For over 100 years the Ku Klux Klan, White Citizens Council, other hate groups and individuals used terrorism and all types of violence in the United States. They have produced some of the bloodiest years in United States history. There appeared to be no limits to their hate and violence which included lynching of blacks, castration, and bombing of blacks homes, churches and businesses. This same tactic was used against Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., and others during the Civil Rights Movement. As we examine this era, the weapon of Kingian nonviolence was successful. Therefore, it would behoove us to examine some basic aspects of Kingian nonviolence and its application to terrorism and violence. My paper will examine Dr. King’s experiment with nonviolence in the 1960’s and hopefully stimulate serious discussion concerning the Kingian nonviolence application to terrorism today.
We will examine the Kingian nonviolent approach to terrorism and war and then discuss some appropriate responses. However, to achieve a conceptional understanding of the Kingian nonviolence philosophy, there are some basic questions that should be answered. These questions include but are not limited to:
1. What is the purpose of violence and how did Dr. King define violence?
2. What is the definition of terrorism?
3. What are some basic aspects of the Kingian philosophy?
Question #1:
Generally the purpose of violence is to project fear in people to change their thinking or restrict their actions. The Leaders Manual: A Guide to Kingian Nonviolence, written by Bernard LaFayette, Jr. and David C. Jehnsen states that “violence is derived from the Latin word for force&emdash;violare (violate)&emdash;to treat with force.” Therefore, if you lower a persons human potential in any form, you have committed violence against that person. Martin L. King identified the Triple Evils in a society as “Racism, Poverty and War.”
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International Conference on “A Gandhian Alternative to Terrorism and War,” Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, February 7-9, 2002. Sponsored by the International Centre of Gandhian Studies and Research (Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, Gandhi Darshan,Rajghat, New Delhi).
“Racism and its perennial ally—economic exploitation—provide the key to understanding most of the international complications of this generation.” Martin L. King, Jr.
“Poverty is a form of violence. It is an oppression against the human spirit. It is an injustice against the innate worth of every human being. It is a result of inequality rather than a proof of inequality.” Martin L. King, Jr.
“Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete.” Martin L. King, Jr.
Question #2:
The dictionary defines terrorism as “a systematic use of terror” and “a means of coercion.” Usually the purpose of terrorism is to terrify and capture the control of a persons thinking and actions.
Some examples of terrorism in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement:
August 15, 1955 Money, Mississippi, Emmett Louis Till, 14 years old, shot in the head by two white men. His body thrown in the Tallahatchie River with a 75 pound cotton gin fan to his neck. Two white men were tried and found not guilty.
October 22, 1955 Mayflower, Texas, gunmen drove through the black neighborhood shooting into a café, black school, and a school bus. By the time it was all over, 27 bullets had ripped through the community of Mayflower, leaving it black citizens terrified and a 16 year-old boy dead. It wasn’t the first night of terror in Mayflower. In the months since voters had approved funds for a new black school, angry whites had repeatedly driven through town, firing into black homes and vehicles.
January 30, 1956 Martin Luther King’s life was in danger from the moment his enemies recognized the power he held. Klansmen bombed his home in Montgomery. He was attacked by fanatical white supremacists in Selma, Alabama and stabbed by an angry black woman in New York. He spent many nights alone in jail. He received countless death threats. In spite of the danger, he continued to lead with nonviolent principles.
September 15, 1963 Birmingham, Alabama on a Sunday morning at the 16th Street Baptist Church a bomb exploded and killed four young black girls ages 11 and 14.
June 12, 1963 Klan attempted to kill Bernard LaFayette, Jr. a voting rights worker in Selma, Alabama. Later the field office of the Jackson, Mississippi F.B.I., informed LaFayette that he was one of three people marked by the Klan to be killed.
January 31, 1964 Liberty, Mississippi a voter registration worker Herbert Lee, 49 years old was shot and killed by a white legislator. Witness Louis Allen, 45 years old who witnessed the killing was later shot in the face with a shotgun and killed.
Of the countless terrorist acts in the United States before and after the Emancipation Proclamation most were directed toward blacks. A disproportionate number of people, mainly white, were never prosecuted for these acts. Many of the acts were done by law abiding citizens and law enforcement officers. In other instances the Federal Government, Local Government and all forms of law enforcement ignored the terrorism for political reasons or they agreed with their position.
The aforementioned and many others are the terrorist acts King and others successfully responded to with nonviolent methods and strategies which brought about social change in the United States.
As we recite terrorist actions in the United States against its own citizens we must also recognize other countries who were inspired by nonviolent leadership and they too accomplished their goals of freedom and justice through nonviolence resistance.
Question #3:
The basic concept of Kingian Nonviolence is found in, Stride Toward Freedom, chapter VI, “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” written by Martin Luther King, Jr., he explains his intellectual odyssey to nonviolence. Martin L. King, Jr. was eclectic, meaning the Kingian philosophy of nonviolence is composed of elements drawn from various sources. Some of his sources were Walter Rausehenbusch, Karl Marx, Dr. A.J. Muste, Nietzsche, Dr. Mordecai Johnson, Reinhold Niebuhr, Hobbes, Hegel and a host of others.
