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Author: Ramon-Francisco Ocasio

  • America’s Secret Colony: The Shame in America’s Backyard

    America’s Secret Colony: The Shame in America’s Backyard

    On November 19, 1493, Christopher Columbus stumbled onto an island named, by its Taino inhabitants, Borikén, one of three large islands comprising the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. For the next 400 years, it remained a neglected backwater in the far-flung Spanish empire until 1898 when it was invaded and annexed, along with Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba, by the United States as a result of the Spanish-American War.

    The United States was completing a century of continental expansion, but this was its first foray into colonial empire. In a series of opinions by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1901, called the Insular Cases, it was determined that full constitutional protection of rights does not apply to Puerto Rico or other territories or places under U.S. control. And people of such territories were to be considered “alien races differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation and modes of thought,” so that “the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible.”

    The man who wrote the majority opinion in the Insular Cases was Justice Henry Billings Brown, who also wrote the majority opinion in the “separate but equal” case Plessy v. Ferguson which upheld racial segregation laws for public facilities. Thus the tone was set for over a century of dysfunctional relations between Puerto Rico and the United States.

    Though officially a commonwealth with some local legislative control, it remains “subject to the full plenary powers of Congress under Article IV, Section 3 of the United States Constitution.” Puerto Ricans were granted American citizenship with the Jones Act in 1917, just in time for its young men to be eligible for the draft of World War I. Despite fighting in all of America’s wars ever since, Puerto Ricans are forbidden from voting for President. The U.S. Supreme Court made it official in 1922, declaring Puerto Rico a territory, not a state. The U.S. Constitution’s protections, especially those which relate to labor protections, collective bargaining, and the minimum wage, would not be available to the residents of Puerto Rico. As we shall see shortly, this was a formula for egregious exploitation that American corporations and bank syndicates wouldn’t pass up.

    Disaster Relief, American Style

    A year after the American invasion, San Ciriaco, the longest-lived Atlantic hurricane in recorded history, wreaked havoc on Puerto Rico. It left over 3,000 dead, 250,000 homeless and without food, and thousands of farms and crops destroyed. It was the worst hurricane in Puerto Rican history and an epic disaster. Curiously, the United States offered no aid whatsoever.

    The following year the United States outlawed the Spanish peso and devalued it by 40 percent so that when Puerto Ricans exchanged their pesos for U.S. dollars, they instantly lost 40 percent of their wealth. Still desperately trying to recover from the previous year’s devastation, they lost almost half their wealth and saw their debts increase proportionately. The next year the U.S. began enforcement of the Hollander Act, which imposed a land tax on already desperate farmers who were now in danger of losing their farms.

    Farmers rushed to mortgage their farms in a last-ditch attempt to save them, but their only recourse was the American Colonial Bank. Unencumbered by usury laws, the bank charged interest rates so high that defaults and foreclosures were legion. The result was an enormous land and wealth transfer to American interests and the impoverishment of the Puerto Rican masses. A major transformation would also take place as the previously diversified agricultural economy of coffee, tobacco, fruits and sugar would give way to one crop. Sugar was now king. By 1930, 45 percent of all arable land in Puerto Rico was transformed into sugar plantations. By 1934, U.S.-owned Central Guánica, Central Aguirre, Fajardo Sugar, and United Porto Rico Sugar comprised over half the island’s arable land. Their possessions included cane fields refining mills, warehouses, railroads, and the post office.

    One particular criminal bears special mention here: Charles Herbert Allen. The first civilian governor of Puerto Rico, he used his brief, nearly 17-month tenure to take control of the island’s entire economy. On his return to the United States, he became president of the American Sugar Refining Company, the largest sugar refining company in the world. You know it today by the name Domino Sugar.

    Natural disaster, currency devaluation, land taxes, and usurious banking syndicates by now had reduced the Puerto Rican population to a landless, crushing poverty. Many went to work at the major sugar cane Centrales, but the highly mechanized operation could not absorb the workforce who then sought work in the cities. Wages were less than half those paid under the Spanish. When the Puerto Rican legislature, created by the Jones Act in 1917, tried to give some relief with a minimum wage law, it was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. This pattern of total domination by American branches of government characterizes the colonial relationship which persists to this day.

