The Dream of Martin Luther King JR

DRAFT, January 2002

THE DREAM OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR
AND THE NIGHTMARE OF SEPTEMBER 11:
FROM THE KLAN TO THE QAEDA*

        I am privileged to be the keynote speaker at the first Martin Luther King’s Birthday since September 11, 2001. The months since September 11 have been a period of pain, anguish and war. But this must also be a period of introspection, self-examination and re-appraisal.
        I am relieved that the theme of the breakfast is “SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER”. This gives me additional courage to speak the truth as I see it. Such courage would be in the spirit of the legacy of Dr. Martin King Jr.
        When I first received the invitation to speak at this distinguished M.L. King Breakfast, I agonized about what kind of speech I was to give. Was it to be a praise song in honor of Dr. King? Was it to be a war song in support of the campaign against terrorism? I decided instead to address the issues of our predicament since September 11 – but in the light of the legacy of Martin Luther king Jr.

Between King and Malcolm X

There is indeed a concept called “Global Africa”. It means the people of Africa and those of African descent who are scattered all over the world. The late C.L.R. James of Trinidad talked about “Who should know of cricket who only cricket know”. But in fact much more relevant is to paraphrase the original British poem in the following way:

        Winds of the world give answer
        They are whimpering to and fro
        Who should know of Africa
        Who only Africa know?

        Martin Luther King’s dilemma in the United States was of a different kind. He was torn between his identity as a Black man of African descent and his identity as an American.   In his capacity as a Black man he confronted the nightmare of racism which finally resulted in his own assassination. In his capacity as an American he was brought up with a “Dream”, the American Dream, which he revised and refashioned in the language of racial integration and moral purpose.
        Anti-colonial movements in Africa coincided with the civil rights movement in the United States. The two sets of movements reinforced each other. Dr. King monitored anti-colonialism and mobilized the civil rights movement.
        Somewhere between them stood Malcom X (el-Hajj Malik El Shabazz) - closer to Muslim mujahidden in radicalism and militancy, yet closer to Martin Luther King in the experience of white racism. These two Diaspora Africans touched my life very briefly - and each symbolized something important to Global Africa. Each of these Diaspora Africans was assassinated. Such assassinations were cases of individualized terrorism.
        I met Martin Luther King Jr. in New York when I was a graduate student at Columbia University. I was impressed that King knew so much about Kenya – and knew the African politician Tom Mboya personally, who was then a rising political star of Kenya.
        Partly because he was a Reverend, and partly because of his Biblical oratory, I might have regarded Martin Luther King as a link between Global Africa and Christendom, though I could not have articulated it in quite that fashion at that age.
        The second Diaspora martyr who touched my life briefly was Malcolm X. I also met him in New York in the early 1960s. Since I had myself been brought up a Muslim, I was fascinated by Malcolm’s creed. I disagreed with his racial approach to Islam at that stage of his life, but I was thrilled by his political militancy. He also had a magnetic personal presence. In terms of Global Africa, was he one of its important links with the global ummah?
        If Martin Luther King was a link between Global Africa and Christianity, Malcolm X was a link between Global Africa and Islam, while people like Paul Robeson and Kwame Nkrumah were in part a link between Global Africa and the world of socialism.
        Since Martin Luther King was a link between Global Africa and Christianity, his legacy found it easier to acquire legitimacy in the Western world. Martin King’s birthday has even acquired greater official status that Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Although harassed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) when he was alive, and constantly under the shadow of rightwing extremists in the United States, Revered King was, in the ultimate analysis, a preferred antagonist of the Establishment.
        But, as he himself indicated, this Black man’s legitimacy to the Euro-Christian establishment in America was ultimately due to the influence of a major figure in India. This Black agitator touched the conscience of white America partly because he was a disciple of an Indian. But more about that later.
        However, partly because Malcolm X was a link between Blackness and Islam, he has yet to be restored to national legitimacy in the United States. No scholarships have been named after him, no major schools. How is the legacy of Malcolm related to the horrific events of September 11?
        Malcolm X’s bark was more ferocious than his bite. Philosophically he believed that people should fight for their legitimate rights “by any means necessary” (Malcolm’s words).
        Philosophically Malcolm was prepared to accept violence and perhaps even terrorism, provided the cause was morally right. Afterall, the American revolution itself was a revolution of violence and war.
        Malcolm was Muslim by religious affiliation and an African by descent. Was it his Muslim side which embraced the doctrine “by any means necessary”? Did Malcolm envisage a kind of racial jihad?
        Or were both his Black nationalism and his religious fervor radical enough to embrace the principle of “by any means necessary”?

