The Memory of Malcolm and the End of Neo-liberal Imperialism

by Danny Haiphong

“The CIA believed Malcolm's relationship with African independence was a threat to US imperialist interests.”

When I was in college, I happened to skim through Cornel West's analysis of Malcolm X in Race Matters. Although I respect Cornel very much, I was disheartened to find that his analysis of Malcolm X centered almost entirely on a simplified relationship between his politics of Black Nationalism and Black rage. The omission of Malcolm’s historical record reinforced the fact that to most, Malcolm X is either an "extremist" or a man who tragically died before he "changed" his political views to fit the comfort levels of liberalism and White America. The final stage of neo-liberal imperialism is upon us. The collective future of humanity depends on a radical movement that can revive Malcolm's revolutionary spirit and apply the lessons of his political struggle to the present situation of oppressed people.

Malcolm X lived a life of deep social transformation that placed him at the forefront of leadership in the Black liberation movement. However, the white imperialist media has distorted the most important parts of his political life. During his trip to Africa, for example, Malcolm is often cited to have gone on a pilgrimage. Popular narrative describes Malcolm finding a common humanity with white Muslims. This experience supposedly changed his views on working with White America and mainstream Black leadership (liberalism). What the white imperialist media won't mention is how Malcolm traveled to Africa several times over the course of his life and came to conclusions that deepened his revolutionary political direction, not softened it.

Malcolm X met with anti-colonial leaders in nations like Ghana, Algeria, Guinea, and Tanzania. The experience of meeting with revolutionary African freedom fighters drew Malcolm closer to Pan-Africanism and socialism. For this, he gained the unsavory attention of the CIA to compliment the decade long plus intensified surveillance he experienced from the FBI’s counterintelligence program. The CIA believed Malcolm's relationship with African independence was a threat to US imperialist interests. The FBI and CIA also feared that African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah and Sékou Touré would further inspire Black Americans in the US to take up Malcolm’s revolutionary principles of armed self-defense and self-determination.

“Malcolm traveled to Africa several times over the course of his life and came to conclusions that deepened his revolutionary political direction, not softened it.”

Malcolm's FBI file indicates that both the CIA and FBI infiltrated the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). US intelligence facilitated a bitter rivalry between Malcolm and the NOI through acts of sabotage and deceit. Malcolm was assassinated at an OAAU event on February 21st, 1965. An FBI memorandum states that "Negro CIA Agents-hired killers" were in the crowd. Malcolm's assassination was part and parcel of Washington's ultimate aim to crush the Black liberation movement in the US. COINTELPRO went on to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr and numerous leaders in the Black Panther Party and other revolutionary organizations.

Malcolm's murder was, as Dhourba Bin-Wahad puts it, a "political assassination." His assassination should be seen as an establishment attack on Black liberation and the liberation of oppressed people everywhere. Fifty years later, political conditions in the US have dramatically shifted. Malcolm's legacy has been assassinated as well. His work once inspired young Black and oppressed people to form revolutionary organizations like the Black Panther Party. Today, the neo-liberal imperialist period of dead-end capitalism has forced the political trajectory of the left into an abyss of Black misleadership and neo-liberal, fascist collaboration with the forces of Power. Of course, this is what was hoped for when the imperialists orchestrated the assassination of Malcolm X.

Malcolm X would have much to say if he had lived into the last stage of US imperialism. His staunch advocacy of armed-self defense and self-determination would have placed him in direct confrontation with Black misleaders like King Rat Al Sharpton and similar agents of imperialism. Malcolm would have condemned imperialism's endless wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and continued to build alliances with the victims of imperialism abroad. Malcolm's increasingly socialist political ideology would have strengthened under the increased exploitation and misery that neo-liberal imperialism has wrought. In an interview with the Young Socialist Alliance, Malcolm predicted the development of imperialism's last stage, stating that "capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture . . . it's only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely."

Malcolm's words are no less true fifty years after his assassination. Neo-liberal imperialism is indeed a system ruled by vulture capitalists looking to save themselves from collapse. After World War II, the political and economic landscape of the world changed dramatically. Numerous nations chose to live free of US/Western domination and other capitalist states ravaged by two world wars were on the recovery path. By the 1960's and 70's, US monopoly capital had developed productive forces that outweighed the capacity of industry to buy back what was being produced and at the same time bear the cost of new and expansive technological development. To forestall a dramatic collapse in profits, the ruling class unleashed finance capital from whatever restrictions existed and built a military/repressive arsenal to protect unmitigated plunder.

“Malcolm's assassination was part and parcel of Washington's ultimate aim to crush the Black liberation movement in the US.”

The crisis of neo-liberal imperialism explains why deregulation and austerity have aligned with the rise of the prison state in the US. It also explains the ruling class's move to militarize the state's repressive apparatus and wage war on whatever and whoever stands in the way of US hegemony. Yet, no matter how many nations it destabilizes or Black Americans it throws into cages, US imperial influence continues to fade. While China plans to build transcontinental railways into Eurasia and solidify relations with Africa, the imperialists are privatizing transportation across the US and waging proxy wars in Africa through AFRICOM. This is an illustrative example of US neo-liberal imperialism's decline that Malcolm X predicted fifty years ago.

The need to revive Malcolm X's principles could not be more urgent for the political struggle within the US Empire. Finance capital's imperialist and racist neo-liberal consolidation has produced numerous forces that must be dealt with on the political front. The Black misleadership class of corporate and Washington stooges must be denounced in a similar manner to how Malcolm denounced the bankrupt Black leadership of five decades ago. Imperialism's Black Mass Incarceration State and its army of occupation (police) necessitate a call for, and the organization of, Malcolm's devotion to Black self-defense and self-determination. Washington's military re-colonization of Africa and the trillions it spends to impose hegemony around the world points to the need for Malcolm's concrete internationalism applied to 21st century conditions.

Neo-liberal imperialism will produce more crises, more poverty, and more war and repression if allowed to survive. This is the nature of a system that rests on the accumulation of profit for the overseers of private property, finance capital, and white supremacy. The #BlackLivesMatter movement has put the police lynching of Black Americans back into the political narrative of the left. What is needed now is a strategy of political education and organization that connects the needs of oppressed people to an analysis of how to think about and attack the enemy system of imperialism at the root of oppression. Malcolm X spent his political life attempting to do this. The imperialist establishment responded by painting his political positions as “extreme” and dangerous. Extreme appears to be exactly what is needed fifty years after his assassination.

Danny Haiphong is an organizer for Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST) in Boston. He is also a regular contributor to Black Agenda Report. Danny can be reached at wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com and FIST can be reached at bostonfist@gmail.com.

More Stories