physically i'm not where i want to be but i'm a long way from where i was the operation by the grace of a lawyer was a great success and it has improved the quality of life that i have made doctors have encouraged me to take it easy don't rush back to work and so i'm going to gradually work myself back to a full schedule but right now i'm taking it a day at a time making sure that i eat as properly as i should get back some of the weight we know that it started as prostate cancer years unfortunately all fortunately when they went in to remove the prostate they found cancer in the colon so they cut that out and the margins were clear the lymph nodes would clear and so they believe that they have it but i'm undergoing testing right now to make sure that i'm clear of that and you go over one mountain and you get down in a valley and you've got another mountain to climb but god is great and he has brought me in from a mighty long way and i believe you will see me through until it's time for me to come in there were also consequences as a result of some pellets that were placed in your body did they make matters worse or improve things well in one sense they improve things because they killed the cancer but the radiation was so strong that unfortunately it affected the colon and the you rethrow and i had a fistula or a hole where there was communication between the two and that made it very difficult for me but all of that has been removed and cleared up from the surgery one question that many people ask is how much longer can you lead the nation of islam given your condition and the difficulties you've had how old is god and how fresh is god in every generation because wisdom doesn't get all the body gets all moses was one hundred twenty and he was due giving directions until time was up for him as my physical body with down i'm training a lot of young strong men and women who will can continue to do the day to day work but as long as i have life and i'm not mentally incapacitated i will continue to guide the nation in those that are said in authority until my time is to do that i i was hoping i could get it over in an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes but i had to thank our life for allowing me to do that and the very next day i was still filled with energy so i know it was more spiritual than physical in that address you appeared to blend both the biblical scriptures and your references from the qur'an was that your intention yes yes i abhor the lines of division between the families of abraham jews christians and muslims and i believe with a careful study of the on the bible and the t can use language that brings the family together rather than splits the family apart after pope benedict became the pope there was a young man on television representing pope benedict i didn't hear the pope savings himself but he was concerned about the dialogue that pope john paul the second had with a docs christians jews muslims and others but he said from what this gentleman said that the dialogue didn't go far enough or deep enough and he has  intellectual he wanted the dialogue to begin to address that things not the things that we have in common but the things that islam judaism and christianity have  at variance and if the scholars of islam christianity and judaism can attack those things in an atmosphere of peace and love and mutual respect then i believe the family of abraham can come together and the basis of the kingdom of god can be established on the year you said if you live the life that jesus taught the life that muhammad taught we would be in tremendous condition are you are you suggesting then that these two historic faiths are as one in their aspirations yes the christian faith more so than judaism is deeply concerned about this doubt this myth of god's kingdom and so the christian faith more than the jewish faith is interested in proselytizing christianity and making human beings regardless to color of their ethnicity or their tribe into christians so that the kingdom that jesus  preached about would come to the earth as the lord's prayer suggests that kingdom come thy will be done on earth well the same spirit is in islam islam is a religion that proselytizes and our desire for them as the is that the men they would come and restore the purity of religion and this dam blish the kingdom of islam on earth well i don't see any difference between the kingdom of god the kingdom of a law the kingdom of islam the honorable elijah mohammed my teacher taught me that the kingdom of god is a government under the rooms and laws of god that's a theocracy but it seems a long way from f mohammad who is the founder of the nation of islam who said that christianity was the religion of slave owners and had been used to enslave black people well if you look at the history black people so now when you look at jesus christ and you look at all ghanaians do religion there is a big difference between jesus and organized religion in fact when constantine be emperor of rome became a christian he had a vision and he is the one that saw a cross and the latin words under it in hoc signal when case which means with this sign we conquer the sign that jesus used was a fish the sign that constantine used was a cross and naturally connecting that to jesus's suffering in death on the cross the cross became the symbol of christian conquest but also unfortunately it became the symbol of white supremacy dressed in the name of jesus christ so all the dhaka people of the world that were made into christians suffered under white rule the british said they were christians but the indians and pakistanis and bangladeshis in the african suffered under their room the people that bought and sold us said they believed in jesus christ but we were home on trees and burned