Ku Klux Klan as a Terrorist Movement

        The history of terror in the American experience is a transition from individualized terrorism from within the United States to collective terrorism from outside the United States. Individualized terrorism is the tormenting or killing of individual civilians by other civilians for racial, ideological, or other political reasons. Under this definition Ku Klux Klan was a terrorist organization – designed to create terror and consternation among particular vulnerable groups in the society.
        The Ku Klux Klan was the most durable and longest surviving terrorist organization in the history of the United States. More than a century before Al-Qaeda, there was Al-Klan. More than a century before Osama Bin Laden there was the Grand Wizard Nathan Forrest. In 1867 the Klan was declared “the Invisible Empire of the South” at a convention in Nashville. Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first Grand Wizard, in the nineteenth century the KKK started as a social club by Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866. The name was apparently derived from the Greek Kykos, meaning approximately “circle”. Indeed, the English word “circle” is derived from it. The “suffix” Klan was added for alliterative reasons.
        KKK became a vehicle for Southern White underground resistance to Radical Reconstruction. The KKK struggled to restore white supremacy in the South by whipping and killing freed Blacks and their white supporters. They wore white robes and sheets to maximize the terror to their Black victims.
        In night raids they did not cry out “Allah Akbar” (God is great), but they often used the burning cross for further intimidation. White supremacy in Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia was indeed restored partly as a result of Klan action.
        In response to continuing violence among local KKK branches, the US Congress started legislating in ways which threatened the civil liberties of white folk. Congress passed the Force Act of 1870 and Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 authorizing the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, suppress KKK disturbances by force, and impose heavy fines on such terrorist organizations.
        President Ulysses S. Grant sent federal troops to some areas, suspended habeas corpus for some counties in South Carolina, and detained hundreds of Southerners for conspiracy. Such strong measures against white people was something new.
        However, in 1882 the U.S. Supreme Court declared the KKK Act unconstitutional – and the KKK subsided to rise another day. The Supreme Court’s decision legitimizing the KKK was made in the case the United States versus Harris of 1882.
        In the nineteenth century civil liberties were curtailed by an act of Congress. Since September 11, 2001 civil liberties are curtailed at the initiative of Attorney General, John Ashcroft.

I.	There are hundreds of people in detention without trial.
II.	The great majority of those in detention are not publicly announced as being in detention.
III.	Out of the hundreds in detention, less than a dozen show any evidence of knowing any particular terrorist suspect or being associated with any movement or charity accused of terrorism.
IV.	Out of the millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, and those whose visas have expired, the people chosen for detention without trial are almost certainly those with Muslim names or who come from the Middle East.
V.	The United States is actually planning to have military tribunals and secret trials for those suspected of terrorism. Even the leaders of Nazi Germany were given a public trial at Nuremberg after World War II with access to counsel and proper representation. Some of those tried at Nuremberg had been responsible for the death of millions of people.
VI.	Israel continues to look for old Nazi militants so that they can be tried today in a court of law in Israel. Yet Israel feels free to kill Palestinian militants instead of capturing them for trial. Israel tried Adolf Eichmann in 1961 and protected him at the trial with a bulletproof glass cage so that he would not be assassinated. Yet both the USA and Israel in 2001 openly talked about killing terrorist suspects instead of capturing them. And even when Israel has illegally captured Palestinian or Lebanese suspects from across its own borders, the purpose has almost never been to give them fair trial (Adolf Eichmann-style) but to detain those suspects indefinitely without trial.
VII.	VI. Israel continues to look for old Nazi militants so that they can be tried today in a court of law in Israel. Yet Israel feels free to kill Palestinian militants instead of capturing them for trial. Israel tried Adolf Eichmann in 1961 and protected him at the trial with a bulletproof glass cage so that he would not be assassinated. Yet both the USA and Israel in 2001 openly talked about killing terrorist suspects instead of capturing them. And even when Israel has illegally captured Palestinian or Lebanese suspects from across its own borders, the purpose has almost never been to give them fair trial (Adolf Eichmann-style) but to detain those suspects indefinitely without trial.
VIII.	Attorney-General Ashcroft wants to breach attorney-client confidentiality if the client is suspected of terrorism. The Attorney General and President Bush repeatedly talk as if those suspected of terrorism were already proven terrorists. What happened to the U.S. principle that a person was innocent until proven guilty?
IX.	The CNN and other major TV networks in the United States were summoned to the White House and warned against giving Osama bin Laden propaganda advantage with his videos. Whatever happened to editorial independence and freedom of the Press?
X.	President Bush described the attacks of September 11 as “an act of war” and responded with war in Afghanistan.

