Prisoners

"Turkey is a country that takes love as a basis and that refrains from hatred."

"At the moment the world is restless. Only in the time of the system of the Mahdi all the streets will attain peace and tranquility."

"The system of the Mahdi is not a movement that is in a hurry. The system of the Mahdi is not going towards a certain point. Incidents come towards the system of the Mahdi. 2015 will be a year of disasters; 2016 will be the year of disasters as well and so will the year 2017 but eventually they will have to accept what they have resisted. The goal of God will eventually come to fruition."

"A weary and exhausted understanding of religion is not acceptable. A Muslim should speak lively, fluently and sincerely. A Muslim would not feel the need for a heavy peroration."

"We are not in the time of separation; we are in the time of unification. There will not be an Armageddon or anything. Wars have come to an end from now on. They should forget about wars."

"Arts have died in Europe, what we see now in the name of art are the pieces of those artists who are already dead. There is no living art. We, as Turkey, should start a lively, fresh understanding of art."

"You should all embrace our non-Muslim brothers and sisters, Jewish or Christian. They are very much oppressed all over the world. When they go out in their traditional clothes they are mocked and cursed at. There are a lot of irreligious, atheistic people around. For that reason, show compassion and mercy everywhere you see them and embrace them."

"Christian and Jewish people all love Allah. Almighty Allah entrusted them to us. And He entrusted us to them. That is because we are all friends of Allah. We will approach them all with love and compassion."

"We should show compassion to Christians. They are very inoffensive, they are very dear. Very rarely, they have small churches here and there. There are people who make fun of them and some who attempt to batter them. They are striving to protect their beliefs in Allah and to express their love for Allah under very difficult conditions. You should be very compassionate towards them. Treat them with compassion and love. Our brothers and sisters should protect and watch over them everywhere."

"Let children love Allah, let them love the Qur’an. Let us protect them from the dissension of Darwinism, from the dissension of materialism, communism, from the dissension of godless and Bookless mentalities. With all our might, let us teach them the beauty of holy values and the beauty of the Qur’an. Let the hearts of those beautiful beings be filled with the love of Allah."

"A hero is awaited for 1400 years, and that is Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh). And also the Prophet Jesus Messiah (pbuh)."

"With Darwinist-materialist education communism advances and the people would be ruined. It is not enough to put religion classes in the schools. The state needs to stop Darwinist-materialist education."

"Mahdi (pbuh) is a person melted in the Existence of Allah. There is a state of mind in which a person would become a radiant light. In a sense he would lose his position as matter. He would appear to be matter but he would no longer be a matter."

"The advocators of peace, the proponents of love should be much more determined, much more strong willed. They might try to deter us from our path, deviate us from our way but we should continue with determination and strong will."

"We will have even more successful and even more fruitful movements. Radical, merciless, pro-violence views will be wiped out and we will make this world a place like Heaven on Earth insha’Allah. The world will be an abode of peace, it will be a festive place."

"Allah is the only source of happiness, joy, peace and tranquility. We can only be happy and at peace if Allah so desires. Yet if Allah so desires we can also delight in good things. But it is impossible for us to attain that by any other means than faith in Allah."

"May Allah give us strength to make love, compassion, modernity, democracy, freedom, everything beautiful and everything Allah loves prevail in the world."

"Christ will, of course, be Muslim. He will return as a Muslim. It is said that he will break the cross and kill the pigs. He will abide by what Islam permits and prohibits. He will pray behind the Mahdi and then, Islam will rule the entire world."

"The proponents of violence are killing Muslims and they are killing Christians, they are killing Jews as well; they are enemies to everyone. Allah does not consider those people as Muslims. They are idolaters. They are pagans. I mean they do not accept the Qur’an as their basis."

"Allah wants us to be merciful, compassionate and forgiving. And He wants us to look at everyone with compassion — so much so that in the Qur’an, Allah wants us to assure the life security of even idolaters."

"It is our duty to fight for our freedom."

"Liberation Army at this time is to create good examples, to struggle for Black freedom, and to prepare for the future. We must defend ourselves and let no one disrespect us. We must gain our liberation by any means necessary."

