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| Gobot Road Ranger knock-off of Transformer Optimus Prime |
Nothing could rival the Transformers when they came out in the 80's. Nothing! And just like with anything good, eventually comes the cheap knock-offs. In this case it was the pitiful Gobots. When the Tonka company heard that Hasbro had that fire coming, they [Tonka] hurried up and dropped the Gobots; one of the biggest duds in toy making history. While Transformers took several elaborate steps to transform into these well crafted sophisticated robots, Gobots took maybe a few steps and ended up looking like a burnt-out sometimes faceless version of what it originally looked like; a Burger King kids meal toy. The bootleg cartoons were just as horrible and torture for a Millennial to watch today. Bottom line is Tonka shoulda stuck to trucks and that's the same advice that many of us should take when it comes to sticking to what we know. Let me tell you about an archetypal Transformer before I get to the Gobots.
A common misconception some people have about The Five Percent is that we are a Muslim group; some religious spin-off, branch or denomination of the Islamic faith. Some believe this because our founder Allah, The Father, was once a Registered Muslim in the Nation of Islam [NOI] under Minister Malcolm X at Harlem's Mosque #7. When he left the NOI in 1963, he also left their belief system, religious hierarchy and name Clarence 13X behind. What he did retain were a series of lessons, 120, that became an integrated part of a unique cultural curriculum. A curriculum which primarily included Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet; an Alphanumeric system of principles and values that was uniquely devised by him. This non-religious curriculum formed the basis of the Five Percent cultural worldview, which contained an original language, standards and customs that the Father and his companions began to teach youth in the streets of Harlem, AKA Mecca, in 1964.
As the Five Percent we honor The Father's legacy, from his upbringing in Danville Virginia, his military service in Korea, his brief time in Mosque #7 and his formation of the Five Percent Nation in the mid 60's. As with the The Father and every human being, all of our experiences were and are important in making us who are and neither experience single-handedly defines our identity. This is important to communicate because some Muslims have a very bad habit of claim-jumping when it comes to successful people like Yahweh Ben Yahweh, Muhammad Ali, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz [Malcolm X.], Dr. Sebi, Khalid Abdul Muhammad, Kool and the Gang Musicians, The Father and etc. who left their religion behind. It's like a high school basketball coach trying to claim credit for a player who became a superstar after they left or were cut from the team. In my mind, if it's multiple players that left or were cut from the program but then go on to do become superstars, the program starts to look questionable; its system, its coaching staff and possibly its athletic director. Five Percenters are like street ball players who questioned that Muslim program, either as former players or those who never wanted to play for that program, in that system or with that coaching staff. Some Five Percenters are highly critical of that program while others really don't give it much thought. Sometimes you have those who can't make their mind up; they want to play for that program yet also play in the street. If they are undecided, the program makes up their mind for them because there are certain restrictive laws that go along with being a part of that program. And if you don't follow the program, you're not eligible to play. You also have those who started playing street ball but then decided to join the program. That's fine, when it's respectfully articulated to those in the street. A problem arises when players who join the program try to act like they're better or even front like they're in the street in order to recruit street ball players to that program. This is like the religious program being NOI Muslims and street ballers as The Five Percent. The above group of undecided/Muslim recruiters are synonymous with a clandestine group called the Allah Team that operated in secret before making themselves public on the campus of Morehouse University in 1998. As can be surmised, this caused friction with the Five Percenters and these undecided/Muslim recruiters called the Allah Team separated themselves from the cipher. While there have always been short lived bootleg versions of us since the 60's, it was at this moment that we, the Transformers [Five Percent] began to see the creation of the Gobots.
Allah Prince Sha'Divine builds on his experience with The Allah Team
A couple of famous quotes of The Father during a November 15th 1967 Interview regarding religion are "you gotta keep the children together and kill all religion" and "And the Five Percenters, I'm teaching them that they can't go on under religion because religion has never did anything for them." Obviously this wasn't a declaration to kill people, this, along with other quotes from this Interview, made it absolutely clear that The Father wasn't an advocate of organized religion. The Father wanted us to kill or destroy the division, hierarchy, lies and manipulation that binds religious people: as religion comes from the Latin religare meaning "to bind." Some Muslims would argue that, "Brother Clarence 13X used some of the religious teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad so he must have been religious" to which I would retort, "using the Arabic numerals 0, 1-9 doesn't make everyone a Muslim." The principles and values The Father learned throughout his life, which included as a registered Muslim, were mathematically practical, not religious. This is the reasoning behind the Five Percenter's creation of Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet; it's an Alphanumeric system that practically unlocked 120 lessons, and lessons in life, that were often purposely veiled by religion. Most of the words we speak in English are derived from a different language, culture and associated religion. It doesn't automatically mean we are that culture or associated religion if we use them. To call us Five Percenters Muslims even though we clearly do not practice the 5 Pillars of Islam, follow the Sunnah, attend a mosque, temple or masjid or follow an Imam/Minister is disrespectful to Muslims who do. A core belief of Allah Team group members is the confusing idea that you can somehow be a Muslim and Allah simultaneously. In their mind you can submit to the will of Allah as a Muslim, be a demigod [small "g" god], pray to THE God in the person of Prophet Master Fard Muhammad who wasn't the first God to create the universe, but we're all "Allahs" [yes, with an "s" on it].