it and given that the appellation of less than a human being so christians this is why pope john paul spoke to the indigenous people of the world and apologized for the way christians treated the native peoples the indigenous peoples of the world and this america refuses to do to even apologize for the evil that was done to black people to the native americans  etc so going back to the principle your your speaking about bringing these two great faiths together you preach in your savior's day sermon from the qur'an and from the biblical scriptures and yet you reject christianity no we reject that which was done in the name of jesus christ not jesus christ not his gospel not what he taught what he taught was pure righteousness put how many of us are and we praise him god knows when i see my my brothers and sisters who are artists who used some of the foul language but they wear the cross and when they get their grammy or they had this they say i think my lord and savior jesus christ but he didn't save you from immoral conduct he didn't save you from calling your women out of the name of a creature created in the image and likeness of god we are so contrary that we are not even in recognition then we are as far away from jesus as far planet pluto is from the sun four billion six hundred million miles i believe it is that's how far we are away from jesus christ and that's how far the muslim wound is away from and misappropriated that in wrong way no i would say the leaders were the missed teachers and the people could not go beyond how they were taught and trained this is why i think the honorable elijah muhammad pointed out in the scripture that there would be a new happen and a new earth in the form of things would pass away religion is we know w h has failed failed to cultivate the human being and make us reflections of our creator islam has failed in this respect christianity has built judaism is failed the nation of islam has failed all of us have a degree of fair you but the nation of islam is trying to restore us back to that civilized behavior that a true christian and true muslim and a true jew would exemplify a true buddha is what exemplify a true hindu would exemplify but here's the theological problem christianity would both describe themselves as exclusivist they would say for example that christ is the mediator to god and he his truly and fully human truly and fully divine and he's the only way to god islam will say the prophet muhammad is the light to the path to god now you're suggesting that these two things can come together i put it to you that actually within their own theology they don't accept the other could be rustic because of a lack of understanding you know your mother might teach you that three and four was seven my mom might teach me that five and two is seven but jesus and somebody will teach that six and one is seven and when we meet we start arguing because we don't know the route we don't understand the principles that undergird the mathematics that we were taught most people in religion don't understand the progression from abraham to mohammed is really one religion and the way you know it's one religion is not by the name but by studying the principles that each of these great ones taught if you look at what jesus taught principally look at what mohammed taught principly look at what abraham moses and the israeli israel like prophets to are they all taught the same principles that undergird contemporary message that was used to correct contemporary problems and what happened we get lost in the contemporary and we have forgotten the eternal truths that undergird all the religions and all the teachings of the prophets are come back to that in a minute because that's an important issue but we'll come back to in a moment but i want to go if i can we talked about what you have wanted to say and what you did say in your so saviour's day address in terms of your beliefs do you still regard white people as devils created by an evil scientist well the truth is any human being that rebels against god and bring in rebels against his law can be classified as a devil if we look at the behavior of white people in their relationship to the darker people of the world we couldn't say that they acted as angels they acted quite the contrary but we're in a time of enlightenment now the darker people of the world are rising and challenging racist institutions and now white people have a chance to change their behavior change an historical pattern in dealing with the darker people of the world and we who have been trained in rebellion to god have a chance to come out of that rebellion into submission and when we submit to the will of god it makes no difference what our color have brothers and sisters in faith so today in two thousand and seven do you regard white people as devils the honorable elijah muhammad instructed me before he left to the slave masters children and the slave master and i asked myself leader god i should have questioned him why do you want me to change the language that you instituted it's because maker of devils and he makes evil fair seeming so whether you're black or white or red or yellow if you come under the seat full touch of satan he'll make what is immoral look regard him as a guy and i look upon him as a messianic figure so he was somebody who came to speak the words of god but he isn't god himself no he came to speak the words of god but we would be foolish to worship him as though he were in fact the originator of the heavens and do you regard yourself then as his messenger on earth the little messiah i regard myself as his extension and extension of his warning and extension of his guidance and extension of his message but i don't go so far as to call myself a messenger of god nothing like that but