Malcolm X and Abdul Rahman Babu
By
I HAVE many teachers. Among them, Abdul Rahman Muhammad Babu, who passed away a couple of years ago, but whose words and deeds live on. Current development in imperialism have brought back to me the memories of this outstanding African personage. I met Babu, a Tanzanian revolutionary, in New York in November 1990. I had been invited to New York to attend an international conference on Malcolm X: Radical Tradition and a Legacy of Struggle, initiated and organised by the New York-based Malcolm X Work Group. The four-day conference (November 2 to 4) ran through 25 sessions. Babu and I spoke on November 3, at the 11th session. It was at this session that Babu gave me the lesson on the theory and practice of global political villainy, or rather, imperialist designation of global political villains. But before going into this, let us quickly introduce Malcolm X, the subject of the conference and Babu, my teacher at the conference.
Malcolm X (1925-1965), was an African-American, that is to say, an American citizen of African slave descent. He was named Malcolm Little at birth; but he later rejected the surname because he argued that no one actually knew the real or original name of his ancestor who was taken from Africa to America in chains as a slave. America-bound slaves, we may recall, lost both their identities and their humanness on being sold. In place of Little, which wrongly carried the impression that that was the name of his ancestor, Malcolm chose the letter X which, in mathematical science, is used to designate an unknown. Malcolm X served a jail term early in life, an experience that was normal in those days for black youths in racist America. In prison, he was radicalised and became politically conscious through the medium of Black Muslim Nationalism. On his release, he graduated from militant islamism, adopting the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, to the advocacy of a sort of black separation and finally to social revolution involving blacks and whites. He became very popular at home and abroad. By the time he was shot and killed in a public auditorium in New York in February 1965 by state agents disguised as rival black Muslims, he could be described as a revolutionary democrat, a socialist, and even a marxist. During the last years of his life he toured Africa and the Middle East, attending radical conferences and meeting nationalist and militant students. In Nigeria he was given the name Omowale, a Yoruba name meaning "the child has come home".
Abdul Rahman Muhammad Babu was born in Zanzibar, a small Island off the eastern coast of Central Africa. Until 1964, the Island's population was made up of various races" African, Arab, Indian, Chinese, etc" but with Africans predominating. It was ruled by a Sultan to whom British colonialists accorded flag of independence in 1963 after centuries of colonial rule. In 1964, the sultanate was overthrown in a popular leftist revolution which ended with the merger of the island with the mainland Republic of Tanganyika. Thus emerged the United Republic of Tanzania under the presidency of Julius Nyerere. Babu was a product of that revolution. He later became Tanzania's Minister of Economic Development. But as we may remember, if we are old enough, or would have read in books, if we are young, the re-radicalisation of African politics after independence had, as one of its results, the forcing out of leftist revolutionary leaders, and militant nationalists from power and office and, sometimes, from circulation or even from life itself. Abdul Rahman Muhammad Babu suffered that fate, but was lucky to be alive to become an international revolutionary or revolutionary-at-large. He chose London as his base, from where he literally roamed the world, writing and speaking. In 1981, he published a very useful book. African Socialism or Socialist Africa?, a book the author said was addressed to "the emerging workers and youths to arouse their interest in the real problems which face them in their daily lives. It is a down-to-earth political manifesto". The book argued against African Socialism and for Socialist Africa. I had the privilege of reviewing the book in the August 1983 issue of Nigerian Democratic Review (NDR).
Comrades Babu and Malcolm X met in Cairo in July 1964 at the second Summit of the newly-formed Organisation of African Unity (OAU) which was followed by a Summit of the Non-aligned Movement. As the two revolutionaries were meeting, Malcolm X's community, Harlem, New York, was burning. The black youths, who were up in arms, asked Malcolm X to come back and lead them. Malcolm was confused. He did not know whether to rush back home or continue with these important meetings. Babu helped Malcolm X realise the two objectives: meeting and discussing with anti-imperialist leaders (including President Julius Nyerere) of the Third World and heading home to lead his people in battle. These are some of the testimonies of young African-Americans after his assassination: "Malcolm X, more than any other individual helped the Negro race raise the image of itself. And he, more than any other, helped the Negro show more pride in being a Negro", Malcolm X is a hero to me because he stood up like a man and fought so strongly for his beliefs. Malcolm X did not run over anybody to get him to believe as he did. He simply talked and those who want to believe him did so. Malcolm X fought for what he believed in. It is right for a person to fight for his beliefs". But the man is hardly remembered in the American establishment. Why? Because he advocated a fundamental change, from the roots up, applying radical methods, including methods of the oppressors. This was different from Martin Luther King's advocacy of what amounted to supplication.
Returning to the Malcolm X Conference: Babu and I spoke on the general sub-theme: Black Liberation and Social Revolution. In his contribution, Babu made the following declaration: "Malcolm had the vision to see the threat that a united Third-World countries would pose to imperialism. That threat has been expressed continuously since the end of the Second World War. For instance, although American imperialism was fighting communism, so called, throughout this period, you would find that American presidents - every American president - had to have a Third-World leader as a villain. They never fought the Russians. Truman had Kim II Sung, the North Korean leader, as the villain and he mobilised American forces and international forces to fight this villain. Eisenhower had Mao Tse Tung as the villain, not the Russians, but Mao Tse Tung. Kennedy had Castro as the villain, not the Russians, but Castro. Then came Johnson - he had Ho Chi Minn as the villain. Then came Nixon. His villain was Sihanouk of Cambodia. He had to destroy that country in order to prove Sihanouk was his villain. Then came Carter - he chose Khomeini of Iran as villain. He was followed by Reagan and he chose Quadafi of Libya." And now we have Bush (the father of the current president) with Saddam Hussein as his villain.
Since Comrade Babu spoke these words in New York, two other American presidents have appeared: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. President Clinton inherited the villains of some of his predecessors, but added a new one who became his chief villain: Slobodan Milosevic, President George W. Bush, the current American president, has gone further than all his predecessors by inheriting all their villains and creating several new ones. Where any villain is no longer in office, or has died (such as Khomeini of Iran and Kim II Sung of North Korea), he designated their successors. In order to be able to do this, and to divert attention from, or rather bury, the fact that he did not actually win the American presidential election, President George W. Bush ignored the warnings of his intelligence organisations that a terrorist attack on America was not only likely, but imminent. He waited for the terrorists, whose real sponsors are still unknown, to provide him with the excuse to designate "global villains." And they did.
Today, the list of imperialist-designated "villains" is endless: the leaders of Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Cuba, Palestine, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Libya and, above all, Iraq. They are all from the Third World. That was what Babu and Malcolm X were saying. To mobilise the "international community" or "democratic world" for his campaign against "global terror", President Bush has asked European leaders to name their own villains and have them included in the list. Many of them have compiled, but some are still questioning the American list and, in particular, American plans to deal with the villains, especially Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Even if President Bush is finally persuaded to postpone his planned invasion of Iraq which many people across the globe believe will be catastrophic, there is bound to be, sooner than later, an explosion within the ranks of his "anti-terrorist" coalition. The world is waiting.
nov 2003