By Any Means Necessary
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By any means necessary is an English phrase, or a translation of a French phrase that has been attributed to at least three famous sources. The earliest of these three sources is French leftist intellectual
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...
in his 1948 play '' Dirty Hands'' where he used a French equivalent of the phrase. The second is Martinican anticolonialist intellectual Frantz Fanon who used another French equivalent of the phrase in his 1960 address to the Positive Action Conference in Accra, Ghana. The English phrase entered American
civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...
culture through a speech given by Muslim minister Malcolm X at the Organization of Afro-American Unity's founding rally on 28 June 1964 in
Manhattan, New York Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
. The phrase is generally considered to mean to leave open the option of all available tactics, strategies or methods for attaining or achieving desired ends, including any form or degree of violence as well as other methods typically considered unethical or immoral. It is part of a broader political idea that radical social change or liberation cannot be obtained by limiting one’s means to that which are considered "acceptable", debatably encapsulated in the suggestion by Audre Lorde that " The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house".


Jean-Paul Sartre

The phrase is also a translation of a sentence used in French intellectual
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...
's 1948 play ''Dirty Hands'':


Frantz Fanon

The phrase is a translation of a sentence used in revolutionary philosopher Frantz Fanon's 1960 address to the Positive Action Conference for Peace and Security in Africa in Accra, Ghana, "Why we use violence", defending armed resistance against the colonial French as part of the
Algerian War The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence) ''; '' (and sometimes in Algeria as the ''War of 1 November'') was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeri ...
:


Malcolm X

It entered the popular culture through speeches given by Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), founder of Muslim Mosque, Inc. and Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), in the last year of his life. Its most prominent example was during the founding rally of the OAAU in 1964.


Mandela recusal

In the final scene of the 1992 movie '' Malcolm X'', Nelson Mandela—then recently released after 27 years of political imprisonment—appears as a schoolteacher in a
Soweto Soweto () is a Township (South Africa), township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western T ...
classroom reciting Malcolm X's speech. Yet Mandela informed director Spike Lee that he could not utter the famous final phrase ''"by any means necessary"'' on camera, fearing that the
apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English:  , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
government would use it against him if he did. Lee obliged, and the final seconds of the film feature black-and-white footage of Malcolm X himself delivering the phrase.


See also

* The end justifies the means * By hook or by crook * Nation of domination * Contentious politics


References

{{Malcolm X Political violence Political catchphrases Malcolm X Jean-Paul Sartre Frantz Fanon