Let us Bring
Martin Luther King's Peace
to the January Peace March
by Keiler Hook
Dissident Voice
January 16, 2003
"The greatest purveyor of violence
in the world today [is] my own government. ... [F]or the sake of the hundreds
of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."
--Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967
Martin Luther
King, Jr. spoke these words about the Vietnam War. Our country could be on the
brink of another Vietnam. I am writing, of course, about the war on Iraq that
our government is threatening to embark on, as early as January 27, 2003. We
cannot be silent for the sake of thousands of Iraqi citizens and perhaps
thousands of our own soldiers. Let us take to the streets in a tribute to
nonviolent direct action in the name of Dr. King against this war and the war
on terror.
This year, we
can commemorate Dr. King on his birthday weekend by attending the March for
Peace in Washington, D.C. on January 18, 2003. If Dr. King were alive today,
rest assured he would be an outspoken critic of the plans to go to war against
Iraq, one of the poorest countries in the world. Iraq lies smack in the middle
of that part of the world that cannot or will not withstand the immense ball of
fire that is headed its way. Let us give honor and praise to King and his
pacifism by showing up in the millions on the streets of Washington D.C. and
San Francisco to show our government that we do not want to wage war; instead,
we want to wage peace.
The most
controversial part of King's legacy is not his victory in the civil rights
movement, which we gratefully recall each January. King's controversy lies in
his pacifism, which he used as a weapon in his battle for all human rights. In
1967, King came out against the Vietnam War. By doing this, he isolated himself
from other black activists and the White House. Journalist Richard Goldstien
writes of King: "He was that rare thing in America today: a radical reformer
who believed the system could be changed and saved. Though he had his doubts,
especially near the end, King held to the conviction that justice would come
through a new consciousness rooted in empathy. … As we verge on another
imperial war at the cost of social progress, there's no more vital time to
remember the real King."
The other civil
right leaders were against the Vietnam War but they did not want to appear to
be un-American. The conservatives in the government thought of King as a
"commie dupe" for his nonviolence stance. Here is one of King's
responses to his many critics, "If I am the only person left who believes
in nonviolence, I will be that sole person calling for nonviolence." All
of us should imitate this heroic stand by Dr. King and march for peace on his
birthday weekend.
Dr. King derived
his philosophy from Christian teachings, Henry Thoreau's social writings and
the great Indian father of pacifism, Mahatma Gandhi.
King and Gandhi
are the two most internationally revered symbols of nonviolence in the 20th
century. Dr. King's principles embrace nonviolence, inspired by Gandhi, as a
tool wielded by the courageous, as a weapon for conquering injustice, not
people, as a conscious choice of love over hate, as a methodology for gaining
understanding and as an instrument of transformation.
This major
philosophy of Dr. King is not usually remembered in his holiday celebration.
The King image remembered today has been sanitized for popular consumption. We
choose not to commemorate the King who, as the radical pacifist, challenged
American foreign policy, forcefully and directly, in the middle of a war. The
King of 1967, in the year 2003, would be accused of being a traitor for his
pacifist views. He would be prosecutable under the USA PATRIOT Act!
We choose not to
remember the King that J. Edgar Hoover tried to bring down, using the FBI in
ways that were not moral or legal. We choose not to remember the King that was
vilified because of his powerful indictments of the Vietnam War and the
military-industrial complex. We choose not to remember the words of King about
"evil men." He said, "When evil men plot, good men must plan.
When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind."
Not one public
person has chosen to use Dr. King's birthday as a way to protest what is going
on in today's world. If Dr. King were alive, he would not be leading any
parade. He would be leading the march against this war on the weekend of the
holiday celebrating his birth. On October 26, 2002, hundreds of thousands
marched in protest in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. A crowd estimated at
450,000 turned out in London some weeks ago protesting Britain's intended role
in any war in Iraq, while at the same time, in Italy, an estimated 1.5 million
took to the streets in peaceful demonstration against the war. We, here in the
United States, can show the rest of the world that we truly want peace, not
war, by taking to the streets of our cities and rising up in a swell of
peaceful anti-government protest to this war.
Dr. King would
reject our military intervention with his assertion that violence cannot be
fought with more violence. He said, "Violence ends by defeating itself. It
creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyer." He
would exhort the United States and the world community to seek justice, not
vengeance.
Dr. King was a
revolutionary. We honor revolutionaries many years after they die. And we
distort images to suit our own conformity. We make Hallmark Cards out of them.
In doing this, we deprive our children from the knowledge that King was a man
who defied convention and authority. Dr. King led from an internal force that
compelled him to make the world better through peaceful means. This is the
example he set for posterity; peace, not war; love, not hate; compassion, not
revenge.
Here is what Dr.
King said in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace prize in 1964:
"…nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of
our time -- the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without
resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are
antithetical concepts. …Nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful
moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the
people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and
thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of
brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict
a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of
such a method is love." This is the message we must convey to our present
administration through the force of our numbers this month in Washington, D.C.
and San Francisco.
"I refuse
to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life
unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him," he further
stated at the same ceremony. Let us pay attention, folks, to his words, and by
participating in this march we can indeed "influence the unfolding
events." Now is the time for the direct action called for by King and
Gandhi.
Now is the time
for all of us to march against this administration's war on the world which is
where this war on Iraq is taking us.
Dr. King would
have counseled the administration to resist the lust for war and the
destruction of other peoples. He would be judging the content of our character
by our willingness to build bridges instead of dropping bombs. He would ask
that we heal those blinded by hatred and ignorance instead of destroying them.
Above all, Dr. King was a Christian, following in the steps of Christ, the
Prince of Peace. Dr. King would have simply said, "Christians, I challenge
you to be Christian." I hope to see each and every person who is against
this war at the march. It may be our last chance to stop this madness.
Keiler Hook "is
a woman, a mother, an activist, and a journalist" from the Deep South in
the United States, who writes pieces mostly concerning the "War on Terror"
and the "War on Drugs"; both subjects capturing her passion and her
talent. Email: keilerhook@earthlink.net.
This article first appeared at Yellow
Times.org.