Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom beyond America

289 Pages·2012·2.13 MB·English

by  Sohail Daulatzai

black star, crescent moon
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BLACK STAR,
CRESCENT MOON
The Muslim International and
Black Freedom beyond America
Sohail Daulatzai
university of minnesota press
minneapolis| london
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges financial
assistance provided for the publication of this book from the University of
California, Irvine.
Every effort was made to obtain permission to reproduce material used in
this book. If any proper acknowledgment has not been made, we encourage
copyright holders to notify us.
Copyright 2012 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Daulatzai, Sohail.
Black Star, Crescent Moon : The Muslim International and Black Freedom
beyond America / Sohail Daulatzai.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8166-7585-2 (hc : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8166-7586-9 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Blacks—Politics and government. 2. Muslims—Political activity.
3. Civil rights movements—History. 4. Blacks—Intellectual life. 5. Muslims—
Intellectual life. 6. Malcolm X, 1925–1965—Influence. I. Title.
DT16.5.D38 2012
323.1196—dc23
2012007594
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This thought keeps consoling me:
though tyrants may command that lamps
be smashed
in rooms where lovers are destined to meet,
they cannot snuff out the moon, so today,
nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed,
no poison of torture make me bitter,
if just one evening in prison
can be so strangely sweet,
if just one moment anywhere on this earth.
faiz ahmed faiz, “a prison evening”
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contents
introduction ix
An Empire State of Mind
1. “You Remember Dien Bien Phu!” 1
Malcolm X and the Third World Rising
2. To the East, Blackwards: Black Power, 45
Radical Cinema, and the Muslim Third World
3. Return of the Mecca: Public Enemies, 89
Reaganism, and the Birth of Hip-Hop
4. “Ghost in the House”: Muhammad Ali 137
and the Rise of the “Green Menace”
5. Protect Ya Neck: Global Incarceration, 169
Islam, and the Black Radical Imagination
epilogue 189
War, Repression, and the Legacy of Malcolm
acknowledgments 197
notes 201
permissions 221
index 223
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Introduction
an empire state of mind
On January 20, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated as
the forty-fourth president of the United States. On that day, perfectly
planned to coincide with the national celebration of the Martin Luther
King Jr. holiday, more people gathered in Washington, D.C., than for
any other event or protest in the nation’s history, eclipsing even the
original March on Washington, which Dr. King made as the highpoint
of American political theater. As hundreds of thousands of people gath-
ered, tens of millions more watched on television to witness the inaugu-
ration of the first admittedly Black president in the nation’s history.
Also present that day were other forces that were visible but unseen,
felt but not heard. For the ghosts of America’s past and present hovered
all over the nation. The ghosts of Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells,
of lynching and of slavery. There were also the ghosts of the silent wars
of mass incarceration and the living dead in poverty, the ghosts of the
nameless war dead in Iraq, Af–Pak, andother unnamed places, as well as
the looming specter and the phantom figure of the Muslim. For many,
Obama’s election was a national exorcism, a purging of the past and a
reckoning with the present, as the empire was reeling from massive dis-
content, economic anxieties, and the perpetual wars fought in its name.
While the spirit of Dr. King was already present, the figure of
Malcolm X was also conjured, if only to try to exorcize him from the
national past and the nation’s future. A key and telling moment occurred
when Senator Dianne Feinstein, of California, gave the introductory
remarks at the inauguration, saying, “Those who doubt the supremacy
of the ballot over the bullet can never diminish the power engendered
by nonviolent struggles for justice and equality—like the one that made
this day possible.” Feinstein continued, saying that future generations
ix