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Luthuli Tate, Pan-Africanist scholar with a PhD in African History, was attending an open forum on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. What made this forum stand out was that it was at a historically Black university. Fisk had only two years before been in fear of closing its doors for good, but had been bailed out by alumni. Now, it was doing a bit better to where some symposiums and forums would be held on its campus. Luthuli was an alumnus himself, but he had little money to contribute to the school at the time as much as he would have gladly given any sum of money to save it. But after his studies at Fisk, he had gone to Southern University for his graduate studies. Because of discussions about merging Southern University with the majority white LSU and the history of Africa about which he was learning, he began to become Pan-Africanist in his outlook. So here he was approaching a forum at his alma mater in which the question was whether or not Blacks should boycott joining the military while America was bombing Iraqis and Afghans. He knew that Black people, while likely to join the military for an education, were also against the bombing and killing of those nationalities just because of their heritages. He was planning to question this during the half-hour debate scheduled between him and some Muslim whose name he had already forgotten.
Luthuli was different from the rest of his people in that he only sympathized with other disadvantaged groups that showed clearly that they would rather be called Black than be called white. This meant that in his Pan-African outlook, he was often times more against other disadvantaged peoples than he was against those who victimized. He saw the pattern of Black people being targeted all over the world, even the West Papuan blacks being discriminated against by the Indonesians. He would propose the idea of not only Blacks joining the military, but also requesting duty in Iraq specifically to avenge Arabs’ historical enslavement and mistreatment of Blacks. To add insult to injury, he would propose the Black community organizing to send an open letter to the people of those countries that this was being done.
When the forum finally began, it was already 45 minutes after schedule. Luthuli was then introduced to one he’d be debating. Omar Ranks wasn’t what he expected at all. He thought that he’d be debating someone from the Nation Of Islam, but this guy clearly wasn’t. He wore no suit, no bowtie, and he did not have any FOI around him. He actually wore a white West African outfit with a buba on it over his shoulder. He had paper with him, but it was all blank instead of having any notes written on it. This confused and unnerved Luthuli as he turned back to look at his own paper with its notes. He was accustomed to public speaking, but only with notes.
The debate was the third thing on the menu after the introduction and then a speech by a local minister who had marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. The speech was a hard act to follow, but it was also a sermon for all practical purposes, with some shouting and some people that "got happy" and had to be fanned and given water. When they were over, the moderator then introduced them and called Omar up to give his own opening remarks.
Omar, his face expressionless, arose to the podium and began to address the crowd assembled. His voice was thick and heavy, which riveted the attention to him and his words. He concisely told his audience that not only should Black Americans not join the military, but no one at all should join them, especially Blacks of any nationality. "John F Kennedy said at the beginning of the Vietnam Conflict ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’ If America is our country to begin with, then she has not done what she can and she cannot do what she should. We owe America nothing we haven’t already paid in labor without its benefits. America owes us her everything, all of her benefits with none of her burdens in exchange for the reverse we have tasted since before she even became independent.
"America depends on free land and free labor to prosper. So it killed the Native Americans to get the land to chop down the trees to make the boats to go to Africa and bring us back to do the work they didn’t want to do that was necessary! And during the westward expansion after the Civil War, they used Black soldiers in the Army to fight the Apache who had never harmed us nor even hated us! After that, we still did not benefit from Reconstruction! The nation healed its rift after the Civil War at our expense, not their own! They used us to ‘protect freedom and democracy’ in both world wars for everyone else except ourselves, and we came back to more discrimination for just for having military training! They lynched Black veterans in the south when they could, and yet we fought bravely against those who never harmed us. They killed those of us who fought for them! What kind of country is this for which we even have to hold this forum to ask should we even fight and bleed and die?!
