Khrietuonyü Noudi
When it comes to civilizations impacting other civilizations or cultures influencing other cultures, the eastern civilizations have been more influenced and impacted by the western culture rather than the other way round.Whether it is in the field of education, science, technology, discoveries,inventions or philosophies, the western civilizations had always been much ahead of its eastern counterparts. Of course, it cannot be denied that the western civilizations have also borrowed heavily from the eastern civilizations in the field of religion and philosophy. However, the fact remains that the western cultures have spread more dominantly and impacted the lives of people living in places like Asia, Africa and Latin America.
That being the fact, we don’t find it surprising when someone is called the Indian Elvis or the Chinese Aristotle or the Korean Billy Graham. But on and off, there had also been instances of personalities from the eastern civilizations who lived such outstanding lives and contributed so uniquely that even western civilizations were impacted and touched in an undeniable way. One such person who impacted both the eastern and western civilizations alike and shook the conscience of the whole humanity was none other than the great soul, Mahatma Gandhi.
USA emerged as the most powerful nation in the world after World WarII. Prior to that also, USA had contributed so much to the idea and practice of universal principles like democracy, equality, liberty, fraternity, human rights and freedom. This is why USA is called the leader of the free world. Everything that happens in the USA impacts and influences the whole world in one way or the other.
However, the life and light of Mahatma Gandhi had been so luminous that it impacted, influenced and challenged people living all over the world including the great nation of the USA. One person who was greatly touched and inspired by the life and struggles of Mahatma Gandhi was an American named Martin Luther King who lived for only 39 years but himself went on to become one of the greatest unforgettable leaders by employing thetechniques of Gandhi to liberate his people from injustice, oppression, poverty and racism.
It was in the year 1619 that the first Negro slave landed on the shores of Americaand for over 300 years, the Negros lived as slaves in America with no rights, no dignity, no worth and were treated just as commodities. The fact thatthese Negros were also human beings created in the image of God was nowhere near the conscience of anybody in America and thusNegros continued to be treated like animals and worked as bonded laborers with no escape route.
But just as God sent a deliverer to free the Israelites after 430 years of slavery in Egypt, it was like God also sent a deliverer to the American Negroes to free them from slavery, poverty, oppression and racism after 310 years.
Yes, 310 years after the first Negro slave landed on the shores of America, a cute little baby boy was born in Atlanta on 15th January 1929 who would go on to become the rallying point for the American Negros in their fight against racism and slavery. This man was Martin Luther King (MLK)who became such a force in the civil rights movement that he shook the very conscience of America that drastic changes would be made both inlaws and attitudes.
As he was growing up, MLK saw firsthand the step-motherly treatment meted out to his people and he could not remain a silent spectator. The life of MLK was not an easy one. Imagine living in a country where 75 – 80 % of your countrymen hated you and wanted you dead. Such was the life of MLK. In fact he used to tell his close accomplices that he would never live up to the age of 40 because he was hated by so many.
MLK came into prominence in 1955 when widespread protest erupted in the aftermath of the arrest and imprisonment of a Negro woman named Rosa Park after she refused to give her seat to a whiteman in a bus in Montgomery. By the time the 1960s rolled around, MLK was the undisputed face of the civil rights movement. His face was on television screens all over. His words were printed in newspapers. And he became both a hero and a target.
The movement he spearheaded was now known much beyond the borders of America and he became an international celebrity and his struggle for the rights and liberation of his people began to garner support and motivation from around the world.
The fact that MLK was now globallyknown andthat his movement was now internationally acknowledged was evident when MLK became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and also when he was declared the “Man of the Year” by Times Magazine that same year.
MLK was deeply influenced by the life, writings and methods of Mahatma Gandhi and he realized that the fighting methods of Gandhi would be the most appropriate for his fight against racism, injustice, oppression and poverty. Thus he was the one (probably the onlyone) who used the Gandhian methods of nonviolence, passive resistance, civil disobedience and non-cooperation on American soil. So it is no wonder that he came to be known as the American Gandhi. In fact MLK was so much impressed by Gandhi that he even visited India in 1959 to learn more about the man and pay his tributes to the great soul.
MLK was deeply shattered by the assignation of the American president JFK in 1963as it once again awakened the Americans to the reality of gun culture. In fact, upon hearing the news of the murder of JFK, MLK is said to have commented that such a fate would befall him also sooner or later. Thereafter, MLK ferociously fought against the triple evils of poverty, racism and militarism.
In his struggle, MLK was jailed more than 20 times. He fought for the rights and liberation of the black people from racism, unjust laws and segregation.But therewere also black people who disliked him because they thought his methods of fighting were too slow,too passive and too unmanly. But MLK was firm in his believe that the methods of Gandhi were the best. MLK believed that the texture of one’s hair or the color of one’s skin should not be the determinant factor for treatment in a society.
Martin Luther King was a pastor and a great orator and over the years his speeches had and have inspired not only the Negroes for whom he fought endlessly but people of all genres all over the world.
In 1967, King took a bold step that surprised many of his supporters. He spoke out strongly against the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War issue was a sensitive one and many leaders avoided the topic but King was an extraordinary fearless leader. Thus standing at Riverside Church in New York, he delivered a speech named “Beyond Vietnam”. In this speech he called America the greatest purveyor of violence in the world and this line alone caused a political storm. Newspapers turned against him. Donations to his movement slowed down. Even President Lyndon B. Johnson who had once supported the civil rights laws became angry.
By the time 1968 rolled around, MLK had made countless enemies. And he was finally killed on 4th April 1968 while he was in Memphis to support a group of black sanitation workers who were on strike to protest against unfair treatment, low wages and dangerous working conditions.
After his assassination, the doctor who conducted his autopsy said that though MLK was only 39 years old, he had the heart of a 60 year old man. And the doctor attributed this to stress and tension which filled all of his life.
MLK lived a life surrounded by tension and danger all over and he had many haters. But being brought up ina god fearing family mentored by his pastor father,MLKstayed rooted to the teachingsof the Bible and his savior Jesus Christ.
The American society is known as an enlightened, modern, advanced and free society whose enlightened, enriched and filtered ideas and practices are borrowed and used by people from all over the world. But there was a great soul from the plains of India who shone so bright that its light reached even the far corners of the American soil and left its indelible mark. And the undeniable result of this can be seen from the fact that a poor Negro boy born in 1929 and who lived for only 39 years was able to make such an impact on the western civilization using the fighting techniques of Gandhi and shake the very fabric of his society and came to be labeled as “The American Gandhi.”
