Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ~ A Legacy of Wisdom

“All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.

Today we celebrate the incredible life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most of us think of him as a warrior for social justice.  And he was.  But roots in his character and associations suggest that at the heart of all he was, he was first and foremost – a peacemaker. 


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In 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end racial discrimination and segregation through the avenues of civil disobedience and other non-violent means. He was also awarded the Catholic Pacem in Terris Award (Peace on Earth).  It is awarded “to honor a person for their achievements in peace and justice, not only in their country but in the world.”

Four years after his work for social justice began in the streets of Montgomery, forcing social issues to the forefront and into the American and international psyche, he began to focus his energies on stopping the Vietnam War and ending poverty. He started a process of shifting, re-sifting, toppling norms and ideologies long held by establishments at odds with anything resembling human dignity and justice. These monumental shifts in the soul of our nation and the world are largely attributed to his courage and his voice.

Oh, but there was more to the man.
I was reminded today that he was inspired by the writings and teachings of another such activist.
When Dr. King visited India in 1959, he came away with a profound respect and understanding of the non-violent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.


He later reflected, “Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”


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He knew how to connect spiritual laws with scientific laws, science with morality, spoken words with unspoken fire, and generations of spiritual evolution into threads of commonalities within all cultures and religions while steadfastly holding to his own. Intrinsic ideas and truths became actions and deeds.


It is always the intrinsic that matters the most.

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What I admire and appreciate about Martin Luther King, more than the amazing dream speech, more than his courage, more than his learned theological spirit, and even more than his political and social causes of injustice and equality, was his ability to intellectually intertwine all of those attributes and aspirations into powerful common sense purpose.  The sum of all those parts made his greatness.
Sometimes we focus on a few shining moments of publicity and grandeur so long that we forget what made him great in the first place. He knew who he was. He stayed in his lane. That was his true genius.
Dr. King surrounded himself with learned men, intimate and scholarly mentors, often controversial, books and a love of words, prayers, and a burning desire to pour out what was inside of him in letters and essays to the rest of us, even from a Birmingham Jail.
Because he honored the wisdom of others, to his credit, we not only find a profoundly cerebral giant among men, we find humility.
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We mostly remember a speech, a bullet, a march, a statue, a remarkable iconic individual – and all those things are to be remembered, mourned, and revered about the man – but what lay underneath is more important to me, because without that brilliant, questioning, analytical ability to connect the dots and eloquently espouse them into one cohesive truth the whole world could understand, there wouldn’t have been a march, a speech, or a movement.



marchpublicdomain.jpgThe rest of his legacy would have been impossible to achieve and he would have become not a shining human light upon a hill of ugly darkness or a seeker of truth in Gandhi’s shadow, but just another speech maker, noise maker, rabble-rouser and activist marching down roads at the whim of every wind with no direction and no clear path. No leader can lead walking blindly around corners of pivotal change and unrest, and take others with him, unless he already knows what lies ahead.
So today I celebrate Martin the man. The thinker. The preacher. The spirit. The leader.
And a man who understood who he was, where he’d been and where he was going.
This is one of my favorite quotes by Dr. King:

“All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” – Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.


How I long for a time when the leaders we see before us in the world today, humble themselves before voices of wisdom gone by.  
May we find ourselves worthy of his fine example. 


Edited and reprinted from a previous version of Mimi Writes

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Investigators Eye Right-Wing Militias at Capitol Riot – The New York Times (Right-wing wannabe-leaders lost in the mental land that “never was” and “will never be.”)

On Sunday evening, Donovan Crowl, 50, a former U.S. Marine, and Jessica Watkins, 38, an Army veteran, surrendered to the authorities in Ohio after they published photos of themselves on social media wearing combat gear and saying that they had stormed the Capitol. They were charged in a criminal complaint with unlawful entry, disorderly conduct and obstructing an official proceeding.

The F.B.I. said Ms. Watkins considered herself the commander of the Ohio State Regular Militia, which is affiliated with the Oath Keepers. In a social media post by Ms. Watkins, Mr. Crowl was depicted with the caption: “One of my guys at the Stop the Steal Rally today.”