        Yet prisoners of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are denied the rights of prisoners of war according to the Geneva convention. Even U.S. allies in Europe are disturbed that the U.S. is slipping away from civilized standards and from obeying international law. Yet in most of the twentieth century the terrorism of the KKK encountered few of such preventive measures from the Federal Government. In the 20th century the new KKK rose near Atlanta, Georgia, in 1915. At its peak this terrorist organization in the United States had four million members nation-wide. Its agenda of prejudice had widened. In addition to being anti-Black it became anti-Catholic, especially in 1928 when Alfred E. Smith, a Catholic, won the nomination of the Democratic Party for President. The new KKK was also anti-Jewish, anti-immigrant, and against organized labour.
        For actual lynching by KKK, the victims were overwhelmingly black.Lynchings continued into the second half of the twentieth century, though their numbers had drastically declined. Some of the lynchings were perpetrated by supporters of KKK who were not necessarily members. NAACP organizers were killed in Mississippi while trying to register Black voters in the 1950s. These included Reverend George W. Lee and Lamar Smith.
        The most shocking lynching of the 1950s was the 1955 murder of a fourteen-year old Black boy Emmett Till, who was visiting Mississippi from Chicago, and was dared by other Black boys to say something courageous to a white woman in a shop. Emmett Till gathered enough courage to say to the white woman “Bye, Baby”! As a Northern boy from Chicago he was showing off he could do something daring to a white woman.
        Those two words not only cost the boy’s life. He was picked up, tortured, had an eye pulled out, short in the head, chained to a seventy-five pound cotton gin and thrown into a river to sink. The body surfaced a few days later and was identified. An all-white jury returned a verdict of “Not guilty” on people who had kidnapped Emmett Till and must have been the ones who killed him. They were even acquitted of kidnapping.
        But for the first time in the history of Mississippi, a black man testified against an accused white man. Mose Wright, Emmett’s uncle, found the courage to identify the white folks who had picked up his nephew. Courage is different from fearlessness. Courage is to be afraid and still be able to do what needs to be done. Mose Wright was courageous in that court as he pointed out the kidnappers of his nephew.
        It took the murder of a white woman ten years later in Alabama before the President of the United States would go on television to publicly denounce the Ku Klux Klan. President Lyndon Johnson at last condemned the organization in March 1965 in a nationwide television broadcast. He also announced the arrest of four Klansmen for the murder of the civil rights worker – a white woman in Alabama.
        Yet even the 1990s it was still possible for a black man to be tied at the back of white man’s truck and dragged until his head rolled off his body. Individualized racial terrorism was still alive and well in the United States when in 1998 James Byrd Jr. was chained behind a pick-up truck in Jasper, Texas, and mutilated in this manner by a couple of white racists.
        Nevertheless, September 11, 2001, took terrorism to entirely new levels of destructiveness. It was not the terrorism of the powerful against the vulnerable, as in the case of the KKK violence against underprivileged Blacks. September 11, 2001 was terrorism against the most powerful in the world. The Pentagon was a symbol of America’s military might. The World Trade Center was a symbol of America’s economic might. If Al-Qaeda were the terrorists of September 11, 2001, this was action by cave-dwellers against the super-rich and the super-powerful. It was criminal and cruel, but it was David fighting Goliath, and in this case David came to pay a heavy price. While the KKK picked on vulnerable minorities to terrorise, Al-Qaeda has picked on the mightiest power to challenge. The result has been catastrophic for both sides.
        If movements of Arab or Afghan cave dwellers are a case of “Muslim David”, what are the causes of the rage against the America Goliath? It may be best to use as a foil another previously colonized region – Africa. Let us engage in a study of comparative violence between weak societies and strong external powers.

