People And Islamic Nations example essay topic

Introduction Martin Luther king and Malcolm X were two of the 21st century's most interesting black leaders and advocates of the emancipation of the American Negro. They were contemporaries but held very different views with regard to how the Afro-American should achieve equality. The key differences to their approach to these challenges lies in their history. Background King was born into a strong middle class family with traditional Christian beliefs. His mother was a school teacher and his father was a Baptist minister.

He was highly educated having obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree followed by a Bachelors degree in Divinity and this was subsequently followed by a Doctorate in systematic theology. On September 14, 1948 he entered a Croze r seminary which had a profound influence upon his thinking. Prior to this at Morehouse College, where he obtained his first degree, he became convinced that non-cooperation with evil is as much of a moral obligation as is cooperating with good. However, it was at Cover theological seminary in Chester Pennsylvania that he turned to a serious study of the social and ethical theories of the great philosophers from Plato and Aristotle down to Rousseau Hobbes, Bentham and Locke and all of these great masters stimulated his thinking. He states in his autobiography that the book which left an indelible imprint on his thinking was Christianity and the social crisis by Walter Rauschenbusch he did not accept the view of the inevitable progress.

He felt that he was absolutely correct when he related the matter to the bible and felt that the gospel deals with the whole man, not only his soul but also his body, not only his spiritual well being but the material well being and the quality of his own life. Inevitably, at this time he took a strong interest in socialism and studied Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto written by Marx. However he had difficulty in reconciling the godless nature of the state to his view of Christian Religion. Believing that man is not made for the state but the state is made for man.

He quotes in his autobiography, that " to deprive a man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing rather than to elevate himself to the status of a person... Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself. Studies in socialism and communism brought him to the view that the truth lay in neither extreme. Capitalism can lead to practical. materialism, which is as pernicious and the materialism taught by communism. He was also profoundly influenced by a lecture given by Dr. A.J. Must relating to Pacifism but came to the view that, as he quotes in his autobiography, the war horrible as it is might be preferable to surrendering to a totalitarian system whether its Nazi fascist or communist.

His attitude to love and his faith in god was shaken by the studying of the philosophy of Nietzsche. As he studied the geneology of mortals and the will to power he comments that Nietzsche's glorification of power that all life express the will to power was an outgrowth of his contempt for ordinary mortals and he was offended by the philosophical assault upon the whole of the Hebraic-Christian morality. His faith and his attitude towards Christian religion was rescued by his introduction to the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. This was inspired by a sermon he heard by Dr. Mordecai Johnson who was the president of Harvard University. After this electrifying lecture he immediately purchased a number of books on the life and works of Mahatma Gandhi. He was attracted by the concept of Satyagrah (satya is truth which equals love, and agra h is force, hence Satyagrah) therefore means truth force or love force and this had a profound and lasting effect upon him.

His autobiography he says that he came to see for the first time the potency of love in the area of social reform in which Hindu philosophy validated his perception of the teaching of Jesus. Prior to reading Gandhi he concluded that the ethics of Jesus were only affective in individual relationships; the "turn the other check philosophy" and the "love your enemies" philosophy was valid only when individuals were in conflict with other individuals. When racial groups and nations were in conflict, a more realistic approach seemed necessary but after reading Gandhi he saw how utterly mistaken he was. As Gandhi was the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale.

This was the point in which King found the core purpose of his life, that love was a potent instrument for social and collective transformation and it was in the Gandhian emphasis on love and non violence that he discovered the method for social reform that he had been so long in seeking. The influences however, upon Malcom X could not have been more different. He was born into a black militant household with paler skin than other members of the family which betrayed the rape of his grandmother by a white man. Prior to his birth, the newspaper of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) identified his father as the leader of the chapter of this organization in Indiana On the 7th of November 1929 when Malcom was four years old his family home was burned to the ground in consequence to the militant activities of his father in the UNIA.

