El mundo está lleno de posibles
novelas. Hace unos años, leyendo un libro sobre el asesinato de Martin Luther
King, me enteré de que su asesino, James Earl Ray, después de huir de Estados
Unidos, pasó una semana entera en Lisboa, en mayo de 1968. Desde entonces me
vuelve de vez en cuando la idea de escribir algo sobre él, sobre esos días, los últimos que
pasó en libertad, con un pseudónimo muy raro, Eric Starvo Galt.
Novelas posibles, Antonio Muñoz Molina
[Escrito en un instante, 25 de febrero de 2013]
Pero la causa de la justicia y de la igualdad seguía siendo sagrada, ahora más que nunca, la vindicación obstinada de la no violencia, ahora que en los guetos de las ciudades se encendía la furia y que el fuego químico del napalm lanzado desde aviones americanos quemaba en Vietnam a fugitivos despavoridos [...]
Trescientos mil dólares gastaba el gobierno en matar a cada presunto enemigo vietnamita; pero gastaba menos de cincuenta dólares al año en cada uno de los pobres a los que ayudaba tan mezquinamente en América. [...]
La segregación que ya no permitía la ley ahora la fortalecía con más eficacia el dinero. [...]
Como la sombra que se va, Antonio Muñoz Molina
Igual que uno mismo, sus conciudadanos pueden ser decentes o corruptos, bondadosos o malvados, inteligentes o mediocres, y las leyes que los rigen no emanan de un carácter único en el mundo o de una voluntad heroicamente mantenida durante muchos siglos. Son el resultado del azar y el acuerdo, del compromiso imperfecto, de la discordia, de la imitación de otros modelos, y el tiempo revela su posible validez, nunca definitiva, y ayuda a corregir sobre la marcha algunas de sus imperfecciones; no todas, ni mucho menos, porque la inteligencia humana es limitada, y porque como se encargó de recordar Isaiah Berlin, en el mundo real dos fines perfectamente legítimos pueden ser incompatibles entre sí. Todo lo que era sólido, Antonio Muñoz Molina
The Quest for Peace and Justice
It is
impossible to begin this lecture without again expressing my deep appreciation
to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament for bestowing upon me and the civil rights
movement in the United States such a great honor. Occasionally in
life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be
completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meaning can only be
articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. Such is the moment I am
presently experiencing. I experience this high and joyous moment not for myself
alone but for those devotees of nonviolence who have moved so
courageously against the ramparts of racial injustice and who in the process
have acquired a new estimate of their own human worth. Many of them are young and
cultured. Others are middle aged and middle class. The majority are poor and untutored.
But they are all united in the quiet conviction that it is better to suffer in dignity than to
accept segregation in humiliation. These are the real heroes of the
freedom struggle: they are the noble people for whom I accept the Nobel Peace
Prize.
This evening I
would like to use this lofty and historic platform to discuss what appears to
me to be the
most pressing problem confronting mankind today. Modern man has brought
this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached
new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines that
think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar
space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings
to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed
time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. This is a
dazzling picture of modern man's scientific and technological progress.
Yet, in spite
of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited
ones to come, something
basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in
glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The
richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and
spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like
fish, but we
have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
Every man
lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm
of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The
external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and
instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have
allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live
to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life
can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau1:
"Improved means to an unimproved end". This is the serious
predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to
survive today, our
moral and spiritual "lag" must be eliminated. Enlarged
material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of
the soul. When the "without" of man's nature subjugates the
"within", dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.
This problem
of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man's chief dilemma,
expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man's ethical
infantilism. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate
and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial
injustice, poverty, and war.
The first
problem that I would like to mention is racial injustice. The struggle to
eliminate the evil of racial injustice constitutes one of the major struggles
of our time. The present upsurge of the Negro people of the United States grows
out of a deep and passionate determination to make freedom and equality a reality
"here" and "now". In one sense the civil rights
movement in the United States is a special American phenomenon which must be
understood in the light of American history and dealt with in terms of the
American situation. But on another and more important level, what is happening
in the United States today is a relatively small part of a world development.
