Today’s the birthday of that great fighter for social justice, Dr Martin Luther King. With some in our society having a penchant for invoking MLK’s name at the drop of a hat, it might be useful to explain how he advised on WHAT oughta be done to achieve that social justice. Even as a young man, he was troubled by the treatment meted out to African Americans by White Americans and the Government – at all levels – and was determined to do something about it.
Seeking a method to struggle within the constructs of the Christian Ministry – into which he’d been inducted – he was struck by the message of non-violent struggle, or “satyagraha”, utilised by the Hindu Mahatma Gandhi in his fight in India against the British, between 1915-1948. Interestingly, Gandhi, as a student in England, had been influenced by the teachings of Jesus!! It’s evident that once you’ve already chosen the method, activists will look at arguments to justify their chosen path. When your Eyewitness listens to the call to arms by some of the “justice fighters” in Guyana, he knows they’d long chosen their path!!
“Satya” means “truth” and “graha” means “force”. So Gandhi and MLK propose an active “truth force” that’s deployed against oppressive forces. As MLK phrased it, “Non-violent resistance does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity. While the non-violent resister is passive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive towards his opponent, his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade his opponent that he is wrong. The method is passive physically, but strongly active spiritually. It is not passive non-resistance to evil; it is active non-violent resistance to evil.” It does not recommend beating up vendors at a market who just happened to be members of a particular race!
Dr King and African Americans such as Rosa Parks would confront an analogous situation in the American South to that confronted by Gandhi in South Africa. Satyagraha distinguishes its methodology from the way of violence, that’s still the dominant reaction by one clique in Guyana. Satyagraha is very sensitive to means and ends. “Nonviolence does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win friendship and understanding,” King said. “The non-violent resister must often express his protest through non-cooperation or boycotts, but he realises that these do not end themselves; they are merely meant to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent… The aftermath of non-violence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.”
MLK warned that activists for justice must treat those they say they’re representing as ends in themselves, and never means to THEIR ends.
…from MLK’s instructions
Your Eyewitness thinks that some activists are “hard ears”, so maybe they need to have MLK’s methodology spelled out more carefully!! He summarised his methodology of non-violent resistance step by step. Step one – make very sure that the activist is thoroughly informed about the injustice, and THEN educating others about it. Teaching is through action, rather than words, and in this way, one transforms oneself. The trouble is that most of our locals are so convinced about a violent confrontation that, to them, everything else is “showing weakness”!!
Step two! Negotiations gotta be opened up with opponents, using win-win scenarios – as ironically, the Government did at Mocha, remember?!! And then – only if unsuccessful – in step three, direct action such as sit-ins, marches, petitions, etc, is launched. Finally, as Mandela demonstrated magnanimously in South Africa, you gotta attempt to reconcile with your opponents. After all, if you care about our country, ultimately, we have to live together and build our nation together.
Restorative rather than retributive Justice can heal many wounds!!
…from the old Empire??
It used to be said that “Brittania rules the waves”. And the subtext was that whoever ruled the waves ruled the world. So, is it to rule the Red Sea (that) the US and Britain bombed the Houthis?