    Resistance and Repression

    With wages at a mere 12.5 cents an hour, half of what they were under the Spanish, and many families on the brink of starvation, workers embarked on a series of island-wide strikes. They were led by a man who was to become the iconic symbol of Puerto Rican patriotism and resistance— Don Pedro Albizu Campos. He was the first Puerto Rican ever to graduate from Harvard Law School. A brilliant intellectual and orator who spoke six languages, he was ever the freedom fighter, even helping Eamon de Valera draft the constitution for the new Irish republic. He turned down many lucrative offers to return to his hometown of Ponce to practice poverty law.

    He was asked to lead the strike after it was evident that some of the leaders had sold out. The syndicates finally caved in, with a resounding victory for the agricultural workers who saw their wages doubled, staving off starvation for hundreds of thousands. Albizu Campos, now leader of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, emerged as the undisputed leader of the island’s resistance movement. In 1934, President Roosevelt appointed General Blanton Winship governor of Puerto Rico with the express mission of crushing the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. He began by militarizing the police, issuing them Tommy-guns, tear gas, and riot gear, and instituting intense police training modeled after military boot-camp.

    Winship appointed E. Francis Riggs Chief of the Insular Police. Riggs was a Yale graduate and military intelligence officer fresh from duties as advisor to Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. He became notorious for the murder of four Nationalists and a bystander in broad daylight in what infamously became known as the Rio Piedras Massacre. Afterward, he called a press conference declaring that if Albizu Campos did not cease his organizing of the agricultural workers, there would be “war to the death against all Puerto Ricans.” After two Nationalists retaliated by assassinating Riggs the following year, Don Pedro Albizu Campos along with six other Nationalists were sent to prison for ten years.

    The Ponce Massacre

    In 1937, a peaceful Palm Sunday demonstration took place in the southern Puerto Rican city of Ponce. Hundreds, many of them Nationalists armed only with palm fronds, were marching in commemoration of the abolition of slavery on the island. Abruptly, Governor Winship rescinded their permit to march. While the march’s organizers were arguing with police officials, the heavily armed security force positioned themselves along the route, blocking escape and forming a killing zone. On Governor Winship’s orders, the slaughter commenced, and after a 13-minute fusillade with carbines, rifles, and Thompson submachine guns, 17 were dead and over 200 wounded. Among the dead was seven-year-old Georgina Maldonado. There was outrage throughout the island, and Roosevelt was forced to recall Winship. Despite condemnations from the press and members of Congress, he remained unrepentant and never offered an apology.

    The Struggle Continues

    Don Pedro was held in prison ten years. On his release in 1948, Law 53 was enacted. Dubbed La Ley de la Mordaza (The Gag Law), the law made any expression of sympathy for the resistance movement, singing of La Borinqueña (the Puerto Rican national anthem), or even ownership of the Puerto Rican flag punishable with up to ten years in prison. Undeterred, Albizu Campos and the Nationalists launched in 1950 an uprising that came to be known as the October Revolution. It was put down with the overwhelming might of the U.S. military. Ten P47 Thunderbolt planes indiscriminately bombed the towns of Utuado and Jayuya, marking the only time in history that the United States has dropped bombs on its own citizens on American soil.

    Don Pedro Albizu Campos, after ten more years in prison and four more under house arrest with round-the-clock FBI surveillance, died in 1965. He remains an inspiration and a powerful symbol of resistance, patriotism, unflinching determination, and courage.

    A Legacy of Colonialism

    Puerto Rico has endured indignities for being the United States’ “secret colony.” A perverted application of Law 113, which made sterilization legal on the island, resulted in one-third of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age, from 20-49, being sterilized, the highest rate in the world. A 1968 study determined that thousands were unaware that the procedure would lead to permanent sterilization.

    The U.S. established up to 25 bases on the island, using the outlying island of Vieques as a bombing range and testing ground by the U.S. Navy, with devastating ecological impact to residents and the fishing industry upon which they depend. And now, hedge fund vultures are taking advantage of the island’s economic crisis to force the sale of public institutions and utilities to private hands, all with the complicity of the U.S. government. This has increased the cost of living for a population earning only half that of the poorest state in America.

    The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization has repeatedly called on the United States to provide for Puerto Rican self-determination, but it has repeatedly been ignored. This situation is no longer sustainable or justifiable.

    Que viva Puerto Rico libre— May Puerto Rico live free!

  • La dawah a través del empoderamiento de la comunidad: Una Perspectiva Musulmana Latina

    La dawah a través del empoderamiento de la comunidad: Una Perspectiva Musulmana Latina

    Los musulmanes latinos ya no son la novedad que una vez fueron en este país. Su número parece estar aumentando, pero no se han hecho estudios extensos de latinos musulmanes hasta la fecha, por lo que no tenemos una evaluación realista del número de conversos ni dónde, cuándo o por qué se convirtieron. Lo que sí sabemos es que, en su mayor parte, existen dispersos en diferentes zonas de la nación, muchos, tal vez, anhelando una expresión islámica legítima de su identidad latina. También se han convertido en un grupo mucho más diversificado a través del tiempo, un fenómeno pan-latino que representa prácticamente a todas las naciones latinoamericanas.