We live in a
day, says the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead2,"when
civilization is shifting its basic outlook: a major turning point in history
where the presuppositions on which society is structured are being analyzed,
sharply challenged, and profoundly changed." What we are seeing now is a
freedom explosion, the realization of "an idea whose time has come",
to use Victor Hugo's phrase3. The
deep rumbling of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited
masses, rising from dungeons of oppression to the bright hills of freedom, in
one majestic chorus the rising masses singing, in the words of our freedom
song, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn us around."4 All
over the world, like a fever, the freedom movement is spreading in the widest
liberation in history. The great masses of people are determined to end the
exploitation of their races and land. They are
awake and moving toward their goal like a tidal wave. You can hear them
rumbling in every village street, on the docks, in the houses, among the
students, in the churches, and at political meetings. Historic movement was for
several centuries that of the nations and societies of Western Europe out into
the rest of the world in "conquest" of various sorts. That period, the era of
colonialism, is at an end. East is meeting West. The earth is being
redistributed. Yes, we are "shifting our basic outlooks".
These developments
should not surprise any student of history. Oppressed people cannot remain
oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself. The
Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh's court centuries
ago and cried, "Let my people go."5 This
is a kind of opening chapter in a continuing story. The present struggle in the
United States is a later chapter in the same unfolding story. Something within
has reminded the Negro of his birthright of freedom, and something without has
reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has
been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and
his brown and yellow brothers in Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, the
United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised
land of racial justice.
Fortunately,
some significant strides have been made in the struggle to end the long night
of racial injustice. We have seen the magnificent drama of independence unfold
in Asia and Africa. Just thirty years ago there were only three independent
nations in the whole of Africa. But today thirty-five African nations
have risen from colonial bondage. In the United States we have witnessed the
gradual demise of the system of racial segregation. The Supreme Court's
decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools gave a
legal and constitutional deathblow to the whole doctrine of separate but equal6. The
Court decreed that separate facilities are inherently unequal and that to
segregate a child on the basis of race is to deny that child equal protection
of the law. This decision came as a beacon light of hope to millions of
disinherited people. Then came that glowing day a few months ago when a strong
Civil Rights Bill became the law of our land7. This
bill, which was first recommended and promoted by President Kennedy,
was passed because of the overwhelming support and perseverance of millions of
Americans, Negro and white. It came as a bright interlude in the long and
sometimes turbulent struggle for civil rights: the beginning of a second emancipation
proclamation providing a comprehensive legal basis for equality of opportunity.
Since the passage of this bill we have seen some encouraging and surprising
signs of compliance. I am happy to report that, by and large, communities all
over the southern part of the United States are obeying the Civil Rights Law
and showing remarkable good sense in the process.
Another
indication that progress is being made was found in the recent presidential
election in the United States. The American people revealed great maturity
by overwhelmingly rejecting a presidential candidate who had become identified
with extremism, racism, and retrogression8. The
voters of our nation rendered a telling blow to the radical right9. They defeated
those elements in our society which seek to pit white against Negro and lead
the nation down a dangerous Fascist path.
Let me not
leave you with a false impression. The problem is far from solved. We still have
a long, long way to go before the dream of freedom is a reality for the Negro
in the United States. To put it figuratively in biblical language, we have left
the dusty soils of Egypt and crossed a Red Sea whose waters had for years been
hardened by a long and piercing winter of massive resistance. But before we
reach the majestic shores of the Promised Land, there is a frustrating and
bewildering wilderness ahead. We must still face prodigious hilltops of opposition
and gigantic mountains of resistance. But with patient and firm
determination we will press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new
peaks of hope, until every mountain of pride and irrationality is made low by
the leveling process of humility and compassion; until the rough places of
injustice are transformed into a smooth plane of equality of opportunity; and
until the crooked places of prejudice are transformed by the straightening
process of bright-eyed wisdom.
What the main
sections of the civil rights movement in the United States are saying is that the demand for dignity, equality, jobs,
and citizenship will not be abandoned or diluted or postponed. If that means
resistance and conflict we shall not flinch. We shall not be cowed. We are no
longer afraid.
The word that
symbolizes the spirit and the outward form of our encounter is nonviolence, and it is doubtless that factor which made it seem appropriate to
award a peace prize to one identified with struggle. Broadly speaking,
nonviolence in the civil rights struggle has meant not relying on arms and
weapons of struggle. It has meant noncooperation with customs and laws which are institutional aspects of
a regime of discrimination and enslavement. It has meant direct participation
of masses in protest, rather than reliance on indirect methods which frequently
do not involve masses in action at all.