"While China's own history on the Woman Question is pretty dismal, Mao's dictum that "women hold up half the sky" as well as his brief writings on women's equality and participation in the revolutionary process endowed women's liberation with some revolutionary legitimacy on the Left. Of course, Maoism didn't make the movement: The fact is, women's struggles within the New Left played the most important role in reorienting leftist movements toward a feminist agenda or at least putting feminism the table. But for black women in the Panthers suspicious of "white feminism," Mao's language on women's equality provided space within the party to develop an incipient black feminist agenda. As the newly appointed minister of information, Panther Elaine Brown announced to a press conference soon after returning from China in 1971 that "the BPP acknowledges the progressive leadership of our Chinese comrades in all areas of revolution. Specifically, we embrace China's correct recognition of the proper status of women as equal to that of men." Even beyond the rhetoric, black women Panthers such as Lynn French, Kathleen Cleaver, Erica Huggins, Akua Njere, and Assata Shakur (formerly Joanne Chesimard) sustained the tradition of carving out free spaces within existing male-dominated organizations in order to challenge the multiple forms of exploitation that black working-class women faced daily."

"Every time a Black Freedom Fighter is murdered or captured, the pigs try to create the impression that they have quashed the movement, destroyed our forces, and put down the Black Revolution. The pigs also try to give the impression that five or ten guerrillas are responsible for every revolutionary action carried out in amerika. That is nonsense. That is absurd. Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA."

"There is, and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black Liberation Army. The main function of the Black."

"we who rip off billions of dollars every year through tax evasions, illegal price fixing, embezzlement, consumer fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and swindles. They call us bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychecks we are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our neighborhood we are being held up. And every time we pay our rent the landlord sticks a gun into our ribs."

"They call us thieves and bandits. They say we steal. But it was not we who stole millions of Black people from the continent of Africa. We were robbed of our language, of our Gods, of our culture, of our human dignity, of our labor, and of our lives. They call us thieves, yet it is not."

"They call us thieves, but we did not rob and murder millions of Indians by ripping off their homeland, then call ourselves pioneers. They call us bandits, but it is not we who are robbing Africa, Asia, and Latin America of their natural resources and freedom while the people who live there are sick and starving. The rulers of this country and their flunkies have committed some of the most brutal, vicious crimes in history. They are the bandits. They are the murderers. And they should be treated as such. These maniacs are not fit to judge me, Clark, or any other Black person on trial in amerika. Black people should and, inevitably, must determine our destinies."

"Black life expectancy is much lower than white and they do their best to kill us before we are even born. We are burned alive in fire-trap tenements. Our brothers and sisters OD daily from heroin and methadone. Our babies die from lead poisoning. Millions of Black people have died as a result of indecent medical care. This is murder. But they have got the gall to call us murderers."

"They call us kidnappers, yet Brother Clark Squires (who is accused, along with me, of murdering a new jersey state trooper) was kidnapped on April z, 1969, from our Black community and held on one million dollars' ransom in the New York Panther 21 conspiracy case. He was acquitted on May 13, 1971, along with all the others, of 156 counts of conspiracy by a jury that took less than two hours to deliberate. Brother Squires was innocent. Yet he was kidnapped from his community and family. Over two years of his life was stolen, but they call us kidnappers. We did not kidnap the thousands of Brothers and Sisters held captive in amerika's concentration camps. Ninety percent of the prison population in this country are Black and Third World people who can afford neither bail nor lawyers."

"They call us murderers, but we did not murder Martin Luther King, Jr., Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Nat Turner, James Chaney, and countless others. We did not murder, by shooting in the back, sixteen-year-old Rita Lloyd, eleven-year-old Rickie Bodden, or ten-year-old Clifford Glover. They call us murderers, but we do not control or enforce a system of racism and oppression that systematically murders Black and Third World people. Although Black people supposedly comprise about fifteen percent of the total amerikkkan population, at least sixty percent of murder victims are Black. For every pig that is killed in the so-called line of duty, there are at least fifty Black people murdered by the police."

"Every revolution in history has been accomplished by actions, al-though words are necessary. We must create shields that protect us and spears that penetrate our enemies. Black people must learn how to struggle by struggling. We must learn by our mistakes."

"I am a Black revolutionary, and, by definition, that makes me a part of the Black Liberation Army. The pigs have used their newspapers and TVs to paint the Black Liberation Army as vicious, brutal, mad-dog criminals. They have called us gangsters and gun molls and have compared us to such characters as john dillinger and ma barker. It should be clear, it must be clear to anyone who can think, see, or hear, that we are the victims. The victims and not the criminals."

"I am a Black revolutionary woman, and because of this i have been charged with and accused of every alleged crime in which a woman was believed to have participated. The alleged crimes in which only men were supposedly involved, i have been accused of planning. They have plastered pictures alleged to be me in post offices, airports, hotels, police cars, subways, banks, television, and newspapers. They have offered over fifty thousand dollars in rewards for my capture and they have issued orders to shoot on sight and shoot to kill."

