[Video] Dhoruba bin Wahad on the Nexus Between Islamophobia and White Supremacy

Bay Area, California

From: A Muslim Contributor to Bay Area Intifada

Earlier today I had the great pleasure of conducting a video interview with a solid Brother, and true internationalist revolutionary elder Dhoruba al Mujahid bin Wahad, former political prisoner, Black Panther and co founder of the Black Liberation Army.

The following segment is a short message to Muslim youth who are newly becoming politicized, but also touches on a brief history of Muslim social and political movements, white supremacy and Islamophobia, the War on Terror, Black Power and How / Why Dhoruba bin Wahad came to Islam while in prison.

Behind Islamophobia, Fascism and Complicit Antifascism – Houria Bouteldja

Paper presented by Houria Bouteldja 

5th International Conference on Islamophobia

UC Berkeley (April 17^th, 2014).

Originally Posted in Decolonial Translations

First, I would like to thank the conference organizers for inviting me. I want to pay tribute to their efforts for putting together this high-quality conference. As is the case every year, I will speak on behalf of the Party of the Republic’s Indigenous People (Parti des Indigènes de la République or PIR). This time, however, I will also speak on behalf of Mothers All Equal (Mamans Toutes Égales), a collective to which the PIR belongs and that struggles for the repeal of an administrative text that bans mothers who wear the veil from participating in school outings. If I take on the role of representative here today, it is to raise awareness and denounce such unfair discrimination against these women and their children.

 

By way of introduction, I would like to start by saying that the situation in France and in Europe is quite worrisome. The economic crisis magnifying the situation, we observe, across the continent, the problematic rise of far-right, fascist and neo-Nazi forces. These radical nationalisms are increasingly uninhibited. Some of them take part, democratically, in different elections and quietly become institutionalized. The National Front is the third political power in France, and its president is a woman with a steel grip who does not hide her ambitions for the country’s presidency. To reach this objective, she will stop at nothing to make her party appear respectable and she is admirably successful. Admittedly, her task is facilitated by a number of circumstances. For instance, Islamophobia — and more exactly a State-supported anti-Muslim type of racism — is a national sport in France. The white political field that goes from the extreme right to the extreme left is completely contaminated. However, we must be precise in our analyses. Let me unpack some of this.