World News And Views... 21 Ramadan 1443 A.H.

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

Thomas Sankara...

In a play I watched 15 years ago in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, a character indignantly cried: “Everyone knows who killed Sankara!” His counterpart quietly replied: “Really?” The audience held its breath. The first character, deflated, mumbled: “Yes … it was malaria.” Bursts of cathartic laughter.

Today Burkinabe no longer resort to such subterfuge to talk about Thomas Sankara’s death. A historic trial in Ouagadougou last week established responsibility for the assassination of the revolutionary leader and his 12 companions during the coup of 15 October 1987. 

The stiff sentences of life imprisonment handed down to the three main accused, former president Blaise Compaoré, who succeeded Sankara, and two senior members of his military command, Hyacinthe Kafando and Gilbert Diendéré, also sent messages that many Africans have been yearning for: impunity has its limits, and dreams shall not be killed.

The dream that cannot be killed is that of continuing what Sankara achieved in his four years of rule. Remembered for being a thorn in the side of Western powers — France in particular — through his relentless challenges to the neocolonial world order, Sankara stood out for the extent to which he walked his talk. 

Applying his vision of integrity and self-reliance, he was uncompromising on corruption and reined in government waste, obliging ministers to trade in luxury cars for simple Renault 5s and fly economy class.

Thanks to his sincerity, at a time when most Africans languished in morose post-independence hang­overs, Sankara galvanised Burkinabe to invest their own money and labour in community infrastructure development. In 1987, the Food and Agricultural Organisation noted how quickly Sankara had helped the dry Sahelian country to finally achieve food self-sufficiency. 

Particularly prescient on environmental issues, Sankara obliged every resident to plant at least one tree, and one government programme planted 10 million trees in just 15 months. With clear-eyed foresight, in a 1985 speech to forest rangers, he warned that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest would have devastating consequences for all. 

Sankara summed up his greatest achievement as getting Burkinabe to have confidence in themselves and in their ability to shape their own destiny.

Full article:  Life sentences for Sankara assassins sends strong message - The Mai...

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

Fred 

MAYWOOD, Ill. - The boyhood home of late Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton is officially a historical landmark after the Maywood Village Board voted unanimously to approve the designation Tuesday night.

Hampton's son, Fred Hampton Jr., and his mother, Akua Njeri, led an effort to preserve the two-story building at 804 S. 17th Ave. in Maywood with the hopes of turning it into a museum where the works of the Black Panther Party can be displayed for visitors.

Full article:  Fred Hampton's boyhood home in Maywood receives historical landmark...

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

New York..

You have all heard of #ZackTahhan, the hero who spotted the subway shooter. Guess what, there were two heroes who flagged down subway shooter @Cheikh15Mohamad & @zacktahhan2022 props to them! Tonight they were honored at the @NYCMayor iftar.

New York

Spotted , flagged down !! Since when did any of these actions constitute a hero ??

May be a good citizen award . “Hero” is a little of a stretch don’t you think??

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

15 years old shared with Somali citizens what made them to wear shoes and how they see the society. If you want to help Maryan C/samad, contact [phone] or [phone] to represent me. Our promise is to help each other. To all my friends and family

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

There are three ways to lose weight without going to the gym. The next lesson is how to cut the belly. Coming soon.

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

Ramadan Fast 

Last week, Maleika Jones was still waiting for a package of Ramadan decorations. In her preparations for the monthlong holiday, which in the United States begins on Saturday, she ordered festive lights and trimming to hang up for her family’s celebrations as they break the fast each night.

“Of course, even though it’s an Amazon order, it takes several weeks to get here,” she said.

Ms. Jones lives in Anchorage, home to Alaska’s only mosque — some 6,700 miles west of Mecca, in a commercial district of the city, next to a sports bar and an insulation contractor’s office, with views of the Chugach Mountains.

The mosque — the northernmost in the country — is also the heart of a growing Muslim community that is preparing to gather for Ramadan for the first time since the pandemic began. The roughly 2,500 Muslims in the Anchorage area come from all over the world; they’re immigrants, refugees, locals, veterans, students and others, all sharing a faith and a love of food.

Full article:  Where Breaking the Ramadan Fast Includes Caribou - The New York Tim...

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

The Muslim community “is quite a diverse population, but then we’re all able to come together on the common grounds of our faith and traditions, the core traditions,” said Ms. Jones’s husband, Gregory Shuaib Jones, an electrician. “The different ethnic groups may have some slight variations in the style of their cooking or the style of their dress, but the core is there.”

Full article:  Where Breaking the Ramadan Fast Includes Caribou - The New York Tim...

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

Kofi Bilal Mahmud

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c3665545/user-clip-clip-muslim-americ...

Executive Director OPOW

Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص's blog post was featured

In 2012 Muslim Heroes extends an invitation to Ajir Kofi Bilal Mahm...

-- بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم    

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

https://www.facebook.com/100000807067645/videos/3398255076878028/

Peace be upon you and peace be upon us.

May you be in peace and may we be in peace.

Peace be upon those who returned the greeting and even upon those who did not.

Peace... In the name of the Lord of peace, the Lord of mankind, the God of eternity.

Peace in which we prospered.

Peace mixed with the earth of this country.

Peace in which we no longer live.

Peace which no longer live in us.

Peace which we keep an eye on while it packs it's bags to abandon our lands, little by little.

And it is replaced by surrender and submission to an islamisation in which there is no Islam.

As if the Islam of our grandparents no longer had anything to do with us.

Do you know why peace is abandoning us?

Do you know why the darkness is all around us?

To put it simply, because we are a society that fears.

We are a society afraid of difference.

My words will not please some of you, or most of you, or all of you I know.

But I say them because I refuse to be one of the herd.

We are a society which refuses to admit that it is a society that lives in ignorance.

We are a society that shouts with all audacity and pretends that it carries a different message.

We are a society that loves to claim superiority without having a valid reason and pretends that it is an educated society.

It is sickening!

Among us, the acceptance of difference is nothing but a cover.

The difference in colour does us harm.

The difference in shape does us harm.

The difference in thinking does us harm.

The difference in religion does us harm.

Even the difference in gender does us harm.

That is why we try to kill any difference in our midst.

We have turned into lethal poison for each other.

We are a society more stupid than stupidity itself.

Yes, we are a society more stupid than stupidity itself.

We fight over silly things, over delusions, over superstitions while always refusing to look into the root of the problem.

And none of us is innocent of that . No!

Not citizens nor politicians.

Not those who find comfort in silence not those who pretends to be saints.

Not those who follow the West blindly nor those who pretends to go back to the glory of the Caliphate and the slave markets and to the amputation of the limbs on opposite sides.

Today, let us try to look inside ourselves inside the depth of our souls.

Let us try to embrace our souls.

Let us try to embrace our differences with our souls.

Here I am, before you, with my colour, with my hair, with my poetry, with peculiarities, with my ideas..

I am not afraid of you.

I don't fear that you're different from me because I am part of you and you are part of me.

Let us create art. Let us grasp the dream so we can erect a culture without stupidity, so our sophistication becomes the greatest of Caliphates.

Let us melt away the traditions, the classes, the types, the ideas, the colour and the religions so we only see the person.

Thank you.