"If you look at our problems in our community, they are so prevalent that even when many of us join my specific religious community within, they still have these problems for the rest of their lives and may pass them on their children. And only two of these problems can I honestly say that we brought with us to this country; tribalism and under-appreciating our women. The rest are imported from the people we are asking whether or not we should even fight for. Now, when Malcolm X was alive, he warned us both before and after his Islam that if we did not separate from whites we’d share their fate, right? Yes, he did warn us of it. After his Islam, he said we needed to separate from wrong-doers, not necessarily whites, and this is the Islamic stance. This is called baraah in Arabic, and this is what separates good from bad, even within a tribe or a race. If you are ‘the good guy’ and yet you refuse to either distinguish or to separate yourself from ‘the bad guys’, then you share their fate. See, in the Biblical story of Lot’s people being destroyed for homosexuality, his wife was turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back, feeling sympathy for them. In the Qur’an, she died in the town with the homosexuals themselves because she sympathized with them. Either way, despite her heterosexuality evidenced by her marriage to Lot and them having daughters, she sympathized with them. Either way, Allah punished her for it. Either way..."
(A half hour later) "And here, we see them eating what we have earned for them, living on land they took from someone else that used to shelter those of us who ran away from slavery, and expanding their empire abroad to get more oil and to defeat the ideology that has made real revolutionaries out of the victims there. What they have done is become the envy of the world at the expense of others! Just as Rome did. Just as Persia did. Just as the European colonizers of Africa and Asia did. No matter what you believe in theologically, these are reasons enough to not fight for the US but to fight against it! She owes us and everyone else, so why not? Even many whites were robbed of their rights here by having to pay for the land that was stolen. Many of the poor ones are still poor because of slavery removing any demands for their ancestors’ labor or skill, thereby removing all incentive for them to be productive. Slavery was expensive, more expensive than the cheap labor they use people for now, and yet they still fought a war to keep it and risk dividing the country! In the 1950s, the Black female workforce in the South was 50 percent domestic, and less than 1 percent of the white female workforce was employed as domestics. 75 percent of the Black male workforce in the south was unskilled, while 20 percent of the white male workforce was employed in unskilled labor. Blacks earned only 54 percent of the median income of whites. Now in this new millennium, Blacks still earn less than whites for the same jobs, and we are the only group of people whose women are routinely paid more and hired before the men, just to emasculate us! And you want to fight for this country?!
"Now, my opponent may or may not say that joining the army will teach the Arabs a lesson they need to learn for looking down on Black people all these years. I agree that Arabs have been racist and need to learn a lesson for this, especially those of them that are Muslim. They should have rid themselves of racism a long time ago if Islam is so important to their identity. But Arabs’ racism isn’t like what we suffered here. See, the Arabs have historically looked down on everyone, Persian, Roman, African, or Arab from another tribe. To this day, certain tribes don’t intermarry and the Arabs in the oil-rich countries look down on Arabs from the Mediterranean like Jordan or Egypt. They don’t like each other, so it’s not like they dislike us only. It’s more like they dislike everyone. Their preference for whites is also based on money, which is still wrong but quite different from white supremacy. But in Afghanistan, they’re not Arabs. They actually learned Islam from African Muslims, and Islam spread into Africa by teaching and trade because the people were open to listen to its message. This myth of Arabs and other such people being just as bad as the Klu Klux Klan is just that; a myth! And the ones doing the fighting against the coalition forces in both countries began to decide in about 2004 that they would fight as Muslims and not as Afghans or Arabs. Because of this, many foreigners began to flock into both countries to join the resistance. You don’t know that many African Americans and Africans have shed their blood to fight the same force that broke us as a people? A young brother from Atlanta back in the 90s went to Kashmir and fought until he died to keep some real white supremacists Hindus, who worship cows and monkeys but hate dark skinned humans, from expanding into Muslim lands north of them!" The irony of the Hindus brought a laugh from the crowd.
"See, this white supremacy machine is fighting to become global, Black people. But the insurgency in both countries is actually part of a global resistance to it, not another facet of it! Just like here in America where we wipe each other out and no Klan is necessary to do so anymore, it’s not red Arabs killing Blacks in Sudan and Mauritania. It’s Black Arabs enslaving or killing Blacks in those countries. It’s Black people! So any statistics reported from those two countries don’t prove that ‘those people’ are racist, it only proves that we are racist against oursleves. The non-Black Arabs had a different type of discrimination that said to us ‘You can work any job for the same pay and go to any school and live in any neighborhood. Just don’t ask to marry my daughter. And if you were white it would be the same.’ White supremacy says ‘You’re automatically inferior because you’re Black and you’ll be treated unfairly in every arena. Even if my daughter loves you enough to marry you!’ We have a very generalized idea of the racism they have in the Middle East, but in reality they’ll never pay you less for the same job or exclude you from working a job if you have the degree, even if they call blacks slaves! They would not castrate you! Also keep in mind that the ones who are racist are not pious enough to join the insurgencies and face the US forces! You have to be ready to die in order to fight for either side, and a racist among them is too influenced by this side to be pious to be ready to die anytime soon! And the truth is that if you’re in most countries there and someone personally discriminates against you, the system won’t do so and so you’re free to fight back without the law siding against you. This has always been the case there, while we here only got some rights and still few benefits less than a generation ago!
