lanuary 15, 2014
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M a r t in L u t h e r K in g J r .
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Honoring King, Gandhi and Mandela
Their lives show us
what is possible
by
M arian W right E delman
L ast m onth, all across the
w orld people jo in e d together to
m ourn fo rm er South A frican
p resid ent and freedom fighter
N elson M andela. T here w as a
d eep shared sense o f loss at
the p assing o f one o f the rare
hum an beings w ho truly helped
change the w orld.
M andela suffered ex traordinary h ard
ships, spent 27 years in prison, including
18 on R obben Island under the harshest
c o n d itio n s, an d w a lk e d o u t ra m ro d
straight, unbow ed, full o f a spirit o f re c
onciliation, and offering a hand o f peace
and hope. H e becam e the first B lack
P resident o f his country and transform ed
the w ay w e view leadership and our
individual hum an ability to m ake the
im possible possible.
O ne o f his legacies w e can help real
ize and sustain is the N elson M andela
C h ild ren ’s Fund, w hose m ission is b u ild
ing a ch ild rights m ovem ent and ch an g
ing the w ay South A frica treats children
and youths. T h eir w ork includes su p
porting children orphaned by the A ID S
p andem ic, em pow ering children w ith
d isabilities, and p rom otin g youth
leadership.
T h e fu n d d e s c rib e s how
N e lso n ’s M a n d ela ’s last w ish w as
to build a c h ild re n ’s hospital in
Jo h an n esb u rg to serve all children
o f southern A frica regardless o f
race, socioeconom ic status, o r abil-
ity to p a y . T h e N e ls o n M a n d e la
C h i l d r e n ’ s H o s p it a l w ill b e M r.
M a n d e la ’s legacy and lives by his creed
that “a so c ie ty ’s soul is rev ealed by how
it treats its c h ild ren .” I hope w e all
support this fund and hospital cam paign.
In his accep tan ce speech after being
aw ard ed the 1993 N obel P eace Prize,
M an d ela said this about the prom ise o f a
new South A frica: “A t the southern tip
o f the co n tin en t o f A frica, a rich rew ard
[is] in the m aking, an invaluable gift is in
the preparation for those w ho suffered
in the n am e o f all hum anity w hen they
sacrificed e v ery th in g . . . T his rew ard
will not be m easured in m oney. N o r can
it be reck o n ed in the co llectiv e price o f
the rare m etals and p recious stones that
rest in the bow els o f the A frican soil we
tread in the footsteps o f o y r ancestors. It
w ill and m ust be m easured by the h ap p i
ness and w elfare o f the children, at once
the m ost vulnerable citizens in any soci
ety and the greatest o f our treasures.
T he child ren m ust, at last, play in the
open veld, no longer tortured by the
pangs o f h u n g er o r rav ag ed by disease
or threaten ed w ith the scourge o f ig n o
rance, m olestation and ab u se.”
M a n d ela ’s co m m itm en t as a lead er to
South A frica’s ch ild ren w as the ex ten
sion o f a principle that has go v ern ed
leaders o f traditional co m m u n ities for
generations: If the children are w ell, then
all o f us are well.
In his p residential inaugural address,
M an d ela ex p an d ed on his sim ple vision
for all o f South A frica ’s fam ilies: “Let
there be ju stic e for all. Let there be
peace for all. L et there be w ork, bread,
w ater and salt fo r all. L et each know that
for each the body, the m in d and the soul
have been freed to fulfill th em selv es.”
P resident M a n d ela ’s w o rd s e ch o Dr.
M artin L u th er K ing, J r .’s N obel P eace
Prize speech w here Dr. K ing said: “I
have the audacity to b eliev e that p eo p les
everyw here can have three m eals a day
for th eir bodies, ed u catio n and culture
fo r th eir m inds, and d ig n ity , eq u ality and
freedom fo r their sp irits,” w o rd s now
etch ed in stone on the M artin L u th er
K ing, Jr. M em orial in W ash in g to n , D .C .
In S ep tem b er, a statu e o f N elso n
M an d ela w as unv eiled in front o f the
South A frican E m b assy on M a ssac h u
setts A venue in W ashington. C lo se by
on the sam e A venue is a beautiful statue
o f M ah atm a G andhi. A m id st all the
m onum ents to w ars and m ilitary leaders
in o u r n a tio n ’s capital, w e now have
lasting testam ents to three great p ro p h
ets o f nonviolence and peace to guide
o u r actions at this inflection po in t in our
n a tio n ’s and w o rld ’s history.
The lives o f M artin Luther King, M a
hatm a Gandhi, and N elson M andela show
us w hat is possible. L et’s d o n ’t ju st cel
ebrate and m ourn them. L et’s follow them.