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| Five Percent Universal Flag and Allah Team Logo |
The Father taught the youth our culture for five years until he was assassinated on June 13th, 1969. In May of 1965 after being arrested with several other men for unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct at a rally in front of the Hotel Theresa in Mecca [Harlem, NY], he was arraigned in criminal court before Judge Francis X. O'Brien and held on a $9,500 bond. Four months later he was shipped off to the Psychiatric Unit at Bellevue Hospital. Allah would remain there until a final psychiatric report submitted to Judge O'Brien stated that "he did not understand the charges against him" thus remanding him to the NYS Department of Mental Hygiene for indefinite confinement. At the age of 37, Allah was confined in these institutions, Bellevue and Matteawan State Hospital, for two years, and released in April of 1967. During this time he taught, different youth received different instructions. Instructions that often sound like contradictions. While it's clear that The Father was anti-organized religion, he did instruct some, not all, young Five Percenters to become Muslims by joining the mosque when he was gone. They obviously would benefit from the structure that religious program would offer them and it also shows that the Father wasn't confident in their ability to manage without that and him. I teach preschool and facilitate an after school program for 9 to 12 year olds so I definitely understand his reasoning. Some students I encourage to do some things while others get a different set of instructions. However, regardless of those individualized instructions, there were always anti-religious Five Percenter axioms that the Father taught regardless who he was speaking to, and those axioms were rooted in the unique language, standards and customs of our cultural worldview.
Two of the main axioms of the Five Percent is that we don't adhere to a hierarchical structure and we do not have a single leader. We teach collective leadership and that each person should follow to the extent of learning to lead themselves; self-sufficiency. If you're a believer, registered Muslim in the Nation of Islam who follows a leader, whether it's John Muhammad [Elijah's brother], Silias Muhammad, Solomon Royall, The Son of Man [Marvin Muhammad], Ahmad A. Muhammad or Minister Louis Farrakhan, you cannot simultaneously be non-religious and without a leader, it's a fundamental contradiction. Now I've heard some say that if you work or go to school your Manager or Teacher is your leader but here's the difference; they cannot tell you what to do at home like a religious leader does. If Minister Farrakhan says to his believers, "I want you all to start wearing this green & yellow Dianetics pin on your lapel every day to display our partnership with the Church of Scientology", you have to do it as a follower, at home and abroad. If you question or disobey that order you're considered a hypocrite, disbeliever and etc.
Another Five Percenter axiom is the propagation and preservation of our unique cultural curriculum; 120 lessons, Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet. I emphasize "unique" because no one does this. No religion or other culture. Not only are we required to share and maintain our culture, we consistently test one another on it. I remember in the late 90's being at a Wu-Tang Clan concert and A Son Unique [Ol' Dirty Bastard], upon seeing my Universal Flag, questioning me on one of the lengthiest lessons in 120. Knowing 120, extracting and articulating the wisdom of 120 and understanding 120 equals 360 degrees; a complete cipher [120+120+120=360]. It is through one's immersion in our unique cultural curriculum, via Five Percenters who live it, that they learn our chronology, gatherings, honor days, language, standards and overall customs. It's impossible to learn this as a cultural tourist, academic or undecided/Muslim recruiter. So whenever I've looked at or engaged members of the Allah Team, males and females, there was always a clear disassociation from some of the chronology, gatherings, honor days, language, standards and overall customs of the Five Percent. In terms of chronology, they didn't have or maintain a strong lineage to a family tree actively connected to the root. They didn't actively attend or participate in any of our cultural gatherings or honor days and if given a choice they primarily honor religious days such as the Muslim's Annual Savior's Day and fast for Ramadan. They weren't fluent or couldn't properly articulate our language nor our lessons. When is came to standards and overall customs, it was obvious they were not like me and other brother and sisters of the Five Percent. Now some would and have argued that they do live the culture "personally" but just don't come around because of so and so -but that actually proves the point that they aren't living the culture. Why? Because it's impossible to live the culture, share and preserve, it by our lonesome. In fact, it will die with us. Always keep in mind that we received it from somebody. Plus civilization requires socialization, collective work and responsibility and cooperative economics. In the most simplest terms, if a person isn't adding on, they're taking away. Some would argue that one of our Prophets, W.D. Fard, "came to North America by himself" and that is true in a sense that no one personally traveled with him to his destination. It's also true that his family sent him, he most likely took a vessel with other travelers, and when he got to Detroit he became a part of his uncle's community. He still wasn't "alone", even when Elijah was supposedly looking through a keyhole to see if he slept and saw an eyeball staring back at him.
I know this was kinda lengthy, and will probably be revisited, so let me wrap this up. The main reason for this article is to point out that since out formal 1964 inception to today, there has been and continues to be people, impostors, trying to call themselves Five Percenters when they are not. Whether it was Robert Walker in the 60's or the Allah Team, they are not us. Even though some of them are aware of our way of life, none of them "primarily" share and preserve the unique chronology, gatherings, honor days, language, standards and overall customs of our Five Percent culture. That's fine to be aware, other Muslims, Moors, Nuwaubians, Khemetians, Hebrews, Christians or etc. are also. Just don't claim to be something you're clearly not. It's disrespectful, disingenuous, confusing and outright clownish to those of us who are the real Five Percent.
Peace,
Saladin
