Builders Build; Journeys to The Motherland

Anusha on the white sand beaches of Zanzibar

 

    Last year I traveled to Africa for the first time following the successful opening of my Atlantis School Gifted Youngsters. For two years I worked on renovating the site, while simultaneously coordinating public art projects in my city through the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, serving as the director of community engagement at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center, working with the United Nations, doing documentary projects, and various other programs and initiatives. It was a lot, and I would joking tell people that I work twenty-five hours a day, eight days a week. However, none of it felt or feels like work because I love what I do. Over this time period I sacrificed a lot to complete the Atlantis School. There were times that I had an opportunity to travel outside of a professional capacity, yet I chose to purchase a pallet of drywall, new windows, or appliances. Upon the completion of the Atlantis School I planned to take a trip somewhere in January 2023. That "somewhere" was Tanzania, 7,760 miles away. 

Tanzania, January 2023

     Many people have asked me, "Why Tanzania?", and there are a few reasons why I chose this location for my first journey to Africa. Number one, this East African country, with over one hundred and twenty different tribes, does not have the same history of the transatlantic trade of enslaved people as West Africa. Yes, I will visit the Western African slave ports, castles, and etc. one day. I did not want my first trip "home" to be an experience of trauma tourism. Secondly, I wanted to be in an area where I could see the various landscapes of the African continent including its famous wildlife. My entire life I grew up seeing Maasai statues, spears, shields, and other African art and crafts that my father collected. To visit a land that my father never journeyed to, yet taught my siblings and I so much about, was a personal pilgrimage. Lastly, Tanzania's Visa and COVID-19 policies were not harsh restrictions. I did not need to get dozens of vaccinations, nor was their media using fearmongering propaganda to force people to do so. 

     If you have ever said or heard someone talk about their dream to return to the motherland, my experience was like what you might imagine. From the time that I set foot on the soil in Mt. Kilimanjaro, until the time that I left, it was one of the most liberating experiences in my entire life. I felt like a king returning to my country. Our people were kind, generous, considerate, and honored for me to be there. There were white 'tourists' there from around the world to go on safaris and visit Zanzibar, yet I was not treated as a tourist. It is the first time in my life as a Black man that I have ever felt a sense of security, safety, and comfort. I was home! It left such a deep impression on me that on my journey back to America all I could think about was how I could bring others with me next time. I literally began putting the plan together on the plane. Several months later I was right back in Tanzania, and Zanzibar this time, with several others from across the United States. A few weeks ago, 12 months later, I returned with twenty-one people, including my five-year-old queen Anusha. 

     Many people have asked, "What is the reason for these trips?" I simply want people to this experience this, especially our youth. Folks have asked what travel agent/agency did I go through to set this up and the answer is none, nor am I doing this as a travel agent. When I traveled the first time I started building relationships with our people there, and it was through this established local network that I began to make these journeys possible. On this most recent journey, it was a collaborative effort; my colleagues from my second trip, Kelly Diane Galloway (Buffalo, NY) and Roderick Adams (Oakland, CA), assisted with the planning, coordination, and its execution. This journey was also captured by videographer/documentarian Dorrell Edwards of Always Timeless Productions who will be producing a documentary about our experience. 

A heard of elephants in the Serengeti
Image: Always Timeless Productions

   From the first time that I went to East Africa, to the most recent journey, I still find it difficult to verbalize this lived experience. Staying on a fully sustainable eco farm which grew fifteen varieties of bananas, I was unable to eat bananas in America for five months. Drinking pure water from a natural mountain stream, not witnessing an argument or fight, eating all organic fruit and vegetables with seeds, sitting with my back to doors without feeling a sense of danger, and being declared an International Ambassador of a Primary School that I visited are just a few things that radicalized me. Sure, there are pockets in America where you can find some of these things, yet that is what I experienced as a standard of normalcy in an environment that sustained it. Everyone looked like me, from the darkest shade of black to the lightest of brown; in their cities and rural areas, in law enforcement, their government, and in every profession within society. In the images of their schoolbooks, on their advertisements, and across television. People were not materialistic and judging one another based upon what they had, or did not have. No one was debating each other's religious or political perspectives. There was not even a sense of violence. To put this into perspective, just last week Anusha asked, "Dad, were there police in Africa?" The fact that she didn't even realize they were there taking up space tells you how different it was to what we experience with law enforcement here in America. That was only one of many insights that my five-year-old, and the other youth who traveled with us, had through this experience. They now know for a fact that certain psychological, physical, social, economic, and environmental living conditions are possible!

