Term Paper on Comparison of King, Gandhi And Thoreau's
Views On Non-Violence And Peace Making
Martin Luther King:
Martin Luther King was concentrated on theology, and was extremely swayed by the
conceptions of Mahatma Gandhi. His enthusiasm for equity, civil rights, and
non-violence emphasized his struggle for the rest of his life. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. was an active figure of the modern time. His lectures and dialogues
influenced the matter of non- violence and glittered the conscience of a
generation. The movements and marches he led brought vital alteration in the
structure of American life through his grit and unselfish dedication. This
dedication gave direction to thirteen years of civil rights movements. His
dynamic and influential leadership motivated men and women, young and old, in
United States and around the world. Dr. King’s conception of ‘somebodiness’,
which signified the celebration of human value and the domination of slavery,
gave black and poor people optimism and a feeling of self-respect and honor. His
conviction of nonviolent direct action, and his approaches for rational and
non-destructive social change, inspired the conscience of this nation and
reordered its privileges. His wisdom, his words, his actions, his pledge, and
his dream for a new way of life are entangled with the American experience.
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King went from the exultant integration of Montgomery's bus system to managing
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. He worked with other black
leaders to advocate civil rights through non-violent ways. This was not an easy
task, however, and he was often at odds with law enforcing agencies as well as
with those who validated King's objectives, but who preferred more militant
tactics. Throughout the early 1960's King cooperated in civil rights protests
and sit-ins. He spoke to advancing large audiences, and in 1963 the gatherings,
demonstrations, and marches were producing daily captions across the country.
Gaining force and impetus, the civil rights movement was irreversible. In the
August 28, 1963 march on Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King stood on the steps
of the Lincoln Memorial and addressed a crowd estimated at a quarter of a
million people. Here he delivered his persuasive and fluent "I Have A Dream"
speech that reverberated all through the population. This is one of Martin
Luther King's most celebrated and dominant speeches.
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting
the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies
it. Through violence, you may murder the liar, but cannot murder the lie, nor
establish the truth. Through violence, you may murder the hater, but you do not
murder hate. In fact violence merely increase hate. So it goes... Returning
violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night
already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness -- only light can do
that. Hate cannot drive out hate -- only love can do that.”
[Dr. Martin Luther King]
In 1964, Martin Luther King was granted the Nobel Peace Prize. More militant
black leaders were becoming more readily eager with King's opinion of
non-violence. He was also becoming more of a spike in the sides of the country's
political leaders. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover was powerful and he
worked hecticly to implicate King’s reputation and his cause. Martin Luther King
enriched from a more auspicious relationship with President John F. Kennedy's
administration, but things became more far-fetched with the government of Lyndon
B. Johnson. Martin Luther King was driven by his beliefs and he protracted
to fight not just for the prosperity of black people, but for all people. In
1968 King was planning for another protest in Washington, D.C. This time it was
to be the Poor People's March to Washington, which King expected, would center
the nation's focus on destitution in America.
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King was at his best when he was eager to shape the wisdom of many of his racial
and national parents. He intelligently controlled their issues to his beliefs to
advance extensive social change. He preached that his initial views on race
failed to shift America fundamentally. He once believed that appeals to
uprightness would demolish prejudice. He later resolved that most Americans were
senseless racists. King professed that he had misjudged how deeply ingrained
prejudice was in America. Now America had to be compelled to counter its
distressing racial legacy. If blacks could no longer adhere on white goodwill to
effect social change, they had to affront social change through greater efforts
at nonviolent direct action. This meant that blacks and their allies had to
grasp political skill. They also had to try to restructure American society,
solving the enigmas of inadequacy and economic disparity. Martin Luther King was
arguably the finest American who ever lived. Now, after more than thirty years,
few people understand how truly revolutionary he was. King's true energy
challenges us to accept the very response that makes King fitting in today's
world.
“My hero is Martin Luther King, because he wanted equality for all people. I
remember listening to him as young child and his words mesmerized me. I want my
daughter to know who Martin was and what he stood for. Martin Luther is my hero
and always will be.” [Paula P from somewhere in Kansas]
Mahatma Gandhi:
Till date nobody in India has achieved anything like Gandhi. He successfully
fought back opposing the British and the despotism they brought with them.
Gandhi was a tiny man, born in the ancient city of Porbandar in 1869, stood up
and said enough to the British. The world got to know him as Gandhi, the mahatma
or "Great Soul" of India. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's early years revealed
little sign of the notable life he would go on to live. He went to school, was
married and later became a rather failed, awfully scanty lawyer. All this
changed, however, one momentous day when Gandhi was refused to take a seat on a
carriage in South Africa. The bigot driver made him sit outside in the hot sun
on a long trip to Pretoria, plainly because he did not belonged to the white
race. Gandhi, until then too shy to even speak in front of a judge, filed a suit
and won. From that point on, Gandhi became the number one spokesman for all
powerless non-whites who were subjugated to racism the world over.
