[Laborgreens] Martin Luther King: A Latin American Perspective
joe a. stornello
laborgreens@gp-us.org
Thu, 11 Sep 2003 17:26:56 -0400
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<title>Martin Luther King: A Latin American Perspective</title>
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<h3>Martin Luther King: A Latin American Perspective</h3>
<h4>Ariel Dorfman,
tomdispatch.com<br>
August 29, 2003</h4>
Viewed on September 11, 2003<br>
=
<p>
=
Far away. I was far away from Washington, D.C. that hot day in August o=
f 1963 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous words from t=
he steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I was far away in Chile, twenty-one yea=
rs old at the time and entangled, like so many of my generation, in the s=
truggle to liberate Latin America. The speech by King that was to influen=
ce my life so deeply did not even register with me. I cannot even recall =
having noticed its existence. What I can remember with ferocious precisio=
n, however, is the place and the date, and even the hour when, many years=
later, I had occasion to listen for the first time to those "I have a dr=
eam" words, heard that melodious baritone, those incantations, that emoti=
onal certainty of victory. I can remember the occasion so clearly because=
it happened to be the day Martin Luther King was killed, April 4, 1968, =
and ever since that day, his dream and his death have been grievously lin=
ked, conjoined in my mind then as they are now, forty years later, in my =
memory.
<P>
<P>I recall how I was sitting with my wife Angelica and our one year old =
child Rodrigo, in a living room, high up in the hills of Berkeley, the Un=
iversity town in California where we had arrived barely a week before. Ou=
r hosts, an American family who had generously offered us temporary lodgi=
ngs while our apartment was being readied, had switched on the television=
and we all solemnly watched the nightly news, probably at seven in the e=
vening, probably Walter Cronkite. And there it was, the murder of Martin =
Luther King in that Memphis hotel and then came reports of riots all over=
America and, finally, a long excerpt of his "I have a dream" speech.
<P>
<P>It was only then, I think, that I began to realize who Martin Luther K=
ing had been, what we had lost with his departure from this world, the le=
gend he was already becoming in front of my very eyes. In the years to co=
me, I would often return to that speech and would, on each occasion, hew =
from its mountain of meanings a different rock upon which to stand and un=
derstand the world.
<P>
<P>Beyond my amazement at King's eloquence when I first heard him back in=
1968, my immediate reaction was not so much to be inspired as to be puzz=
led, close to despair. After all, the slaying of this man of peace was an=
swered, not by a pledge to persevere in his legacy, but by furious uprisi=
ngs in the slums of black America, the disenfranchised of America avengin=
g their dead leader by burning down the ghettos where they felt imprisone=
d and impoverished, using the fire this time to proclaim that the non-vio=
lence King had advocated was useless, that the only way to end inequity i=
n this world was through the barrel of a gun, the only way to make the po=
werful pay attention was to scare the hell out of them. King's assassinat=
ion, therefore, savagely brought up yet one more time a question that had=
bedeviled me, as so many other activists, in the late sixties: What was =
the best method to achieve radical change? Could we picture a rebellion i=
n the way that Martin Luther King had envisioned it, without drinking fro=
m the cup of bitterness and hatred, without treating our adversaries as t=
hey treated us? Or did the road into the palace of justice and the bright=
day of brotherhood inevitably require violence as its companion, violenc=
e as the unavoidable midwife of revolution?
<P>
<P>Questions that, back in Chile, I would soon be forced to answer not th=
rough cloudy theoretical musings, but in the day-to-day reality of hard h=
istory, when Salvador Allende was elected President in 1970 and we became=
the first country that tried to build socialism through peaceful means. =
Allende's vision of social change, elaborated over decades of struggle an=
d thought, was similar to King's, even though they came from very differe=
nt political and cultural origins. Allende, for instance, who was not at =
all religious, would not have agreed with King that physical force must b=
e met with soul force, but rather with the force of social organizing. At=
a time when many in Latin America were dazzled by the armed struggle pro=
posed by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, it was Allende's singular accompli=
shment to imagine as inextricably connected the two quests of our era, th=
e quest for more democracy and more civil freedoms, and the parallel ques=
t for social justice and the economic empowerment of the dispossessed of =
this earth. And it was to be Allende's fate to echo the fate of Martin Lu=
ther King; it was his choice to die three years later. Yes, on September =
11, 1973, almost ten years to the day after King's "I have a dream" speec=
h in Washington, Allende chose to die defending his own dream, promising =
us, in his last speech, that sooner rather than later -- mas temprano que=
tarde -- a day would come when the free men and women of Chile would wal=
k through -- las amplias alamedas -- the great avenues full of trees, tow=
ards a better society.
