Death Blossoms. Mumia Abu-Jamal

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      THERE ARE AS MANY religions as there are cultures, and equally many names for the divine presence that is the heart of each. The energizing influence of belief keeps them apart, for to each adherent they contain truth that, from his or her perspective, is the only truth. All the same, it seems they flow in one direction, like many streams seeking release into one mighty river.

      My youthful search for meaning revealed that no matter how differently the Infinite was clothed in the garb of a certain religion, it was there. In each, I found a new perception of the greatest good, that is, a belief in God or some other personification of the divine principle. I found, as George Bernard Shaw puts it, that there is “only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.”

      In Judaism, the ancient ancestral warrior is revered as all-powerful Yahweh, or Jehovah; to Christians, the Jewish carpenter Yeshuah is God yet also Man; for the Muslim, the ancient Meccan gods find fusion in one supreme being—Al-Lah, the God. In Hinduism, Lord Krishna emerges from a vast pantheon of ancient deities as a blue-black god who twirls and leaps in an eternal sacred dance. To the Buddhist, the insights of Gautama Siddhartha form the central core of a faith that holds the promise of enlightenment and the discovery of the true Self. In Santería, Condoblé, and Voudoun, the ancient gods of African antiquity have survived to smile behind the faces of the Catholic saints.

      In the essence of each religion, then, we see a projection of the greatest good. For a threatened, nomadic desert tribe, what greater good than the worship of a mighty and powerful ancestor, a prominent warrior—Yahweh—who defended the clans? For the maligned followers of a Nazarethan carpenter, one crucified by the mightiest Empire of the age, why not the greater good of his victory over the tomb? For contentious Arab clans who saw each other through the lens of enmity and conflict, why not the clarity and simplicity of One God to reign over the throngs who crowd the K’aaba—One God to bring unity to a people, a region, a sphere of influence?

      To Hindus, whose plethora of deistic personalities reflect the God-force that permeates all creation, Krishna—the beautiful, playful, dark boy-god who loves cattle and dances with other cowherds—turns the boring and mundane into a sacred act. For the Buddhist, Gautama’s attainment of enlightenment seeks the void beyond which no personality, human nor divine, exists. It bespeaks a greater good that sees past the soul to ultimate nothingness, a spiritual place of rest.

      To millions of stolen and enslaved African peasants, for whom return to the grasslands, forests, and villages of the black motherland was physically impossible, their religion was the only means of a voyage home. Under a new, cooler sky, ancient gods and honored ancestors came to life once more and provided the greater good of spiritual survival, of an inner Self that could withstand the most dehumanizing assaults and empower the soul to remain sane. Even in the midst of a powerless existence, the world of the invisible pulsed with names like Yemonja, the goddess of the river; Obatala, chief of the gods; and Shango, the god of war and thunder.

      Many of our ideas about God and religions simply mirror the traditions we have inherited from our forebears. They are imbibed with mother’s milk, openly, uncritically, freely—illogical human expressions, exercises in irrationality. Others are perceptions gained only by leaping into the dark arms of faith. God comes, in various faces, and numerous personalities, depending on our myriad perceptions, needs, and histories. Yet if there are any miracles left, it is that GOD IS ONE.

      Night of Power

      IN ISLAM, during the holy month of Ramadan, it is said that one night is holiest of all: al Qadr, the Night of Power. According to Islamic belief, it was on this night that the Qu’ran was delivered to the Prophet Mohammed, and it is thus the holiest of all nights. On this night, prayers are granted “for everything that matters.”

      The Night of Power is so deeply ingrained in the Muslim heart that a short chapter in the Qu’ran is devoted to it. It begins, as do all chapters therein, with the exclamation, “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” and goes on thus:

      Verily we have sent this

      In the Night of Power.

      And what will convey to you

      What the Night of Power is?

      The Night of Power is better

      Than a thousand months:

      The Angels and the Spirit descend in it,

      By permission of their Lord,

      For everything that matters.

      It is Peace:

      This until the rise of daybreak.

      I will never forget the Night of Power that shook me, not during the holy month of Ramadan, but in the hot, humid summer of 1995, when I sat on death row’s Phase II with a date to die.

      The sun had set behind the hills of West Virginia amid ominous thunderheads, and now the forces of nature struck like a divine assault team.

      Lightning stabbed the earth as if in the throes of celestial passion, and so powerful were the bolts that the lights in the block—indeed, the whole jail—flickered out.

      On Phase II, lights are kept burning twenty-four hours a day—bright during the day, dim at night—though in fact “dim” at two in the morning is hardly less than bright at noon. Tonight—for now at least—it СКАЧАТЬ