Sakila Primary School
Image: Always Timeless Productions

     One of the biggest epiphanies that I had was witnessing how racism and white supremacy has embedded in many of us Black folks in America a deep seeded sense of insecurity and hypervisibility. Most of our people in Tanzania grew up never being scrutinized based upon their so-called race. In fact, many don't even know what "race" or "racism" is. On one occasion I was having a conversation with a few locals about some of the challenges and history of being Black in America and realized that I brought more baggage with me to Africa than I had realized. So, when some of our people come from Africa to America and have no concept of racism, or the historical plight of Black folks here, that is real. Some of our folks from Africa are so oblivious that they think that it does not exist; so they treat Black folks in America like they are incompetent and delusional. Some folks from Africa strive to better understand the concept of racism, or the historical plight of Black folks here in America. Some educated themselves before they came to America, others began to educate themselves once they began to realize that they were put into a Black (people) box. Keep in mind that in America's short 248-year history, this predominately white society legally restricted Black people from participating in it as citizens for 199 years or almost 77% of the time that America has existed. That restricted participation included all areas of people activity from economics, education, entertainment, government/politics, religion, health, sex, and law. This was all because of the color of our skin. Any cultural movement in America by and for Black people to reclaim our cultural identity, to proclaim or beauty and intelligence, to amplify our voice, accomplishments, appearance and to scream that Black lives matter are all responses to being dehumanized, othered and uncentered in a predominately white, historically racist, society. When you are the descendant of a people who have been generationally, intellectually, legally, socioeconomically, emotionally, academically, and physiologically defined as inferior (Black) or superior (white), you either believe it and act accordingly or you fight to not believe it. All of this psychological, social, economic, educational, institutional, legal, and environmental baggage is what we all inherited as Americans, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. All of this, and more, was baggage that I brought with me to Africa. Baggage that many of our brothers and sisters in Africa have never seen or heard of before.

Welcome Reception to Sakila Primary School

     As the International Ambassador of Sakila Primary School, I was able to secure water for the school for the next two-years and our second travel group brought supplies to the staff and students. On our most recent trip we brought more supplies and my colleague Roderick secured sixty computers that we were able to provide for their staff and create a computer lab. Lastly, we unveiled the launch of our Sakila Care Foundation; a non-governmental organization to expand this global initiative. 

     The experience of being in a cultural environment where "hakuna matata" (no worries or there are no troubles) is literally the status quo is both transformative and therapeutic, especially for our children. It is a lived experience that cannot be simulated at a three-day retreat, some professional development training, or hours long YouTube videos. As a Five Percenter, I think that too many of us use the word 'build' as a noun and see it as an object or a thing. That thing is usually just a bunch of talking, gossiping, social media posting, and Youtubing and it rarely goes beyond that. The word 'build' in our language [of Supreme Mathematics] is a verb or a word used to describe an action. So, to 'build' means to show forth and prove our power through some act, direct action, or activity. As a noun it is only potential, yet it is kinetic as a verb. These successful journeys to East Africa helped build an intercontinental bridge across the Atlantic Ocean to connect our people. A connection that enables our people to build beyond "the block" on both shores, especially our children. I am extremely proud to spark this initiative yet even more THANKFUL to those who have joined me to help make this experience possible for themselves and their families. We will be sharing details for our August 2025 trip on social media so stay in tune if you are interested in being a part of this amazing journey!

Peace,

Saladin

Lord of All Worlds: Basir Fhem and his Journey Abroad

In Episode 51 of Atlantis Build Talk Radio I feature an exclusive build with one of my God Brothers [Basir] I taught over 20 years ago; Basir Fhem. Once he gained KOS [Knowledge Of Self] he moved to Jerusalem and lived there for some years. He then moved to Benin and eventually settled in Ghana. In this build we discuss his personal journey, cultural differences and similarities, growth and development opportunities and much more!! You can listen/download the interview below:

