History can never be made by one man, we must smash this one quickly. History is made only by the masses of the people, this is clear. Even a, cursory glance at the fallacious presentation of history by the American capitalist system, will demonstrate just this. Take George Washington, as bad as he is. Put him in the middle of Valley Forge, by himself, surrounded by the British, he can do nothing. Take Martin Luther King as righteous as he is. Put him in the middle of Birmingham by himself, speaking out against racism, he would be lynched. But you take this same King, you take this same Washington. Put them in Valley Forge, put them in Alabama. Surround them with thousands of people who have the same ideas they do, willing to make those ideas reality and the situation changes drastically.
This was from Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) speaking on BDP's Edutainment album. And he has a point. Alot of people are caught up in personality cults and it has the potential to be counter-productive. It's one thing if the "leader" becomes a role model and an example to learn from, but it can be disempowering if you start to believe that you need to wait for a hero out there to arrive and save you. Like Tina says "We don't need another hero".
3 comments:
Assalamualaykum Bro Halim
Your blog is very good and resourceful. Please continue to spread the message of Islam. for the sake of Allah. May Allah bless you..
Wa alaikum salaam,
Jazakallahukhair for the positive sentiments. InshaAllah, some good will come out of it.
I see what you are saying, but I think that in the long run, you always have those individuals around. In the American revolution there were many individuals who stood out as "founding fathers" and they all made significant contributions and many of them had major roles in the government.
In the Civil Rights/Black Power movement there were many vocal leaders and organizers.
Or even in Islamic history there were many great sahaba to lead the community, and when the first one was assassinated or otherwise died, another great sahaba was there to take their place.
This isn't to disrespect the accomplishments of great individuals, but still it is disempowering to thing that you can't make a different just because you aren't Malcolm X or George Washington or MLK.
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