The Martin Luther King Jr. America has ignored
By Patrick W. Gavin
from the January 16, 2004 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0116/p11s01-coop.html
WASHINGTON - On Monday, the United States will celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday. We will hear stories of his battles with segregation, his eloquent speech in Washington, and his fight for voting rights. This is the King with whom America is comfortable. These are the aspects of his life that we embrace and honor - because they are the safe parts.
America's commemoration of King's vision is only partial. King's life encompassed more than simply his moving rhetoric and desegregated lunch counters. The politics King espoused toward the end of his life - and the part that America has effectively ignored - may provide some invaluable lessons, given the current international climate.
King became a vocal critic of US foreign policy, denouncing America's "giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism," and calling the US "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Across the globe, from Vietnam to Asia to Latin America, King believed the US was "on the wrong side of a world revolution."
What, then, would King make of our current war on terrorism? Although terrorism poses historically new and unique threats, communism in King's time presented an equally menacing peril. As a man who told his followers to "love your enemies," it is doubtful that he would embrace the war fever that has gripped this nation since Sept. 11, 2001. How to reconcile King's belief in "turning the other cheek" with President Bush's doctrine of preemptive strikes?
It is equally unlikely that King, who warned that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death," would support the huge price tag of our war with Iraq, especially when Iraq's link to the events of Sept. 11 is nebulous at best, and when there are serious economic concerns at home.
In his time, such positions by King were called "demagogic slander" by Time magazine. The Washington Post editorialized that "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people." The FBI dubbed him the "most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country."
In light of current events, King would remind us that people everywhere - regardless of religion, nationality, or creed - are united in "a single garment of destiny" and that no nation should act unilaterally. He would assert (and, in turn, garner great criticism) that it is only through treating our enemies as children of God that we will ever create true global security.
And, even in the face of nuclear war, he would hold steadfast to his belief in the power of nonviolence.
More than ever this year, we ought to rediscover the life of Martin Luther King Jr. in its entirety - both the easy and the challenging parts. We may find that, once again, the man has a great deal to teach us.
• Patrick W. Gavin is a writer in the office of communications at the Brookings Institution, a public policy think tank in Washington.
=============================
King's Legacy Lives on - in Venezuela
by Julianne Malveaux
Published on Friday, January 16, 2004 by
USA TODAYhttp://www.commondreams.org/views04/0116-08.htm
People too often celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. as a "dreamer" who envisioned a day when people would be judged by their character, not the color of their skin. That was not all he wanted, or what Monday's holiday is entirely about.
Although King is an icon of the civil rights movement, he hardly belongs only to African- Americans. As he underscored in his Nobel Peace Prize speech when he asserted his "audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits," King championed all people living in poverty worldwide.
I was delighted, therefore, when I traveled with others from the TransAfrica Forum to celebrate King's birthday in Caracas, Venezuela. We went with Minister of Education Aristobulo Isturiz to open a school named after King. It's among more than 3,000 "Bolivarian" schools created since Hugo Chavez became Venezuela's president in 1999. The schools, open all day, provide two meals and a snack to poor children.
There's also a new Bolivarian University, which increases higher education's availability, especially to poorer students. Further, more than a million adults have taken literacy classes in the past two years.
Chavez has taken his message of economic justice from Venezuela to the whole of Latin America. He opposes a free-trade agreement for the Americas and suggests that a development fund be established to help poor Latin American countries withstand economic oscillations and eliminate poverty.
Not surprisingly, Chavez and George W. Bush have clashed because of their different views of Latin American economic development. Chavez, for instance, appropriately described national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as "illiterate" about Latin American politics and economics.
Many middle- and upper-class Venezuelans chafe at Chavez's leadership and support a recall initiative now underway. But with poverty in double digits, it is hard to quibble with the way Chavez has embraced poor Venezuelans and focused on eliminating poverty through education — in some ways, more than our own government has done here.
King was more visionary than dreamer. Parts of his vision now are being implemented — in Venezuela.
Julianne Malveaux, an economist and author, is on the board of directors of the TransAfrica Forum.
© Copyright 2004 USA TODAY
Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now
