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On December 10, 1964, The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. His acceptance speech is a lasting monument to the doctrine of nonviolence. One paragraph from the speech sums up the doctrine eloquently:
After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition that 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. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that 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.
On December 10, 2009, President Barack Obama will accept the Nobel Peace Prize. I commented previously on the irony of accepting this award so shortly after after Obama announced his escalation of the war in Afghanistan. However, Obama’s acceptance of the prize takes on added irony when viewed in light of Dr. King’s doctrine of nonviolence. President Obama is Commander in Chief for two wars. The war in Afghanistan, to me, clearly qualifies as an act of revenge or retaliation, which Dr. King’s doctrine specifically rejects. Granted, that war was started by George W. Bush, but why has Barack Obama chosen to escalate rather than end that war? Further, the war in Iraq, also started by George W. Bush, was definitely an act of aggression, the third category specifically denounced by Dr. King’s doctrine. What specific steps has President Obama taken to end that war?
In this diary, I discussed the tendency of many pundits to class President Obama’s behavior as "pragmatic" when he is making decisions that appear to run counter to the concepts on which he campaigned. There, I discussed Obama’s apparent abandonment of ideals in favor of "the practical". There is a very interesting parallel to that thought in Dr. King’s acceptance speech:
I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him.
President Obama would be well-served to follow this aspect of Dr. King’s doctrine. He should stop his focus on the "pragmatic" "isness" of the issues he faces and take up the ideal "oughtness" of what can be. His own election to the Presidency was made possible in no small part because of the efforts of Dr. King and other civil rights activists of the past to reach for "oughtness".
What wonders could be achieved if President Obama were to take up the challenge of adhering to Dr. King’s doctrine of nonviolence?
[Note, on his Make it Plain radio show Tuesday evening on Sirius Left, host Mark Thompson urged listeners to read Dr. King's acceptance speech. I am indebted to Mark for that suggestion and his subsequent discussion of nonviolence.]
16 Comments
The ghost of Eric Blair will rise from his grave and prevent Obama from accepting the prize.
I’m sorry to admit I had to Google that one, but you evoke a powerful image.
He’ll say he warned us that someday war would equal peace. I think we’re there.
Then he’d also be carrying on something of that Kennedy legacy he was so quick trade upon during the campaign, but abandoned, once elected.
Very good point.
Someone like MLK is about as far removed from Obama as one can imagine. Obama for sure ain’t MLK, nor does he even rise to the level of LBJ. I do think he compares well with Clinton though.
Aint that the truth.
The tragedy is that Obama represents such potential. I’d like to think it isn’t too late for him to realize it, but I’ve just seen nothing in his actions after taking office that meet with the ideals of his campaign or a figure like MLK.
BTW, I also enjoy MIP. Mark Thompson is a unique radio host–talented, fair, civil, but direct. Listen to him every chance I get.
I think Obama flies by the seat of His pants, and decides everything by who convinces Him they are right.
This is not the workings of a great leader, smart man, or problem solver, but a follower of those who have his ear.
How fitting. Obama directly acknowledges his focus on “isness” in his speech:
NYTimes adds that he did mention “ought”, too:
But note the significance here. The “is” statement relates to things (violence) he is “obligated” to do, and the “ought” statement is something for which he merely asks us to “reach”.
Putting those two statements together makes it clear to me that Obama is aware of the challenge of Dr. King’s doctrine but rejects using it in his approach to the current situation.
King would have been very disappointed in Obama’s speech. King’s idea of what the world should be is the total opposite of what Obama thinks it should be. The spark of the divine is a reference to the connection of all humans to a loving Creator; that we are all sons and daughters of god. Obama equated the phrase to America’s right to wage unjust war and empire build. He’s obliged to protect the Constitution of the US; not to defend and protect the US.
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“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
He added:
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just”….The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” ”
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7476
Nope. And he may have just gone down as the first Nobel Peace Prize recipient to make a stand for just war theory when in there is no
“just” war. I am still reading up to make sure I am not wrong on that note.
Your findings from that reading would make a great diary.
This might interest you. I thought a just war was one of self defense. I had no idea that it referred to something else.
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“A plausible explanation for the President’s failure to argue that the war in Afghanistan is a “just war” is that he recognizes that such an argument would not be convincing.
As President Obama noted in his speech, there are criteria involved in the “just war” concept. It isn’t just a matter of proclaiming that a war is justified. There are tests.
This matters, because a substantial part of the U.S. and world population subscribes to the theory of “just war.” In particular, more than a fifth of the U.S. population are estimated to identify as Catholics. The concept of “just war” – that wars can be considered “just” only if they meet certain criteria – is an official doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Here’s part of what the official Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about this: ”
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/obama-invokes-just-war-war-afghanistan-just