Daring to Dream
Today, we stand as we do annually to reflect and rededicate ourselves to the struggle for justice, equality, and equity. It is bittersweet that while we dare to dream of tackling isolationism and racism, the US stands on the verge of heading once again in that direction. Yet it is not just the US that is in danger; globally, we are facing a globalisation of fragility.
Four years ago, I wrote that Dr. King would not say anything different in his “I Have a Dream” speech. At the risk of being ‘cancelled’, he would have condemned the hypocrisy we have seen when people’s lives are treated as cheap fodder. Now more than ever, his vision and insight are needed to challenge the status quo and speak out against current injustices.
Violence has become a global catastrophe and remains one of today’s most significant societal challenges. It is a health, social, justice, legal, spiritual, economic, cultural, community development, and human rights problem. People who are vulnerable to certain forms of violence can also fall victim to other forms and, hence, be subjected to multiple forms of violence. The narrative of violence is a mechanism of false consciousness that obscures and conceals the real sources of poverty, humiliation, and underdevelopment.
Non-violence is the counter to this narrative, starting from inculcating attitudes, actions, or behaviours intended to persuade the other side to change its opinions, perceptions, and actions (Abu-Nimer 2003). It implies an active commitment to social change that would ultimately result in a fair distribution of world resources, more creative and democratic cooperation between peoples, and a common pursuit of those social, scientific, medical, and political achievements that serve to enhance the human enterprise and prevent warfare” (Smith-Christopher 1998, 10). It implies an awakening of a sense of injustice and moral shame in the supporters of a power structure, showing them that they have more to gain by ending injustice and oppression than by maintaining it. It is about exposing the unjust means of a power structure, isolating actions, and changing the narrative that can be used for justification. Thus, non-violence is not passive but requires great strength of character, perseverance, and discipline to foster moral priority, encourage nonviolent resistance, and communicate the structural injustices of the day.
The strategic use of non-violence thus means resisting the power structure through long-term social and economic policies. It is about letting the community acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to advance in society and challenge the status quo of the power structure, provoking it to expose its unjust means and illegitimacy by seeking to prevent the advancement of the community.
Successful non-violence is about possessing great strength of character, perseverance, and discipline. It is a means of awakening a sense of injustice and moral shame in the supporters of a power structure, showing them that they have more to gain by ending injustice and oppression than by maintaining it. It is about exposing the unjust means of a power structure, the isolation of actions, and changing the narrative that can be used for justification.
None communicated this more than Dr King, who, despite losing his supporter base, would shift attention from the civil rights movement to economic injustice and the Vietnam War in 1965, which unfortunately have been erased from the cultural narrative of his life and legacy. He spoke on the issues of the day, invoking a sense of moral shame that would damage or diminish its prestige.
In his 1963 letter from Birmingham jail, Dr King drew inspiration from the gospel and biblical teachings to justify his fight against injustice. He wrote that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He mentioned just and unjust laws and offered insight into how the church, other faith leaders, and communities should act in the face of injustice. He wrote, “If the church of today doesn’t recapture the sacrificial spirit of the past, it will lose its authenticity. It will forfeit the loyalty of millions and will be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning.” In King’s mind, it was about being a thermostat that transformed society’s morals. Nothing meant more than the abolition of poverty, where the edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring and that “the time has come for us to civilise ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”
For this to happen, Dr King meant acting. It was not only about being the thermostat but also the radiator, being active to make that change, calling for a democracy that would bridge the gap between rich and poor. He pushed for a society whose policies are animated by the love of neighbour and egalitarian justice; an economic system based on cooperation instead of dog-eat-dog competition; political and social responsibility for the needy instead of valorised selfishness; economic relations structured to value people over profits; a country reborn as a genuine political democracy in which “one person, one vote” strictly means that; and an economic democracy that countenances neither a de facto ruling class nor an exploited workforce with no say in its workplace conditions or its destiny.
All of this would need to be done in the spirit of non-violence. It would start with recalibrating our moral compass based on ethical principles such as compassion (the ability to treat someone as you wish to be treated), stewardship (that we have a spiritual responsibility to take care of all those around us, human and nonhuman, as borrowers of the earth from our grandchildren), mercy, egalitarian justice that is put into action, and honesty.
This is the challenge that Dr King sets for us today, people of faith and no faith, to see where we stand during times of challenge and controversy, rising above the narrow confines of our individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Interesting references:
Abu-Nimer, M Nonviolence and PeaceBuilding in Islamic Theory and Practice, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida (2003).
Smith-Christopher, D.I. Subverting Hatred: The Challenge of Nonviolence in Religious Traditions. Cambridge, MA: The Boston Research Center for the 21st Century (1998: 10).
King, M L (1963), Letter from a Birmingham Jail, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/letter-birmingham-jail