The Nation is All Wise

and

Does Everything Right & Exact

Part 2

During the creation process, we borrow tissue from our mother’s body. This means that our matter, or material, is maternal.  This is why in Latin [when they learned it from our civilization] “mother” means “matter” and “father” means “pattern” [or blueprint]: He sparked the pattern. So every time you touch your skin, you’re not only touching your mother, and your grandmother, you are touching the first mother!  This is the reason why we are literally our ancestors; life recycles. This is also the understanding in our science of why we look at God; not because he represents ALL of God, or Allah -but because the potential [infinite potential] of Allah is manifested through the Blackman within the gender of the human kingdom, and the potentiality of our society is realized through that pattern of male leadership to initiate changes within our society. This is the same way the sperm determines the sex of the baby,  or the Subjective Realm coming into the Objective Realm; in reference to the undifferentiated energy/matter being initiated by the will to form the objective or physical realm by a cognizant willing, wanting or desiring.  When it comes down to the undifferentiated energy/matter aspect of the Subjective Realm of Allah forming the physical realm or Objective Realm, when it comes into gender we consider it [having feminine qualities analogous to the] Earth, Substance or Wisdom. That’s why you hear those terms.  Like we say, “God is a group reality seen through individual eyes.” The eyes of the individual that can spark the pattern for more divine aspects will be the “father of civilization” manifested from the potential state into a real live civilization; germinating into children and creation (and those who are woken from the strange sleep) from the Blackman. The Blackwoman represents the vessel to receive the seed and bring it into existence.

This is the creation story told from a Kabbalistic or Eastern perspective. All Asian, Central Asian [African] societies fall under this category. The Five Percent fall under this category in via Triple Stage Darkness. Alright, let’s put this into more practical Eastern scientific terms: The undifferentiated energy/matter that subsists in the subjective realm forms the material realm, the objective realm or the physical realm. From a portion of itself, it takes on a quality that we know in gender as feminine; because the essential qualities of what is done in creation to born or bring things into existence is what is channels down, when we become man and woman, as feminine.

Everything in life within the objective realm (or realm of objects) is either feminine/feminine [XX] or masculine/feminine [YX] because sex cell reproduction or mitosis takes place in the ovaries not the sperm. This is because the material realm itself is feminine.  The pattern part [father] is the “word,” the “want,” the “will,”  the “spark” the “desire to.” This is the infinite potential to make patterns in the subjective real. When it comes down to the material or physical realm—where gender is created, that “pattern” displays more like masculine or potential; the “spark” plug like a seed, the thing that has the blueprint, ingredient list or table of contents for the germination process. Yet, the whole germination process and the finished product takes place or goes on in the feminine part of reality. In other words, knowledge is the foundation and the spark that spurs all creation. The rest, from wisdom to cipher, are derivatives of wisdom.  The man may be the “spark plug” but the engine, the cockpit, the chairs, the wheels, the chassis and the road itself is feminine. Everything created came through the “womb of space.” What we have between knowledge and wisdom is harmony.  That relationship is as simple as the Sun and the Moon; Yang and Ying. The small dots within the Yang and Ying indicates that they understand each other; they love one another—they care, respect and act responsible for one another. The Blackman may represent the knowledge, the will to become true and living and the infinite potential to do so, but wisdom is the way. The Blackwoman is the way that the will and seed or sperm is made manifest. Cee-I-Power Her because Her-Power-I-Cee.

Now interestingly enough, when you talk to a hard core feminist about anything that has to do with the act of making babies, they will relegate these powers to minor significance. When you talk about lesbianism from a biological perspective some will tell you that, “God made them that way.” Some even show much disdain for men, yet dress and posture like men. Is that biological too? Most of that rap revolves around neutering the gender roles in society; indicating certain things can be done by both parties and wedging differences known to split up families. Because spit don’t make babies, the above magnanimous conversation concerning Triple Stage Darkness, the magnanimous power of the Earth, the equality that God Allah gives to the feminine factor of life, is relegated to minor significance by the feminist!  Her conversation is more about money, power and the respect that’s gained by BS independence! Non-cooperation will get us loneliness, isolation and lying on the couch trying to be consoled by another woman, and who knows were that goes. . .

Yes, “All” came from one; as the word “Allah” indicates. In Genesis, man is called into a deep rest so that man could be separated from woman in spiroth (breath/soul) and flesh; as the “rib removed from Adam” indicates. Our science has different terms, God and Earth, because although Allah is All, Allah’s infinite potential and undifferentiated energy/matter has two distinct functions: One function wills and the other function produces. They both understand what needs to be done to make “E Pluribus Enum”: many out of One/One out of many, harmony and peace through love for each other.  Please, misguided Blackwoman, tell me what powers does a Goddess have that an Earth doesn’t? And tell me how that word “Goddess” distinguishes itself from God or incorporates the terms, Wisdom, Culture, Equality, Unknown and Cipher into her mathematics? Or are we rivaling for the use of the seven now? It sounds like a female pimp “snow job” that will bring you nothing but female companionship and loneliness from lack of male company.    