"The last thing I want to tell you is that the US
promises benefits to us if we join, like free health care and free education and
a good retirement package. Number one, these benefits are only carrots dangled
in front of us for that purpose, not just to attract us but also to attract poor
whites who are also victims. The US has a history of breaking promises to us and
others. Every promise made to any Native America tribe was broken by the US
government. And we still haven’t received our 40 acres or the mules, which in
today’s economy would be prime real estate and free investment capital! Promises
to veterans are already being broken at the same time that soldiers are coming
back either dead or mentally damaged. The Army is considering raising its
maximum enlistment age to 45 years of age, which is only one sign of its
desperation. The others include use of the National Guard units abroad and a
Coast Guard unit in the Persian Gulf and the lowering of standards to enlist. By
that I mean that known gang members and those with gang tattoos could not join,
and now they can. The end of the empire is already approaching whether we want
it to or not and this is what Malcolm was referring to. If we fight for it, we
die with it, having been cheated already and owing nothing to it. We’ll then
lose on both ends, and for the Muslims we believe that it would be losing in
both lives as well. Do you want our suffering to mean nothing on Judgment Day
because we fought for our tormentors? It can happen, and for many of us it is
already is. To avoid this is why I’m standing in front of you now. Thank you for
your time and attention."
Luthuli arose amidst the applause and he said
immediately, "Yes, I do have statistics from the Sudan and Mauritania, just as
Mr. Ranks has so astutely guessed. Matter of fact, the stats are what will
disprove his argument. He’s trying to say that the Arabs are less racist than
whites, but I beg to differ. They are more racist. The first racist poetry ever
written was written in Arabic. In English it means ‘God gave no light to their
complexions.’ This was before any whites were even thinking about Africa or
Africans. The Atlantic slave trade only started because of the Arabs teaching
whites the profitability of enslaving Blacks. Arabs would make raids into Africa
routinely to kidnap Black slaves and then they would castrate the men just like
what was done here in the United States! This was all before Europeans even
wanted to enslave any of us for any reason whatsoever!" Luthuli was quickly
getting worked up. "The only reason that they looked to us was that they got it
from the Arabs. Africans weren’t in Arabia except as slaves for a long time!
Muhammad owned a Black slave himself, actually two! Then he referred to
Ethiopians as ‘raisin-heads’. The Qur’an speaks of the people of Paradise having
their faces turned white on Judgment Day and the people of hell fire having
their faces turned Black. White supremacy is all throughout Islam and it’s the
reason why the Arabs became Muslim so readily! To this day, Iraqi men and Afghan
men won’t marry a woman that’s dark and would prefer to marry a blonde if they
can do so! They don’t let their children marry someone that’s too dark! Now,
remember the first war in the Gulf in 91. They were marching to surrender to the
Americans. This time, they’re blowing themselves up in protest! What’s the
difference? The difference is last time they thought all the soldiers would be
white, this time they’re mad because of the amount of Black soldiers sent over
there to tell them they have a curfew and to search their cars! They’re only
fighting back because of the Black soldiers. Most white people all over the
world wouldn’t do that this day and age, but you got these Arabs and Afghans who
aren’t even white themselves blowing themselves up to uphold the exact same
white supremacy that many whites have abandoned. My son can have a white
girlfriend and neither I nor her parents can do anything about it. Can he have
an Arab girlfriend or an Afghan girlfriend? If he did, her father would kill her
because he’s Black, not just because he’s not one of them! Mr. Ranks makes it
appear that the people being occupied by the US don’t have anything against us
that they wouldn’t have against any non-Arab or non-Afghan. But the statistics I
have from Mauritania and Sudan show otherwise. White supremacy is an accepted
assumption of reality for the Arab/Muslim identity. Mr Ranks took a long time to
say otherwise, but before I even go over the statistics, the fact remains that
whites are not being victimized by Arabs anywhere in the world, only Blacks are.