Nonviolence
has also meant that my people in the agonizing struggles of recent years have
taken suffering upon themselves instead of inflicting it on others. It has
meant, as I said, that we are no longer afraid and cowed. But in some
substantial degree it has meant that we do not want to instill fear in others
or into the society of which we are a part. The movement does not
seek to liberate Negroes at the expense of the humiliation and enslavement of
whites. It seeks no victory over anyone. It seeks to liberate American society
and to share in the self-liberation of all the people.
Violence as a
way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not
unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results.
Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of
temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no
social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.
Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction
for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than
win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is
immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and
makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than
dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the
survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
In a real sense nonviolence seeks to
redeem the spiritual and moral lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It seeks to secure moral ends through
moral means. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it
is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man
who wields it.
I believe in
this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken
community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who
through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their
consciences to sleep.
The nonviolent
resisters can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against
injustice despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to
act first. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will
do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is
a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but
if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be
willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when
necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to truth as we see it.
This approach
to the problem of racial injustice is not at all without successful precedent.
It was used in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to
challenge the might of the British Empire and free his people from
the political domination and economic exploitation inflicted upon
them for centuries. He struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury, and courage10.
In the past
ten years unarmed gallant men and women of the United States have given living
testimony to the moral power and efficacy of nonviolence. By the thousands,
faceless, anonymous, relentless young people, black and white, have temporarily
left the ivory towers of learning for the barricades of bias. Their courageous
and disciplined activities have come as a refreshing oasis in a desert
sweltering with the heat of injustice. They have taken our whole nation back to those
great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the
formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
One day all of America will be proud of their achievements11.
I am only too
well aware of the human weaknesses and failures which exist, the doubts about
the efficacy of nonviolence, and the open advocacy of violence by some. But I
am still convinced that nonviolence is both the most practically sound and
morally excellent way to grapple with the age-old problem of racial injustice.
A second evil
which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a
monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and
villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and
shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds
are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages. Most of
these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a
dentist. This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed
industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is
seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves.
Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of
production that history has ever known. We have become the richest nation in
the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding
figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow
citizens - some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals - are bound to a miserable
culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty
of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia.
The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for
the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of
exploitation and underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know
that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they
are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean
of material prosperity. Glistening towers of glass and steel easily seen from
their slum dwellings spring up almost overnight. Jet liners speed over their
ghettoes at 600 miles an hour; satellites streak through outer space and reveal
details of the moon. President Johnson, in his State of the Union Message12,
emphasized this contradiction when he heralded the United States' "highest
standard of living in the world", and deplored that it was accompanied by
"dislocation; loss of jobs, and the specter of poverty in the midst of
plenty".
So it is
obvious that if
man is to redeem his spiritual and moral "lag", he must go all out to
bridge the social and economic gulf between the "haves" and the
"have nots" of the world. Poverty is one of the most
urgent items on the agenda of modern life.
There is
nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it.
More than a century and a half ago people began to be disturbed about the twin
problems of population and production. A thoughtful Englishman named Malthus wrote a book13 that
set forth some rather frightening conclusions. He predicted that the human
family was gradually moving toward global starvation because the world was
producing people faster than it was producing food and material to support
them. Later scientists, however, disproved the conclusion of Malthus, and
revealed that he had vastly underestimated the resources of the world and the
resourcefulness of man.
Not too many
years ago, Dr. Kirtley Mather, a Harvard geologist, wrote a book entitled Enough
and to Spare14. He
set forth the basic theme that famine is wholly unnecessary in the modern
world. Today, therefore, the question on the agenda must read: Why should there be hunger and privation
in any land, in any city, at any table when man has the resources and the
scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? Even deserts can be irrigated and top soil can be
replaced. We cannot complain of a lack of land, for there are twenty-five
million square miles of tillable land, of which we are using less than seven
million. We have amazing knowledge of vitamins, nutrition, the chemistry of
food, and the versatility of atoms. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is
in human will. The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and
oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in
our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream
of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Just as nonviolence
exposed the ugliness of racial injustice, so must the infection and sickness of
poverty be exposed and healed - not only its symptoms but its basic causes.
This, too, will be a fierce struggle, but we must not be afraid to pursue the
remedy no matter how formidable the task.