maybe a little messiah but a very te into space do you still maintain that that's what happened to you oh absolutely maintain that since one thousand nine hundred five which is what twenty one years now i have never deviated from that experience because that experience was as real to me as you sitting in front of me mr bashir can you understand why some people hearing you talk about space travel might be tempted to think it sounds strange well of course those who listen to prophet muhammad peace be upon him in his night journey when he was definitely in a tent with them followers around him but the next morning he told them he visited jerusalem and then was taken on a swift animal of some sort and then he some said well was it a vision or did he go in his body but he gave proofs that he did travel and says a lot is he who takes men's souls by night and when i was a little boy my beautiful christian mother at that time made me say a prayer and now i lay me down to sleep i pray the lord my soul to keep and if i die before i wa pray the lord my soul to take i know that physically i didn't go in where but spiritually i did travel and spiritually i heard the voice of the honorable elijah mohammed and spiritually he made me didn't know what the president was planning with his joint chiefs of staff and i have never deviated from that and he gave me instructions to tell the world then when i reveal what reagan was planning and i know what bush was planning and then know what carter and clinton were planning because they are all in the same line from reagan every one of them had some conflict with a muslim nation but is the head of it all because he's brought the whole islamic world now into anger against him and america and the west before we come to him have you ever had an experience like that again have you ever been on one of these u f o no never never happened and you maintain your office every rational man but you maintain that actually happened but you people might be tempted to think that you were suffering some kind of psychological delusion that perhaps it was some kind of insane vision you know i guess if you talk to us when he was among us it would probably say the same people that had visions were called witches and they were burned at the stake because god singles people out for certain experiences some people that learn how to profit from a careful study of history but there are others that are born with that gift to see i had an experience it was not your experience it was my experience all i can do is relate my experience the question you know when i was at an editorial stuff you're talking about in reach down in my bag and got out some facts jimmy carter before he became president said he saw them they were real to him he said when he became president he would open up the file he never did when when the japanese pilot was flying a seven forty seven across the bering straits he saw this huge w and he said it looked like two of the largest aircraft carriers together and the largest aircraft carriers four hundred forty yards in length two of them would be a half a mile and the honorable elijah muhammad taught us that that wheel was a half a mile by half a mile the government know the astronauts they go out in space they know but they can't talk but i can and i'm telling you serve  before you all can make mockery of me you will begin seeing these little wheels over the major cities then what are you going to tell the people after lying to them for so long that this is swamp gas of this is a balloon that this is that when you know the truth but you lie not you personally but the government has lied to the american people and in the in the people will lose all confidence in their government as a group of did the truth from the masses of the people to keep them under control there's a greater power in the world in the united states of america and you soon will come to know it and you think that that expresses presents himself in the form of these wheels these u f o these kind of into spatial object is e q in the bible and i think it's five ninety five b c looked up and he saw a back then is a reality now they've got all kinds of shows on television now talking about u f o was in the scientists and this and that and the people that went on board these craps i can't tell you physically that i've been on board but i can tell you spiritually i was taken there and i was promised that i had one more thing to do and when i did that one more thing they would bring me u with you and i would see my leader that the world thinks is dead face to face that's my experience i believe it one thousand percent have you done nothing yet no i don't know i have been trying to do so many things to see if i get that mon but i'm laughing but it's very serious with me i thought the million man march might have been that one more thing but i don't go too fast because we got somewhere to go as you as you reflect now on the struggle for black equality and empowerment over the decades where do you think the black community stands today in two thousand and s we have more black millionaires and we've never had a billion news we've never had that we have billion is now we have more black people with bachelor's degree master's degrees d degrees we have more political clout in terms of blacks in state legislatures city councils black mayors black sheriff and on the surface that looks wonderful because we have to say that to a degree we've made progress but you don't judge progress by the few you judge progress by the masses in the masses of our people are not going forward they are slipping further and further behind so our thought in the nation of islam is then we must collect the learned of our people we have some of the most brilliant people in every field of human endeavor