Colonized Davids and Imperial Goliaths

        Why has terrorism continued to escalate in the Mid-East while it has declined in Africa? Why is Africa talking about “Truth and Reconciliation” and Reparations from the white man – while the Arabs are still proclaiming JIHAD?
        Why do Arab militants regard “Pay Back Time” in terms of retribution against the West – while so many African nationalists regard “Pay Back Time” in terms of reparation from the West? Do Muslim militants share Malcolm X’s insistence that legitimate rights should be fought for “by any means necessary”?
        Let us now look much more closely at the dynamics of politics in Africa and the Middle East from the point of view of reparation versus retribution between colonized Davids and imperial Goliaths.
        The 2001 conference in Durban , South Africa, against racism and xenophobia took the issues of reparations forward. But the terrorist events in New York on September 11 might have caused a setback to the cause of reparations. Both Durban and September 11 have demonstrated once again a link between Africa and the Middle East, and the link has been affected by the forces of globalization.
        Martin Luther King Jr. did not really address the issue of restitution. I would like to explore the issue of reparations, on one side, and terrorist retribution, on the other, as alternative methods of "PAY BACK". I would like to place Africa alongside the Middle East in comparative perspective. Africa and the Middle East are in any case overlapping regions.
        Imperialism in the Middle East provoked the worst levels of anti-Western terrorism after formal liberation from European colonial rule. The British had been in power in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Sudan and elsewhere. The French had been in power in Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and elsewhere. Palestine had been a United Nations trusteeship under British administration.
        Imperialism in Africa provoked the worst levels of anti-Western terrorism before formal liberation from European colonial rule: that is to say, before Independence Day.
        Let us also relate the comparison to comparative rage. Imperialism in Africa triggered the most explosive anti-Western anger before European colonialism left Africa. Imperialism in the Middle East triggered off the most explosive anti-Western anger after European colonialism had left the Arab world.
        What the colonial powers and white minority governments had condemned as "terrorism" in Africa included the Mau Mau war in Kenya, and the liberation wars in Algeria, Angola, Zimbabwe, Guinea (Bissau), Mozambique, and South Africa. What the Western world has condemned as "terrorism" in the Middle East has included hostage taking in Lebanon, highjacking of planes in the 1970s, as well as suicide bombs in the streets of Israel. The most spectacular was the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
        In what sense are we to conclude that while the impact of imperialism in the Middle East created conditions for violent "PAY BACK" against the West, the impact of imperialism on Africa has been to create conditions which are ideal for "PAY BACK" in terms of reparations from the West?
        Some of the differences between Africa and the Middle East are situational, while other differences are primarily cultural. The postcolonial situation in the Middle East included a permanent loss of territory imposed by outsiders. The postcolonial situation in Africa involved recovery of territory -- including recovery of land previously parceled out by apartheid in South Africa. This was won back to Africa.
        Africa had also been spared the forceful creation of a Jewish state in Uganda and Kenya earlier in the twentieth century. Joseph Chamberlain, the British Colonial Secretary at the time, had offered Theodor Herzl, the leader of the Zionist movement, a piece of Uganda and a piece of Kenya at the beginning of the twentieth century for the creation of a new Jewish state. (The boundaries of Uganda early in the twentieth century included parts of present-day Kenya.)
        Had the Zionist movement accepted the offer, and a permanent Jewish state been established in East Africa, it is conceivable that African anger against the West today would be comparable to anti-Western rage in the Middle East.
        But the Zionist movement in 1903 could not reach consensus about creating "Israel" in East Africa -- and therefore the postcolonial situation in Africa today involves no permanent loss of territory.
        A related situational difference is that while the postcolonial conditions in Africa meant a clear end of foreign occupation, the postcolonial situation in the Middle East carried new forms of foreign occupation. It involved NOT just the creation of the state of Israel but also the occupation by Israel of the West Bank of the Jordan, the occupation of Gaza, the annexation of the Golan Heights of Syria, the annexation of the whole of Jerusalem and the occupation for a while of a piece of Southern Lebanon. While the postcolonial period in Africa is truly post-occupation, the postcolonial period in the Middle East has entailed new forms of territorial annexations.
        Where does the United States fit into this equation? When European powers occupied Africa and parts of Asia, the image of America was that of an anti-colonial force in world affairs. The United States put a lot of pressure on its European allies to speed up the process of giving independence to the colonies.
        Even as late as 1956 – when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt in response to Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal – the Eisenhower Administration turned against its allies. The United States forced Israel to withdraw from the Sinai, and forced Britain and France to give up Port Said in Egypt. The British Prime Minister had a nervous breakdown – Anthony Eden gave way to Harold McMillan.
        Egypt’s Nasser emerged as a world figure – partly because the United States would not support the Anglo-Franco-Israeli invasion of Egypt. Nasser had been militarily defeated, but emerged politically triumphant. The Eisenhower administration – wittingly or unwittingly – had helped the Egyptian president rise to global stature.
        John F. Kennedy as President dismissed the concerns of the white settlers elsewhere in Africa when they objected to the phrase “AFRICA FOR THE AFRICANS”. Kennedy insisted “Who else would Africa be for if not for Africans?” The United States was on the side of the aspirations of African nationalists.
        But two things were happening which future historians would later have to dis-entangle. The United States was expanding towards greater globalization and increasing its role of interventionism in other parts of the world.
        In the second half of the 20th century the United States began to be seen more and more as an imperial power, and a supporter of Israeli policies of occupation and repression.
        WHY IS THE U.S. being blamed for Israeli policies? Where is Osama bin Laden’s anti-Americanism coming from? The following are some of salient factors.