Marian Wright Edelman is presi
dent o f the Children's Defense Fund.
Dr. King’s Lessons for Climate Justice
A beloved
community in
which we are all
interconnected
have im agined the p articu lar features o f
global environm ental destruction that we
now face. Yet, he had reflected care
fully on the form s o f action needed to
avert m ass extin ctio n before, so his w ork
can still be useful today in thinking about
directions for the clim ate ju stic e m ove
m ent.
by J osé -A ntonio O rosco
First, King rem inds us to think in term s
F ifty y e a rs ag o , M a rtin
o f the ‘ ‘beloved com m unity’ ’ in which we
L uther K ing Jr. w on the N obel
are all interconnected. T hat m eans that
Peace Prize. O ne o f the m ost
the injustices that w e experience are also
striking aspects o f his acceptance speech
intertw ined. For m any clim ate activists,
is the hope he expressed in hum anity ’ s thinking about racism , sexism , or poverty
ability to o vercom e w ar. T his w as no are side issues; after all, if there is no
m ere idealism on his part.
habitable earth, then those problem s w on’t
L ess than five years earlier, the w orld really m atter. King cautioned against the
had com e to the brink o f therm o n u clear view that injustices could be divided into
destruction because o f C uba. T he U nited neat isolated silos.
States and S oviet U nion ev entually di-
The world, he said, faces the danger o f
m inished their threats and, in 1963, signed the “evil triplets” racism , m ilitarism , and
and ratified an ag reem ent to en d the m aterialism . These are inter-related fea-
o p en -air n u clear testing that w as blan- tures, he thought, that are at the root o f
keting the planet w ith radioactive fallout, w ars o f aggression, such as V ietnam ,
T hese w ere sm all steps, but to K ing, against distant peoples for control o f natu-
they indicated that hum an beings w ere ral resources needed to m aintain the luxu-
capable o f cooperation, even in the face ries o f a few.
o f som ething as horrendous as the-sui-
C lim ate change activists today need to
cide o f the hum an race.
acknow ledge the overlapping system s o f
T oday, the annihilation o f hum anity
injustice that m ake som e people vulner-
loom s again as a possibility because o f able to clim ate dam age m uch m ore im m e-
clim ate change. In 1964, K ing co u ld not diately. It will be poor countries, largely in
the G lobal South, that will suffer the m ost
from environm ental degradation o f air,
water, and soil.
In the US, extrem e w eather - as we
have already seen with H urricanes Katrina
and Sandy — will disproportionately affect
econom ically fragile areas, usually m ade
up o f historically m arginalized com m uni
ties: indigenous people, people o f color,
im m igrants, the elderly, and L G B T Q
people. Clim ate justice activists will need
to build alliances around these diverse
issues, and develop the ally capabilities to
listen to, and lift up, the voices o f disenfran
chised people.
In his last years, King w rote about the
form s o f activism that w ere needed to
confront the evil triplets. He w arned activ
ists not to get trapped by the usual m ix o f
dem onstrations and protest that were hall
m arks o f the early Civil Rights movem ent.
W ith these form s o f direct action, King
believed the m ovem ent had fallen into
“crisis thinking,” that is, reacting to injus
tice after it had already appeared.
C om plex ju stic e w ould require m ass
protests, but it also m eant getting out in
front o f social problem s, and building
alternative civic and econom ic stru c
tures so that people w ould not have to
rely on p roblem atic state o r corporate
institutions. H e called fo r organizing
n eighborhoods and creating div erse net
w orks o f allies that co u ld support one
another. A g lim pse o f this kind o f activ
ism cam e about w hen O ccupy o rg an iz
ers p rovided assistan ce in the w ake o f
H urricane S andy in 2012.
A chieving clim ate ju stic e , then, will
m ean not only protests ag ain st this p ip e
line o r that shipping port, but also w o rk
ing to connect local co m m u n ity g ardens,
alternative currencies, free lib raries and
m edical clinics, into thick w ebs reach in g
across urban and rural areas. T his kind
o f o rganizing w ill enable w idespread
skill sharing and m utual aid, but also
d eliv er a m essage that w as d aw n in g at
the height o f the O ccu p y m ovem ent:
an o th er w orld is possible, and there are
m any across the w orld w ho d esire to
w ork tog eth er to build it.
King believed we had it within us to
avoid m utually assured destruction; he
also thought w e were developing the in
sights and activist resources to radically
align our world to the m oral arc o f the
universe. The clim ate justice m ovem ent
m ight becom e the place where we prove
him right.
José-Antonio Orosco is associate
professor o f philosophy at Oregon
State University where he directs the
Peace Studies Program.