Today, unlike any other time in our chronology, Black reality mimics more of Western society. I thought that having Knowledge of Self is about recapturing our culture but I even hear Black women nowadays saying that they are Black Feminists -even though the Black woman’s benefits were only the byproduct of the White feminists getting their way in American society.  This is the same as the residuals that Black men get from what White men orchestrate in American society. We are not the originators of the chauvinism that America has, we do not make the rules here.  We are subjected to them, just as the Blackwoman is. One of the things we must knowledge, as in Ferguson and other cities throughout these United States, is that our people have been subjected to police brutality and random travesty of justice, every time the economy goes awry. America’s business is business and in a capitalist society its interests are who and what it chooses to capitalizes off of.  Those who need charity are on the bottom rung in a capitalistic system. Our politics of looking for someone to supply jobs and rights must change. What this means for our women is to stop looking at us as the authors of the evils experienced in America. In many ways, we are subjected to the same evils in this White male dominated society called America.

This society is currently under turmoil from a state of ambiguity that started back in 60's from the Sexual Revolution that White America started. As said previously, this is par for the course of America because Europe had alternative lifestyles in their culture for thousands of years, we didn't as a norm. We also didn’t embrace rugged individualism. We teach that “civilized means to teach knowledge and wisdom of the human family of the planet earth” (2/1-14). We are very different from the Whites and their form of civilization and we must always knowledge that. As the Father said, “We are not pro-Black or anti-White”, we are about pro-right-eousness. Standing separate as individuals does not create families nor hold families together. This stuff America is currently going through is not right for us. The principles of our culture does not produce such an outcome. Our issue is that we have to knowledge their culture because we live in America and use that knowledge for survival. Yet we must embrace our culture and leave this trick knowledge that the West possesses, alone. It is leading us astray because it is nothing but devilishment.

What the world needs is love. What that means is everyone is looking for someone to care for them, the way THEY WANT THEM to care. Some want that care as a co-sign, whether they are right or wrong; whether they are doing something wack or experimenting with something they will live to regret.  As parents, guardians and youth advocates, we can’t show love like that. If we see that our child is falling for sexual ambiguity, it is not our position to support something in which our years of experience and observations tell us is a bad choice and levying our precious ones open to abuse.

Peace,

Allah Universal Lord Life Justice Shabazz

The Nation is All Wise

and

Does Everything Right & Exact

Part 1

In order for this to be possible, that is, a nation to be all wise and doing everything right and exact, it must have a group of people who observe our endeavors and experiences in life—study them for what they really mean—the significance and implications; and make decisions based upon such things.  This means you must look backwards to move forward.  Today, most live for today and disrespect most which has passed; this is not wisdom—it is folly; but what a fool believes and sees, no wise man has the power to reason away what seems to be.  If you are meeting a man who is coming back from a winding road that you are about to travel on, it only makes sense to inquire about the experience before embarking.   Some people have to put their face in manure to know that it is poop.  We are not those types, for we have learned the truth of this place, its intentions, its’ deceptions, its’ hoodwinks and Tricknowledge—but most of us do not distinctly think of America as a Western culture and how it was set up—sometimes diametrically opposed to Eastern and Central Asian culture.


There is nothing intrinsically evil about having a difference in opinion, perception or world view than others; but it becomes a crime when you try to force that view on others, whether they want it or not.  This is the main obstacle here.  Because as Black people, we were brought here against our will, forced to work for another people for no wages for 308 years—then released without repatriation or state assistance to make it on our own.  There have been two civil rights movements in this country, one in the first year of Emancipation or 1863, and one in 1963, one hundred years later, and though we marched and protested, we still did not get the freedom that we marched for.


Most significant is what happened in the Segregation Era (Whites and Colored only), within the United States; wherein “Separate But Equal,” was the slogan and the two wouldn’t dare mingle.  There was the “Citizen Council” or “KKK” (Klu Klux Klan) and the general attitude of Whites was not to concern themselves with Black things, or things that were not in their direct interests.  During this time, there was Negro League Baseball and Black Wall Street. During this time, there were advances made by Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee Institute, Marcus Garvey and the UNIA or Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Nation of Islam had another perspective than the one currently shown, and the Black Power Movements were just “a telephone call away.”  The significant thing was Black owned businesses, Black owned Hotels, and although Black Entertainers performed in White establishments, they had to lodge in Black areas among the locals or stay in Black hotels.  We had our own, we frequented our own, and we looked out for our own interests—mainly because we had no choice.  Not all of us were on board with this, due to the self-hatred and self esteem created during that vacuum called “enslavement.”  There were many people put under slavery during the course of history or our chronology, but none devastated so by the lost of their language—as the Blackman experienced in America.  We did what we had to do and were being rather successful at it, but for many—our eyes were on seemingly greener pastures.


