by sanctions and embargoes,� the Minister told the international media in Cuba. �America must remember the king of the ancient city of Babylon. He was a great king that God took out the heart of a human being and gave the heart of a beast.�

He said America is suffering from spiritual blindness and that the heart of American leadership is not the heart of compassion for human suffering.

�There is no way that American leadership could be compassionate and not feel the suffering of Cuba, Iraq and Iran and those suffering from unjust policies produced by America,� he said.

As God has a way of bringing an arrogant nation to her knees, America one day will know how it feels to be in need of the helping hand of a compassionate friend. While she is still in power, she would be wise to begin to demonstrate how the civilized walk the earth, and practice the teaching of Jesus that she professes to follow.