"It should also be clear to us by now who the real criminals are. Nixon and his crime partners have murdered hundreds of Third World brothers and sisters in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. As was proved by Watergate, the top law enforcement officials in this country are a lying bunch of criminals. The president, two attorney generals, the head of the fbi, the head of the cia, and half the white house staff have been implicated in the Watergate crimes."

"I am a Black revolutionary, and, as such, i am a victim of all the wrath, hatred, and slander that amerika is capable of. Like all other Black revolutionaries, amerika is trying to lynch me."

"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heart-less robots who protect them and their property."

"They call us murderers, but we did not murder over two hundred fifty unarmed Black men, women, and children, or wound thousands of others in the riots they provoked during the sixties. The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives. They call us murderers, but we were not responsible for the twenty-eight brother inmates and nine hostages murdered at attica. They call us murderers, but we did not murder and wound over thirty unarmed Black students at Jackson State—or Southern State, either."

"I want to apologize to you, my Black brothers and sisters, for being on the new jersey turnpike. I should have known better. The turnpike is a checkpoint where Black people are stopped, searched, harassed, and assaulted. Revolutionaries must never be in too much of a hurry or make careless decisions. He who runs when the sun is sleeping will stumble many times."

"How much we had all gone through. Our fight had started on a slave ship years before we were born. Venceremos, my favorite word in Spanish, crossed my mind. Ten million people had stood up to the monster. Ten million people only ninety miles away. We were here together in their land, my small little family, holding each other after so long. There was no doubt about it, our people would one day be free. The cowboys and bandits didn't own the world."

"Anytime you're talking about a ladder, you're talking about a top and a bottom , an upper class and a lower class, a rich class and a poor class. As long as you've got a system with a top and a bottom, Black people are always going to wind up at the bottom, because we're the easiest to discriminate against."

"Too many people in the u.s. support death and destruction without being aware of it. They indirectly support the killing of people without ever having to look at the corpses."

"When we were sitting in this courtroom, during the jury selection proves, i listened to Judge Thompson tell you about the amerikan system of justice. He talked about the presumption of innocence; he talked about equality and justice. His words were like a beautiful dream in a beautiful world. But i have been awaiting trial for two and one half years. And justice, in my eyesight has not been the amerikan dream. It has been the amerikan nightmare. There was a time when I wanted to believe that there was justice in this country. But reality crashed through and shattered all my daydreams. While awaiting trial i have earned a Ph.D. in justice, or rather, the lack of it."

"The schools we go to are reflections of the society that created them. Nobody is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free. Schools in amerika are interested in brainwashing people with amerikanism, giving them a little bit of education, and training them in skills needed to fill the position the capitalist system requires. As long as we expect amerika's schools to educate us, we will remain ignorant."

"Every day out in the streets now, i remind myself that black people in amerika are oppressed. It's necessary that I do that. People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be accurately aware of being a slave."

"We're taught at such an early age to be against the communists, yet most of us don't have the faintest idea what communism is. Only a fool lets somebody tell them who the enemy is."

"Only the news concerning Black people made any impact at all on me. And it seemed that each year the news got worse. The first of the really bad news that i remember was Montgomery, Alabama. That was when i first heard of Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks had been arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white woman. The Black people boycotted the buses. It was a nasty struggle. Black people were harassed and attacked and, if i remember correctly, Martin Luther King’s house was bombed. Then came Little Rock. I can still remember those ugly, terrifying white mobs attacking those little children who were close to my own age. When the news about Little Rock came on, you could hear a pin drop at my house. We would all sit there horrified. Sometimes, afterward, somebody would say something, but usually, we would just sit there lost in our own thoughts. I guess there was nothing to say. And each year i would sit in front of that box, watching my people being attacked by white mobs, being bitten by dogs, beaten and water-hosed by police, arrested and murdered. Then the news seemed too real."

"There was not a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism. In fact, there was not a single liberation movement in the whole world that was fighting for capitalism. The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation: anything that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn’t working people collectively own that wealth? Why shouldn’t working people own and control their own resources? Capitalism meant that rich businessmen owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it."

"I remember how i felt in those days. I wanted to be an amerikan just like any other amerikan. I wanted a piece of amerika's apple pie. Believed we could get our freedom just by appealing to the consciences of white people. I believed that the North was really interested in integration and civil rights and equal rights. I used to go around saying, "our country," "our president," "our government." When the national anthem was played or the pledge of allegiance spoken, i stood at attention and felt proud. I don't know what in the hell i was feeling proud about, but i felt the juice of patriotism running through my blood. Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."

"I was getting tired of the streets. I was tired of being grown and i wanted to be a kid again."