we need to collect them unite them and present them with the problem of our people then we can put our minds to work in a program magic way to lift the masses of the people if we don't do that then we have failed the honorable elijah muhammad taught me that no one man can rise above the condition of his people so if i ever arise and i don't help to rise others then my rise is mockery because i am the one that got away and the first negro in a b c your i am the first negro in the n b a or in baseball but everyone that was the first struggled and suffered to open the way for others so my teacher said blessitt is the man who forges the way for others so these great ones that we have now must look at the condition of our people particularly in the light of the government's failure with katrina and say that we must come together pull our resources intellectually and financially and lift our people and stop being a beggar at the gate of white america for white america's sustenance is gradually diminishing so we can't continue to depend on america to do for us what we have the capacity the ability to do for us if you were just talking about making the very important point that was there's been individualistic advance by black leaders in various fields politics financially sports there hasn't been this collective growth or improvement the average black wage is still only seventy five percent of the average white wage in america or in fact black median net worth is about six thousand dollars compared to eighty eight thousand for white does that tell you then that all of the efforts that you've given throughout your life to raise the plight of the black man and women have really been largely ineffective to a degree all of us who are in leadership when we look at the condition of our people the condition of our people tells us how effective we have been but there is a time that our people will fully awaken the knowledge is there we can create the opportunity we can rise above where we are there's severe opposition to our rise but the koran teaches that all opposition at some point will see us the questions that you are putting to me the answers that god blesses me to give the speech that i made last sunday in detroit is all like breaking me out of prison i am in a prison not because i deserved to be there but my passion for truth and and justice and pointing out the wrong that i see not only in the government of the united states or in other ethnic or racial groups but the wrong that i see in my own people why do you point out wrong because you hate you point out wrong because you hope that by pointing out wrong someone will recognize the wrong confess it repent of it and change so i'm  jail now and i believe that as i come more out of prison i'm out of the cell now and the warden seems to have lost the keys but i found them and i am to intend to get is pro black and believe me i would be a fool not to be pro the country in which i'm born and nurtured and have grown i would like to see america in a much better condition and position then she's in right now but i don't think she's making the right steps i don't think the present government is leading her in the right direction in fact i really believe we need a regime change in the united states of america it's noticeable that you are using different language compared to the sort of things that you've said in the past are you saying now that you regret some inflammatory statements i can never ever regret speaking the truth but do you regret the way you said some of those the way i speak truth the passion that i have but the truth that i speak can sometimes get in the way of people hearing what i have to say that's all part of my growth and development so i'm not t what i was but i am hoping that the language that i you will get past yesterday's barriers and that i will be more clear and understood i've always been understood by black people but greatly misunderstood by other than my own but this is a universal teaching and if you are misunderstood by the world and only understood by your own people we missed the mark so do you run our regret describing judaism as a dirty religion i never said that never said that i never said no of course not and this bothers me in that twenty some years later i still have to answer please do this and i'm not going on i'm not going to waste time with that i've been on a b c i've been on nightline i've been on all these television shows and answer those same questions and that would just be taking me back in time and i think if you really want to get my answers go back in the files you have what about what about referring to hitler as being we can play great i stand by that statement today you think he was wickedly great oh what does great mean so suzanne tive impressive wasn't you still talking about him i have to say i don't think which is not mine but you taught it to me and i learned quite well so i was not wrong great is not synonymous with good except in colloquial language babylon was great but she wasn't but he was so great to just deal talking about him fifty years later if he didn't make an impact on jewish people and an impact on the world why are you still referring to him while you're still making movies about him why  his magnitude in terms of his effect on people as he was then and like some people say to black people which is an affront get over it he's been good but have you killed the idea of arion supremacy have you killed the idea of anti semitism and hatefulness toward chose no you have not killed that idea yet so the man that was the greatest exponent of it in terms of not just what he said but what he did not let him down what about you saying the jews were blood suckers because they didn't offer anything back to the community you know if you go back