The time has
come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast
resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and
feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation.
No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for
"the least of these". Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious
tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they
are souls of infinite metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and
worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see
men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have
the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go all out to bridge the gulf
between the rich minority and the poor majority.
In the final
analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied
in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent.
The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor
enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the
interrelated structure of reality. John Donne
interpreted this truth in graphic terms when he affirmed15:
No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe: every
man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the
maine: if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea,
Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie
were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends
or of thine owne were: any mans death
diminishes me, because I am involved in
Mankinde: and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.
A third great
evil confronting our world is that of war. Recent events have vividly reminded us that nations
are not reducing but rather increasing their arsenals of weapons of mass destruction.
The best brains in the highly developed nations of the world are devoted to
military technology. The proliferation of nuclear weapons has not
been halted, in spite of the Limited Test Ban Treaty16. On
the contrary, the detonation of an atomic device by the first nonwhite, non-
Western, and so-called underdeveloped power, namely the Chinese People's
Republic17, opens
new vistas of exposure of vast multitudes, the whole of humanity, to insidious
terrorization by the ever-present threat of annihilation. The fact that most of
the time human beings put the truth about the nature and risks of the nuclear war out of their
minds because it is too painful and therefore not "acceptable", does
not alter the nature and risks of such war. The device of
"rejection" may temporarily cover up anxiety, but it does not bestow
peace of mind and emotional security.
So man's
proneness to engage in war is still a fact. But wisdom born of experience
should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served
as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but
the destructive power of modern weapons eliminated even the possibility that
war may serve as a negative good. If we assume that life is worth living and that man has a
right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war. In a day
when vehicles hurtle through outer space and guided ballistic missiles carve
highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can claim victory in war.
A so-called limited war will leave little more than a calamitous legacy of human
suffering, political turmoil, and spiritual disillusionment. A world war - God
forbid! - will leave only smoldering ashes as a mute testimony of a human race
whose folly led inexorably to ultimate death. So if modern man continues to flirt
unhesitatingly with war, he will transform his earthly habitat into an inferno
such as even the mind of Dante could not imagine.
Therefore, I
venture to suggest to all of you and all who hear and may eventually read these
words, that the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence become
immediately a subject for study and for serious experimentation in every field
of human conflict, by no means excluding the relations between nations.
It is, after all, nation-states which make war, which have produced the weapons
which threaten the survival of mankind, and which are both genocidal and
suicidal in character.
Here also we
have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably
complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether
and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have
ourselves created, it is as imperative and urgent to put an end to war and
violence between nations as it is to put an end to racial injustice. Equality
with whites will hardly solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it
means equality in a society under the spell of terror and a world doomed to
extinction.
I do not wish
to minimize the complexity of the problems that need to be faced in achieving
disarmament and peace. But I think it is a fact that we shall not have the
will, the courage, and the insight to deal with such matters unless in this
field we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual reevaluation - a change
of focus which will enable us to see that the things which seem most real and
powerful are indeed now unreal and have come under the sentence of death. We need to make
a supreme effort to generate the readiness, indeed the eagerness, to enter into
the new world which is now possible, "the city which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God"18.
We will not
build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say
"We must not wage war." It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice
for it. We
must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the
positive affirmation of peace. There is a fascinating little story
that is preserved for us in Greek literature about Ulysses and the Sirens.
The Sirens had the ability to sing so sweetly that sailors could not resist
steering toward their island. Many ships were lured upon the rocks, and men
forgot home, duty, and honor as they flung themselves into the sea to be
embraced by arms that drew them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to be
lured by the Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of his
boat, and his crew stuffed their ears with wax. But finally he and his crew
learned a better way to save themselves: they took on board the beautiful
singer Orpheus whose melodies were sweeter than the music of the Sirens. When
Orpheus sang, who bothered to listen to the Sirens?
So we must fix
our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive
affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a
cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must
transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear
arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative
genius for the
purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the
world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a "peace race".
If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will
unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic
elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.
All that I
have said boils down to the point of affirming that mankind's survival is dependent upon man's ability to
solve the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war; the solution of these
problems is in turn dependent upon man squaring his moral progress with his
scientific progress, and learning the practical art of living in harmony. Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his
papers was found a list of suggested story plots for future stories, the most
prominently underscored being this one: "A widely separated family
inherits a house in which they have to live together." This is the great
new problem of mankind. We have inherited a big house, a great "world
house" in which we have to live together - black and white, Easterners and
Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a
family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can
never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big
world, to live with each other.
