By Joseph Hansen
The assassination of Malcolm X February 2] was a heavy blow to the 2 resdom struggle in the United States and with it the struggle for sooialiam throughout tha world,
The political identity of those who plotted the assassination has not ‘ bean established. On February 16, however, Maleolm X charged at a public i cebing, reported if the February 22 issue of the American socialist weekly, The Militant, that the bombing of his home two days earlier had been ordered by the Slack Muslim leader.Elijah Muhammad. He said that Raymond Sharrieff, supreme contain of the Fruit of Islam, the Black Muslim defense guard, had threatened him in » public telegram, He accu sed the Black Muslims of having friendly relations with spa terrorist Ku Klux Klan and Lincoln Roolwell's Nazi organisation. He oited ceverel attempts on his lifo and he charged that although the police knew about the plans to attack him they had done nothing. Plain olothes men were in the audience when he was shot down.
Tho most reactionary forces in the United States had reason to seek the death ox jalcolm X, He was repidly moving to the forefront as the most authentic wolce of the fresdom-secking Negro masses in the United States. “hat he represented was the rise of a new militant consciousness that is now beginning to challenge the (14, conservative, pacifist-minded leadership. His views were ¢volving and whils ic remained to be seen how fnr he would go, he was clearly attracted by revolutionary socialism, Coming acreas the American Trotskyist movement, he paid it high respect, :-gloped friendly relations with some of its members and leaders, and was beginning study its tenets, Reeently he became a subseriber to Yorld Outlook.
Maleolm X belonged to the generation that was shaped ideologically under the twin circumstances of Yorld Yar IT and the monstrous betrayals and defaults of tha Stalinized Communist parties. These circumstances operated with special force on him as a membor of an oppressed peopla,
His rebellion, as can often be the case, at first took the wild form of _...,09ney. However, after bitter experiences, including a long term in prison, he oagan to seek the onuses for his miserable position in society. “His first steps in ils process, agnin, were not unusual, The religion given him was bad, he decided, “oe he did not proceed directly towar€ o scientific outlook. ‘There was no powerful secialist or Communist movement in tho United States to help him in this step. He went through a transitional stage of seeking a more humane and positive religion, ‘ov a time he thought he had found this in the Black Muslim faith. But this, too, roved inadequate to his inquiring and developing mind. Breaking from Elijnh Muhammad, la turned to the orthodex Muslim sources, He had not completed this phase when he was ““Terad, . *
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The rise ef the Negro movement in tho United States, which was fostered by the consequences of World ar IT and the great postwar revolutionary upsurge in the colonial world, began to drwy Maloolm X out of the shell of religion and into the active world of politioal struggle. Talenta of a high order cast him for the role of a leador in this mighty movement, and tolevision helped convert him into a national figare of groat prominance in a remarkably short time, There was little doubt that he was markod for a consequontial role in the freedom strugglo in the United States.
His turn in this direction, represantative of the trend of the most promising sector of the black nationalist movement, wns high-lighted by his forming a political grouping, the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
The principal issue on which he stood, and which gave him his extraordinary apponl to the Negro masses, was the right of self-defense and Aaveoacy of practicing it. In this ho foreshadowed the next great turn in the sivil-rights movement in the United States,
With infallible instinct, his fous singled this out for special treatment in commenting on his assassination. Misreprosenting his position ns advocacy of "viclenoe", they claim that his death reveals the operation of a kind of natural justice. Thus the New York Times, in a lead editorial (Pobruary 22 international edition), said that "his ruthless and fanatical belies? in viclenea not only sot him apart from the responsible leadors of the civil rights movement .+.+. It also marked him for fome, and for a violent end," The editors even went so for aa to sny that | he "gpawned" the forces that ended in his déath,.
According te this logic, tha “prince of peace” spawned the forces that nailed him to 2 cress. The modern prophot of non-violence, Mahntmn Ghandi, did likewise, for he died nt tho hand of an assassin. The Rev. Martin Luther King, an American diseiple of Ghandi, is not without a similar propensity, for he came close | to death at the hands of a Imifo-wielding fanotic.
The reianrkablo blindness of the cditows of the Times is shown even more glaringly by their overlooking tho continual assassinations in the South of advcoates of non-violence, ‘hat docs their victimisation prove?
Maloolm X's position on this question must be cxamined on ite own merita, Do vietims of violent assaults have “he right to defend themselves? Toes an oppressed group have the right to organize an offeotive defense agninst the violonas of its opprussors? The ontire history of mankind, particularly the history of revolutions, gays yes. The truth is that there is no other road to an ovontual ond to all class violence and the murderous currents it spurns. What the oditors of the Timos and those who think like thom renlly object to ia that an oppressed puople, cspecially the Négro people in tho United States, should defond themselves against violence eecurring on an cndemie nation-wide seale. If Maloolm X is to be eriticised at all it shoulda be beonuse the defenses at his meeting, after repented threats to his lifes, wore not offective cnough,
The generation to which Maleolm X bolongs has slrcoaly produced outstanding figures - Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba. Thess men found their way independently to the vevolutionary strugglc, domonstrating that it is possible to by-pass Stalinism, Thore are other: Like them duveloping in rebel movements throughout the World. They will beoome the heroca and models of the younger poncrotion
ee —
now undergoing ideological formaticn, These two generations aro destined to lead the world into its socialist future.
That world, wo may be surs, will never forget its martyrs, its Fotrice Lumumbas, its Malcolm X's.
The above article was reprinted from World Outlook, Vol. 3, No. 4. Copies can be ordered from Fionser Book Service, 27 Thursley House, Holmewood Gardens, London, 3.W.2. (2/68. Post Paid).
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