February is the month to commemorate the martyrdom of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz; better known as Malcolm X. On February 21, 1965, at approximately 1:30pm at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York, Malcolm was gunned down by men who were more than likely affiliated with the Newark, New Jersey Mosque of the Nation of Islam. We know that the FBI had informants at the very top level of the Nation of Islam. We know that these informants made it a priority to sabotage Malcolm's relationship with the NOI, isolate Malcolm, and set him up to be murdered. So, it may be accurate to say these men were affiliated with the NOI, but we know it was the U.S. government that manipulated and engineered the murder of brother Malcolm. Or, as Amiri Baraka puts it "Black men may have fired the guns, but they didn't buy the bullets."
So, 44 years after Malcolm's murder where do we place Malcolm? Is he a speech snipet sayhing "By any means necesary" over and over? Is he a tee shirt? Is he a sample on a rap record? For the younger generations, is he simply Denzil Washington's portrayal of him? Or, is he someone the youth will increasingly not know at all? Well, there are many of us who know who Malcolm was. He was a principled man who was dedicated to fighting for justice. He was a soldier who could not be compromised. His ability to take the complex nature of the capitalist/imperialism system and break down its contradictions in a common everyday humorous fashion that has influenced all those who emerged after him like Kwame Ture (Stokley Carmichael), Jamil Al Amin (H Rap Brown), Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Maulana Karenga, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, Kathleen Cleaver, Bob Marley, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Minister Khallid Abdul Muhammad, Minister Ava Muhammad (and practically every minister in the NOI), and thousands of soldiers for justice of each gender and every nationality. His ability to analyze the cause of urban rebellions, international imperialism in Vietnam, Cuba, Africa, and elsewhere, and the African right to self determination is still studied by revolutionaries today.
Kwame Ture used to say that the best way to honor someone like Malcolm was to continue his work. This approach makes sense. If you have a relationship with someone and the both of you say you love each other, if your significant other only tells you they love you with no action to back that up, after a short while, you will be done with that person. This is a universal aspect of life. You can't say you love Malcolm, or anyone who struggled or struggles for justice, if you aren't doing anything to assist that work. You can't solve the problem as an individual because you will die and then what becomes of your contribution? The only way the problem can be solved is through mass organization. So, if you truly respect Malcolm, the only way to properly honor his memory is to join some organization fighting for justice and work to make that organization a positive force for social change. You can't do this by being the "Malcolm X of the police force" as an African pig once told me. That's absurd. We can't make Malcolm what we want him to be. He was a soldier for justice against imperialism. You can't be that while being an armed enforcer for imperialism? Join an organization working for justice. Do it today and don't stop until you die. When we are ready to do that, we will bring Malcolm's vision to reality. Let's get to work!
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The one thing I find troubling about this, Dear Comrade, is the implication that a certain class of Africans, namely African police officers, cannot be a positive force for progress. I know that working in the Police Department in this country seems to be a contradiction. That is an outward appearance. But, it is those who do their work for the enemy from under cover that I worry about.
We all work for capitalism in the good ole USA. If say otherwise, you lie to yourself and to us. So let us not point a figure at someone simply because he wears a uniform.
If my be awatre from reading Comrade Dr. Kwame Ture's READY FOR REVOLUTION that he also wore a uniform. He was in the Guinean Army. Comrade Captain Camare is also in the Guinean Army. So, is Brother Colonel Muamar Qadaffi, the cureent Cahirman of the African Union, an Army officer. So, it is not bearing arms that we must be concerned about.
What we must be concerned about are the thugs and criminals among us. These are far more oof a threat to us than the average police officer. (I am cannot over-emphasize this too much.) For too long, we have romaticized about about gangster this and gangster that while milions of our best Africans have lost their lives in street violence or gone to jail for something stupid. As sincere, honest and principle revolutionary, we have a duty to take a stand and set anexample that takes us in a better direction.
The biggest problem with Al-Hajj Imam Malik Al-Shabazz is the way the his actually enemies misuse his name to promote ab agenda absolutely contrary to his best teachings. For example, THE AUTOBIOGRPHY OF MALCAOM X does little mopre than dramtize the ideiolgy of the lumpen proletariat. In simple language, this means that the mistakes that he made as an uneducated and unenelightened youth are now being used to make him appear to have been something that he certainly was not as mature and responsible man, husband, and father of six beautiful little girls. SIX GIRLS!
Brother Malcolm was the first major figure to reunite us to Africa this this era. But, he took it a step further: he reclaimed the Islam of our ancestors, the founders of the Islamic Movement. He broke with the false Islam that had been corrupted and distorted by the American cultural experience. And he took us to traditional Islam and made us brothers and sisters to all Muslims in the world. Thus, we are part of a community of 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. And, more than half of Africa is a part of that 1.5 billion Muslims.
It never cerases to amaze me how people can distort things so far out of reality. But, Malcolm X made the same mistakes that many of our young people make every day. It is our job and our duty to use his example to show these kids how to go beyond the mistakes to be true Africans who make positive contributions to the construction of the African Nation.
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