(a)	Massive economic aid from the United States to Israel in billions.
(b)	Provision of sophisticated American weapons to Israel.
(c)	The United States shielding Israel from U.N. censure.
(d)	The United States making U.N. Security Council impotent in punishing Israel.
(e)	The United States policy of weakening anti-Israeli Arab forces by buying off the government of Egypt with a billion U.S. dollars every year. Egypt is the largest Arab country in population and used to be the biggest single threat to Israel militarily. The U.S. largess has bought off Egypt effectively.
(f)	Preventing IRAQ from rising as an alternative to Egypt in challenging Israel. Taking advantage of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait to weaken Iraq permanently – whereas Pearl Harbor was not used to weaken Japan permanently, nor was Hitler’s aggression used to weaken Germany permanently.

THE UNITED STATES is the main source of military support for the enemy of the Arab World, (Israel), and the USA is also the main destroyer of Arab capacity to rise militarily. This latter policy includes weakening Egypt and enfeebling Iraq.
The American base in SAUDI ARABIA since 1991 is perceived as turning sacred Islamic soil into an extension of the PENTAGON. The American base in Saudi Arabia is seen not as a shield against such external enemies as Saddam Hussein, but a shield against an internal Iran-style Islamic revolution in Saudi Arabia. A situation of gross military frustration has been created, especially in Palestine and Iraq, but also on the sacred sands of Saudi Arabia.

