Amir Abdel Malik Ali Speaks on Drugs at UC-Irvine

Amir Abdel Malik Ali waiting to speak at a previous appearance at UC-Irvine



Today, Oakland imam Amir Abdel Malik Ali spoke at UC-Irvine. The topic was drugs. (Nothing was said about the Israel-Palestinian conflict or the February 8 speech by the Israeli ambassador, which was disrupted.)

I must pay Ali a sincere compliment when I say that the first part of his speech was very powerful and impressive. He quoted the Koran and Allah in explaining why people should avoid drugs because they "befoul" the mind and prevent people from achieving their maximum potential. Put in religious terms to a religious audience, I felt that his argument had a powerful impact.

Then he slipped back into his conspiracy theory about drugs.

Summarized, we can say that Ali believes that the "system", the government and the CIA have, at times in recent history, funnelled drugs into the community to keep the people who would otherwise be restive peaceful. (I am paraphrasing). He talked about the 1960s and the crack epidemic in the black communities. He described the recent efforts to legalize marijuana as just the latest effort by the "system' to get young people to increase their use of pot.

All of which makes the people less effective in "the struggle". In other words, it is a government strategy to decrease public anger against the system by getting the people high. (Again, I am paraphrasing.)

As is almost always the case, I get the first question, I guess because the MSU knows I am going to challenge the speaker. At first, I applauded the first part of his speech as described above. I objected, however, (as I had before) to his accusation of governmental complicity in the drug epidemic. My message to the young audience was that if they get involved in drugs, it "is on them". It is their responsibility and not to blame anybody else because this idea of government complicity was just another conspiracy theory that had no validity.

In response, he referred me to a book, I believe entitled "Dark Alliance" and something else written by a former LAPD cop (Michael Rupert?). I don't pay much attention when people quote books that I should read. Hell, Adolph Hitler wrote a book once too.

You know, Ali is a very talented individual in many respects. He is educated (class president at San Francisco State) and a gifted speaker. His problem-where I think he falls down- is that he has bought into a lot of conspiracy theories that are pretty easily debunked-or at the least-have never been substantiated. When I listened to the first part of his speech, I thought of how much good he could do if he weren't so negative about things. Sad.