Two years later, on the 28th of September 1931, his father is murdered by a group called Black Legion a local white supremacist organization. In consequence to the unbearable economic and psychological pressures of raising the family alone on the 9th of January 1939 when Malcom was thirteen years of age his mother Louise was declared formally insane and committed to the state mental hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan where she remained for 26 years On the 25th of October 1943 Malcom was rejected by the military and found to be mentally disqualified for military service as he had psychopathic personal inadequacy and suffered from sexual perversion and psychiatric rejection. The spiral toward self destruction began to accelerate as he entered a life of crime. On the 15th of January 1946 he was indited for carrying firearms and grand larceny for which he receiver an 8-10 years prison sentence. It was during the 2nd year of his sentence that he converted to Islam being attracted to the discipline of this religion and the emphasis on learning and self improvement. A large number of prisoners were converting to Islam as it appeared to appeal not only to the underprivileged disenfranchised but also to the element of violence that is found in this environment During the five years of the sentence that he was awarded he claims to have studied extensively the philosophical writing of a number of authors but this is questionable as his subsequent life seemed to reflect no influence that the authors, the claims to have read, had upon him.

What Islam appeared to give him was a religious structure in which he could manifest the hatred and psychopathic tendencies that were evident is his earlier dysfunctional life. Reaction to Oppression Thus, King came from a secure Christian tradition of love where the family encouraged academic achievement. The psychiatric disorders of Malcom X find their origins in a murdered father, an insane mother, and a family tradition of hate. Their reaction to oppression betrayed by their history could not have been more different. King believed that the political process could be changed by passive resistance bringing about racial integration.

Malcom X due to his history and indoctrination of Islamic fundamentalism believed that the political process should go towards separation of races rather than integration and could only be brought about by militant action. On the 3rd of December 1964 he spoke at the Oxford Union debate for the motion that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice, moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue. This philosophy was validated by Islam that Malcom adopted with the fervor of a new convent praying five times a day and studying the Koran King as a systematic theologian was taught the bible from childhood and had always followed the Christian doctrine of love. This together with the passive resistance taught by Mahatma Gandhi influenced how he should react toward oppression.

Influences - Information to be included at a later date Other influences The greatest influence on the life of Malcom was the black Islamic leader of the Nation of Islam (NOL) Elijah Muhammad who held unusual views in that he believed that the black man was the first man on earth and that at some time in history the white race arrived being caused by a recessive gene. This created a sense of pride in the black Islamic fundamentalist in the United States and gave to him a strong bond between the black Islamic nations in Africa and the Middle East. Thus creating a sense of identity of which he previously felt disenfranchised. There was no significant other influence in the life of King but the profound influence of the Bible relating to love which was confounded and expanded by the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi as a powerful force in passive resistance. The later years In the later stages of their lives King remained loyal to his original belief that passive resistance would be the most effective way of changing the political system. Malcom however lost complete confidence in Elijah Muhammad due to his gross immorality in which he felt that his much revered leader had abandoned the principles of Islam.

His vocal opposition to this and other matters caused him" to be excommunicated from the NOL by his mentor and he was forbidden to speak to any fellow Muslims. As Islam had been the only order and structure that Malcom had ever know which appealed to his intellect and need for discipline after the dysfunctional years prior to his conversion his excommunication created a vacuum in his life. This loss of clear identity the rejection by his Islamic family of over 20 years was almost unbearable which agony was compounded by being evicted from the home provided by the NOL which left him penniless and homeless in a state of despair from which state he never really recovered. His attitude to white men appeared to soften as on the 9th of June 1964 on the Mike Wallace radio program Malcom stated that there are some good white people. Viewing each other The relationship with each other was distant reflecting their approach to solving the challenge of bringing about the freedom of the American Negro.

King felt that Malcom was doing a disservice to the cause and Malcom felt that King was under white influence. They met only once briefly on the 26th of March. 1964 after a King news conference in the United Nations. King felt that Malcom was much too violent in his approach to the problems of the African American believing that hate will only beget hate. Therefore their approach to the solutions of the problem could not have been more different. World View These two leaders were viewed in completely different ways by the world and that depended entirely on the perspective of the observer.