Federal prosecutors also unsealed charges this weekend against Robert Gieswein, 24, of Woodland Park, Colo., who they say is affiliated with the Three Percenters.

Mr. Gieswein, who runs a private paramilitary training group called the Woodland Wild Dogs, was among the early wave of invaders to breach the Capitol, court papers said. Photographs from the attack show him clad in a military vest, goggles and an Army-style helmet, wrestling with Capitol Police officers to remove metal barricades and brandishing a baseball bat. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors cited a video of Mr. Gieswein encouraging other rioters as they smashed a window at the Capitol with a wooden board and a plastic shield and then climbing through the broken glass into the building.

Mr. Gieswein was photographed inside the building with another suspect, Dominic Pezzola, a former Marine and member of the Proud Boys, who was charged last week.

After the assault, Mr. Gieswein said in a news documentary interview that he attacked the Capitol to “get the corrupt politicians out of office,” according to court papers, adding, “They have completely destroyed our country and sold them to the Rothschilds and Rockefellers.”

We Need a Global Coordinated Effort to Secure Equal Access to Safe & Effective Vaccines

A healthcare worker at a testing facility collects samples for the coronavirus at Mimar Sinan State Hospital, Buyukcekmece district in Istanbul, Turkey. Credit: UNDP Turkey/Levent Kulu

By Ilze Brands Kehris
GENEVA, Jan 18 2021 (IPS)

A year into the COVID-19 crisis, countries across the globe continue to face alarming levels of pressure on their health and social services. Education and other essential rights, such as water and sanitation, have been severely compromised.

Inequalities and poverty have further deepened with devastating impact on the most vulnerable and marginalised individuals and communities. Many other rights have come under further pressure.

The crisis has required taking necessary and proportionate measures to contain the pandemic, but we have also seen the imposition of opportunistic or unintended restrictions on public freedoms, threats on privacy, curtailment of free speech, overreach of emergency powers and heavy-handed security responses.

It is essential that the pandemic is defeated with a sense of humanity that respects human dignity and human rights for all.

Importantly, going forward in the recovery process, we have a unique if not historic opportunity to change course and rebuild more sustainable, human rights based, socially just and equitable economies and societies as envisioned in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This is also what the Secretary-General’s Call to Action for Human Rights asks from all of us – stepped up and joint efforts to squarely place rights at the core of sustainable development.

Recovering better will require a new social contract that reduces inequalities and prioritises the realization of economic, social and cultural rights for all. Among the first steps to be taken by States should be to reverse the chronic underinvestment in public services.

Prioritizing resources to social protection, health, and education systems is an investment in the future sustainability of our societies.

Food, healthcare, education and social security cannot remain privileges only for those who can afford them; they are, and must be seen, as basic human rights to which all entitled, without discrimination.

This is a defining moment to see economic, social and cultural rights as legally binding commitments, as essential benchmarks for social policy, that are directly related to achieving a speedy and sustainable recovery.

To recover better, we will also need a global coordinated effort to secure equal access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines that can be distributed to all those who need it.

In this context, we must strengthen international cooperation and ensure development assistance and debt relief to reduce inequalities within and between countries and facilitate equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines.

In building forward better, we need to reset our economies, as well as the global financial and debt architecture, to put the protection of human rights, including the right to development, at the heart of economic policies and choices.

The international financial institutions should be encouraged to promote fiscal and policy space for economic, social and cultural rights as an essential part of economic recovery and economic sustainability.

Our Office, OHCHR, has stepped up its work on economic and social rights and in support of the implementation of the SDGs, through its Surge Initiative. This initiative further strengthened the Office’s ability to work on human rights-based economics in support of State’s efforts to ‘build back better.’

The Surge team has worked with States to encourage transformative economies, providing advice on the human rights impact of economic reforms and austerity policies as well as strategies to secure ‘minimum core obligations’ on economic and social rights and link them up to national SDG and development plans.

