NO INNOCENT ABROAD

By Jack E. White

ACCORDING TO EMERGE, THE BLACK NEWS MONTHLY, MINISTER LOUIS Farrakhan recently boasted, "When I speak, blind people see, deaf people hear, dumb people speak, the sick get healed and mentally dead people come to life." Those are not the Nation of Islam leader's only miraculous powers. He also has a knack for making bloodthirsty tyrants feel all warm and cuddly inside, if the price is right.

No longer content with peddling his noxious racial message in the U.S., Farrakhan has been on a tour of African and Middle Eastern dictatorships, providing aid and comfort to despots whose human-rights abuses and support for terrorism have earned opprobrium around the world. The purpose of his junket, Farrakhan explains, is to discover for himself whether reports in the Western press about totalitarian conditions in these benighted countries are true. His conclusion: oppressing Third World people is O.K. with me unless the oppressors happen to be white, like South Africa's former rulers.

What else can be made of Farrakhan's sucking up to Muammar Gaddafi, who, the official Libyan news agency reports, pledged that Libya will give the Nation of Islam a cool billion to expand its role in electoral politics? (The money has yet to be delivered.) Or his plea to Nigerian human-rights advocates to give strongman General Sani Abacha three more years to fulfill his long-delayed promise to return the country to civilian rule? Moses, Farrakhan explained to the Nigerians, was also a dictator, and there are times when "stern discipline" is needed--presumably including the detention without trial of hundreds of pro-democracy activists and the execution on trumped-up charges of opposition leaders like Ken Saro-Wiwa. Farrakhan also praised the government of Sudan, which has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people in a long-running civil war, for its "wise Islamic leadership." In Tehran he pledged to help the mullahs overthrow the "Great Satan," as the U.S. is known locally. Then he moved on to Iraq to denounce U.N. economic sanctions--not mentioning that they are intended to ensure that Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons are actually destroyed.

Predictably, Farrakhan's pronouncements have provoked exactly what he was seeking: howls of outrage from the white establishment, which only serve to bolster his reputation among those African Americans who believe the best qualification for black leadership is a talent for making white folks squirm. A House subcommittee threatened to subpoena Farrakhan to determine if his deal with Libya is "traitorous." A State Department spokesman proclaimed, "It's shameful that an American citizen, much less a major religious leader in the U.S., would cavort with dictators like Gaddafi." The Justice Department warned that if reports of his pact with Gaddafi are true, Farrakhan may have to register as a Libyan agent.

These squawks from Washington miss the point. As an American citizen, Farrakhan is entitled to say whatever he wants about any issue, anyplace in the world. That's not treason. It's the Constitution. But Farrakhan's demonstrated eagerness to play ball with tyrants should alarm every black American still deluded by the hope that the uncritical acclaim Farrakhan has enjoyed since the Million Man March last October would somehow transform him into a model of enlightened leadership. To the contrary, Farrakhan is a hypocrite, willing to excuse the degradation of millions in exchange for the promise of a handsome fee. With leaders like that, who needs enemies?