Comparative Rage and Cultural Differences

        But the differences between Africa and the Middle East in relation to political rage are not only due to divergent post-colonial situations. There are also basic differences in culture between the Arabo-Hebrew Semitic peoples (both Arabs and Jews) on one side, and the majority of Black people in sub-Saharan Africa.
        One major difference is the martyrdom complex which is much more developed among Middle Eastern peoples than among the Bantu and other peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. The link between heroism and suicide among the Jews goes back to Masada, the site of the Jews’ final resistance against the Romans after the fall of the Temple in year 70 C.E. The brave defenders finally committed suicide rather than surrender.
        The Jews have more recently fashioned memories of the Holocaust into a major doctrine of Jewish martyrdom in history. As for readiness to commit collective suicide, the Israeli nuclear program is partly based on the premise of the Samson option -- a readiness to defend Israel even if means destroying it and much of the rest of the region.
        Among Muslims of the Middle East (both Arab and Iranian) there is also the martyrdom complex in varying degrees. Historically it has been more developed among Shia Muslims than among Sunni. Suicide bombers against Israel and American troops in Lebanon started among Shiite Lebanese. The martyrdom complex among the Shi’a goes back to the suffering and martyrdom of Iman Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
        But anger against Israel and the United States has now resulted in the extension of the martyrdom complex to the Sunni population of the Middle East.
        It is probable (though not yet proven) that the daredevils who destroyed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were indeed Middle Easterners.
        Because culturally the Middle East has a martyrdom complex which is much more highly developed than among any groups in sub-Saharan Africa, it is the Middle East which has been readier than Africa to commit suicidal political violence against the West. In the postcolonial period it is the Middle East, more than Africa, which has been ready to engage in acts of suicidal terrorism against the West.
        Another major cultural difference between the Middle East and Africa concerns comparative hate retention. Cultures differ in hate-retention. Some cultures preserve a grudge across centuries. The Irish of Northern Ireland quarrel every year about a Protestant victory of the Orange Order against Catholics four centuries ago. The Irish have a high hate-retentive capacity.
        The Armenian massacres of 1915 by the Ottoman Empire are still remembered bitterly by Armenians -- and from time to time this memory results in the assassination of a Turkish diplomat somewhere in the world.
        The Jews also have high hate-retentiveness, but they have sublimated it through the martyrdom complex. The Holocaust is given a sacred meaning rather than merely remembered as hate. There are many Jews in the world who feel that Germany must remain an external enemy. Such Jews would not buy German products, watch German movies, travel to Germany or listen to the music of Richard Wagner.
        Because the Arabs have had a vastly different history from Jews in the last fourteen centuries, the Arabs' experience as a persecuted people is relatively recent. Their hate-retention and their martyrdom complex is not as well developed or as sophisticated as that of the Jews. But Arabs and Jews do both share a fascination with the martyrdom complex.
        Now contrast this culturally with Black Africa. A major reason why Black Africa has not produced postcolonial political violence against the West is Africa's short memory of hate. Mahatma Gandhi used to prophesy that it would probably be through Black people that the unadulterated message of soul force [satyagraha] and passive resistance might be realized. If Gandhi was indeed right, this could be one more illustration of comparative hate-retention.
        The Nobel Committee for Peace in Oslo seems to have shared some of Gandhi's optimism about the soul force of the Black people. Africans and people of African descent who have won the Nobel prize for Peace since the middle of the twentieth century have been Ralph Bunche (1950), Albert Luthuli (1960), Martin Luther King Jr. (1964), Anwar Sadat (1978) Desmond Tutu (1984) and Nelson Mandela (1993). And now Kofi Annan and his UN leadership have joined the galaxy (2001). Neither Mahatma Gandhi himself nor any of his compatriots in India ever won the Nobel Prize for Peace, though Indians have won other categories of the Nobel Prize. Was Mahatma Gandhi vindicated that the so-called "Negro" was going to be the best exemplar of soul force? Was this a case of African culture being empirically more Gandhian than Indian culture?
        In reality Black people have been at least as violent as anything ever perpetrated by Indians. The Horn of Africa has had its fair share of violence. So have other parts of black Africa. What is distinctive about Africans is their short memory of hate. Jomo Kenyatta was unjustly imprisoned by the British colonial authorities over charges of founding the Mau Mau “terrorist” movement. A British Governor also denounced him as "a leader unto darkness and unto death." And yet when Jomo Kenyatta was released he not only forgave the white settlers, but turned the whole country towards a basic pro-Western orientation to which it has remained committed ever since. Kenyatta even published a book entitled Suffering Without Bitterness.
        Ian Smith, the white settler leader of Rhodesia, unilaterally declared independence in 1965 and unleashed a civil war on Rhodesia. Thousands of people, mainly Black, died in the country as a result of policies pursued by Ian Smith. Yet when the war ended in 1980 Ian Smith and his cohorts were not subjected to a Nuremberg-style trial. On the contrary, Ian Smith was himself elected as a member of parliament in a Black-ruled Zimbabwe, and was busy criticizing the post-Smith Black leaders of Zimbabwe as incompetent and dishonest. Where else but in Africa could such tolerance occur?
        The Nigerian civil war (1967-1970) was the most highly publicized civil conflict in postcolonial African history. When the war was coming to an end, many people feared that there would be a bloodbath in the defeated eastern region. The Vatican was worried that cities like Enugu and Onitcha, strongholds of Catholicism, would be monuments of devastation and blood-letting.
        None of these expectations occurred. Nigerians -- seldom among the most disciplined of Africans -- discovered in 1970 some remarkable resources of self-restraint. There were no triumphant or triumphalist reprisals against the vanquished Biafrans; there were no vengeful trials of "traitors".
        We have also witnessed the phenomenon of Nelson Mandela. He lost twenty-seven of the best years of his life in prison under the laws of the apartheid regime. Yet when he was released he not only emphasized the policy of reconciliation -- he often went beyond the call of duty. On one occasion before he became President white men were fasting unto death after being convicted of terrorist offences by their own white government. Nelson Mandela went out of his way to beg them to eat and thus spare their own lives.
         When Mandela became President in 1994 it was surely enough that his government would leave the architects of apartheid unmolested. Yet Nelson Mandela went out of his way to pay a social call and have tea with the unrepentant widow of Hendrik F. Verwoed, the supreme architect of the worst forms of apartheid, who shaped the whole racist order from 1958 to 1966. Mandela was having tea with the family of Verwoed.
        Was Mahatma Gandhi correct, after all, that his torch of soul force (satyagraha) might find its brightest manifestations among Black people? Empirical relativism was at work again.
        In the history of civilizations there are occasions when the image in the mirror is more real that the object it reflects. Black Gandhians like Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu and, in a unique sense, Nelson Mandela have sometimes reflected Gandhaian soul force more brightly than Gandhians in India. Part of the explanation lies in the soul of African culture itself -- with all its capacity for rapid forgiveness.
        Yet "PAY BACK" as an African demand is a claim for reparations -- contrasting sharply with "PAY BACK" as political retribution against the West by other damaged regions of the world. The West should respond positively to this softer, gentler version of "PAY BACK TIME" between the West and the Rest. Better the music of reparations than the drums of terror.

