France, Alternative Libertaire AL #247 - There are fifty
years, Malcolm X was assassinated (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation]
On 21 February 1965, Malcolm X was falling under the bullets Black Muslims, who accused
him of having abandoned their sect Nation of Islam. In the last years of his life, he had
established himself as the champion of self-organization of black Americans, anti-racism
and decolonization. ---- Malcolm X stigmatized US involvement in Vietnam and expressed
solidarity with Cuba and Latin American revolutionaries. He identified the struggle of
African Americans to that of the people who came to shake the imperialist yoke around the
world and wanted to establish a connection with it. And African Americans, who now allies
decolonized all peoples of the world should feel either minority but majority[1]. ---- It
was necessary to internationalize the struggle of African-American, drag Uncle Sam in
international forums for the treatment of blacks: passing the struggle of blacks in US
jurisdiction to that of the UN, now filled with former members colonized countries;
"Integrationists are fighting for civil rights internally is lost in advance, or it is a
struggle for human rights"[2].
He also sought through this link to reconcile blacks with their African origins and
cultures. Without Malcolm, surely no "Black is beautiful". Black skull had been stuffed
for decades with infériorisantes representations of Africans, straightening hair had
spread to look like whites. Malcolm showed that they had more in common with blacks
struggle worldwide with white Americans. "I'm not American, he says. Suppose ten men are
at the table, eating dinner and I go sit at their table. They eat; but to me there is an
empty plate. The fact that we are all sitting at the same table it is enough to make us
all the diners?"[3]
"Show me a capitalist, I show you the vampire!»
The other message left by Malcolm X was that you had now also engage in combat against
capitalism. Do not perceiving the extent of the neo-colonial degeneration of independence,
he called these liberated countries from colonial rule as an example: " The countries
that have adopted their independence have given almost all more or less socialist regimes,
and it has nothing accidental. You and I[...] who want jobs, better housing, better
education, we should[...] look at what the liberated peoples system adopt for better
housing, better food. There is not one that adopts the capitalist system[...] to direct a
capitalist system, we need a soul vulture. The capitalist feeds of others blood. Show me a
capitalist, I show you the vampire! "[4].
But the main message of Malcolm, it was the inevitability of violence and desire that
black people arm themselves to defend themselves. His numerous public statements assert
the pitfalls of non-violence and self-defense of blacks. For him it was " the ballot or
the gun . " The newsletter not vote to give his voice to one of the two major parties,
but racist as part of the power struggle, which, if it did not work, should give way to
violence.
The emancipation of blacks by blacks themselves
If he was now ready to receive the support of whites, that support it should in no way
lead to any loss of autonomy, and this centrally returned in strategic terms in his
lectures, as criticism of Tom uncles. For him, the need for self-organization of blacks,
not to be recovered by the various bourgeois currents white and black was essential. He
had not yet found a dialectical balance between the necessary denunciation of integration
and the necessity of working with integrationist. Clear the gradualist utopias of these
and racist fantasies of Black Muslims, he was involved in a failed search for a
"revolutionary black nationalism" .
His assassination brought a premature end to it.
He remained quite isolated during this period. He was accused of not refuse outright
American society, while most refused as ever, but differently. The Black Panther Party
will assert that he resumed his work as to where he had left it.
Nicolas Pasadena (antiracist Committee)
BLACK MUSLIMS OF THE "NATION OF ISLAM"
The founder of the sect "Nation of Islam" was a Wallace D. Fard mysteriously disappeared.
His disciple taking the name of Elijah Muhammad was enthroned new prophet. This tiny sect
managed to recruit in large northern cities a considerable number of followers. The
Muslims drew most of their recruits from black underclass from the South. They were direct
descendants of the movement of Marcus Garvey 1920: like him, they preached that God is
black and the white man is a devil. If Marcus Garvey advocated a return to Africa, the
Muslims themselves, repeating the slogan of the Communist Party of the 1930s, asked the US
government to concede several states to compensate them for the sufferings of slavery.
James Baldwin says, "all blacks roughly sympathize with them" because "the desperation
that led the Black Muslims to demand an autonomous state is rather that of all blacks"[5].
Behaviourally, the sect managed to transform its zealots. Once converted, they wore clean
shirts, jackets and ties, they no longer drinking, not smoking, not using drugs anymore.
They exalted the prestigious civilization of the distant past and made blacks pride in
being black. They supported the anti-colonial movements in Asia, Africa, Cuba ...
Daniel Guérin dedicated to Muslims a chapter of his book, he believes that "the movement
called the most serious concerns, ideology is quoted by some absurd," but he concedes,
however, that "it is a merit of black Muslims of have succeeded, in contrast to the
integrationist, solder the American black liberation to global decolonization " . He will
say critics making them allies of southern white racists that they were not honest, not
being able "to put in the same bag freely chosen separation and segregation imposed by the
proponents of white supremacy" . The reverse racism they express, again according to
Guérin "turns into a racial separatism but not class" .
Nicolas Pasadena (antiracist Committee)
The other articles of the dossier:
The roots of racism: From Slavery to the ghetto
Labor movement: black or white, always proletarians
The Black Panthers beyond the myth of
Black Feminism: at the intersection of oppressions
DRUM: Blacks fighting on workplace
reformist Black Movements: The pitfalls of bourgeois strategies
Harana Paré (historian): "It is the revolt that has existed blacks in America"
A Black Revolution remains to be done
[1] Daniel Guérin From Uncle Tom to the Black Panthers, The Characters Bons, 2010.
[2] Malcolm X, Geoge Breitman, Black Power, La Découverte, 2008.
[3] Malcolm X, Geoge Breitman, Black Power , La Découverte, 2008.
[4] Malcolm X, George Breitman, Black Power , La Découverte, 2008.
[5] quoted by Daniel Guerin From Uncle Tom to the Black Panthers, The Characters Bons, 2010.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Dossier-Black-Revolution-Malcolm-X