Mahatma Gandhi was a man who lived and died for fairness through the use of
non-violent movement. Gandhi had an extreme impact on his nation and on the
world. He died violently and preached the power of love to conquer hatred.
Gandhi stated that rights accrue automatically to a person who duly carries out
his task. In fact the right to perform one's duties is the only right that is
justifying living for and dying for. After twenty years of supporting his fellow
Indians in South Africa, Gandhi returned to India and picked up the battle
against British injustice. Instead of encouraging native-born Indians to take up
arms and drive the British colonists out of their country, Gandhi built an
approach of non-violent demonstration. Gandhi believed nonviolence as the weapon
for the courageous. For twenty years, non-violent demonstrations, marches and
strikes by the Indians wore down British withstanding. Challenged by a slight
man wearing only a plain cloth and ushered by millions of followers armed not
with arms but passion and love, the British government, in 1946, ultimately gave
India it's long-held dream of independence. The fight for India's freedom had
been won without a fight having ever been fought.
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Gandhi's concept of democracy and the individual's reliability for trusting it
are foretelling for our times of retrogression, apathy, and lawlessness. Two of
his standards alone are essential for a democracy to continue and thrive. First
that, a born democrat is a born disciplinarian" and secondly that, a democrat
must be entirely unselfish. He must think and dream not in terms of self or
party but only of republic. In Gandhi's words, no society can perhaps be created
on a rejection of individual freedom, and that this so-called title of
independence is a fabrication. For Gandhi, freedom meant voluntary control and
discipline, voluntary recognition of the dictum of law. This freedom from all
attachment is the recognition of God as true. It was his firm conviction that if
the State silenced capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the curl of
violence itself, and will fall short to develop non-violence at any time.
Although he rejects class hatred he suggests in its place the ideologies of
satygraha and ahimsa to avert corruption. He concludes that the Capitalist has a
burden to use his skills and wealth voluntarily as custody to help those less
auspicious then himself.
Gandhi was a man that not only discarded autocracy as an evil and capitalism, as
an end in and of itself, but he also constantly abandoned communism and the
socialism experienced in his time. Gandhi's rebuttal of socialism for its
doctrine of class antipathy was a brave act in the 1930's and 40's when it was
contemplated as the rising movement which would clear off the old and bring in a
new order. His words are lucid and concise even over a half-century later they
still resonate.
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Henry David Thoreau:
Born in 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts, Henry grew up in mild beggary and
earlier attended public schools. Through great sacrifice, his family put aside
what they could and enrolled him in the celebrated Concord Academy. At only 16
years old, he took the Harvard College exams and passed it. Henry David Thoreau
spent the better part of his life writing about his endeavor to find reality and
meaning by way of simplified living. He attempted to live within the concord and
beauty of nature and most of all, to live life wholly with a fair conscience.
America consider Henry David Thoreau like it treats its other libertarian
heroes: it disregard their essential libertarian side. Thoreau was too dazzling,
meaningful, colorful, and creative to neglect. He had many sides but his
political thought was fundamental to his spirits.
Today, Thoreau remains almost solely as a fabricator of valuable ideas on the
backside of the civil rights movement. His style of civil disobedience has been
extracted and abstracted from its primary radical libertarian context and made
suited for all types of liberal and left redistributionist causes. To Thoreau,
democracy is far from blessed. It is sanctified that whoever possess might makes
right. After all, Thoreau is very right in his discernment of democracy. Lately,
everyone has observed how power is used for one’s own sake. When the power is
once in the hands of the people, a majority are allowed, and for a long period
continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor
because this look fairest to the minority, but because they are the strongest.
Thoreau further manifests some of his philosophies about the relationship of man
to nature and man to man. Although he rarely sees another human being, he still
feels close to his friends in essence. He knows that physical distance does
nothing to detach two similar hearts or minds. He also cherishes the fact that
friends infrequently come to call on him, and if he is not at home in the cabin,
they leave him small, real presents. Thoreau also perceives he is never alone in
environment. He savors a harmony with the sun, the sky, the trees, the grass,
and the wild animals. In the pleasant company of these natural things, he feels
as encompassed and engaged as a man among his closest friends. He rejects the
likelihood that a man could ever be lonely when submerged in the wonders of the
natural world. Instead, man often believe lonely when he is in a crowd, looking
on the rules of etiquette and courtesy.
In 1849, two years after he left Walden Pond, Thoreau publicized his momentous
essay “Resistance to Civil Government" which was posthumously titled "Civil
Disobedience”. This historic essay emphasized on personal ethics and
accountability. Advocating the simple life, Thoreau’s masterpiece ‘Walden’ put
peace of mind above all else. As we approach the new century, may we all take
the time necessary to relish the precious beauty of nature around us and smell
the fresh roses of normal life.
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