{"id":104838,"date":"2018-01-15T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=104838"},"modified":"2018-01-15T12:39:40","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T12:39:40","slug":"mlk-the-year-of-nonviolence-or-non-existence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/01\/mlk-the-year-of-nonviolence-or-non-existence\/","title":{"rendered":"MLK: The Year of \u201cNonviolence or Non-Existence\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It\u00a0was early 1968.\u00a0 Since the previous spring\u00a0Martin Luther King, Jr. had\u00a0been\u00a0pursuing a course that\u00a0for\u00a0many\u00a0was\u00a0unthinkable.\u00a0 He had\u00a0deliberately\u00a0connected the dots between the\u00a0 movement\u00a0 for\u00a0civil rights and\u00a0the struggle\u00a0to end the\u00a0war in Vietnam, and had paid the price.\u00a0 He was roundly criticized by\u00a0the Johnson\u00a0administration and the media, as well as people in his own movement.\u00a0\u00a0 From the\u00a0right he was attacked for having the gall to question US foreign policy.\u00a0\u00a0From the left\u00a0he was lambasted for losing focus and not keeping his eyes on the prize.<\/p>\n

He even\u00a0got it\u00a0from a childhood friend who stopped by the\u00a0house\u00a0one afternoon\u00a0to vent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you speaking out against the Vietnam War?\u201d he\u00a0carped.<\/p>\n

King put aside his\u00a0customary\u00a0oratory. \u201cWhen I speak about nonviolence,\u201d he\u00a0patiently\u00a0explained, \u201cI mean nonviolent all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

As\u00a0David Garrow\u2019s classic biography of King,\u00a0Bearing the Cross<\/em>,\u00a0reports, he went on to say,\u00a0\u201cNever could I advocate nonviolence in this country and not advocate nonviolence for the whole world.\u00a0 That\u2019s my philosophy. I don\u2019t believe in death and killing on any side, no matter who\u2019s heading it up\u2014whether it be America or any other country. Nonviolence is my stand and I\u2019ll die for that stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few months later King\u00a0was dead, but not\u00a0before\u00a0making one\u00a0last,\u00a0indelible\u00a0declaration of\u00a0 the\u00a0 existential\u00a0importance of nonviolence.<\/p>\n

Standing before the jammed crowd at the Mason Temple in Memphis\u00a0the night before his\u00a0death, King\u00a0linked\u00a0his\u00a0life wisdom with a pithy and resounding\u00a0appraisal\u00a0of our global predicament: \u201cThe choice before us is no longer violence or nonviolence,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s nonviolence or non-existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

This April marks\u00a0the 50th<\/sup> anniversary of\u00a0King\u2019s assassination\u2014and of King\u2019s clear\u00a0warning.\u00a0 This is a moment\u00a0not simply for remembering a great leader cut down in his\u00a0prime but\u00a0also\u00a0 for\u00a0seriously\u00a0 contemplating\u00a0the acute clarity of\u00a0his assessment\u00a0and what it means for us today.<\/p>\n

Sadly,\u00a0in the same way that warnings of climate change have\u00a0mostly\u00a0been\u00a0dismissed for decades, Dr. King\u2019s stark framing of the\u00a0pivotal\u00a0choice before us\u2014nonviolence or nonexistence\u2014was\u00a0steadfastly\u00a0 ignored\u00a0over the past\u00a0half-century\u00a0as the United States\u00a0lurched\u00a0from another seven years of the Vietnam War\u00a0to\u00a0decades of war in Central\u00a0America,\u00a0Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other places, even as the violence of racial injustice, economic inequality, environmental destruction,\u00a0nuclear proliferation,\u00a0gun deaths,\u00a0armed\u00a0drones,\u00a0and many other forms of violence spiraled out of control.\u00a0 Indeed,\u00a0over these decades\u00a0we\u00a0have consistently\u00a0opted for violence even as we have\u00a0shunned\u00a0the word \u201cnonviolence,\u201d\u00a0as if it were the\u00a0most dangerous word in the English language.<\/p>\n

Now, 50 years on, King\u2019s words take on more weight\u00a0with each passing\u00a0hour.<\/p>\n

Fifty years after the watershed year of 1968, we are at another watershed, and Dr. King has put the fundamental choice before us. This is the Year of “Nonviolence or Nonexistence.”<\/p>\n

Like his childhood friend, all of us must\u00a0learn his wisdom of active nonviolence and rise to the occasion as Dr. King did and choose active nonviolence if we are to not to go over the brink.<\/p>\n

Kingian\u00a0nonviolence calls for active, universal love toward all human beings, all creatures, and all creation, that refuses to kill or be silent in the face of killing. It is a way of life, a spiritual path, and a political methodology toward peaceful conflict resolution and global justice.<\/p>\n

It means\u00a0striving\u00a0to be nonviolent to ourselves and to those around us, trying to be nonviolent toward all the creatures and the environment, and doing our part to build up the global grassroots movements of active nonviolence for a new culture of justice, equality, and peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cA culture of nonviolence is not an impossible dream,\u201d Pope Francis said recently, following up on his 2017 World Day of Peace message,\u202f\u201cNonviolence\u2014A New Style of Politics,\u201d the first statement on nonviolence in the history of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

But our culture of violence begs to differ.\u00a0 \u201cNo, Pope Francis,\u201d it says, \u201ca culture of nonviolence is an impossible dream. No, Dr. King, there is no choice; non-existence is inevitable.\u201d Deep down, that\u2019s what we think, isn\u2019t it? That\u2019s what the culture of violence, the voice of despair, tells us.<\/p>\n

If we give in to such despair, then our fate is sealed.\u00a0But this need not be how things turn out.<\/p>\n

The ironic good news is that never before have so many nonviolent movements existed in this country and around the globe.\u00a0 The world is on the march\u00a0for the nonviolent option, and we, too,\u00a0can opt for active, creative and powerful nonviolence\u2014and not\u00a0for\u00a0the trajectory\u00a0of nonexistence\u2014by joining them\u00a0in this critical year.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s our most important choice ever.<\/p>\n

In 2018, may we, like Martin Luther King, Jr., \u201cmean nonviolent all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Rev. Jo<\/em>hn Dear<\/em>, syndicated by <\/em>PeaceVoice<\/em><\/a>, is the author of the forth-coming book,\u202f<\/em>They Will Inherit the Earth: Peace and Nonviolence in a Time of Climate Change.\u00a0 He works for\u00a0<\/em>www.campaignnonviolence.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was early 1968. Since the previous spring Martin Luther King, Jr. had been pursuing a course that for many was unthinkable. He had deliberately connected the dots between the movement for civil rights and the struggle to end the war in Vietnam, and had paid the price. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":82627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}