Martin Luther King, Jr.
I cannot do justice to the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so I will just talk a little about how he would have felt about a couple of relevant issues to our world today.Content of Their Character
First, he wanted us to judge people by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin.
He made it quite clear in his lifetime that he was not out to replace one kind of racism with another.
So, I believe he would have been supportive of leaders like Bill Cosby, Juan Williams, and Larry Elder, African-Americans who call for blacks and whites to behave responsibly, get educated, work hard, and treat people with dignity and respect, regardless of color, avoiding the crutch of victimhood. I believe he would have been against many of his so-called disciples, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who have preached victimhood to their followers, and sought to divide blacks and whites. Martin Luther King did not work through self-pity, nor anger.
On Iraq
Martin Luther King would have been against the Iraq War probably. He was against all war. I'm not sure if he would have been completely against the First Iraq War, tossing Saddam out of Kuwait, but I'm sure he would have been against the Second War, the invasion.
The Efficacy of Nonviolence
With all due respect, I don't see how Dr. King's tactic of nonviolence would have worked with Saddam Hussein, and this to me shows the limitations of the Peace Movement in general. Nonviolence worked for Mahatma Gandhi and his followers in India because a whole country rallied alongside him to bring down a foreign control over an unwilling teeming mass. Gandhi had one impossible task, to unite his followers in a mission to resist nonviolently. He had a ready audience, though, that just needed a tactic. Violence, as in terrorism, might have worked there too, but Gandhi was right that nonviolence in that case was more effective, and more humane.
Nonviolence would not have worked with Saddam, however, as he would have just beheaded the protestors, as opposed to the "civilized" Brits in India.
When people start to care about things, then you can use nonviolence as a tactic. The Brits cared about people, to a certain extent. They cared bout world opinion; about their finances; and about being the noble imperialists they wanted to be. They cared about law and order, the smooth running of India, and a whole host of things. They also did not want to be seen as cruel.
Saddam cared only about Saddam. He didn't care about people, even his own family; about world opinion; about being noble, as in his mind butchering people was the will of Allah; nor about the finances, as he had all the oil he needed. Nothing could touch him.
Conclusions
Nonviolence is a beautiful tactic, and it works in some situations. When it can be used, it ought to be. We can thank Gandhi and King for demonstrating its efficacy in appropriate situations. Gandhi brought down a whole nation using it; and King started the Civil Rights Movement, which perhaps also needed the hard edge of Malcolm X for completion.
Nonviolence works especially well against decent people who have evolved into abusers, or with abusers who have a spark of decency in them. It's a great tactic to wake the conscience of a nation. It might also work in situations where a mass strike might hurt someone's pocketbook.
It doesn't work well with monsters and tyrants. It cannot awake the conscience nor touch the hearts of those that have neither. Plus, it won't affect those who have nothing to lose from it.
Therefore, nonviolence was an appropriate tactic for India at the time, and for the Civil Rights Movement in the beginning. It is not approprate today for Iraq, Iran, Korea, nor for terrorism, in my opinion.
Rock
(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)
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I think you would be interested in this video about Bernie Meyer who has traveled the world portraying Gandhi:
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