Printed below is an excerpt from Malcolm X Speaks. The Spanish-language edition, Habla Malcolm X, is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for August. The piece quoted is from a talk presented by Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom in New York on Dec. 20, 1964. Copyright © 1993 by Betty Shabazz and Pathfinder Press, reprinted by permission. Subheadings are by the Militant.

BY MALCOLM X  
Africa is strategically located, geographically between East and West; it’s the most valuable piece of property involved in the struggle between East and West. You can’t get to the East without going past it, and can’t get from the East to West without going past it. It sits right there between all of them. It sits snuggled into a nest between Asia and Europe; it can reach either one. None of the natural resources that are needed in Europe that they get from Asia can get to Europe without coming either around Africa, over Africa, or in between the Suez Canal which is sitting at the tip of Africa. She can cut off Europe’s bread. She can put Europe to sleep overnight, just like that. Because she’s in a position to; the African continent is in a position to do this. But they want you and me to think Africa is a jungle, of no value, of no consequence. Because they also know that if you knew how valuable it was, you’d realize why they’re over there killing our people. And you’d realize that it’s not for some kind of humanitarian purpose or reason.

Also, Africa as a continent is important because of its tropical climate. It’s so heavily vegetated you can take any section of Africa and use modern agricultural methods and turn that section alone into the breadbasket for the world. Almost any country over there can feed the whole continent, if it only had access to people who had the technical know-how to bring into that area modern methods of agriculture. It’s rich. A jungle is only a place that’s heavily vegetated--the soil is so rich and the climate is so good that everything grows, and it doesn’t grow in season--it grows all the time. All the time is the season. That means it can grow anything, produce anything.

Added to its richness and its strategic position geographically is the fact of the existence of the Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar. Those two narrow straits can cut off from Europe anything and everything Europe needs. All of the oil that runs Europe goes through the Suez Canal, up the Mediterranean Sea to places like Greece and Italy and Southern Spain and France and along through there; or through the Strait of Gibraltar and around on into England. And they need it. They need access through the Suez. When [Egyptian president Gamal Abdel] Nasser took over the Suez, they almost died in Europe. It scared them to death--why? Because Egypt is in Africa, in fact, Egypt is in both Africa and Asia....  
 
Valued natural resources in Africa
Another reason the continent is so important is because of its gold. It has some of the largest deposits of gold on earth, and diamonds. Not only the diamonds you put on your finger and in your ear, but industrial diamonds, diamonds that are needed to make machines--machines that can’t function or can’t run unless they have these diamonds. These industrial diamonds play a major role in the entire industrialization of the European nations, and without these diamonds their industry would fall.

You and I usually know of diamonds for rings--because those are the only diamonds we get close to, or the only diamonds within our line of thinking. We don’t think in terms of diamonds for other uses. Or baseball diamonds--some of us only get that far.

Not only diamonds, but also cobalt. Cobalt is one of the most valuable minerals on this earth today, and I think Africa is one of the only places where it is found. They use it in cancer treatment, plus they use it in this nuclear field that you’ve heard so much about. Cobalt and uranium--the largest deposits are right there on the African continent. And this is what the man is after. The man is after keeping you over here worrying about a cup of coffee, while he’s over there in your motherland taking control over minerals that have so much value they make the world go around. While you and I are still walking around over here, yes, trying to drink some coffee--with a cracker.

It’s one of the largest sources of iron and bauxite and lumber and even oil, and Western industry needs all of these minerals in order to survive. All of these natural minerals are needed by the Western industrialists in order for their industry to keep running at the clip that it’s been used to. Can we prove it? Yes. You know that France lost her French West African possessions, Belgium lost the Congo, England lost Nigeria and Ghana and some of the other English-speaking areas; France also lost Algeria, or the Algerians took Algeria.

As soon as these European powers lost their African possessions, Belgium had an economic crisis--the same year she turned the Congo loose. She had to rearrange her entire economy and her economic methods had to be revised, because she had lost possession of the source of most of her raw materials--raw materials that she got almost free, almost with no price or output whatsoever.

When she got into a position where she didn’t have access to these free raw materials anymore, it affected her economy. It affected the French economy. It affected the British economy. It drove all of these European countries to the point where they had to come together and form what’s known as the European Common Market. Prior to that, you wouldn’t hear anything about a European Common Market.

Being the gateway to Southwest Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Basutoland, Swaziland, and South Africa, the Congo is a country on the African continent which is so strategically located geographically that if it were to fall into the hands of a real dyed-in-the-wool African nationalist, he could then make it possible for African soldiers to train in the Congo for the purpose of invading Angola. When they invade Angola, that means Angola must fall, because there are more Africans than there are Portuguese, and they just couldn’t control Angola any longer. And if the Congo fell into good hands, other than Tshombe, then it would mean that Angola would fall, Southern Rhodesia would fall, Southwest Africa would fall and South Africa would fall. And that’s the only way they would fall.

When these countries fall, it would mean that the source of raw material, natural resources, some of the richest mineral deposits on earth, would then be taken away from the European economy....

I say this because it is necessary for you and me to understand what is at stake. You can’t understand what is going on in Mississippi if you don’t understand what is going on in the Congo. And you can’t really be interested in what’s going on in Mississippi if you’re not also interested in what’s going on in the Congo. They’re both the same. The same interests are at stake. The same sides are drawn up, the same schemes are at work in the Congo that are at work in Mississippi. The same stake--no difference whatsoever.  
 
 
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