Between Dreams and Deeds

        Where does Martin Luther King’s legacy fit into this new world of postcolonial rage, retribution and reparation? Let us first remember the link between terrorism and assassination. As I indicated, I was privileged to meet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when I was a graduate student at Columbia University in New York. King was already sensitive to issues beyond the American shores. The period was 1960-1. African Davids were fighting European imperial Goliaths.
        Let me repeat that Dr. King and I talked about the Kenyan leader called Tom Mboya, at that time the second best known East African politician after Jomo Kenyatta. Mboya and King were about the same age. Of course, we had no idea that the lives of both King and Mboya would be cut short by an assassin's bullet before the decade of the 1960s was out. They were victims of individualized terrorism
        But although Martin Luther King was so sensitised quite early to issues beyond these shores, was his dream too parochial? Was his dream too U.S.- based? Perhaps King never became as Pan African as Malcolm X did. Nevertheless, King did respond quite early to intellectual influences from beyond the American shores. He particularly emphasized his moral debt to Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian leader of resistance against British rule in India. King once observed: "It is ironic that the greatest Christian of the modern age was a man who never embraced Christianity" -- that is, Mahatma Gandhi.
        As the author Keith D. Miller has reminded us, Gandhi's protest against British repression was done in such a way that it was "a collective expression of Christ-like love."   Martin Luther King's life was transformed by that one single and particular Indian.
        Did King first get interested in Gandhi when he heard Mordecai Johnson of Howard University preach about Gandhi's achievements? The presentation was to King "so profound and electrifying" that King "bought a half-dozen books on Gandhi's life works."
        But was King inadequately attentive to the larger questions of the world? DID KING have the wrong dream? Should he have gone global -- and dreamt about the end of the Cold War -- East and West, Socialist and Capitalist, reconciled at last? Was he inadequately attentive to the North-South divide?
        "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God, Almighty, we are free at last!" Was King less internationalist than Malcolm? The great reconciliation of the last decade of the 20th century was not racial, -- but ideological. Martin King did start agitating against the war in Vietnam before he died - was he getting internationalized? The ideological Cold War seems to have given way to what Samuel Huntington has called “a Clash of Civilizations”.

Let us take a closer look at Martin Luther King's dream as articulated in his famous “I have a Dream” speech:

        "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
        "I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
        "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
        "I have a dream today! I have a dream that ... one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sister and brothers ....
        "And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

        Was that dream too parochial, too U.S.-based? And even within the USA what is the balance sheet today? How much of that dream has been realized? There have in fact been gains and losses since the 1960s.
        King said "We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality." We have made progress. And yet in the 1990s it took the video tape involving a man called Rodney King to shock the world into the full realization that police brutality against Blacks is alive and well, at least in some parts of the country. That part of King's dream still poses problems. An unarmed Black man, Amadu Diallo, a West African in New York City, was shot 41 times by the police – and the policemen were acquitted.
        Reverend Martin King said "We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities." At least hotels no longer have to keep racially mixed couples out, as they used to before the Supreme Court struck down in 1967 the Anti-Miscegenation laws of many states. (Loving vs. the State of Virginia).
        Here there is some gain. Overt discrimination in hotels, restaurants, and other public places has almost disappeared, though de facto discrimination in some Christian churches persists, as President Carter once reminded us. As for the Ku Klux Klan it is down to a few thousand regular members nation-wide.
        Discrimination in private clubs is still rampant, but less so than in the 1960s. Dr. King said "We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one." For many U.S. Blacks, this condition still persists -- the Black underclass is larger than ever. Some old concerns persist; some new concerns like HIV have arisen. Poverty, crime, infant mortality, drugs and now AIDS have been decimating large sections of ghetto populations. Even teen homicides are much higher today. King’s worry about the ghetto-isation of the Black experience is still serious.
        Dr. King said: "We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only." The actual visible signs have all but disappeared -- but there are still obstinate psychological signs which say to many African Americans "For Whites Only."   We have indeed made real progress. But the colour-bar has gone invisible in large areas of life. Is that invisibility a gain or a loss? There are controversial arguments which say that better open prejudice than subversive undercurrents of racism. But other people would strongly disagree and say that open prejudice is worse.
        Reverend King said: "We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes there is nothing for which to vote." There has been a change in Mississippi -- the so-called "NEGRO" now can vote. But there has been no change in New York -- the so-called "NEGRO" still believes there is nothing for which to vote. But at least the Ku Klux Klan is no longer able to terrorize Blacks against voting. Nor are the lives of NAACP workers at risk when they register voters.
        Reverend King proclaimed loudly "No! No, we are not satisfied, and we will not be until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Justice in the legal sense is certainly not rolling down like waters -- the U.S. Supreme Court has moved further to the right than ever. When you add the war on terrorism we see many civil rights gains in the United States in jeopardy.
        Hotels in the United States are no longer restrictive racially but police brutality continues -- e.g., the beating of Rodney King, the anal torture of a Black suspect, and the killing of Diallo. Segregation by law has ended; but segregation in fact persists. De facto segregation in housing, in clubs, in churches has not disappeared. The United States has taken two steps forward, one step backward.
        The Congress has become more Republican and the Supreme Court has become more conservative. The judicial and penal system continues to be hard on Blacks -- 40% of those on death row are Blacks -- more Blacks in jail than in colleges.   The laws against drug abuse and narcotics hit Blacks particularly hard and unfairly.
        Who walked with Martin Luther King Jr.? An Indian assassinated in the 1940s walked with King in the 1950s and 60s. King said: "It is ironic, yet inescapably true that the greatest Christian of the modern world was a man who never embraced Christianity" -- Mahatma Gandhi. To King, Gandhi's protests amounted to a collective expression of Christ-like love.
        The Black predicament in the USA is full of contradictions. Martin Luther King preached non-violence but saw Blacks disproportionately represented in the U.S. Army. Was Muhammad Ali a better Gandhian when he refused to fight in Viet Nam? Is violence in uniform less violent than violence in the streets? With the end of the ideological war, is there an intensification of the racial war world-wide?
        There is the possible birth of GLOBAL APARTHEID. The white world is closing ranks -- there is now greater Pan-Europeanism than anything since the Holy Roman Empire. The European Union is admitting new members. The Cold War has ended a deep ideological split which once existed within the white world. Is the shadow of global apartheid looming over us -- a new racial hierarchy on a global scale? Is there a clash of civilizations between the darker races and the fairer ones?