<P>
<P>It was in the immediate aftermath of that terrible defeat, as we watch=
ed the powerful of Chile impose upon us the terror that we had not wanted=
to visit upon them, it was then, as our non-violence was met with execut=
ions and torture and disappearances, it was only then, after the military=
coup of 1973, that I first began to seriously commune with Martin Luther=
King, that his speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial came back to =
haunt and question me. As I headed into an exile that would last for many=
years, King's voice and message began to filter fully, word by word, int=
o my life. After all, if ever there was a situation where violence could =
be justified, it would have been against the junta in Chile. Pinochet and=
his generals had overthrown a constitutional government and were killing=
and persecuting citizens whose radical sin had been to imagine a world w=
here you do not need to massacre your opponents in order to allow the wat=
ers of justice to flow. And yet, very wisely, almost instinctively, the C=
hilean resistance embraced a different route: to slowly, resolutely, dang=
erously, take over the surface of the country, isolate the dictatorship i=
nside and outside our nation, and make Chile ungovernable through civil d=
isobedience. Not entirely different from the strategy that the civil righ=
ts movement had espoused in the United States. And indeed, I never felt c=
loser to Martin Luther King than during the seventeen years it took us to=
free Chile of its dictatorship. His words to the militants who thronged =
to Washington, D.C., in 1963, demanding that they not lose faith, resonat=
ed with me, comforted my sad heart.
<P>
<P>He was speaking prophetically to me, to us, when he said, "I am not un=
mindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulati=
ons. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells." Speaking to us, Dr. =
King, speaking to me, when he thundered: "Some of you come from areas whe=
re your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution =
and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veteran=
s of creative suffering." He understood that more difficult than going to=
your first protest, was to awaken the next day and go to the next protes=
t and then the next one, the daily grind of small acts that can lead to l=
arge and lethal consequences. The dogs and sheriffs of Alabama and Missis=
sippi were alive and well in the streets of Santiago and Valparaiso, and =
so was the spirit that had encouraged defenseless men and women and child=
ren to be mowed down, beaten, bombed, harassed, and yet continue confront=
ing their oppressors with the only weapons available to them: the sufferi=
ng of their bodies and the conviction that nothing could make them turn b=
ack. And just like the blacks in the United States, so in Chile we also s=
ang in the streets of the cities that had been stolen from us. Not spirit=
uals, for every land has its own songs. In Chile we sang, over and over, =
the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the hope that a day would=
come when all men would be brothers.
<P>
<P>Why were we singing? To give ourselves courage, of course. But not onl=
y that, not only that. In Chile, we sang and stood against the hoses and =
the tear gas and the truncheons, because we knew that somebody else was w=
atching. In this, we also followed in the cunning, media-savvy footsteps =
of Martin Luther King: That mismatched confrontation between the police s=
tate and the people was being witnessed, photographed, transmitted to oth=
er eyes. In the case of the deep south of the United States, the audience=
was the majority of the American people, while in that other struggle ye=
ars later, in the deeper south of Chile, the daily spectacle of peaceful =
men and women being repressed by the agents of terror targeted the nation=
al and international forces whose support Pinochet and his dependent thir=
d-world dictatorship needed in order to survive. The tactic worked, of co=
urse, because we understood, as Martin Luther King and Gandhi had before =
us, that our adversaries could be influenced and shamed by public opinion=
, could eventually be compelled to relinquish power. That is how segregat=
ion was defeated in the South of the United States; that is how the Chile=
an people beat Pinochet in a plebiscite in 1988 that led to democracy in =
1990; that is the story of the downfall of tyrannies in Iran and Poland a=
nd the Philippines -- although parallel struggles for liberation, against=
the apartheid regime in South Africa or the homicidal autocracy in Nicar=
agua or the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, also showed how King's pre=
monitory words of non-violence could not be mechanically applied to every=
situation.
<P>
<P>And what of today? When I return to that speech I first heard thirty-f=
ive years ago, the very day King died, is there a message for me, for us,=
something that we need to hear again, as if we were listening to those w=
ords for the first time?
<P>
<P>What would Martin Luther King say if he contemplated what his country =
has become? If he could see how the terror and death brought to bear upon=
New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 had turned his people into=
a fearful nation, ready to stop dreaming, ready to abridge their own fre=
edoms in order to be secure? What would he say if he could observe how th=
at fear has been manipulated in order to justify the invasion of a foreig=
n land, the occupation of that land against the will of its own people? W=
hat alternative way would he have advised to be rid of a tyrant like Sadd=
am Hussein? And how would he react to the Bush doctrine that states that =
some people on this planet, Americans to be precise, have more rights tha=
n the other citizens of the world? What would he say if he were to see hi=
s fellow countrymen proclaiming that because of their pain and their mili=
tary and economic might they can do as they please, flaunt international =
law, withdraw from nuclear treaties, deceive and pollute the world? Would=
he warn them that such arrogance will not go unpunished? Would he tell t=
hose who oppose these policies inside the United States to stand up and b=
e counted, to march ahead, never to wallow in the valley of despair?
<P>
<P>It is my belief that he would repeat some of the words he delivered on=
that faraway day in August of 1963 in the shadow of the statue of Abraha=
m Lincoln. I believe he would declare again his faith in his country and =
remind us of how deeply his dream is rooted in the American dream, of how=
, despite the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, his dream is s=
till alive and how his nation will rise up and live out the true meaning =
of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are =
created equal."
<P>
<P>Let us hope that he is right. Let us hope and pray, for his sake and o=
urs, that Martin Luther King's faith in his own country was not misplaced=
, and that forty years later his compatriots will once again listen to hi=
s fierce and gentle voice calling to them from beyond death and beyond fe=
ar, calling on all of us to stand together for freedom and justice in our=
time.
<P>
<P><i>Ariel Dorfman, the Chilean writer, has just published Exorcising Te=
rror: The Incredible, Unending Trial of General Augusto Pinochet. </i>
<P></replace>
=
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