Showing posts with label mlk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mlk. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

martin luther king in science fiction

Over at io9 is a pretty extensive list and discussion of how Martin Luther King has either played a role in, or has been represented in science / speculative / graphic fiction. From how MLK persuaded Nichelle Nichols to keep playing Uhura when she felt like quitting to the alternate future in the Boondocks where MLK was never shot. Check out: Martin Luther King In Science Fiction

Monday, January 17, 2011

another "palestinian martin luther king"

A Palestinian born in the Jabalia refugee camp of the Gaza Strip, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish overcame tremendous odds to earn his MD. As an OBGYN he practiced in both Palestine and Israel, frequently commuting between the two countries. In January 2009, during a three-week long war, an Israeli tank fired two shells into the doctor’s home, killing three of his daughters and his niece. Dr. Abuelaish was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because of his commitment to Israeli/Palestinian reconciliation. He is the founder of Daughters for Peace an organization that provides university scholarships as well as leadership programs on health and education to young women in the Middle East. On January 12 we sat down with Dr. Abuelaish after his public lecture about his new bestselling book, I Shall Not Hate, at the Los Angeles Public Library – a part of their ALOUD series. For further coverage of this conversation and Abuelaish’s bestselling book, you can access Ryan Bell’s piece Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish: the Palestinian Martin Luther King in the Huffington Post. See also: Our Enemy is Our Ignorance: An Interview with Dr Abuelaish

(To be honest, I have reservations about the term "Palestinian Martin Luther King". Although it is good to highlight the fact that Palestinians are making some creative, effective and powerful contributions to the peace process, I also don't want to take away from the specificity of what King did.)

muslims/arabs and the spirit of mlk

From Al Ahram Online: Egypt's Muslims attend Coptic Christmas mass, serving as "human shields" provides a nice counter-narrative to the dominant image of Muslims in the Middle East which somehow seems especially appropriate for MLK day.

In a similar vein, there is the story of Budrus, a West Bank village where the Palestinians used non-violent protest in order to save their land from the Israeli government. (A documentary film about the protest, also called Budrus was recently made and is catalyzing a number of discussions).

The Huffington Post has a brief article about the effort in the article, Civil Resistance to Bring Down the Walls by Ayed Morrar who is primarily responsible for organizing the protests.

Riz Khan on Al-Jazeera leads a discussion with Ayed Morrar along with several of the producers behind the documentary:



Finally, another discussion about Budrus can be found at the Sons of Malcolm blog (which is actually where I learned about the film and the non-violent protests in the first place.

Monday, April 28, 2008

bill moyers and rev. jeremiah wright

Can I just say that I'm starting to hate Fox News? I mean, I already knew that I disagreed with their politics before ("fair and balanced" is really a joke) but I never really watched much of it until this past year. Now after seeing a couple of months of their election coverage I've been awed by their capacity and willingness to kidnap video clips from their proper context and hold them up for political ransom. I think Aaron McGrudder got it right when in the Boondocks episode, "Return of the King" he had an O'Reilly-clone accuse Martin Luther King Jr. of being an unAmerican. "Al-Qaedah-loving", "Commie-bastard." Given the way Fox has been responding to the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it is easy to see that had King been alive today, Fox would go after him with a passion.

In contrast, to hear Rev. Wright speaking about his beliefs, Trinity United's mission and the recent scandal from his own perspective, check out his interview with Bill Moyers at: PBS: Bill Moyers Journal (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) Part I , Part II (transcripts also available)

see also:
there is nothing wrong with rev. wright
jeremiah wright and the black church
actions speak louder than words: rev. jeremiah wright, a true patriot
prophetic and civil religion
the cross and the lynching tree
more from zaid shakir

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

"i have a nightmare"

Black mathematician, Jonathan Farley shares some rather inconoclastic thoughts about King in the recent Guardian piece, I have a nightmare. While Latina blogger, La Chola, responds in "non-violence failed us" Both pieces make me wonder if anyone out there is actually a pacifist anymore? And if we don't really believe in pacifism then what is the meaning and value of King's legacy? Did he only teach us how to take a beating? What do you think?