This means that more and more our
loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as
a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies.
This call for
a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race,
class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional
love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted
concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a
weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival
of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak
response which is little more than emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force
which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of
life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate
reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate
reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John19:
Let us love one another: for love is of God; and
everyone
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His
love is perfected in us.
Let us hope
that this spirit will become the order of the day. As Arnold Toynbee20 says:
"Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and
good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in
our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word." We
can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of
retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides
of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that
pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the
world.
Let me close
by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to
the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom. In
spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly
meaningful is taking place. Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing
away, and out of the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality
are being born. Doors of opportunity are gradually being opened to
those at the bottom of society. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land
are developing a new sense of "some-bodiness" and carving a tunnel of
hope through the dark mountain of despair. "The people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light."21 Here
and there an individual or group dares to love, and rises to the majestic
heights of moral maturity. So in a real sense this is a great time to be alive.
Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future. Granted that the
easygoing optimism of yesterday is impossible. Granted that those who pioneer
in the struggle for peace and freedom will still face uncomfortable jail terms,
painful threats of death; they will still be battered by the storms of
persecution, leading them to the nagging feeling that they can no longer bear
such a heavy burden, and the temptation of wanting to retreat to a more quiet
and serene life. Granted that we face a world crisis which leaves us standing
so often amid the surging murmur of life's restless sea. But every crisis has
both its dangers and its opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom.
In a dark confused world the kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men.
* Dr. King delivered this lecture in the Auditorium of
the University of Oslo. This text is taken from Les Prix Nobel en 1964.
The text in the New York Times is excerpted. His speech of acceptance delivered the day before in the same place is reported fully both in Les
Prix Nobel en 1964 and the New York Times.
1. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American poet and
essayist.
2. Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). British
philosopher and mathematician, professor at the University of London and
Harvard University.
3. "There is one thing stronger than all the
armies in the world and that is an idea whose time has come." Translations differ; probable origin is Victor Hugo, Histoire
d'un crime, "Conclusion-La Chute", chap. 10.
4. "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around"
is the title of an old Baptist spiritual.
5. Exodus 5:1; 8:1; 9:1; 10:3.
6. "Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka",
347 U.S. 483, contains the decision of May 17, 1954, requiring desegregation of
the public schools by the states. "Bolling vs. Sharpe", 347 U.S. 497,
contains the decision of same date requiring desegregation of public schools by
the federal government; i.e. in Washington, D.C. "Brown vs. Board of Education
of Topeka", Nos. 1-5. 349 U.S. 249, contains the opinion of May 31, 1955,
on appeals from the decisions in the two cases cited above, ordering admission
to "public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all
deliberate speed".
7. Public Law 88-352, signed by President Johnson on
July 2, 1964.
8. Both Les Prix Nobel and the New York
Times read "retrogress".
9. Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater by a
popular vote of 43, 128, 956 to 27,177,873.
10. For a note on Gandhi, seep. 329, fn. 1.
11. For accounts of the civil rights activities by
both whites and blacks in the decade from 1954 to 1964, see Alan F. Westin, Freedom
Now: The Civil Rights Struggle in America (New York: Basic Books, 1964),
especially Part IV, "The Techniques of the Civil Rights Struggle";
Howard Zinn, SNCC: The New Abolitionists (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964);
Eugene V. Rostow, "The Freedom Riders and the Future", The
Reporter (June 22, 1961); James Peck, Cracking the Color Line:
Nonviolent Direct Action Methods of Eliminating Racial Discrimination (New
York: CORE, 1960).
13. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), An Essay on
the Principle of Population (1798).
14. Kirtley F. Mather, Enough and to Spare: Mother
Earth Can Nourish Every Man in Freedom (New York: Harper, 1944).
15. John Donne (1572?-1631), English poet, in the
final lines of "Devotions" (1624).
16. Officially called "Treaty Banning Nuclear
Weapons Tests in Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Underwater", and signed
by Russia, England, and United States on July 25, 1963.
20. Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889- ), British historian
whose monumental work is the 10-volume A Study of Story (1934-1954).