In Afghanistan, no one will call a white person a slave but they will call us
slaves and might even slap us if we protest! They have maintained a policy of
white supremacy even after whites have almost abandoned it and if they had their
way, we’d be back to where were in the 1800s; serving them tea and picking their
crops as property of theirs. If the US wins, at least we’ll still have the gains
for which so many of us have fought and sacrificed and even died! I just don’t
want us to be moved from the back of the bus to the back of the camel!
"Thank
you for your time and attention."
Luthuli’s speech had been shorter, but more concise, and he got less of an applause, but he had received many shouts of approval throughout his short speech. Because of this, it was hard to tell who was winning. But Luthuli had attacked Islam and lumped it together with the Arab identity and the cultural identity of Afghans. To him it was all one thing; a region close to Africa but hostile to its people and descendants. He had reinforced the relatively new ideas among Blacks that Arabs were worse racists than whites were. But he then found out why Omar had blank paper with him when he turned around to sit down again. Omar ascended to the podium again with the pad this time, the pages full of notes.
"Allow me to go down the list of his points one-by-one.
"The Arabs did have a preference for whites over Blacks, some still do. Islam does not. Islamic and Arab are two different things. Arab racism is not Islamic and to justify racism makes a Muslim into an apostate. If the first racist poetry was written in Arabic it’s probably because there were more Blacks in Arabia than in Europe.
"Yes, Arabs did make raids into Africa for slaves and concubines. Yes, some men were castrated. Here’s why; in the Islamic empire itself all of this was illegal, so it occurred by criminals venturing outside of the empire to do these things, then smuggling the mutilated slaves into the slave markets as captives of war. Those doing this are like the Americans who smuggle in illegal immigrants from Mexico to be used for cheap labor here. Is it not illegal? Don’t they go to jail if they’re caught? Don’t we look down on such Americans? Whether or not the Europeans started enslaving us due to the Arabs or not, it doesn’t prove Islam anymore racist than the Christianity of the majority of our people in the Americas, does it? It proves that racism and tribalism is everywhere which is no surprise to us.
"Africans have been in Arabia since the beginning. It’s
now proven that the first to settle the Arabian peninsula in Yemen were a group
of about 250 Africans during the last ice age. The first Arabs were Black
themselves, and there are still Black Arab tribes remaining of them even now in
2010. Look at the Al-Dossary tribe for examples. They weren’t slaves. Others
were slaves, but like I said anyone could be enslaved in Arabia. Yes, Muhammad
did have two Black slaves. He freed them both, adopted one until adoption was
abrogated in the Shariah, and he ordered a few marriages between Black men of
humble origins and lighter-skinned Arab women from noble families. He
specifically did that to combat Arab racism, not to put it into Islam. Arabs
weren’t forced to become Muslim, but they did have to be conquered by Muslims
before they would accept Islam for themselves. Yes, Arabs do have a problem of
respecting power more than morality at times, but that’s not Islam. Muhammad has
no blame to bear in Arab racism. He was an Arab of noble tribe and was still
disadvantaged because he was orphaned, so Blacks weren’t singled out by Arabs or
by Islam. Muhammad did not call us raisin heads, but let me tell you what he
actually said in reference to that. He said ‘If your leader is an Abyssinian
slave with a head like a raisin,’ referring to the texture of our hair, ‘then
obey him.’ He knew the Arab psychology and he opposed it like a Muslim should
do, which is why he ordered those specific marriages he did and also ordered
Bilal and only Bilal to physically ascend the Ka’aba to call to prayer when they
conquered Mecca. Don’t blame Muhammad or the religion of Islam for the racism of
Arabs again! I already agreed that Arabs were racist and added that they’re
classist and just elitist in general which is why they do have to be beaten and
humiliated at times to correct themselves!" Omar said forcefully.
