(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Orientering April 1968
The tragedy is not that Martin Luther King was murdered. It was just what you could expect. No, the great tragedy is that white America, with the good help of Europe, surrounds him with great words and testimonies, laurels and honors, but always with a keen gleam in their eyes, their status quo must survive.
They tied a blindfold to his eyes and led him to the place of execution. Was anyone for a moment naive enough to think that there could be a non-violent solution to the 400 year-old American race problem?
Let's look at what has been done and constantly being done to the Indians, it gives a clear indication of what the white American mentality is capable of doing. Let me pause for a moment as I write this, because I am just beginning to wonder, even though I know the answer beforehand, why does a black writer always have to explain the most conspicuous things? Part of the answer is that no matter how furious, hostile and stated he may be, he is automatically, consciously or unconsciously placed in a non-violent position because he is trying to explain the reasons behind the conflict between black and white. He is desperately trying to find an opportunity to explain the racial cancer tumor that is so deeply ingrained in the very structure of the West's culture and institutions.
Intrinsic racial discrimination lies as deep in the European mentality as in white America. This is clearly seen. A revolution in Vietnam, or even in China, does not affect the daily bread in the West. But when a black revolutionary thunders:
Destroy the hell's system, kill it, blow it up! Then the liberal and radical whites say: "Wait a minute. Carmichael is no Fidel Castro, and Washington DC is not Cuba. ”
But they both fight for the same goals. The game is about survival, and the trail is freedom and human rights.
Martin Luther King died Fortunately at the right time. His death became a trump card for the world's white community. His violent death was brought about by people who would just as well sacrifice a hundred anti-violence advocates like King to maintain the system's status quo.
Maintaining the status quo – maintaining the same old system – that's what it's all about, my friend – and that's what's been going on for 400 years now.
Oh yes, when Malcolm X died it was a different story. For white America and most of Europe's population, it was a great pleasure to have his cold equals six feet underground. Malcolm X was our Black weekend, and he told us, "To be a man, you have to do something, and now is the time to start."
He represented black dignity, the black spirit that could bring forth fierce demands for change. He was our black Moses, He led us to the hidden meadows in our minds, and the secret caves hidden in our hearts where the slumbering witchcraft of our fellowship lay buried. For White America, Malcolm X represented the black revolution, black hatred, and the black's willingness to fight and die to destroy the white American power system, which has kept the black man in physical and psychological links ever since he first put its tired foot on the coast of the New World. X's voice was like an ever-thumping hammer, it said, "Destroy – blow up – burn down the system."
And when he died, the white world rejoiced at having a naughty black nigger less. Oh yeah, a really bad, black nigger.
The Vietnamese defeated not the French or Americans in a peaceful way. But in the West, their attempt to resolve the situation with violence is considered an honorable act. The West regarded Castro's acts of violence to defeat dictator Batista as honorable acts. The Hungarian revolution was another act of violence, and the Western world gave the rebels sympathy.
How can the white man, wherever he is, view Carmichael as a threat as long as he is a champion of injustice and represents emotions, which have always been and will always be identical to the word revolution?
How can a white man who sympathizes with the revolutionaries in Vietnam, Peru or Bolivia, Angola, Rhodesia or South Africa, who like these freedom fighters so well and realize that for them violence is a necessary instrument in their efforts to change their reactionary status quo, how can he be so damned blind to the fact that white American society has not and never had any interest in giving my black people neither equality nor justice! Why is violence becoming such a scary word when used in connection with the ever-growing Black Revolution in America?
Just daring to think that Martin Luther King and his non-violence campaign could ever achieve results seems almost repugnant. Martin Luther King no longer stood as a positive force in the hearts of the Black masses – yet they loved him because his cause was the same as their own, even though the white man had the fake cards ready long before the game began.
What hurts me the most and almost makes my blood clot is how society made him a hero and awarded him honors instead of financial victories, in order to force him to follow a certain line. His case was already lost because an anti-violence campaign lacks any real political and economic power.