His academic education consisted of Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.; Crozer Theological Seminary, Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.A; and Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts U.S.A., where he received his Ph.D. It was at Boston University where he learned of Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolence resistance. This approach fascinated him and Gandhi became a very significant influence especially the concept of “Satyagraha” (Satya is truth which equals love, and agraha is force “Satyagraha,” therefore means truth-force or love force.)
“Christ furnished the spirit and motivation, while Gandhi furnished the method.” Martin L. King, Jr.
Kingian philosophy consists of six basic principles that are disciplines of your behavior when you are faced with violence. Following are the Six Principles of Kingian Nonviolence:
1. Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. First it must be emphasized that nonviolence is not a method for cowards; it does resist.
2. The beloved community is the goal. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.
3. Attack the forces of evil not the people during evil. It is the evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.
4. Accept suffering without retaliation for the sake of the cause to achieve a goal. Suffering, the nonviolent resister realizes has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities.
5. Avoid internal violence of the spirit as well as external physical violence. The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him.
6. The universe is on the side of justice. I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose, and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship.
Martin L. King, Jr. was a preacher, educator, and leader of nonviolent campaigns for social justice, in addition he has been recognized as a true American philosopher by the American Philosophical Association. He advocated conflict reconciliation that depicts total change, not conflict resolution that tends to balance, resolve but not solve. In Kingian nonviolence reconciliation is the path to the Beloved Community, as often as you reconcile a conflict you are one step closer to the Beloved Community. It is the character of change that tends to produce a more permanent change in his philosophy, while violence normally produces more violence. The goal of Kingian nonviolence is not to defeat your opponent but to win your opponent over.
As we pursue the Beloved Community, Dr. King reminded us that there are no borders in his definition of community. It is the world community. He also described community as a house, where all people in the world are dependent on each other. Martin Luther King placed high value on the human personality.
“Deeply rooted in our political and religious heritage is the conviction that every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth.” Martin L. King, Jr.
In all situations he advocated a nonviolence response to violence because violence responses tend to escalate the conflict and generate bigger problems. Violence is not a solution, using violence indicates that you don’t have a solution.
Included in Kingian Nonviolence is a methodology for solving problems. It is universal and can be applicable in any conflict, intra or inter, community, national or international. The methodology is called the Six Steps of Kingian Nonviolence. The Six Principles are commonly referred to as “the will” and the Six Steps as “the skill.”
For the sake of brevity and time commitment, I will only list the Six Steps of Kingian Nonviolence and not elaborate on them. I would like to spend the remainder of the paper addressing the topic “A Kingian Alternative to Terrorism and War.”
The Six Steps of Kingian Nonviolence:
1. Information Gathering
2. Education
3. Personal Commitment
4. Negotiations
5. Direct Action
6. Reconciliation
As we apply the Kingian model to terrorism and war, we must emphasize that the Six Principles must be adhered to in all of the nonviolent action the steps generate. Kingian nonviolence is considered a systemized knowledge that if applied consistently there are predictable results.
Gandhi called nonviolence a weapon that knows no failure; King called it a “sword that heals”; Coretta Scott King (King’s wife) calls it a “life long process”; Honorable Andrew Young calls it “aggressive, organized, goodwill”; Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr. calls it “a force more powerful.”; Reverend Doctor Bernice King calls it “love in action.”
King’s study of the German philosopher Hegel, who contended, “truth is the whole” and made famous the dialectical synthesis method and known for his formulation “thesis-antithesis-synthesis.” In analyzing problems he sought the synthesis that combined the thesis and antithesis, instead of the extremes of the thesis and antithesis.
“Here is the true meaning of compassion and nonviolence when they help us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weakness of our condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.” Martin L. King, Jr.
The first step of Kingian Nonviolence is Information Gathering. In this step you are objective not subjective and you don’t have a solution to the conflict. Your facts In-for-ma-tion will give you a clearer vision of the conditions that are keeping the conflict going. Also, you are not ready to solve the problem unless you can articulate your opponents position as well as you can your own and understand how they arrived at their position.
Therefore, we must ask quality questions in this first step including: Do we know the terrorist position? Do we know how they arrived at that position? Can we state their position as well as we can our own? What part have we played in the conflict through complacency, neglect or disregard? What percent of the conflict do we bear? Who else should be included in the reconciliation of the conflict? What is the history of the conflict? What has failed or succeeded in other attempts to reconcile the conflict? Under what conditions does the conflict operate?
Using September 11, 2001 as an example, we have to ask the question, Do we have enough information concerning the conflict in Afghanistan to begin to identify the problem? Do we understand Taliban thinking and how they arrived at their position? What is the history of Afghanistan and other countries concerning the conflict? Are we or have we violated any of their religious practices? Have we been involved in any economic exploitation? What is our foreign policy toward Afghanistan and other Arab countries? Do they see our relationship with Israel as part of the problem?
These questions would lead to many others if we are open minded and mature enough to see our mistakes in the conflict, the solution will become very clear.