King was viewed as a hero by all white dominated democratically appointed governments throughout the world and in the United States due to his nonviolent but passive approach to changing the political system. He was however seen by the underprivileged and disenfranchised world in the very large areas populated by the Islamic people as holding back the emancipation of 22 million African Americans who had been suppressed for so long. Malcom was conversely hated by white democratically appointed governments as there was a great fear of the violence that he was espousing in his theology and they were concerned for the Islamic people who had adopted the nationalities of these countries. He was however greatly revered by oppressed people and Islamic nations. On the 21st of April 1964 he spent 10 days as an honored guest of the state by Saudi Arabia's Prince Faisal and fulfilled an ambition that he has had since his conversion to Islam of being able to build a pilgrimage to Mecca. He subsequently flew to Beirut to speak at the Sudanese cultural center on the oppression of the American Negro then back to Cairo to lecture before flying onto Nigeria where he spoke on various radio and television programs.

On the 8th of May 1964 Malcom spoke at the IBADAN University at which a large crowd of Nigerian students listened to the lecture. On the 10th of May 1964 He spoke at the Ati maxis Forum in Accra, Ghana to a student organization of the University of Gana. On the 13th of May 1964 Malcom addressed the University, the title of the address being "Will Africa ignite America's racial powder keg?" On the following day he addresses a full session of the Ghanaian Parliament. On the following day he was granted an audience with President Kwame Nkrumah, that afternoon he addresses 200 students at Kwame Nkrumah archaeological institute in Winn eba subsequently his tour included Monrovia, Liberia, Dakar, Senegal, and ultimately into Morocco, North Africa. On the 22nd of May 1964 the New York Times publishes an article titled "Malcom is backed by abroad".

On the 17th of July 1964 Malcom is back in Cairo meeting with the rector of AlaXhar University in Cairo "inaudible" Sheik Abdel Rahmintag. He attends the African Summit Conference as a representative of the organization of Afro-American Unity, and institution which he formed on the 28th of June 1964. At this press conference he distributes a press release on O AAU note paper on behalf of the 22 million oppressed Afro-Americans in the United States. In a powerfully eloquent address he appeals to the delegates of 34 African nations to bring the cause of the 22 million oppressed black people in the United States before the United Nations. On the 4th of August 1964, at a banquet in Egypt he addressed more than 600 Muslim students representing 73 African and Asian countries.

Legacy The peace movement begun and lead by King created the integration between the black and white people of the United States. This is the King legacy and there is hardly a large city in the United States that does not have a Martin Luther King motorway. On the -- - (date) He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace The form of Islam in the United States of America represented by the NOL was destroyed by the inherent contradiction and the gross immorality of its leader Elijah Muhammad. However there may be a subtler legacy of Malcom. It is clear that he was highly regarded by Islamic countries that he visited like Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, etc.

In these countries where he was the guest of Islamic leaders he spoke many times to the young intellectuals in Universities of the hatred of the American people and their suppression of 22 million people of African descent. A phenomenon of this present time is why the Islamic nations of the world hate the American people who have been nationally identified by the Islamic nations of the world as 'The Great Satan ' Malcom spoke to thousands of young Islamic students in the countries that he visited in Africa and the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia which is the country in which the Al Queda network finds its roots. In examining the question of the Malcom legacy can we ignore the influence that his hatred toward the American people? Could he have influenced the young and impressionable students in the Islamic countries that he visited?

It could be argued that any influence upon the young formative mind of an Islamic theological student that would cause hatred to the United States might well have found an expression in the events of September 11th 2001 in the city of New York. If this was not his legacy, his legacy could well have contributed to those tragic events. Similarities They were similar in that they were African Americans born into a time of the emancipation of their culture and they both had a passion to accelerate the process. They both became highly moral men committed to family life. They were different and separated by their history.

King from a loving secure Christian family. Malcom from a dysfunctional family having a murdered father and insane mother. They were separated by education, Malcom educated on the streets and in prison. King with a Bachelor of arts, Bachelor of Divinity, and Doctorate in systematic theology.

The fundamental difference is in their respective religious views. The passive resistance of King means to turn the other cheek and to love your neighbor as yourself. The active resistance of Malcom follows the Islamic theology of Fatwa. The Christian may choose to die for his faith but will not kill for it, whereas the Muslim will kill for his faith as well as die for it, this is the fundamental difference. Had they have lived to full age it is likely that the disillusionment that Malcom felt with the Nation of Islam caused by the immorality of its leader Elijah Muhammad and the death sentence past upon him by that institution he may well have moved to the position of King, . That love and passive resistance is the only true secure way to change the political process, as hate will only beget hate.