    Históricamente, a medida que los musulmanes conquistaron nuevas tierras, se convirtieron en gobernantes de grandes poblaciones no musulmanas, al principio cristianas y zoroástricas, y más tarde hindúes y subsaharianas animistas. Debido a la prohibición en el Corán de la conversión forzada, estos no musulmanes a menudo conservaban su identidad religiosa durante muchas generaciones bajo el dominio de la minoría musulmana. Sin embargo, en la gran mayoría de los casos, el Islam se convirtió finalmente en la religión dominante de las masas. Esto no se logró únicamente a través del proselitismo. Las masas por naturaleza tienden a ser cautelosas y desconfiadas de lo nuevo y desconocido. Mientras las palabras pueden o no ser comprendidas, las acciones hablan de manera clara y concreta.

    Los musulmanes heredaron un mundo donde la violación, el pillaje y el asesinato eran la norma para los demás conquistadores. Sin embargo, los primeros musulmanes desafiaron toda convención evitando la barbarie y reemplazándola con un sentido de justicia y respeto por los derechos de los demás. Las acciones de aquellos primeros musulmanes, personificadas en sus buenos modales, valores y las instituciones que establecieron para asegurar la paz y la justicia, tuvieron un efecto profundo. Eran el arranque para la creación de una generación nueva y duradera de musulmanes motivados por actos que iban más allá de las palabras. Estos primeros musulmanes veían la justicia y el bienestar de la humanidad como la expresión externa apropiada de la misión coránica que Alá y Su Profeta, la paz sea con él, les habían confiado.

    Tal fue el caso de la España Visigótica del siglo VIII, una tierra crujiendo bajo el peso de la opresión y la decadencia social. Allí, la conquista y el gobierno musulmán fueron transformadores. Las injusticias anteriores fueron reemplazadas por leyes justas que dieron poder al pueblo, especialmente en la reforma agraria. El énfasis en el bienestar público fue evidente en su atención a la salud, la higiene, la educación y la infraestructura urbana y rural. La Península Ibérica se convirtió en Al Ándalus, el faro de una civilización ilustre. Cuando Andalucía alcanzó la cima de la civilización califal, el 70 por ciento de la población ibérica nativa se había convertido al Islam.

    Ahora, medio milenio más tarde, los descendientes culturales de esa civilización andaluza están regresando a Alá y a la religión que les proporcionó la fuerza para cambiar sus vidas. Sin embargo, esta vez no estamos marchando hacia Times Square o San Francisco Bay como conquistadores. No somos los gobernantes, sino que estamos entre los gobernados en una república cuyos representantes gobiernan de acuerdo a sus intereses financieros y empresariales parasíticos y explotadores. La miseria se ha extendido por todo el país, donde la mitad de la población se considera pobre, millones de personas han perdido sus empleos y sus hogares, uno de cada cuatro niños vive en pobreza extrema y millones, desproporcionadamente Afroamericanos y latinos, están tras las rejas trabajando en esclavitud legalizada para grandes corporaciones.

    En este contexto, ¿qué representa el musulmán latino, o cualquier musulmán en general, en América en el Siglo XXI? Cuando los no-musulmanes nos miran, ¿qué ven? ¿Nos ven defendiendo los derechos de los oprimidos? ¿Nos ven sacrificando nuestro tiempo y dinero para aliviar el sufrimiento de los afligidos o ayudando a los necesitados en nuestra sociedad? ¿Nos ven oponiéndonos a la injusticia económica y la brutalidad de una fuerza policiaca cada vez más autoritaria? ¿O nos ven pasar indiferentemente por al lado de sus casas mientras estamos en camino a la mezquita, nuestros trabajos o hogares, aparentemente sin darle la más mínima importancia a su dolor? Sin embargo, el Corán nos dice, “¡Oh, creyentes! Sed realmente equitativos cuando deis testimonio por Alá, aunque sea en contra de vosotros mismos, de vuestros padres o parientes cercanos, sea [el acusado] rico o pobre; Alá está por encima de ellos. No sigáis las pasiones y seáis injustos. Si dais falso testimonio o rechazáis prestar testimonio [ocultando la verdad] sabed que Alá está bien informado de cuánto hacéis” (4:135).

