Prejudices Remain Unresolved

DR. NAIM Akbar is currently a Muslim scholar and clinical psychologist who has written numerous books and have done extensive research that he hopes will insolubly link African-American spirituality with the African continent. Among his numerous studies is the legacy of Ramses III, whom he believes is the arrogant Egyptian Pharaoh that bounded the Children of Israel to perpetual slavery and who openly challenged Allah’s (SWT) Authority with the prophet Musa (alihis salam). His research investigations form a tapestry of Afrocentric research and intellectual inquiry that flourished in the United States during its civil rights movement, but as a clinical psychologist he inquired whether the human self is related to particular tribes rather than our contemporary notion of the self, that is, one that is related to the Western notion of the family and its particular economic vicissitudes.

Dr. Akbar makes the point that to know oneself is to know her or his particular tribe. The relationship of the self to a particular tribe challenges traditional Greco-Roman notions of the family, but on a much larger scale his research challenges contemporary liberal notions of the self, characterized by a social psychological relationship of self and other. It admits of no contemporary empirical science of psychology – moral or other – and of contemporary notions of popular government, as in the case of legislative democratic governance. The contemporary relationship of self to other to which we are accustomed has inherited, as I have mentioned in a previous article, a wealth of insidious prejudices that cannot be resolved. Contemporary liberalism, whose force is evidenced by the removal of the Ten Commandments from an Alabama courthouse, begins by imposing liberal policies. In other words, prejudice is “just there”; it is instead recycled within a democratic social arena without any method of understanding its true origins. Maybe if each of us view ourselves as members of tribes from time to time we can get to know each other, really.

Increasingly, modern societies, such as ours, makes it is extremely difficult for us to exercise moral judgment, and as such, we often don’t transcend well-established social psychological maxims and statistical categories, such as “self-esteem” and politically under-represented social groups such as “blacks” and “native-American”. I have found, for one thing, that not all whites look alike. Try this simple but sincere experiment. Take the subway one morning and observe people’s native characteristics such as cheekbone size (but do not stare!); you will notice that individuals, of whatever complexion, vary according to such criteria. Attend Jum’uah on any Friday afternoon and observe the same. I remember also sitting with an individual who was so black he seemed purple; on another occasion I sat next to another who was so white he seemed pale. Nonetheless, the moral of this example is that we are all human beings in need of Almighty Allah (SWT), whose only concern is to see which one of us is nearest to Him in piety, patience and perseverance. Instead, we are acutely aware of our prejudices (based on skin complexion) through social relationships. As the fundamental aim of American liberal political philosophy is not to argue for a return to nature but to show the way in which the social bond can be made legitimate, and to outline a society in which values - equality and liberty - rule in such a way that individuals interact with each other based on free and equal social relationships, our various prejudices assume nascent variations through resentment because they are encircled within a social atmosphere.

Psychiatrist turned revolutionary Frantz Fanon seemed to be in the throes of overcoming resentment as he is reported to have mentioned that Arabs “with his hunted looks, suspicious, on the run, wrapped in those long ragged robes that seem to have been created especially for him”; at the same time policemen stopped him in broad daylight; they mistook him for an Arab. But alas! The Holy Bible resolves resentment against Arab tribes (Genesis 25: 12-18).

The writer is a recent revert to Islam and can be reached at drummondhugh@verizon.net