The Uncompromising Spirit of Malcolm X

[Oshun_Auset]

Article courtesy of the Black World Website...

The Uncompromising Spirit of Malcolm X

Written by Junious Stanton

Sunday, 16 May 2004

By Junious Ricardo Stanton

If Malcolm X, also known as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, were alive today he would be seventy -nine years old on May 19. Given his uncompromising outspokenness, his love of black people, his unwillingness to acquiesce to oppression or sell out his values sooner or later the US government would have had to kill him, which they did although government agents didn’t actually pull the triggers.

If he had remained alive a few more months he probably would have railed against the escalation of the imperialist war in Indo-China exposing it for the monstrosity it was and admonishing black men for shedding their blood for the same government that allowed the KKK to kill our sisters, lynch our fathers and disrespect our mothers. Malcolm was not one to bite his tongue or sugar coat the truth, he told it like it was, made it plain and broke it down. While others deluded themselves about the AmeriKKKan dream, Malcolm spoke truth to power and called it what it was, the AmeriKKKan nightmare.

As we pause to acknowledge and celebrate the birthday of this great hero, let us not forget that along with his love of black people and truth, Malcolm X, was a man of action. We need more like him, men and women willing to stand for truth and righteousness in the face of lies, evil and a relentless campaign to brainwash the masses into going along with the Nazification of AmeriKKKa. Things aren’t that different from when Malcolm was alive, the oppression, intimidation and mind control seem to have become chronic and effective while the fires of resistence flicker faintly in our community. We need brothers and sistahs to stoke them into a full blaze but we cannot depend on someone else like a Malcolm X to do it, we each have to do it for ourselves!

Even though he was tutored by Elijah Muhammad and became Mr. Muhammad’s prime spokesman and proselytizer, in his speeches, you can see Malcolm had his own ideas about the plight of the so-called Negro in AmeriKKKa and people of color around the world. As Malcolm evolved, he began to differ with Mr. Muhammad’s assertion their god would bring AmeriKKKa to her knees. Malcolm stood up and demanded black men stand up to protect our homes, families and communities. "In areas where our people are the constant victims of brutality and the government seems unwilling or unable to protect them, we should form rifle clubs that can be used defend our lives and our property in times of emergency. Not a single white person in America would sit idly by and let someone do to him what we blacks have been letting others do to us " Words such as this sent waves of fear not only through the white community but to their Negro lackey leadership who were fixated upon the notion of non-violence to the point we allowed psychopaths to routinely beat and disrespect us, bomb our churches and murder our children with impunity. Malcolm ridiculed the Civil Rights movement saying it was a sham that white people actually controlled it.

In one of his speeches in Detroit, The Ballot or the Bullet, he outlined how "white liberals" organized and funneled money to fund and promote the March on Washington to deflate the militancy of the movement. For Malcolm the issue was human rights which had to be addressed before and by the bulk of humanity not the US government the main abuser of human rights. Prior to his assassination Malcolm was working to bring the Untied States government before the United Nations to expose the atrocities and human rights violations it was perpetrating against Afro-Americans. His trips overseas were designed to garner support from foreign leaders of the Afro-Asian block for this move and the US government knew this. Their agents kept tabs on him during his travels and even tried to poison him while he was in Africa. Malcolm knew what AmeriKKKa was doing around the world and at home and railed against her depravity and barbarism. This is the real meaning behind his statement "The chickens have come home to roost," following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

If he were alive today, no doubt Malcolm would denounce the war in Iraq, not only because he was a Muslim but because this war is symptomatic of the hypocrisy, hubris and depravity of AmeriKKKa. "America is just as much a colonial power as England ever was. American is just as much a colonial power as France ever was, in fact America is more so a colonial power than they because she is a hypocritical colonial power behind it."

Malcolm understood the direct relationship between AmeriKKKan hegemony and African impoverishment and neo-colonial vassalage. He knew AmeriKKKa had a hand in the murder of Patrice Lumumba, he realized what AmeriKKKa was doing in Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia, spoke out and attempted to address it, which cost him his life. Malcolm is gone but like the African icon, Ausar he is risen. Like Ausar whose son Heru battled evil and restored the rightful throne, Malcolm X has spiritual sons and daughters carrying on the battle, who hold fast to his spirit of truth, action and love of black people. The struggle lives because Malcolm’s spirit lives, as long as this spirit is alive there will be resistence to injustice and barbarism.