Integration, was an illusion created during the Civil Rights Struggle, wherein forced busing and housing was imposed on the White population by so-called “conscientious Whites,” but this did nothing to destroy the attitude created by slavery: “That Blacks were three-fifths of a man and were to be considered along with livestock and other such property.”  And of course, this privilege was only for those who could afford it; creating the “looks like we made it/I’m special” attitude among some Blacks.  Needless to say, Westerners are very resistant to change, and have problems with accepting anything other than stereotypical views of others.

What I am saying here is that today we are still living in a segregated society that appears to be equal:  This is a multi-cultural society, yet it is amalgamated in its cultural perspective—it is one dominant culture with all other cultures being sub-cultures.  The interests of those other cultures are to be considered by the dominant culture or majority, whereas all other peoples are its minorities.  In a capitalistic society, any people who are not generating income and therefore not self-sufficient, shall be the least concerned or regarded—that’s just actual facts.  You cannot expect your interest to be protected by another people who do not think like you—and more centrally, if you are not about the business of recapturing your culture, you are accepting the European and pseudo-European way as the standard of high civilization.  If this is not, then you need to explore these other perspectives mentioned here and decide for yourself which makes more sense: Just don’t do the research using a pseudo-Western brainwashed mentality.  Learn to look at things from both sides of the equation.


What has happened since the 60s has had a great affect on how the 90s and thereafter has become.  You have to look backwards in order to spring forward; you do this every six months when you set your watch, so why not construct your moving forward by knowing where you’ve been?  Let me start out by saying that the greatest pimp of women ARE women.  A pimp’s game is a woman’s game in reverse.  Everybody plays games, it’s just that a good game is one where everyone mutually benefits and a bad one is where one makes himself rich at the expense of others.  In the 60s, Black woman were not down with the Feminist Movement; that was for disgruntled White women who were not content with their role in Western society, Black women had their own agenda that could not be satisfied by White women pushing their agenda because we are distinctly different thinking people; besides Blacks were battling out of the White Segregation Era: How could they have a Black woman’s  interest at heart?  Since segregation, we have learned American ways, either unwittingly through indoctrination or as a matter of survival in a foreign land.  Foreign land?  Yes, foreign land, because it doesn’t regard us equally.  This is a culture and land in which the benefactors of its product are those who founded it and those who came here to exploit it; if you really study it—we are the ones who exploited by it.


Amongst the disgruntled White women of the Feminist and Sexual Revolution movements, were undercover lesbians, in key places, who were in key positions pressing their agenda. I say, “undercover,” because during those days most of alternative lifestyles were kept in the “closet.”  Roles in society were often referred to as arbitrary and viewed as genderless.  The nuclear family was considered as “man-made,” and one of their aims was the destruction of this type of family structure to make room for alternative lifestyle families.  So it is no surprise that 1990, 30 years later (one generation), we have single parent households, the emergence of adoptions by alternative couples, etc.  It is part of the outgrowth of the Feminist and Sexual Revolution, and as I said earlier, Black women during that time, did not consider White Feminism their fight, and certainly their were policies aimed directly at the Black family; especially in low-income areas, by Planned Parenthood and other organizational outgrowths of the Sexual Revolution spearheaded by White people in America.


The proper way to view this phenomena is that well-to-do White women did not like the way they were culturally being handled.  They voiced their concerns and started their movements.  The motivation had nothing to do with Black women and their struggles, it was for their own self interests. However, as time went on and they tried to solicit for Black support, the movement became resentful of the non-participation of Black women and unleashed an agenda directly at Black women and their families as a result of it.  Do your own research and you shall see. America is becoming more and more like its European model.  Their views on sex, gender, race are slowly but surely mimicking the lifestyle of Europe—much of which has been in France, Greece, Rome, Germany, England and Nordic society for thousands of years.  It falls under the Equal Rights umbrella, but here is the real people it caters to, and here are the real reasons and the real social class. How that effects others is of secondary interest, if of any interest at all.  Our people get confused, because they think being in America is the same as having the rights of an American while we're still fighting for Human Rights, Civil Rights and Equality.  The Equal Rights agenda today has little to do with the Human and Civil Rights agenda.  Those Human and Civil Rights in this country are non-White issues, fought by non-Whites or minorities.  We can no more look for the American society to fight for our interests, as we can look for one group of people to look after and protect the rights of another different group.  They are adapting the European model, and we are not Europeans.  Their culture is not our culture. Though we must observe it because we live here, it does not reflect the way we think, nor our core interests.  We must develop ourselves around our own model—and leave their ways to their own devices.

To be continued in Part 2...

Peace,

Allah Universal Lord Life Justice Shabazz