Martin Luther King - can we learn from him 50 years later?

In the depth of his Christian ethos he found strength, resilience and compassion for all.

It is one of the ironies of modern history how many peace-makers have been assassinated. This includes Egypt's Anwar Sadat, Israel's Yitzhak Rabin, and, of course, America's Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Junior. We know, of course, from the times of Socrates, that anyone who challenges the fundamental ethos of an existing order is likely to meet with hostile resistance. How is that challenge to be presented in todays world - and what lessons might King have for us?

In the past few days we saw the passing of Winnie Madizikela-Mandela, anti-apartheid revolutionary activist, whose legacy remains divisive and controversial. The core element of the controversy was her alleged incitement to violent overthrow of the oppressive regime. See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/goodbye-winnie-end-era-claudius-van-wyk/

Mahatma Gandhi

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King - who was committed to non-violent social transformation. And that commitment whilst rooted in his enlightened Christian ethos - was profoundly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's 'satyagraha' approach. King referred to India’s Mahatma Gandhi as ‘‘the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change’’ (Papers 5:231). He reportedly contemplated traveling to India to deepen his understanding of these Gandhian principles. See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/living-systems-leadership-jungs-synchronicity-gandhis-van-wyk/

Albert Luthuli

For South Africans, who are still in the process of painful transition, it would be good to reflect on the relationship between Nobel Prize-Winning activist, Albert Luthuli and Martin Luther King. This is especially crucial at a time when the nation remains divided between Nelson Mandela's renowned conciliatory approach to his former adversaries, and especially the 'white' community', as contrasted to Winnie's more 'unforgiving' approach.

Although Luthuli and Martin Luther King did not work closely together, they were mutual admirers. It is reported that in 1959, after reading King's Stride Toward Freedom, Luthuli told a friend that it was the “greatest inspiration”. Both as a Christian, and president of the African National Congress, Luthuli shared with King the religiously inspired dream of a peacefully integrated society achieved through non-violent means. In December 1959 King in turn wrote to Luthuli of his admiration:

“I admire your great witness and your dedication to the cause of freedom and human dignity. You have stood amid persecution, abuse and oppression with a dignity and calmness of spirit . . . One day all of Africa will be proud of your achievements” (Papers 5:344).

Africa still waits for that day when the deeper humanistic ethos will prevail - as indeed does the whole world. See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/rebooting-our-brains-south-africa-claudius-van-wyk/

Leo Tolstoy

As one of the writers who most deeply guided Gandhi’s political, spiritual, and philosophical evolution, Leo Tolstoy, experienced his own dramatic transformation. From landed aristocrat to social radical, he renounced property and position to advocate strenuously for social equality. It is reported that Gandhi eagerly read Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You, the novelist’s statement of Christian anarchism. That book was described thus by Gandhi in his autobiography “(It) left an abiding impression on me.” After further study of Tolstoy’s religious writing, he “began to realize more and more the infinite possibilities of universal love.”

I have previously referred to Leo Tolstoy's comment, from his great novel, 'War and Peace', that "...the greatest science is the science of the whole". That observation has some profound implications, as I have argued in promoting the holistic view. And that the whole is made up of its constituents - but they become transformed in the whole. This is the philosophical essence of the Christian ethos that informed Tolstoy, that inspired Gandhi, and that motivated Martin Luther King and Albert Luthuli. With this insight Tolstoy lamented: "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." But then he reassures us that: “True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”

From todays insights into complexity science, and our better understanding of the functioning of whole complex adaptive systems, we can see that Tolstoy's insights are deeply significant. We can all influence the 'whole' in some way. Our individual lives matter.

George Leonard

In his inspiring book 'The Silent Pulse' (1986) George Leonard described attending a serrmon by Martin Luther King, accompanied by the famous journalist Cal Bernstein who was so deeply involved in exposing President Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal. King's theme was simple: “Life cannot be fooled”. Leonard evocatively describes this sermon where King declared that injustice universally would be "...overwhelmed by the intrinsically redeeming forces of existence". Leonard confirms that King had been schooled in the philosophy and tactics of Gandhi's satyagraha, as non-violent truth force. Though the message was simple, Leonard nevertheless describes how King preached his sermon in four eloquent modes of discourse; philosophically, historically, religiously, and emotionally. He quoted Nietzsche (whose approach was rejected by Tolstoy), Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and Gandhi. He also supported his case with references to Aristotle’s 'Nichomachean Ethics' (from which has been drawn the holistic insight that 'the whole is greater than the sum of the parts'). But beyond the inspiring rhetoric, King also invited participation in the civil rights movement, which, he assured, offered the chance to join with the flow of the universe, "...at the heart of which could be found forever the creative power of love".      

Cultivation of Solidarity

This theme of active engagement is brilliantly promoted in their book 'Disclosing New Worlds - Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity' (1997) by MIT academics Spinosa, Flores and Dreyfus. There they argue that human beings are at their best, not when they are engaged in abstract reflection, but when they are intensely involved in changing the taken-for-granted everyday practices in some domain of their culture. That, they declare, is when they are 'making history'. But they emphasise, significantly endorsing Tolstoy's lament, that history-making "...refers to changes in the way we understand and deal with ourselves.

Their study has included Martin Luther King's social activism, and they consequently declare the following:

"For King… the principle of equality was not just legal dogma in the United States; it expressed the early colonists’ sense of the infinite worth of every soul, and the practice of agape love, that ought to obtain if individuals appreciated the souls of other individuals."

The authors emphasise that for King the American retreat from equality was not merely a legal problem that had been present with the United States from its constitution. It was increasingly falling away from a concern that was fundamental part of US culture and national life. This was the sense of the founding fathers of being chosen, and consequently, this spiritual equality had been part of American self-understanding from the time of the pilgrims.   

Martin Luther King seized upon that deeper spiritual meaning of being human as intrinsic to the American dream, and challenged ordinary Americans to rise to its potential. See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/heres-why-i-still-believe-america-claudius-van-wyk/

In today's fractured world that ethos, that inspired King, Luthuli, Gandhi, and Tolstoy, appears to have become so contaminated with dogmatic religiosity, that the spiritual baby has all but been thrown out with the muddied bathwater - at least in the West. Yet President Donald Trump goes to church in Washington, and Russia's President Vladimir Putin goes to church in Moscow, as do increasing millions of new Christian converts in China, India and, especially, Africa.

Herein must lie a potent opportunity, and for that to occur it is surely time for a spiritual re-awakening. As Jan Christian Smuts said at the end of the 2nd world war when the talk was about a new world order; "(W)e don't need new orders - we need to return to the true order of the Man of Galilee.