that statement was made on meet the press the day before the million man march and my brother johnnie cochran was being interviewed and you know how you are do i have given you a lot of material what will you use what will you present to the american people a fair count not you personally because you subjected to editors you are subjected to people who have another view you're here to get information but what they do with it that's another thing as jews arabs koreans chinese others and black people that are in the black community taking from our community building up their communities and doing nothing for our community they are blood suck s of the poor that's the language i use but when that came up on meet the press they took out all the other people that i mention and mention just jewish people so that feeds the the an anti semite well in that case then call me anti black because they're black people that suck the blood of black people and give nothing back there koreans right now who do that they're arabs right now who do that but i say that and i don't back up from that what about the anthem you wrote that a white man's heaven is a black man's absolutely true so that we will only true life and we can turn to hell and to have a white folk don't have the power to keep us in hell if we don't want to stay there that's our fault today one of the things you said earlier was that it's time for black people to to grasp the nettle and you said early in the nettle grasp the situation because you said the white commitment is declining do you think that affirmative action has been a positive or a negative influence for the good of black people when it's been positive for black people but it has a negative effect in the white community we really don't need anything but an even playing field and if we had an even playing field cream always rises to the top if we've got the ability we can go there all we want is the opportunity to play on an even playing field and if america cannot give us that and we have to find a way to give that to ourselves do you still stand firm on the issue of racial mixing i don't like it why not no no no no no the black woman is suffering today from no black men that men in jail black men on the corner black men an educated go look at the black colleges of white colleges you see black women in there getting the finest education where will their counterpart be when they come out of college there's no male counterpart or very few that are worthy to marry these young women who are trying to be chemists and scientists and mathematicians and engineers so we need to wake up that's why i called the million man march i wanted black men to take their responsibility and you can't legislate against love so when a black person and a white person are truly in love i have nothing to say about that do you think and black and white dating and marriage i would love to forbid because we are so far behind i know women don't have adequate men so i want the black man to marry the black woman i want the white woman to marry the white man why because that's the natural thing if it were so if it were not natural you'd have many many many many many many crafts marriages i don't find that many chinese men white people or indian people or black people you find it somewhere but chinese marry chinese white people marry white people what's wrong with black people man black people i don't mean where races where we look at the crossing of the to well ok they're in love love transcends ethnicity and reshipped boundaries and there will come a time when human beings will love  korean but doesn't it tell us that a society is advancing in its compassion and understanding of equality is it really poor can mix if it is it really event saying when there is n advancement in the intellectual capacity of the masses of the people but i'm not talking about academic achievement i'm solid what i'm talking about sir is a slave mentality with a slave is always admiring th to get sexually intimate with a white woman sold that history is right with us we know when you talk to me like that i want you to sit with jewish people and ask them how far have you grown are you willing to marry a german today is it is that easy for you how do you bring a german home to someone who has the the numbers engraved in their hand that they were a victim of the holocaust so you have to be sensitive to what your people have suffered or overturn they say time heals  quite time yet were jews in germans to just mix up like that maybe and is it time for black and white well it's time for us to understand each other better it's time for us to try to get along with each other better the principle of justice is the means by which enemies become friends but aren't you yourself the product a marriage but it was an interracial marriage so it was interracial rape my mama was a black woman my father was half white so when you on the plantation you didn't tell the master you couldn't have a black woman white men have always had access to the black woman and because of that lightness in black men and women were fashioned out of that relationship to day that's a voluntary thing but in those days it was actually actually rape so if you yourself are the product of a family background which evolved into racial mixing why do you so oppose it today i just view for the black woman she is our woman that god gave us and she is suffering is suffering from the lack of a man black women suffering from the lack of a real true father and a true husband in the house we know how to make the babies but we're very bad in taking care of our responsibility i have a duty about black men to raise us up from that condition to give black men in black women jazz to relate better to each other and then if love comes into the picture across