Dr. King's organization was kept alive by the contributions of white men, white sympathy, and encouragement. The Black bourgeois supported his nonviolence policy because this line corresponded to their own position in the white world. They were closer to the US dollar, but they were more distant than ever from the black masses. The few benefits gained from nonviolence policy largely accrued to the Black bourgeoisie, while the Black masses in the ghettos still saw no result from the so-called victories that one of their Black heroes had achieved.
Martin Luther King was no fool. He was aware that the Kerner Report was the only response that White America had to respond to the demands of Black America. But he felt that he had to constantly build on the confidence in himself that the awarding of the Nobel Prize meant in his opinion. Poor Martin Luther King. Even in death, white society makes use of him. When I read and listen to what the Western world has to say about Martin Luther King's death, I can only say: "Poor Martin Luther King. Now they will try to place you as a shock absorber between themselves and Carmichael, exactly the same old trick that the Spaniards used against the dead El Cid. ”
But I'm sorry, that trick can no longer dampen the emotions and power behind tomorrow's violent black explosions.
King's death has done so even more clear to the blacks that America's white middle class has no intention of contributing $ 130 trillion to help black America enter the mainstream of the American way of life. Carmichael and all of us others clearly see that the only contribution white public opinion can make to the Black Revolution is a stream of meaningless clichés about non-violence.
"The white man will annihilate you if you fight him," the liberals say. "Let's rather work to create a third political power factor that can reshape the system."
All this senseless and sentimental rubbish is, in effect, covering a fear that the black uprisings in the United States will cause political and economic upheaval in Europe, even if the revolution fails. Shirley Temple's ancient America would no longer exist, and Europe would have to revise its view of the wild in the Tarzan films. Black Power cannot expect the white mentality of the West to accept the harsh reality of the Black Revolution. How could this be possible – Europe has its own deeply ingrained racial contradictions. Logically, then, one cannot expect Europeans to support an enterprise that can rob them of their own daily bread.
What will come after Revolution? What will happen when the world realizes that, over time, black America will require complete separation from white America? Yes, I know this sounds strange and requires an explanation, but time is too short for the explanation. I can only say, accept it or not. What will happen when other parts of the Third World begin to revolt against the Western world's locked-in trade system? There is no direction for a worldwide racial war. It's already in full swing. What will happen when Black America begins to request arms shipments from Europe and other parts of the world? What will happen and how will the Western world react when Stokeley Carmichael is shot or imprisoned. What is going to happen is that the long summers will keep getting harder to finally last all year! What is going to happen is that in both Europe and America a personal relationship between black and white will be almost impossible, and the basis for the suspicion and fear has been present ever since the whites first began their reign to rule the world.
Tomorrow's white men who claim non-violence principles will immediately be viewed with suspicion by all blacks, even by the black bourgeoisie and those who have found their sanctuary in Europe, and they will also find it difficult and partly impossible to find confidence in white societies, they will hardly be tolerated.
I see clearly that I must go back to where I come from, not to my homeland, but to the country where I was born, to help my people, fight for my people, and, if necessary, sacrifice the lives of my people. I know this sounds very romantic, very modern and Che Guevarask – but have you ever been black in Europe – have you ever seen and felt the white arrogance of Western culture?
After writing for most major newspapers in Europe, I have become convinced that there is little to tell the white audience that they do not already feel approaching. It is too late to come up with explanations – it is too late with apologies and explanations – it is too late to become philosophical, too late to claim that racial contradictions are less in Europe than in America. That day has come when I realize it's not my people who need me, it's me who needs them. What comes after the revolution – where will the revolution lead? – all questions of this kind are irrelevant to me when the white community asks. It should be clear that I do not believe in American democracy – it is clear that I believe Martin Luther King was sacrificed for a case that was false right from the beginning – it must be clear that one day I will also say:
"If you really want to be my brother, shoot down the one with the foot on my neck."
And if you hesitate to shoot, I know at the same second that this was just another example of the white form of sportsmanship, yet another attempt to play the friendship game.