21. This quotation may be based on a phrase from Luke
1:79, "To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of
death"; or one from Psalms 107:10, "Such as sit in darkness and in
the shadow of death"; or one from Mark Twain's To the Person Sitting in
Darkness (1901), "The people who sit in darkness have noticed it
...".
From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor
Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972
Como
ayer era el día
de Martin Luther King su voz está presente casi a todas horas en la NPR,
National Public Radio, la admirable radio pública americana, que es un
manantial continuo de información, reportajes, debates, música, sin más
interrupciones que las listas de los patrocinadores, y a veces las campañas de
recaudación de fondos. La radio pública se mantiene en gran parte gracias a las
contribuciones de millones de oyentes, y eso le da una independencia
y un aliento progresista que tiene también mucho de educación
cívica
para quienes la escuchamos: si algo te importa mucho tendrás que
contribuir algo para que siga existiendo. Recuerdo el año pasado, en
ese mismo día, un programa de varias horas dedicado a la música que amaba
Martin Luther King, y la que fue inspirada por él. Lo último que dijo, al
inclinarse sobre el balcón del Lorraine Motel, unos segundos antes de recibir
el impacto del disparo que lo mataría, fue pedirle a un cantante de gospel con
el que iba a cenar esa noche que se preparara para cantarle su canción
preferida, Take My Hand,
Precious Lord.
Músicos
como Sonny Rollins o John Coltrane modelaron algunos de sus solos en
el saxo sobre las cadencias de los discursos de King. En Berlín, invitado a la
inauguración de un festival de jazz, habló de cómo la experiencia singular de
la esclavitud de un solo grupo humano se había convertido gracias a la música
en un legado universal en el que cada dolor y cada entusiasmo podían
reconocerse. Anoche, en la radio, la voz de Martin Luther King volvió a
estremecerme con esa furia de rebelión y profecía que se acentuó en él hacia el final
de su vida,
cuando ya lo ganaban la extenuación física y el desaliento moral ante la
enormidad de la injusticia, ante el acoso de sus enemigos y la incomprensión y hasta la
hostilidad crecientes de muchos de los suyos. La voz de King tiene
el poderío trágico de los profetas del Antiguo Testamento, y en su oratoria
está la musicalidad solemne de esa traducción de la Biblia al inglés de la que
proceden Walt Whitman y Moby
Dick, y también la de los negro spirituals y los blues, la de los
cantos africanos de llamada y respuesta. La noche antes de morir no tenía
previsto hablar. Se levantó y fue hacia el podio en un arrebato mientras afuera
retumbaba y rugía una tormenta y habló sin apuntes como si supiera que lo iban
a matar y como si ya estuviera muerto.
La voz de Martin Luther King, Antonio
Muñoz Molina [Escrito en un instante, 18 de enero de 2011]
La depresión era un pecado porque lo volvía a uno indiferente a los dones de Dios, resentido contra ellos. [...]
Mientras se afeitaba había sido capaz de mirarse sin remordimiento ni vergüenza en el espejo del cuarto de baño, sin ver en él la cara de un impostor, un pecador devorado por deseos ilícitos, el libertino de las murmuraciones y los chantajes de sus enemigos, los agentes del FBI [...]
Había en el movimiento luchadores fervorosos que se entregaban al ascetismo como a una áspera penitencia perpetua, como si cualquier deleite fuera una frivolidad, una traición a la causa de los oprimidos. [...]
Tener treinta y nueve años lo convertía a él en un viejo, y para mucha gente además, inapelablemente, en un reaccionario. [...]
Levantaban a un hombre hacia una santidad que él no había deseado ni solicitado y luego renegaban de él por no estar a la altura imposible que le habían atribuido. [...]
No hay figura pública que no sea la de un impostor. [...]
Pero la sospecha de la inutilidad de todo era lo más destructivo. [...]
No bastaba la nobleza de los ideales para garantizar la honradez de las personas. [...]
Había sido siempre tan buen hijo que no se acostumbraba a rebelarse contra sus padres. [...]
Pero siempre había un lado sensual en todo lo que le gustaba [...]
Había llegado a avergonzarse en secreto de sus orígenes. [...]
creía que las victorias no sólo podían lograrse, sino además ser irreversibles.
Como la sombra que se va, Antonio Muñoz Molina