    Los movimientos islámicos del pasado en este país reconocían que la expresión de fe en Alá iba más allá de las oraciones obligatorias, el ayuno y lo similar. Los esfuerzos para corregir la injusticia y la desigualdad en la sociedad eran igualmente importantes y se veían como la manera de emular los grandes musulmanes reformadores del pasado. Los musulmanes latinos son una minoría dentro de una minoría, pero tenemos un verdadero poder para impresionar a nuestra gente con la esencia de la religión de Alá, comunicando a través de nuestras acciones lo que los discursos, folletos, videos y CDs no logran transmitir. Grupos del pasado como el Movimiento Darul Islam, la Mezquita de la Hermandad Islámica, el Partido Islámico de Norteamérica y Alianza Islámica galvanizaron a sus miembros alrededor de dos proposiciones firmes: proclamar la palabra de Alá y hablar en contra de cualquier forma de injusticia y opresión. Alá dice en el Corán, “¿Por qué no luchan por la causa de Alá, cuando hay hombres, mujeres y niños oprimidos que dicen: ¡Señor nuestro! Sálvanos de los habitantes opresores que hay en esta ciudad. Envíanos quien nos proteja y socorra?” (4:74).

    Alianza Islámica fue la primera organización musulmana latina en combinar un programa efectivo de dawah con un programa de bienestar social igualmente vigorosa. En la Costa Oeste, LALMA (La Asociación Latinoamericana de musulmanes de Los Ángeles), inspirada por su ejemplo, ha tenido mucho éxito con un enfoque similar, denominado dawah indirecta, por su fundadora Marta Galedary, durante los últimos 16 años. Sin embargo, es importante señalar que un verdadero movimiento islámico fiel a su causa no es una carrera. Nadie en Alianza, desde el director para abajo, recibió un centavo por sus esfuerzos. La organización también evitó la tentación de crear élites autodenominados o títulos falsos: no se permitían los Sheij Fulanos, los Papo El Mahdis, los agitadores de los medios de comunicación, ni los que querían satisfacer sus egos. El enfoque siempre fue servir al pueblo y la comunidad.

    Creo que es necesario que este modelo se repita por una nueva generación de latinos musulmanes que lo mejoren, lo dejen evolucionar y lo adapten a nuevas circunstancias y ambientes, permaneciendo fieles a su espíritu revolucionario. Tal vez entonces, si Alá así lo desea, el Islam se fortificará en las comunidades donde la gente está más perjudicada. Esta sociedad ha cargado a la gente latina con una serie de dificultades: la falta de educación, los aprietos económicos, la brutalidad policial y el abismo de la inmigración. Por encima de ese pandemonio, nosotros, como musulmanes, debemos proclamar la unicidad de Alá y la misión profética de Muhammad, que la paz sea con él. Para aquellos que no pueden oírnos por encima del alboroto, que por lo menos vean el Islam en acción. Tal vez, si Alá así lo desea, a través de una combinación de ambos enfoques, los ecos de una Andalucía perdida se escuchen de nuevo y la luz finalmente vuelva después de una larga oscuridad.

  • Dawah Through Community Empowerment: A Latino Muslim Perspective

    Dawah Through Community Empowerment: A Latino Muslim Perspective

    Latino Muslims are no longer the novelty they once were in this country. Their number appears to be ris-ing but no extensive studies of Latino Muslims have been done to date, which is why we have no realistic assessment of the numbers of converts nor where, when, or why they converted. What we do know is that they, for the most part, are a disjointed group scattered in pockets across the nation, many, per-haps, yearning for a legitimate Islamic expression of their Latin identity. They have also become a much more diversified group over time, a pan-Latino phenomenon representing practically every Latin Ameri-can nation.

    Historically, as Muslims conquered new lands, they became rulers of large non-Muslim populations, at first Christian and Zoroastrian, and later Hindu and sub-Saharan animist. Due to the Quranic prohibition on forced conversion, these non-Muslims often retained their religious identity for many generations under Muslim minority rule. Yet, in the vast majority of cases, Islam eventually became the dominant religion of the masses. This was not accomplished solely through proselytization because the masses by nature tend to be cautious, distrustful, and wary of the new and unfamiliar. Words may or may not be understood, but actions speak clearly and eloquently.