Towards Globalizing King’s Dream
        Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. was politically molded by two personal forces external to the Black experience. In the case of King the two external personalities were Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi.
        Many people believe that Lenin operationalized Marx from the world of ideas to the world of policy. King believed that Gandhi operationalized the love-ethic of Jesus from the world of ethics to the world of action.
        Both of Martin Luther King’s ultimate mentors were, in a sense, assassinated. The Jesus of Christianity was assassinated through the crucifixion. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a bullet from a fellow Hindu. The crucifixion of Jesus was an act of state terrorism. The assassination of Gandhi was privatized terrorism.
        King used the legacy of soul-force from Jesus and Gandhi as a means to an end. The end was the liberation and dignification of Black people. For Martin Luther King Jr., the union between Jesus Christ and Mohandas Gandhi was indissoluble. If Christianity had been - like Hinduism - a religion based on reincarnation, Reverend King would have wondered whether Mohandas Gandhi was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. At least so far the union between Jesus and Gandhi has turned out to be more truly indissoluble than the union between Marx and Lenin.
        Martin Luther King’s dream remains relevant – but it needs to be globalized. It needs to reconcile not just different races, but different civilizations. This is particularly urgent since September 11, 2001.
        So let freedom ring from the shores of Somalia and the high plateaus of Ethiopia, let freedom ring from the deep valley of the Brahmaputra and Euphrates, let freedom ring from the isles of the Caribbean and the deep recesses of the Amazon, let freedom ring from Hungary to Harlem, from Palestine to Chechnya, from the snows of Kilimanjaro to the winds of Chicago. As we continue to paraphrase Reverend King, let freedom ring from Kashmir to Capetown. We need a global coalition for freedom, and not merely a global alliance against terrorism.
        And when this happens, and when we have allowed freedom to ring in every village and every city, in every country and every continent, we will speed up the day when all God’s children – Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese, indigenous and immigrant, men and women, white and black, Jew and Gentile, Afghan and American, Hutu and Tutsi, Palestinian and Israeli, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Buddhist, Saint and Sinner, will be able to join hands and globalize both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X – “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty! We are free at last!”
        Yet even that powerful line needs cultural globalization.

Thank Ruhanga, Almighty, we are free at last;
Thank Jehovah, Almighty, we are free at last;
Thank Bhagwan, Almighty, we are free at last;
Thank Omuchwezi, Almighty, we are free at last;
Thank Ogun, Almighty, we are free at last;
Thank Mwenye ezi Mungu, we are free at last;
Thank Allahu Akbar, we are free at last;
Thank the heavens, thank the stars, we are free at last.

AMEN to One, Amen to all.

*Delivered as Keynote Address at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast of the NAACP, Portland, Maine, on Martin Luther King’s official Birthday Holiday, January 21, 2002. Also in attendance was the Governor of the State of Maine, the Mayor of Portland, the Chief of Police, and a thousand other guests.

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