the racial lines are cases where the death penalty is i don't believe you can correct savage and beastly behavior with love you have to set examples and when you live in a society where no examples  set people feel they can do what they want to do and get away with it in the taxpayers have to pay dollars to feed and people that have done heinous things my people the victims of a systematic this correction of the moral fiber we hate self and we hate our own kind and we hate our origin in the world so black on black crime now is worse then white misbehavior toward black people we are slaughtering each  every weekend we're in the emergency room in hospitals that says something when we do that to one another i believe we do it because uncultivated as human beings and i say this we can get rid of the death penalty if we do right by the human beings that we're stewards over i was and death row county jail and when i went up on death row mr bashir they told me minister you can't go in you've got to talk to them from behind this bar i said no i have to go in and talk to them we would not advise it they said but i said i must they let me go in they pushed the button and the cages of the cell doors were all back and seventeen people walked out about twelve black a few years spanish and a few white and i said everybody grab a chair and we sat in a circle and i began to talk to them and within ten minutes there was a complete change in those young men and i called the god and i said look at them  in every human being and so when you spend four hundred fifteen or more billion dollars on a military budget and sixty billion dollars for education then are preparing for war but you are not cultivating your greatest resource which are your citizens and so this is going on all over the world so little boys now in africa ten years old killing little boys in palestine little boys in the black neighborhoods learning how to sell drugs and kill with  feeling this is done because all the institutions that are set up to cultivate human beings have failed and that's why there be a new heaven and a new earth in the form of things have to pass away we've got to do better by the people you condemn the behavior and performance of black men regularly you have in this interview to what extent do you draw on your own experience of your own father how difficult was that it wasn't difficult at all because i had a supreme other who was a no father for me but you get what i'm saying what i'm asking you is are you a strident on black men because you yourself personally have experienced no no no no no the notion of an absent father i never miss my father i never knew the man i thank god for him because his seed is what put me where i am i honor him i respect him i'm not strident on black men because it's black men's fault because we were trained in slavery to be irresponsible we were stunned horses so you go in and impregnate a black woman you give her a baby that's a slave you don't have a responsibility for the upkeep of that child for the nurturing of that child for the mentoring of that child you make a baby and you run one hundred years up from slavery one hundred fifty years up from slavery we're making babies and running so no what bill cosby is saying and what others are saying we have to accept responsibility now and it's up to leaders and preachers took preach to our people the acceptance of responsibility because white people cannot hold us back if we don't hold ourselves back so that responsibility falls on me and the hundreds of leaders that are out there who claim to be leaders we can make a better people than this and we're going to try a black man has announced that he's standing for president of the united states of america to support him i like him very much i like him he has a fr and i'm fearful because there's a structure in our government that no matter who sits in the seat of power there are forces that one has to contend with if one is able to attract the masses of their folks barack obama is doing quite well he has a broad spectrum of young people black and white and asian and hispanic and he might fool a lot of people and get the nomination of his party that's field he's a beautiful young man my fear is when you sit in the seat and you don't know the electrical current that's up under your seat and you start getting his jokes and you've got to see where the jolt is coming from and now you've got to bend to multinational corporations and their interests you have to bend to this group and that's bull but remember we gave you so much money and remember we did this for you that's the hard part he started off quite well some people have said that he's deliberately avoiding controversial black figures like yourself mr al sharpton jesse jackson for fear of alienating white voters first of all do you think that is true i would give him credit if my if avoiding me duba very impressive speech at the last democratic convention he's brought but he comes from the black experience he's always there fighting for justice is the same w jackson well barack obama is fighting for justice too but not from a position where they can say he's a radical but he still feels their pain but he rises above it and reaches the do you think he's deliberately avoiding people i can't say like yourself in order not to alienate potential white voters i can't see that because i haven't made myself available to him as he reached  not made himself available to me but you know almost eight months or so and nine months before the election we don't know what tomorrow bring in i told him coming out of prison so it might be alright to be seen with for our kind in a few minutes there was some controversy about mr obama's early muslim education do you think that may have hurt his chances no no in a world