In this context, OHCHR has provided seed funding to 20 field presences to reinforce sectoral analysis and interventions in the context of the UN COVID-19 response and recovery with the view to assessing those most vulnerably and ensuring that no one is left behind.

Disaggregated data is crucial to the realization of the international community’s promise to ‘leave no one behind’. It helps States, civil society and other partners to better understand and monitor progress for all groups and to develop evidence-based responses that considers, incorporates and benefits equitably all segments of society. National human rights institutions are a critical partner in these efforts.

We have also revamped the Universal Human Rights Index in a way to make it easier for States to see the linkages and synergies between specific human rights obligations and SDG commitments. This is aimed to facilitate efforts of States to work comprehensively toward achieving both agendas, keeping in view the current COVID-19 challenges.

In this context, OHCHR is also continuing its work on human rights indicators and promoting a human rights-based approach to data that expands disaggregation and strengthening collaboration between NHRIs and National Statistics Offices, including in Albania, Kenya, Kosovo, Liberia, Mexico, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Philippines and Uganda.

The Office is also continuing its work on human rights indicators, including for SDG 16 indicators, and to guide the UN’s socio-economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also high on the Office’s agenda is our work on civic space, providing technical assistance to Member States and stepping up cooperation with National Human Rights Institutions, civil society organisations and grassroots movements, including human rights-based COVID-19 response and recovery and implementation of the SDGs.

The recently launched first-ever UN System wide Guidance Note on Protection and Promotion of Civic Space will be a critical tool for UN Country Teams to support and strengthen civil society.

Furthermore, reports and COVID-19 guidance prepared by OHCHR, international human rights mechanisms and other partners such as the Danish Institute carry a wealth of information relevant to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and COVID-19 recovery.

Similarly, the Office will continue to support efforts to strengthen the engagement of National Human Rights Institutions in implementation and reporting on the 2030 Agenda as well as responding to the challenges of the pandemic through human rights approaches.

Recovering better will require concerted efforts to rebuild trust in the institutions of governance, with a renewed commitment to eliminating discrimination, promoting meaningful participation and accountability, and protecting fundamental freedoms. We need to reverse the worrying trend of shrinking civic space, and create platforms – including through the use of online platforms – for meaningful participation of those affected that will help us to draw on people’s unique experiences, resilience, insights, ideas and visions.

I look forward to listening to your views and practical experiences on how we can make this a reality – achieve the 17 sustainable development goals by 2030 on the basis of international human rights standards.

 

The post We Need a Global Coordinated Effort to Secure Equal Access to Safe & Effective Vaccines appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ilze Brands Kehris is Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights heading the UN Human Rights Office in New York

 

Addressing an online event organized by the Danish Institute for Human Rights in conjunction with the Human Rights Council’s third inter-sessional meeting on Human Rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

The post We Need a Global Coordinated Effort to Secure Equal Access to Safe & Effective Vaccines appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Conspicuous Silence as Ugandan President Wins Sixth Term against Bobi Wine | Inter Press Service

The biggest challenge to Museveni is that the majority of voters in this election were not born when he took power. Many were born during Museveni’s reign and did not experience that difficult period in the country’s history.

What they understand are the issues the of unemployment and poverty, which they have to deal with now, with many blaming this on Museveni’s continued stay in power.

Political analyst Dr Samuel Kazidwe says that situation is very fluid and a lot will depend on how the parties react.

“It is not over yet because Preside Museveni must find a way to reach out to Bobi Wine and his supporters and be able to make some concessions. Otherwise we could be headed for trouble,” Kazidwe told IPS. 

Kazidwe said Museveni could learn from the Kenya experience and the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), which was agreed between Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga following a disputed 2017 election.

Kazidwe said that when looking at the election results, it was clear that the whole of the central region had rejectedMuseveni and his party as evidenced by the numbers of votes for the opposition.  

Source: Conspicuous Silence as Ugandan President Wins Sixth Term against Bobi Wine | Inter Press Service

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