Monday, January 21, 2008

rerun

I thought I should repost last year's in preparation for mlk day. I especially hope that, given the current conflict in the Middle East. instead of merely looking at, listening to, recalling the "I Have a Dream" speech that folks would also reflect on Beyond Vietnam Also consider: no wonder they shot him.

boycott

I was flipping channels the other day and came across Boycott (a tv movie on the Montgomery Bus Boycott) on BET. The movie was decent but mainly it reminded me of how Jeffery Wright (who played King) is an amazing actor. Every role I've seen him in (in Angels in America, in Shaft, The Manchurian Candidate, Basquiat, Presumed Innocent etc.) have been intense and radically different from one another. The next time I rent some DVDs I'm definitely going to look for more of his films.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

the islamic struggle and ours

Grace Lee Boggs is a powerful, long-time, multi-issue activist who recently wrote a response piece to Lous Baeck's paper "Islamic Views on Globalization". She touches on a subject I've been kicking around on Planet Grenada ever since I've started, namely the relationship between Islam and different forms of Leftist thought (see islam needs radicals)


The Islamic Struggle and Ours by Grace Lee Boggs

In my mind’s eye throughout the holidays has been the image of three million white-robed Muslims peacefully praying and picnicking on their pilgrimage to Mecca in December. At the same time I have been reflecting on “Islamic Views On Globalization” by Louis Baeck, Professor of International Economics and Development at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.

Prior to reading Baeck’s article, like most Americans, I had not paid sufficient attention to the fact that during the last few decades people all over the Third World have been engaged in a search for alternate roads to modernity because the modernity forced upon them by western colonization and corporate globalization has been so traumatic and also because the unrestrained economic development of western societies has had such catastrophic consequences for our planet and for our relationships with one another.

In the Islamic world, according to Baeck, liberal and progressive intellectuals have been searching in their own cultural and religious traditions for a way of thinking that would guide them towards a more democratic and humane modernity. They hope and believe that Islam, unlike western secularism, can provide them with a philosophy that puts morals and ethics, or right conduct, in command of economics and thus a way of thinking that will safeguard their societies from the consumerism and commercialization of all our human relationships which has become the norm in the West, and especially in the United States.

In the Islamic world the 1979 revolution in Iran, which overthrew the U.S-sponsored Shah and empowered the Ayatollahs, is viewed as an expression of this cultural revival.

Since the U. S. military incursions into oil rich- Saudi Arabia and Iraq and the increasingly blatant support by the U.S. of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, this search by Islamic progressives for a non-western road to modernity has been overshadowed by the fundamentalists led by Osama bin Laden. But the search continues and we have a responsibility to explore the possibilities it offers for building relationships of solidarity that can replace the immobilizing fears and suspicions created by 911 and perpetuated since then by the Bush administration and the media.

The Islamic search reminds me of MLKs’s call for a radical revolution in values against the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism as he grappled in the last three years of his life with the crises of the urban rebellions and the violence of American culture at home and abroad.

“The war in Vietnam,” King said, “is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit. We have come to value things more than people. Our technological development has outrun our spiritual development. We have lost our sense of community, of interconnection and participation.”

“Our society has made material growth and technological advance an end in itself, robbing people of participation, so that human beings become smaller while their works become bigger.”

“Instead of pursuing economic productivity,” King urged, “we need to expand our uniquely human powers, especially our capacity for Agape which is the Love that is ready to go to any length to restore community.”

I also see similarities between the Islamic struggle for more democratic and humane roads to modernity and our Detroit City of Hope campaign. Because we have suffered and are suffering the devastation which is the result of putting economics in command, we are making community-building rather than economics the key to the reconstruction of all our institutions from the ground up.