El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz Malcolm X’s absence today initiates a sense of loss and mournful imagination – what could people have expected to see, hear and read from him in the years that followed his untimely death at the age of 39? Had he lived, Malcolm X would have turned 99 today. Parallel to his fight for civil justice is the ongoing fight for climate and environmental justice, which can draw lessons from Malcolm X’s unrivalled approach to campaigning for civil rights.
Malcolm X is traditionally painted as the antihero of Martin Luther King’s heroic image, whose likeness is still taught and celebrated in schools across the Western world today. However, what often goes amiss is Malcolm X’s determination to achieve a form of recompense toward the African American communities by their white counterparts.
Malcolm X campaigned for African American communities to not only be treated as equals but for these communities to have full autonomy over their own lives, destinies and overall well-being. Instead of focusing on integration into American society as King campaigned for, Malcolm X’s advocacy for the independence of an African American community was unheard of during those years. It echoed other national independence movements against their colonizers seen across the Global South in the mid-19th Century. Believing capitalism was on its way out, he said of these nations:
“…As the nations of the world free themselves, capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely….”.
Read More: What is Climate Colonialism?
Environmental Justice: Continuing Malcolm X’s Fight
Malcolm X’s campaigning for justice continues in his absence and has taken the form of ‘environmental justice’, where studies show that even within the Global North, communities of colour continue to suffer. Today, African American communities are disproportionately discriminated against with regard to the effects of climate change, continuing the United States’ legacy of racism and its enduring effects.
Over half of Black Americans live in the South and are thus almost twice as likely than those in the same areas to be hit by hurricanes, resulting in displacement and property damage. This is not by coincidence. The practice of ‘red-lining’— racial discrimination of housing—has taken place over the course of centuries. Redlining communities like Baltimore and New Orleans caused Black populations to be made more vulnerable to natural disasters by design, which then exacerbated the devastation caused by climate disasters.
Throughout Malcolm X’s fight for civil justice, he critically analyzed U.S.’s foreign policy, making accurate predictions on the evidential fall of the U.S.’s imperialist stronghold in developing nations and its violent history catching up to it, infamously saying, “the chickens are coming home to roost“. Malcolm X also exposed the U.S.’s domestic policies and its systems designed to keep the Black communities from gaining their independence, dignity and complete freedom from oppression. Systematic racism on a national level existed but was interwoven through various covert policies and practices – i.e. redlining.
Climate Change and Racial Discrimination
The definition for institutional racism reads as ‘people of colour receiving an inferior level of service or care.’ This institutionalization guarantees that Black communities are housed in areas more prone to floods, excessive heat and near potentially hazardous industrial plants.
The idea that climate change is inherently racist has raised concerns for discriminatory targeting of the countries in the Global South, as well as Black and Hispanic communities within the U.S., and indigenous populations across the world. Malcolm X summarised these acts in his quote:
“Western interests: imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, racism, and other negative -isms”.
Whilst the Global North has been a historic colonizer, its resource-plundering legacies are present in the formerly colonized countries across the Global South, evident in their climate mitigation structures or lack thereof. Histories of colonialism, slavery and capitalism by the Global North have paved the way for discriminatory effects of climate change covering the Global South. This lends itself further to the Western-centric power structures of climate policies and decision-making, as evidenced in the poorly executed ‘Loss & Damage Fund’ being rolled out by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Malcolm X might have viewed the Loss & Damage Fund as a pitiful and soulless attempt to make reparations on the part of the Global North, throwing money at the issue without any [attempt to achieve] meaningful, tangible change;
“You can cuss out colonialism, imperialism, and all other kinds of ism, but it’s hard for you to cuss that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, your soul goes.”
Read More: Why Muslims Should be At the Forefront of Climate Justice
Climate Apartheid and Green Capitalism
In terms of climate mitigation strategies and solutions, disparities are evident across the global North-South divide, with technological solutions needed for adapting to climate change, such as electric vehicles and hydrogen production, being financially inaccessible. Continuing a seemingly unending cycle, ‘climate apartheid’ describes how the various ways of protecting communities of colour from climate impacts are accessibility-segregated. The Global North continues its practice of utilizing and developing sustainable energy whilst upholding its capitalist systems through generating large sums from these environmental activities, a practice also known as ‘green capitalism.’ With capitalism still a functioning cog in the wheel, Malcolm X described how its victims are always those already suffering:
“Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody’s blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless”.
History tells us to expect a long-living legacy of the colonial actions of the Global North nations. The historically colonized nations of the Global South are not only vulnerable to the effects of climate change despite being the least to contribute to it but are also the least well-equipped to mitigate the impacts they continue to suffer. With ongoing practices of climate apartheid and green capitalism maintaining an ongoing colonial structure, the Global South countries and communities of colour pay the price for the debt that climate change has caused them.
Malcolm X’s Legacy in Climate Justice
Some may argue that the current battle of the north-south divide within the climate context is reminiscent of Malcolm X’s campaigning for civil justice – pitting the poor against the rich, the weak against the powerful and the victim against the guilty, through the systems which are designed to maintain the financial and ecological disparities we see today. Unlike Malcolm X had hoped, Western imperialism and capitalism never left. Instead, they’re disguised through false promises made i.e. the Loss & Damage fund designed to make reparations for the decades-long destruction of their ecological infrastructures.
While civil justice may not be at the forefront of today’s campaigning, Malcolm X’s legacy lives on in the precedent he set with his fearless advocacy on behalf of the oppressed. Had he lived, who’s to say he would have been anything other than leading the global fight for climate justice?