    Rape, pillage, and murder were the order of the day for conquerors in the world the Muslims inherited. Yet the early Muslims defied all convention by eschewing barbarity and replacing it with a sense of justice and respect for the rights of others. The actions of those early Muslims, embodied in their manners, morals, and the institutions they established to secure societal peace and justice, had a profound effect. They were the impetus for the creation of a new and enduring generation of Muslims, touched by acts that went beyond words. These early Muslims saw justice and the welfare of mankind as the proper outward expression of the Quranic mission Allah and His Prophet (pbuh) had entrusted to them.

    Such was the case with 8th century Visigothic Spain, a land groaning under the weight of oppression and social decay. There, Muslim conquest and rule was transformative. The former injustices were replaced with just laws that empowered the people, most notably in land reform. The emphasis on public welfare was evident in their attention to health, hygiene, education, and urban and rural infrastructure. The Ibe-rian Peninsula became Al Andalus, a beacon of enlightened civilization. By the time Andalusia had reached its caliphal height, 70 percent of the native Iberian population had become Muslim.

    Now, a half-millennium later, the cultural descendants of that Andalusian civilization are returning to
    Allah and the religion that provided its life-altering strength. Yet this time we are not marching into Times Square or San Francisco Bay as conquerors, to display magnanimity from a position of power. We rule nothing, but are among the ruled in a republic whose representatives govern at the behest of
    exploitative, parasitic corporate and financial interests. Misery has spread throughout the country where half of the population is now considered poor, millions have lost their jobs and homes, one in four chil-dren live in abject poverty, and millions, disproportionately African-American and Latino, are behind bars working in legalized slavery for major corporations.

    In this context, what does a Latino Muslim, or for that matter any Muslim, stand for in 21st century America? When non-Muslims look at us now, what do they see? Do they see us standing up for the rights of the oppressed? Do they see us sacrificing our time and money to alleviate the suffering of the afflicted or aiding the needy in our society? Do they see us taking a stand against economic injustice and the brutality of an increasingly authoritarian police force? Or do they see us dispassionately walking by their homes on our way to the mosque, work, or home, seemingly unconcerned with their pain? Yet, the Quran tells us, “O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be [against] rich or poor, for Allah can best pro-tect both. Follow not the lusts [of your hearts] lest you swerve, and if you distort or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well- acquainted with all that you do” (4:135).

    This country’s past Islamic movements recognized that the Islamic expression of faith in Allah went be-yond the requisite prayers, fasting, and charity. They saw their efforts to correct injustices and inequity in their society as their way of emulating the great reformers of the past. Latino Muslims are a minority within a minority, yet we have the very real power to impress nuestra gente (our people) with the true essence of Allah’s deen, communicating through our actions what speeches, brochures, videos, and CDs fail to convey. Past groups like the Darul Islam Movement, the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, the Is-lamic Party of North America, and Alianza Islamica galvanized their members around two uncompromis-ing propositions: proclaiming the word of Allah and speaking out against any form of injustice and op-pression. Allah says in the Quran, “And what is amiss with you that you fight not in the cause of Allah and of the oppressed among men, women, and children who say, ‘Our Lord, take us out of this city of oppressive people and appoint for us from Yourself a protector and appoint for us from Yourself a help-er?’” (4:74).

    Alianza Islamica was the first Latino Muslim organization to combine an effective dawah program with an equally vigorous social welfare program. On the West Coast, LALMA (Los Angeles Latino Muslim Associa-tion), reportedly inspired by their example, has been very successful with a similar approach, termed indi-rect dawah, by its founder Marta Galedary, for the past 16 years. However, it is important to note that a true Islamic movement faithful to its cause is not a career path. No one in Alianza, from the director on down, ever received a dime for their efforts. Alianza also avoided the temptation of creating self-identified, titled elites: no Shaikh Fulanos or Papo El Mahdis; no attention-seeking or ego-stroking was allowed. Focus was kept on serving the people and the community.

    I believe there is a need for this model to be taken up by a new generation of Latino Muslims who would improve on it, allow it to evolve, and adapt it to new circumstances and environments while remaining true to its revolutionary spirit. Maybe then, if Allah so wills, Islam can become entrenched in communi-ties where people are hurting the most. This society has saddled Latinos with a host of burdens: poor education, economic hardship, police brutality, and the quagmire of immigration. Above that pandemo-nium, we, as Muslims, must proclaim the oneness of Allah and the messengership of Muhammad (pbuh). For those unable to hear us beyond that cacophony, let them see Islam in action. Perhaps, if Al-lah so wills, through a combination of both approaches, the faint echoes of a long-lost Andalucía will be heard again and light will finally return after the long night.