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Beyond IraqA Time to Break Silence
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Rev Martin Luther King |
Decades after his death by an assassin's bullet 4 April 1968 Martin Luther King's call to America "to abandon the starless midnight of racism at home and war in Vietnam" rings true in the post 9/11 and Iraq crisis of our times.
Embedded in his call was a vital elementary principle. Injustice done by the powerful against the weakest groups at home and abroad are inter-related evils - and must be confronted, he said.
The idea had come to him with striking clarity. By early 1967, the war was draining the country's resources; government funds to rehabilitate the poor were cut back. But he saw that "adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demoniacal destructive suction tube"
"I was quiet while a charade was being performed," said the nation's most prominent civil rights activist. "Then, something said to me, "Martin, you have got to stand up on this. No matter what it means".
As he reviewed the war events, King said: "I saw an orderly build up of evil, an accumulation of inhumanities, each of which alone was sufficient to make men hide in shame. What was woeful, but true, was that my country was only talking peace but was bent on military victory. Inside the glove of peace was the clenched fist of war."
This public linking of civil rights and peace activism proved unacceptable to the White House and the nation's press. The Readers' Digest saw in King's "multi-racial, multi-class coalition for the poor" a threat of insurrection as he hammered away on volatile issues of domestic and foreign policy. Time magazine implied he was a rampant demagogue. The Washington Post claimed that his imprudent remarks had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country and his people".
But, King persisted. He refused to be a "guilty bystander" and spoke harshly of his fast disappearing liberal allies. He targeted the politicians whose funding policies were hostile to the poor but generous to the military industrial complex that made his beloved United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". Speaking to an anti-war rally at the United Nations, he warned that "the security we profess to seek in foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities.
Two narrative strands of his argument predominate: civil rights at home and non-aggressive actions abroad. He had signalled these views when accepting Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, saying: "I believe that amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow·[in the end] right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Thirty-five years after King's death, his legacy - a dual strategy for civil rights and peace - is sorely missed in this age of "guided missiles and misguided men" His followers, in growing numbers, say King's message is relevant to our times of crisis. Her martyred husband would have condemned the immoral proposition that the pre-emptive strike against Iraq was to preserve "homeland security," Mrs Coretta Scott King believes..
The real battles in the post 9/11 and Iraq war crisis are on the home front, she told an audience as she received the Circles of Hope award by the Metropolitan Community Foundation. Mrs King advised President George Bush that homeland security must begin with ameliorative domestic policies. We need "health care not warfare".
"Instead of trading blood for oil, we need to develop alternative sources of energy and mass rail transit, so we don't have to depend on Mideast oil for our energy needs. And we can create plenty of needed jobs in meeting this challenge", she continued.
Echoing her husband's beliefs shaped in the last year's of his life, she said: "Homeland security should mean feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and making sure there is quality education for every child and jobs at a decent wage for everyone who wants and needs one. That's how we make our country safe and secure for all citizens."
Furthermore, "True homeland security should be about protection of liberties. True homeland security should be about protection of pension assets for retired people. Genuine homeland security should also be about gun control, protecting Americans against domestic hate crimes, and getting serious about reducing the pollution of our air and water".
The long-term implications of Martin Luther King's proposals are clear, and as relevant in Britain's crisis-ridden inner cities and obsolescent northern towns as in the ghettos and impoverished regions of America. Those who beat the drums for war abroad must be made to act justly at home. Furthermore, in King's own words, all those who wish to found a stable and secure global future have to accept that "Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation."
Note Useful references are
Clayborne Carson, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr, Clayborne Carson et al, The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader, and Gerald D Knight, The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI, and the Poor People's Campaign. Also the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University http://www.stanford.edu/group/king, and Jocelyn Y Stewart "To activists, real battles are on home front," Los Angeles Times Online, 4 April 2003.
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