*Photo: Malcolm X*
Malcolm X, the famous African-American civil rights defender, abhorred hypocrisy in whatever form and from whatever source. He believed that White America was systematically prosecuting psychological warfare against Blacks in the country by portraying everything black negatively and demonising efforts at resisting the oppression.
Malcolm also believed that some Blacks were, advertently or inadvertently, collaborating or conniving with their oppressors by displaying lack of self-pride and race-pride and facilitating the divide-and-conquer tactic. He cited the example of White America setting up Black comedians, dancers, baseball players and similar stooges, puppets and clowns, making them celebrities and calling them Black leaders, who then said exactly what the White people wanted to hear.
A dilemma Malcolm faced was thus that those whom he and his mentor Elijah Muhammad, among others, were struggling to protect against oppression were themselves fascinated with the nature of the White oppressors.
In his 27 April, 1962 speech titled “Malcolm X’s Fiery Speech Addressing Police Brutality,” he exhorted his audience to Black pride, by asking rhetorically: “Who taught you, please, to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to such extent that you bleach to get like the White man? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lip? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don’t want to be around each other? No, before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask who yourself who taught you to hate being what God gave you?”
In further defence of Elijah Muhammad, in an interview on YouTube titled “Malcolm X first interview for British TV (1963),” when a British journalist asked him whether “the Black Muslim Prophet,” was preaching race hatred, Malcolm replied: “He’s not teaching hate; he’s teaching history. And since the American White man has used his control over the press and over the textbooks and over all forms of media to make it appear that he has done us a favor by bringing us here and enslaving us, then the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has to rewrite history or retell history. And since the White man can’t dispute this truth, he tries to defend himself by saying that Mr. Muhammad is teaching hate. It’s not hate to say that we were kidnapped and brought here. It’s truth, not hate, to say that the Supreme Court which is the highest court in this country came up with a hypocritical desegregation decision nine years ago which they haven’t enforced yet. That’s not hate, that’s true.”
Malcolm underscored the hypocrisy in passing a desegregation legislation in 1954 and refusing to enforce it even as at 1963 and of passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with Blacks murdered shortly after, without consequence. Malcolm then said at a 3 December, 1964 Oxford University debate: “America … is … as racist as South Africa … The only difference between it and South Africa, South Africa preaches separation and practices separation, America preaches integration and practices segregation. … I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he’s wrong than one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.”
In an unsympathetic 5 March, 1965 TIME magazine article titled “Malcolm X assassination report: Death and transfiguration,” he was described as follows: “Malcolm had been a pimp, a cocaine addict and a thief. He was an unashamed demagogue. His gospel was hatred: ‘Your little babies will have polio!’ he cried to the ‘white devils.’ His creed was violence: ‘If ballots won’t work, bullets will.’” As a 9 May, 1999 entry by Lawrence A. Mamiya entitled “Malcolm X” in Encyclopedia Britannica put it, “Malcolm quit smoking and gambling and refused to eat pork in keeping with the Nation’s dietary restrictions. … Following Nation tradition, he replaced his surname ‘Little,’ with an ‘X,’ a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders.”
Malcolm could therefore be said to have undergone moral moulting and psychological reconditioning. And he credited Elijah Muhammad with cleaning him up through the message of Islam. Malcolm therefore established the newspaper “Muhammad Speaks” to spread the message and teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Moreover, in a 6 August, 1964 interview with Mike Wallace of CBS, Malcolm said: “Everything that I said always was designed to protect Mr. Muhammad himself primarily because the image that he had created was the image that enabled his followers to remain strong in faith and things of that sort and I didn’t want to see adverse effect or negative result develop in the faith of all of his followers.”
Malcolm also said: “If you notice the stake that I always use in presenting, representing and defending the Muslim movement was the fact that it had the ability to reform the morals of the so-called Negro community. It eliminated drug addiction, alcoholism, fornication, adultery, loose sexual behavior; which meant that it eliminated bastard babies, illegitimate children … We had a law which was that whenever any Muslim became involved in any kind of sexual relationship with someone to whom they weren’t married, that person would be brought before the Muslim community, humiliated and then isolated for one to five years. … In 1954, a teenage sister left Detroit and became one of Mr. Muhammad’s personal secretaries. And there in the Chicago office, she became pregnant after being there for a year. She was brought before the Muslim community and humiliated and isolated.”
Malcolm noted that because the man involved was not brought forward during the court session, it was assumed that he was not a Muslim. The same thing happened in respect of five other girls. In total, the six girls had eight babies out of wedlock. He was morally shocked to discover that Elijah Muhammad was the man who impregnated all of the six sisters. Malcolm was now between the devil and the deep blue sea. Should he stand with the man he had spent a greater part of his reformed life seeing in cosmic terms, leave him morally unencumbered and thereby rubbish his own hard-earned credentials as an uncompromising fighter against oppression? Or should he stand with the young sisters who were inequitably carrying the burden of shame and thereby face the moral charge of biting the Elijah Muhammad finger that fed him, metaphorically-speaking? Malcolm chose to stand up in defence of the dignity of the helpless young women.
His revelation of the unfair treatment of the young sisters and the impunity of the charismatic Elijah Muhammed earned Malcolm enmity from even his erstwhile mentees, friends and admirers, like Louis Farrakhan and Muhammed Ali, and they didn’t mind if he died. They believed that Malcolm was a rebel, a hypocrite and an ingrate, considering the fact that it was Elijah Muhammad who “cleaned him up” and gave him the platform that made him widely known. Asked in a media interview whether he was worried about the intense hostility against him, Malcolm replied: “No, I don’t worry … I tell you, I’m a man who believes that I died 20 years ago and I live like a man who is dead already. I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.” On 21 February, 1965, Malcolm was assassinated by at least one member of the Nation of Islam.
Malcolm was a victim of the White establishment in America who thought his Black consciousness-raising campaigns were dangerous. In fact, it was alleged that once they noticed a rift between Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm, the White authorities were impersonating each of the feuding sides and sending the other side incendiary fake messages to aggravate the crisis. Malcolm was also a victim of the Christian Afro-American elite who thought his style was abrasive and could jeopardise their tokenistic privileges. Malcolm was concurrently the victim of the envy of his fellow members of the Nation of Islam who thought his rising profile was supplanting theirs, and so worked against reconciliation.
There was an ironical convergence between TIME magazine and Malcolm’s erstwhile mentor, the embittered Elijah Muhammad. Asked, in an Associated Press interview on 22 February, 1965, a day after Malcolm’s assassination, what the point of disagreement between him and Malcom was, Elijah Muhammad said, in a repudiation of Malcolm who had regularly stoutly defended him against the same charge of violence: “Malcolm wanted to use arms, and I disagreed with him. … Malcolm is the victim of his own preaching. He preached violence and so he became the victim of it.” But if the logic were that simple, then Martin Luther King Jr should not have been assassinated, because he preached peace so much that he earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Yet, he was murdered in 1964 by a White man.
Ossie Davis, in his eulogy on Malcolm on 27 February, 1965, said: “There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times. Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain – and we will smile. Many will say turn away – away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter and an enemy of the black man – and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate – a fanatic, a racist – who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him.”
“Gold is tried in fire,” and Malcolm had gone through fiery refinement, and had become morally gold-pure. Malcolm died young because he probably had become too pure to live long. He couldn’t afford the compromises that make longevity easier to attain.
Yes, America is a nation of laws; but Malcolm was probably too naïve to accept the reality that some personages outgrow mundane laws. To him, equity was immutable. In another milieu and in another circumstance, Malcolm would likely have been canonised.