It is appropriate to pause here to make sure that it is made crystal clear that I am not trying to justify what was done on September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington, D.C., killing thousands of people. This act was wrong and can not be justified under any circumstance or conditions. Person(s) responsible for this barbaric act must be found and prosecuted. Some people can’t function in a free society for whatever reason and must be refrained from harming society. This does not mean violating their human rights as they are restrained.
However, if we are going to prevent this terrible act from happening again, we must break the silence and ask the hard questions to our government and ourselves. This approach could save our grandchildren from experiencing the same terror and fear instilled in the American society as we stand in a tiptoe position, waiting for the next terrorist strike. Bob Baer, former CIA officer who worked undercover in Afghanistan, wrote in his book “See No Evil” and mentioned on a NBC television news interview on 1/21/02, that “We will be hit again”,
“Violence is the antithesis of creativity and wholeness. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible.” Martin L. King, Jr.
Nonviolence is proactive and attempts to address the underlining problems before the war or violence occurs. However, September 11, 2001 is a fact and must be addressed in a nonviolence response if we want permanent solutions. Nonviolence will not work until you get the active participation of the majority of people of good will or their sympathy. The critical approach in violence is to dramatize the issue appealing to the hearts of people of good will, when the hearts of people are educated it creates a “creative tension” where the injustice can no longer be ignored. History has proven one can not win the sympathy of the majority of the people through war, vengeance and violence.
After the World Trade Center Towers fell and the senseless killing of people, we attempted to educate the masses of people in the world, but in my opinion it was for the wrong reason. It seemed that we were mobilizing for vengeance and retaliation and not to educate a critical mass of people in the world to bring to justice those responsible for the violence in New York and Washington.
Another aspect of Kingian Nonviolence is that it is “inclusive” and “not exclusive.” Our slogan “God Bless America” could have been construed by some international audiences as a selfish, self serving, narrow request. It may have reinforced our enemy thoughts and perceptions by indicating a limited focus on the blessings of God. Maybe a better slogan would have been “God Bless Our World,” which would include our enemies.
“To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe.” Martin L. King, Jr.
Nonviolent Alternative to Terrorism and War:
1. Identify and dialogue with governments and organizations that track terrorist activities and organizations. Expose this information on television in the major languages to the world.
2. Implement the Appeal of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates request to Heads of Stated of all member countries of the General Assembly of the United Nations that, “the first decade of the new millennium, the years 2000-2010, be declared the Decade for a Culture of Nonviolence.”
3. Mobilize and educate women to address the gender violence associated with terrorism.
4. Join with Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr. and the International Nonviolence Conference Series in helping establish 10 Nonviolence Super Centers in ten regions of the globe for the purpose of education, training and research in nonviolence.
5. Encourage governments to increase the number and budget of people working on identifying training and financial support for terrorist groups.
6. Explore the “gaps” in international law that inhibit communications and swift exchange of information concerning terrorist operations.
7. Identify and travel to countries that are experiencing terrorism to train and educate a critical mass of people in nonviolence responses to violence.
Recently the United States Attorney General released the names of five people viewed in a video tape advocating terrorism in the world. He was on the CNN Larry King Live Show educating and encouraging the world population to be on the look-out and report any sighting of the alleged terrorist. The global media is an excellent way where people of goodwill can become involved in identifying and isolating terrorist.
The aforementioned are some suggested nonviolent responses to the terrorism of September 11, 01. The challenge today is to ponder questions should be answered if we are going to create a global nonviolent society.
Some of those questions should be:
- How do we use the new technology to educate and communicate with the next generation concerning a global nonviolent society?
- What types of academic curriculum, training, programs and activities are necessary to achieve a nonviolence society?
- What should the church and other religions institutions do differently?
- What responsibility does the media have and what are things they should be doing to help create a nonviolence society?
- What other types of violence assist in generating terrorism and war?
- What should colleges and other educational institutions do differently to help achieve the goal?
- What role must governments and private businesses assume?
In closing, I encourage participants in this conference to develop additional questions that must be asked and answered by ourselves and others. As we move toward global truth and justice I am confident that we will mobilize, as stated by Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr. “a force more powerful,” in our pilgrimage to a nonviolence society.
Coretta King said her husband’s stance on war was unequivocal. In his last years, he said, “If I am the only person left who believes in nonviolence, I will be that sole person calling for nonviolence. And I will stand with that for the rest of my days.”
Atlanta Journal Constitution, January 20, 2002
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ayres, Alex. 1993. The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England. Penguin Books Ltd.
Halberstam, David. 1998. The Children. New York, NY. Random House, Inc.
King, Martin L, Jr. 1958. Stride Toward Freedom. New York, NY. Harper/Collins Publishers.
King, Martin L. Jr. 1963. Strength to Love. First Fortress Press.
LaFayette, Bernard Jr & Jehnsen, David. 1995. The Leaders Manual: A Structured Guide and Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence: The Philosophy and Methodology.
______ 1989. Free At Last: A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who Died in the Struggle. Published by Teaching Tolerance, A Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, AL
______ 2002. NBC News, January 22, 2002, Interview with Bob Baer, Ex-CIA officer.
______ www.nbcnews.com, Excerpts of: See No Evil, Bob Baer
