Hysteria of Hate & the Message of MLK
By Azher Quader
Executive Director
Community Builders
Chicago
"Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand." Matthew 12:25
Abraham Lincoln is credited to have had this biblical quote in mind when he made the famous ‘house divided’ speech in Springfield, in 1858, which referred to the division of the country between slave and free states as he declared, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.”
On Aug 28, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr., in the course of his now famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, aiming to subdue the rising tide of anger within the black community gave this warning: “But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” He continued, “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
As we celebrate his legacy on the heels of the recent massacre in Arizona, we cannot ignore these words he uttered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, that are as relevant for us today as they were to the nation in 1963. We may not have slavery to divide us any more as the issue was in the time of Abraham Lincoln, but a century later our country remains bitterly divided just the same over a host of issues. We are divided on health care. We are conflicted on the environment and energy. We are opposed on the wars we are waging in distant lands. We disagree on the distribution of tax breaks. We differ on the road to economic recovery. We fight over gun laws. We kill one another on abortion. It is as if we live in two Americas amidst two warring camps. Each side believing it is right; each side knowing it can do no wrong. Each side convinced of the infallibility of its argument, each side unwilling to seek common ground, each side prepared to undo the work of the other, each side planning perpetually to outdo the other politically, each side consumed in the promotion of its own agenda, each side remaining indifferent to the concerns of the other.
What began indeed as the ‘audacity of hope’ in the autumn of a new election has become the hysteria of hate, in the winter of our discontent. The legacy of non-violent dissent which was to be the hallmark of our mature democracy has again fallen victim to the violence of a trigger happy gunslinger. This time the terror came from within and not from without, was as homegrown and American as baseball, Chevrolet and apple pie.
How many more lives are to be lost before we wake up from the nightmare of gun violence? How many more candles are to be blown before our passion for pistols can be extinguished? How much more blood will have to spilled on the alter of our rights, before our prayers for reason and restraints will be answered?
Let those who argue that guns don’t kill explain, how even a mad man armed with a knife or an axe could have caused the kind of horror and havoc he was able to unleash with a gun in his hand. While the battle over gun control rages on, just as fiercely today as it has done for all these years in America, the clarion call for non-violence made by Dr. King notwithstanding, innocent lives continue to pay the ultimate price. Dr. King paid the price as well. Sadly a nine-year-old school girl, who was gunned down in a blood bath, will never know for what crime she was given this heinous punishment too. More sadly, her grieving family will suffer the wounds of her loss, for the rest of their lives.
Let us hope as we only can, that someday soon, this madness will end and civility if not sanity return to our angry public discourse. www.mycommunitybuilders.com
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