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| King had a Civil Rights Dream |
Blogger Note: Good Observation from Mr John Malott. I just copy and paste. Click on the title to get to the link.
by John R. Malott
COMMENT: Today, Jan 19, is a national holiday in the United States.
We
are celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday. King would have been 86
this year. The reality, as we know, is that he was only a very young 39
when he was murdered by a white racist.
The reality also is that through King’s
courageous actions – his willingness to challenge authority, to be
beaten and jailed, and to face death threats many times over – he never
hesitated to stand up for what was right.
Influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and his
theory of non-violence, King not only challenged the corrupt and
illegitimate acts of the political authorities, he also challenged the
silent majority to stand up for what is right. That is why we honour him every year, and
why our country has built a monument to him, standing between those of
Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson.
I know that like me, many Malaysians
admire King. I don’t know whether the new film ‘Selma’ will be shown in
Malaysia or not. It has just been nominated for the Academy Award as
Best Picture of the Year. The film shows King as a man who is fallible,
but who nevertheless was able to separate his own personal failings and
misgivings from the mission that he had set for himself and his people.
It shows a man who kept going forward –
no matter the challenge, no matter the personal threats, no matter the
self-doubt, no matter the family problems.
Reminiscent of Malaysia
At the end of the film, King arrives at
the State Capitol building in southern Alabama to confront the white
power structure. He makes a speech on the Capitol steps. It was
interesting to watch, because some of the lines reminded me of the
situation in Malaysia today. So I went to the Internet and read the
actual speech he made.
It is called his ‘How long, not long’ speech, because he said this:
"How long? Not long, because no lie can
live forever.
How long? Not long, because you shall reap what you sow.
How
long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it
bends toward justice.”
King talked about how the white elites of
the South used racist rhetoric and laws not only to keep the blacks
down, but just as important, to also “bamboozle” and confuse the poorer
whites into voting for them.
The corrupt white elites wanted their
poorer cousins to believe that their rule and laws would improve the lot
of the white race. The white elites needed to spew their racist
rhetoric to get votes and keep themselves in power – so they could keep
themselves and their friends and cronies rich.
As for the poor, less educated, rural
whites, they believed what the white elites had to say. Their lives were
not getting that much better, so they needed a reason why. They saw the
black man and his demands for equality as a threat, because the elite
told them it was.
The UMNO elites
And when the “northern liberals” got
involved in the discussion (in Malaysia, think of them the same as human
rights NGOs or meddling foreigners), the anger of the Southern whites
mounted.
But the downtrodden whites believed what
the powers had to say, so they kept on voting for the white political
elite. They kept on supporting special privileges and laws for the white
race, because they believed – despite years of evidence to the contrary
– that it would help them. Vladimir Lenin would have called such people
“useful idiots.”
They also thought they were entitled to
those special privileges, because they believed in white supremacy. Sort
of like “ketuanan putih.” Whites in America called it “white
privilege.”
But after years and years, nothing ever
changed. The white elites got rich, but the poor whites stayed poor.
And
then the cycle began again. When the poor whites wondered why they
still were not doing well, the answer came back from the elites. “Blame
the blacks. Blame the Northerners. Blame someone else for your
misfortune – but never blame us. We are here to defend your rights.”
Comparison with Malaysia?
I have often thought about the poor
Malays, and how they are told time and time again by the Malay political
elite (read UMNO) that their race and their religion are under threat,
so vote for us. We will protect you.
In Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s days, the threat
came from the Americans, the ‘orang putih’, the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund, Wall Street, and other evil “people in the
West who want to recolonise us.”
Under Najib, the threat is now the Chinese tsunami, the opposition, and anyone who spouts Western, humanist, or liberal views.
Yet I have one simple question. UMNO has
run Malaysia for 57 years. The government, the civil service, the
schools and universities, the courts, the press and television, the
military, and the Police are over 90 percent Malay-controlled. The UMNO
government decides who in the business world gets the contracts, which
too often are “no-bid.”
JAKIM, JAWI and other UMNO
controlled-government religious affairs departments decree what the
sermons are every Friday in the mosques.
So it’s a very simple question. When
UMNO has ruled and controlled the country for almost six decades, how
can the Malay race and the Muslim religion be under threat? Why are the
Malays still poor overall, when KL has more millionaires than any city in the world?
READ:
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/kuala-lumpur-tops-global-rich-list-with-13800-millionaires
How long? It is something to think about on Martin Luther King Day.
*JOHN R MALOTT is former US Ambassador to Malaysia. He lives in Alexandria, near Washington DC