"And then
about marriage to someone darker, you must be thinking of India, not the Arab
lands. The Arabs do prefer to marry fair-skinned Arab women, but they don’t
historically prefer blondes to dark-haired women. Their cultural ideal is
actually fair skin with dark hair, but not as pale as Northern European women,
either. The preference for blondes is really a recent phenomenon, and those who
marry someone darker than themselves aren’t disowned by their families even if
people comment on them. In India, largely a Hindu country, they might disown,
but not among the Arabs. Muslims in general will disown a daughter who marries a
non-Muslim man because it’s forbidden in Islam, anyway. The princess of Bahrain
married a white Christian from Texas and she was disowned until she recently
divorced him. He wasn’t Black, he didn’t even have a tan!" This brought an
approving laugh from the crowd again. "And the Qur’anic verses about the faces
being blackened or whitened actually refer to some faces glowing as a sign of
reward and others being burned as punishment, not to white supremacy or Black
inferiority. Again, white supremacy is anti-thematic to Islam, no matter how
many Muslims are racist or not.
"And this brings me to my last point back on track about the question of us going to fight them for this country. It’s not the presence of Black troops that has motivated them to resist US occupation this time. It is the combination of US atrocities and an Islamic revival in that region overall. The first time, the US had only Iraqis to fight and they didn’t get much reistance. This time, they went over there and met Muslims who would rather die than be subjugated by anyone. They saw it as a religious war on them as Muslims and they responded with a jihad. Even the most extreme of them have stated as their goal the conquest of Europe and America to eradicate the discrimination and subjugate our subjugators. Malcolm X is one of their heroes like he is in America! The worst we’d suffer under them is a 2.5 percent tax called the jizyah. And the Muslims of us wouldn’t have to pay it, we’d have to pay the same amount in charity instead. If this were just Arabs fighting whites it would make sense for Black people to sit back and let them wear each other out for our benefit. Since it’s actually a war on Islam it would make sense for us to root for the Muslims because under Shariah law, discrimination is illegal even if some Muslims are personally racist. I’m not just saying this because I’m Muslim, but I am Muslim because I know this to be true. That’s another discussion, but it was my opponent who attacked Islam and tried to link it to Arab racism to win the debate, not me. Still, Islam does factor into why we should not be fighting against Iraqis and Afghans for the benefit of America. We’d be nothing but loyal slaves fighting the Indians again for Massa Charlie, only this time to find the Indians would rather die than be put on Massa Charlie’s reservations again. To put it simply, we’d be wrong and they would be right."
Luthuli arose amidst the louder applause for Omar. And he gave his rebuttals which failed to actually disprove or even argue with the points Omar made. "It appears that Mr. Ranks, who may be of Creole extraction by his appearance, has resorted to what many of them use to make it appear that they have been in fact less racist than they are. I have met many of our people who have tried to minimize the racism of the Arabs and other groups like Creoles and Hispanics, thinking we have outside allies in our liberation. We don’t. It’s us versus the rest of the world and due to brain-washing, the least of our enemies is the white man. The average white man is less racist than his victims of brainwashing and yet many of us, Omar Ranks included, have resorted to defending them and not to condemning them. We don’t have any outside help coming to us. It’s us against everyone else, and that’s all-"
"I can’t take anymore of this!" interrupted a listener from the audience, standing up. He was an elder, with more gray in his hair than Luthuli. He was pitch-black, close-cropped hair, with a very neat beard and mustache. When he stood up and came out of his row of seats into the aisle, he was clearly a short man, but powerfully built. His voice was a lot like Omar’s, but raspier and worn from years. "Luthuli, you ain’t done no more than sit here and cry about how nobody likes us so we should just go and help white folks shoot ‘em all up! And when Mr. Ranks here whipped you in the debate, you can’t do nothin’ but say he’s goin’ too soft on them because he’s light-skinned! That ain’t debating, Mr. Tate! I don’t know what you call debating, but that sure ain’t it! I’m sorry for interrupting’ but there’s something that a lot of the younger folks in this audience need to know. I’m in my late seventies now and I was a little younger than Malcolm X. I was in the Audobon Ballroom when he got shot in New York back in ’65, and I had followed him from not too long after he had got out of prison and joined Elijah. I followed him again in ’59 when he got on that Mike Wallace show for a whole week. I followed them again when he left Elijah Muhammad. So I know what Malcolm said and did and fought for! I also saw when Martin Luther King was getting beaten up and arrested with his followers for nothing more than asking for their rights! I had a grandfather who was drowned to death in Texas when I was a little boy just because he wouldn’t let the sheriff call him ‘boy’! I knew then that we had to get out of America real quick if we was gonna survive! My uncle fought in World War II and said it was nothing worth coming back to here in America, so he stayed in Europe and then retired to Africa back in the eighties. He’d always tell my daddy to come and live out there, said it was good livin’ out there for African-Americans. Malcolm said we should leave and separate, too, didn’t he? You know what I’ve learned in my years in the struggle in America? We’re in worse shape than we were before we got our so-called rights! We don’t own our own businesses no more! Our womenfolk are seen as whores all around the world wherever they go! We kill each other left and right worse than before and now we have more to share with each other so we shouldn’t have to! We can go to any school and read the same textbooks, but we ain’t got communities no more, just ghettoes. This is what we got for staying in America! It ain’t done nothin’ for us! We lost, and my generation knows that this coming generation ain’t gonna make it! They’re self-destructing! Tell the truth, the reason we ain’t left and separated is because we’re scared to give up what we know for something new! We’re cowards, afraid to leave the plantation and be free because we think we can’t survive on our own!
