GUEST OPINION, Jan. 17
By: Patrick W. Gavin
On Monday, the United States will celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday, one of only two such days celebrated in name (Columbus Day is the other). We will hear stories of his battles with segregation, his eloquent speech in Washington and his fight for voting rights. This is the Martin Luther King Jr. with whom America is comfortable. These are the aspects of his life that we have come to embrace and honor because they are the safe parts.
America’s commemoration of Dr. King’s life is only partial. There was more to the man than simply desegregated lunch counters and moving rhetoric. The politics Dr. King espoused toward the end of his life and the part that America has effectively ignored may, in fact, provide some invaluable lessons, given the current international climate.
Dr. King became a vocal critic of American foreign policy, denouncing America’s "giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism," and calling the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Across the globe, from Vietnam to Asia to Latin America, Dr. King believed the United States was "on the wrong side of a world revolution."
What, then, would Dr. King make of our current war on terrorism? Although terrorism poses historically new and unique threats, communism in Dr. King’s time presented an equally menacing peril. As a man who shockingly asked his followers to "love your enemies," it is doubtful that he would embrace some of the jingoism and war fever that has gripped this nation since Sept. 11. How to reconcile Dr. King’s belief in "turning the other cheek" with President Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive strikes?
It is equally unlikely that Dr. King, who warned that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death," would support the potentially $200 billion price tag put on a war with Iraq, especially when Iraq’s link to the events of Sept. 11 is nebulous at best, and when there are serious economic concerns here at home.
In his time, such positions by Dr. King were called "demagogic slander" by Time magazine. The Washington Post quipped that "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people." The FBI dubbed him the "most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country."
In light of current events, Dr. King would remind us that citizens everywhere Muslims and Christians and Iraqis and Koreans and Americans alike are united in "a single garment of destiny" and that no nation should act unilaterally. He would assert (and, in turn, garner great criticism) that it is only through treating our enemies as children of God that we will ever create true global security. And, even in the face of nuclear war, he would hold steadfast to his belief in the power of non-violence.
More than ever this year, we ought to rediscover the life of Martin LutherKing Jr. in its entirety both the easy and the challenging parts. We may find that, once again, the man has a great deal to teach us.
Patrick W. Gavin teaches U.S. history at Princeton Day School.

