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A Condemned Man Speaks Out
TCP's exclusive interview with Siddique Abdullah Hasan
published October 25th 2006
[note: Hasan's answers were transcribed from a hand-written letter from his Youngstown cell]
TCP: How would you describe your place in the world, and how did you get there?
My place in the world has been decided and unequivocally defined by our Creator, Allah Almighty. When it comes to "my place in the world," our Creator has placed me – in fact, all mankind – in this world as His Khalifah (vicegerent, representative) and Abd (slave, servant).
While most African-Americans (or any other group that has experienced subjugation) may have a serious problem with the designation Abd, I'm very comfortable and placed with my role as Allah's slave, because such designation takes on a whole new meaning than the one previously understood. Anyway, my place in this transitory world is to serve/worship Allah Almighty and to do enough good deeds to gain my permanent place in eternal bliss in the afterlife. After all, we are all travelers in this world, and I often fervently pray to him that I safely reach my journey/destination after crossing the frontiers of this earthly abode.
TCP: How did the 1993 riot begin, and what was your role?
Actually, there was never a plan to be a riot. Instead, there was an initial plan to be a "peaceful protest" about the planned forceful taking of the Mantoux tuberculin skin test which contains phenol, an alcoholic substance that is unlawful for Mus-lims to have injected under their forearm. This test was being made mandatory, albeit other forms of testing were readily available and would have reached the same medical conclusion.
Although I will concede that the planned inoculation was the last straw which broke the camel's back, there was a host of other injustices – e.g., disciplinary proceedings and administrative control placements were unfair to prisoners; forced integrated celling with known racists; inadequate medical care; only allowing one five-minute phone call per year to speak with loved ones and friends; mailing and visiting policies [that] were un-fair to prisoners as well as their families and friends; commissary prices were always escalating, but prisoners' payment for the job assignments has remained immobile for decades, etc. – simultaneously happening within the pris-on. Prisoners instantaneously seized the op-portunity to make it a full-scale rebellion.
My role, as the spiritual leader of a particular group of Muslims (Sunnis), did not change because there was a full-scale rebellion in process. In spite of what was unbelievably unfolding before my very eyes, I still had a religious obligation to lead the faithful in prayers, and to provide them with moral purification and spiritual development. As a caring human being who believes in the sacredness of life, I did what I could to save human lives from self-destruction and to bring the rebellion to a peaceful conclusion without the prison officials and law enforcement agents having to retake the prison by force.
TCP: What happened to Vallanding-ham, the prison guard who was killed?
Anthony James Lavelle, the leader of the Black Gangster Disciples, a street gang that originated in Chicago, gave the solo order to two of his henchmen to execute Robert Vallandingham. There is ample evidence in the record, some of which has withstood cross-examination in a court of law, to substantiate this fact. However, due to Lavelle being an informant for the State and his willingness to knowingly lie on others to save his own skin, the State has rebuffed all evidence which points to Lavelle as the orchestrator and facilitator of the guard's execution. His execution was a renegade act supervised by Lavelle. Why?
Lavelle was the type of person who lived in a bubble and a fantasy world, which is supported by him adopting such high-sounding appellations as "The Don" and "King James." Such appellations, from my lay understanding of the group, are reserved for someone worthy of them. But most definitively not reserved for a lying snitch and a staunch coward. In any case, Lavelle's fragile ego was bruised when Tessa Unwin, a prison spokeswoman during the rebellion, commented that "prisoners' tough-talking rhetoric of threatening to kill a guard, if their demands were not met, was merely hot air and part of the language of negotiation." As a result, he felt obligated to repatch his damaged ego via executing the guard.
TCP: Graffiti left behind from the riot read "Black and white together" and other similar messages of solidarity between African-American groups and white Aryan Brotherhood (neo-Nazi) members. How did these groups put aside their differences?
The most learned and studious prisoners know that the most deadly and self-destructive tool which is effecting them is disunity. So, when people come to the realization that they have a common enemy who is oppressing them all, they are forced by necessity to either unite for the good of a common cause or remain disunited and allow their enemy to defeat them. Knowing this reality, these groups recognized their differences were inconsequential in comparison to the injustices and oppression they were encountering on a regular basis by the hands of the powers that be. Therefore, they adopted to unite. After all, isn't there strength in numbers?
TCP: Is there anything going on in America outside of the prison walls that could forge this kind of unity between groups? Can such unity be maintained?
The same unifying principle which has compelled prisoners to unify should be the same principle adopted by those in the outside community. To do otherwise will only lead to self-destruction.
Because people are different like mines of gold and silver, and have different beliefs and agendas which govern their lives, I must admit that unity along racial lines is usually short-lived; however, such a fact should not prevent blacks and whites from bonding for a good and noble cause. Everlasting unity is usually reserved and maintained by like-minded people. May I remind you that people have a natural affinity to flock with those of their own ethnic group.
TCP: What do you feel are the biggest problems with the penal system? How can they be reformed?
Inadequate education, stupidity and bigotry are the Department of Corrections' triple crimes. Instead of providing prisoners with meaningful programs, skills and an opportunity to acquire constructive and wholesome knowledge/education, funds are being wasted on entertainment and frivolous pursuits. This is no accident. Contrariwise, it's what I've referred to as "Induced Failure" (see www.prisonersolidarity.org for my article on this subject).
Seeing that education is our passport to the future, constructive and wholesome education should be a number one priority in all prisons. I am a firm belie-ver that knowledge is power and, if used wisely, will bring about positive chan-ges in one's attitude, behavior and disposition. At least this is what happened to me after I commenced my pursuit of know-ledge, which was prompted by the following prophetic tradition: "The quest of knowledge is an obligation upon every Musilm."
TCP: From a political perspective, why is the death penalty wrong?
It's racist, barbaric, targets the poor, kills the innocent, and doesn't deter crimes as the politicians would have the public believe. To the contrary, the death penalty in the United States reveals the racial inequalities in the administration of its application.
The racism speaks for itself. Take for example, in federal death penalty cases, 75 percent of the juries recommending death did so to African-American and Latino defendants. But what's even more alarming is the following: notwithstanding blacks and whites are murdered in roughly equal numbers in the United States, of the more than 1,000 people executed since the resumption of the death penalty in 1977, 80 percent were executed for killing whites while 13 percent were executed for killing blacks. It sends a clear message that "killing blacks is fair game, but there will be severe consequences for killing whites." Put another way, it reveals the shocking reality that "black people's lives are insignificant and they will continue to be sacrificed at the altar, as they were during the days of slavery. The sad irony is, these opportunistic politicians want us to believe the death penalty is not racist. Well, I got news for those liars.
That is, I was born and raised in the deep South – Savannah, Georgia, the same state that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in 1972, that the death penalty in the United States was racist and unconstitutional – and I know racism when I see it. So, you can't throw piss in my face and then try to convince me that it's water, because I know piss when I see and smell it. In a nutshell, just like the state of Michigan was the first to abolish the death penalty in 1846, all remaining states that still have capital punishment on their books should abolish this racist and barbaric practice. Needless to say, it's not going to happen without the people putting pressure on their elected officials. Indeed, power needs to return to the people.