"And I’ve heard Mr. Ranks talk before to different groups of people, including Arabs. He ain’t goin’ easy on nobody, Mr. Tate! What he tells them to their faces is much harder than what he said here today. You don’t know your opponent. But I know him and what he tells them. No matter what he says to them, I always remember one thing. No Arab ever lynched my granddaddy! No Afghan ever hung us from trees! They didn’t take away our names. And they’re not the reason we’re scared to leave America or move to a separate part of it to keep for ourselves! They didn’t drive us crazy to where we carryin’ on like we are now! It was America did this! White America! It wasn’t Creoles or Hispanics or no one else! The onliest reason you up here syain’ what you say is because you don’t want to see too many African-Americans become Muslim! I know this because you were interested in a young Muslim lady some years ago and you got mad when she told you the rules a Muslim woman has to abide by. I’m only putting your business out there like that because she’s my daughter. She’s been after me for some time about becoming a Muslim and I’ve been holin’ out because I’ve been Christian all my life and it’s all I know. But we know that in the last days everyone else would gang up on whoever’s been saved from The Devil, and I been hopin’ I don’t live to see it in my time on this earth. But I been waiting to see if the Muslims get ganged up on by everybody else in the world, and I been seeing it! I just saw it right now on that there stage, Mr. Tate. I know that the reason it’s you on that stage debating Ranks like that is because you were recommended by the board of the synagogue whose chairman is a friend of yours." This brought a gasp from the crowd and a double-take from Luthuli, whose jaw remained agape for the rest of the elder’s spiel. "You say everyone else hates Black people and we should help the Klan kill them all off, and yet you’re here representin’ Jews! You want us to be a Hitler against Arabs and Afghans that ain’t never did us nothin’, just because my Muslim daughter wouldn’t carry on foolishness with you! You here gangin’ up on a Muslim with some synagogue that got less to do with our struggle here than the Muslims! This is probably the fifth time I’ve seen this happen, everyone ganging up on Muslims like this, Christians and Jews alike! Now I know Islam must be the truth since they the onliest ones being persecuted for their beliefs and holding out like they are! And you, Mr. Tate, are here in hypocrisy debatin’ the position you hold! You just proved Islam right, by attacking the religion before he even brought up the subject! But while you tryin’ to attack it, my daughter has been a lot better a person ever since she was Muslim! She’s married now and I got two beautiful grandkids who treat me better than my Christian grandkids. Mr. Ranks, I came to this debate as a Baptist but I’m leavin’ here a Muslim. Salam aleikum, my brother! Allah is God Almighty, and Muhammad must be his prophet! May He bless you and give you all the help you could need against sell-outs like Tate! Black people, I’m telling you now there’s no hope for our people except Islam and getting’ out of here as quick as we can! That’s all I got to say tonight. I hope y’all heed this advice for your own sake."
"Wa leikum salam, brother," replied Omar to the elder.
"This will be good news to your daughter. Mr. Tate, if you really are tied to a
synagogue in this town just to tell Black people to fight America’s wars, then
I’m gonna make sure it gets around. If anything happens to that brother in the
meantime, it will prove that what he said is true about you. I believe this
debate is over."
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