Peace today
In a sermon on peace in 1956, the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Peace is not merely the absence of some negative force—war, tension, confusion, but it is the presence of some positive force—justice, goodwill, the power of the kingdom of God.” He went on to say, “Jesus says in substance, I will not be content until justice, goodwill, brotherhood, love, yes, the Kingdom of God are established upon the earth. This is real peace–-a peace embodied with the presence of positive good. The inner peace that comes as a result of doing God’s will.” His words ring powerfully in our ears today, as we think of the true meaning of peace. Peace, that is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of justice. Peace that is not merely the absence of tension between men and nations, but the presence of brotherhood and goodwill, peace that brings with it an inner peace.
Today, more than six decades after Dr. King’s sermon, war rages on around the world---in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine---while millions of people in Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Korea, Libya, Sudan, Congo, Rwanda, Korea, to name a few places, continue to suffer from the ravages of past wars. Paradoxically, most of these wars have been fought in the name of lofty values such as democracy, and peace. Some of the most successful champions of war---Ted Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama---have even been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
To understand this paradoxical situation, we must look to the history of the modern world. We find that this is simply a continuation of the peace movement of the nineteenth century. As the great historian and sociologist Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois says in ‘The World and Africa’, “The paradox of the peace movement of the nineteenth century is a baffling comment on European civilization. There was not a single year during the nineteenth century when the world was not at war… What the peace movement really meant was peace in Europe and between Europeans, while for the conquest of the world and because of the suspicion which they held toward each other, every nation maintained a standing army which steadily grew in cost and menace.”
To understand the roots of war today, we must once again look to the historical developments leading up to the present moment. In an essay titled ‘The African Roots of War’, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that the race for the theft and pillaging of the labor and resources of the darker nations of the world was the real cause of the first world war. He writes, “... but the ownership of materials and men in the darker world is the real prize that is setting the nations of Europe at each other's throats today. The present world war is, then, the result of jealousies engendered by the recent rise of armed national associations of labor and capital whose aim is the exploitation of the wealth of the world mainly outside the European circle of nations.” Speaking of the methods employed for the theft of Africa, Dr. Du Bois writes in the same essay, “The methods by which this continent has been stolen have been contemptible and dishonest beyond expression. Lying treaties, rivers of rum, murder, assassination, mutilation, rape, and torture have marked the progress of Englishman, German, Frenchman, and Belgian on the dark continent. The only way in which the world has been able to endure the horrible tale is by deliberately stopping its ears and changing the subject of conversation while the deviltry went on.”
The roots of the second world war also lay in the drive for exploitation of labor and resources for the sake of profit, by organized industry backed by military might. In ‘The World and Africa’, written shortly after the second world war, Dr. Du Bois writes, “In America organized industry rose in its might to realize fantastic profits through domination of world industry. It fought labor unions and tried to nullify democracy by the power of wealth and capital... Make no mistake, war did not cause the Great Depression; it was the reasons behind the depression that caused war and will cause it again.” The drive to profit from the exploitation of human labor and natural resources of the darker nations of the world, has led to two world wars, and shows itself most starkly in Africa, whose wealth of natural resources and human labor is still forcibly held in thrall by the erstwhile colonial powers.
Across the world today, from the neighborhoods of America’s richest cities to the masses of people in Africa and Asia, poverty strangles the lives of people, relentlessly tightening its grip. Hunger and homelessness grow in the richest country in the world and possibly in history, while her military expenditures continue to far outstrip the rest of the world, and war and industry work hand-in-hand to ensure the continued accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few.
Why do we find ourselves in this position today? Where along the vast landscape of history, were the seeds of our present world situation sown? The answer brings us back to Africa, and to the transatlantic slave trade. As Dr. Du Bois writes in ‘The World and Africa’, “The slave trade; that modern change from regarding wealth as being for the benefit of human beings, to that of regarding human beings as wealth. This utter reversal of attitude which marked the day of a new barter in human flesh did not die with the slave, but persists and dominates the thought of Europe today and during the fatal era when Europe by force ruled mankind.” Our inability to face this sordid history which continues up to the present day, is the reason for our inability to change our present situation.
Confronting this history is made further challenging by the extent to which it has been wilfully distorted, and this distortion reinforced by culture and the economic organization of the modern world. “A system at first conscious and then unconscious of lying about history and distorting it to the disadvantage of the Negroids became so widespread that the history of Africa ceased to be taught, the color of Memnon was forgotten, and every effort was made in archaeology, history, and biography, in biology, psychology and sociology, to prove the all but universal assumption that the color line had a scientific basis.” This massive effort at degrading human beings in the eyes of the world inexorably led to a moral decay of Western civilization. “A gracious culture was built up; a delicately poised literature treated the little intellectual problems of the rich and well-born, discussed small matters of manners and convention, and omitted the weightier ones of law, mercy, justice, and truth.” While this ‘gracious’ culture was developing, unspeakable atrocities were being committed by Europe against the darker nations of the world. “There was no Nazi atrocity---concentration camps, wholesale maiming and murder, defilement of women or ghastly blasphemy of childhood---which the Christian civilization of Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race born to rule the world.”
Upon the defilement and despoiling of the darker nations of the world, became increasingly dependent, the lives of people and the economic organization of the western world. “The dependence of civilized life upon products from the ends of the world tied the everyday citizen more and more firmly to the exploitation of each colonial area: tea and coffee, diamonds and gold, ivory and copper, vegetable oils, nuts and dates, pepper and spices, olives and cocoa, rubber, hemp, silk, fibers of all sorts, rare metals, valuable lumber, fruit, sugar. All these things and a hundred others became necessary to modern life, and modern life thus was built around colonial ownership and exploitation.” This situation continues today, unabated in essence.
The current distribution of wealth and human services, and the dependence of the ‘civilized’ world on the exploitation of the labor and resources of the darker peoples of the world, survives only by mass concealment. In Dr. Du Bois’ words, “... when the nature of work, its methods and results are hidden behind legal barriers so that a man knows neither what he is doing nor what the results of his toil will be, or who will enjoy it, or why nor whence nor how his income is made, nor at whose hurt or weal; then the opportunity for human degradation is limited only by the evil possibilities of the lowest of men; murder and theft may ensue with no chance to fix the guilt. Not mass production but mass concealment is the sin of the capitalistic system. This is the meaning of African slavery and this is the virus it poured into the veins of modern culture and fatally poisoned it.” Mass concealment, which has become an integral part of the modern world, has indeed fatally poisoned modern culture.
Perhaps its most devastating effect has been a spiritual slavery in which, “we continually set before us the successful rich man as more typical of what America means than the student or the philanthropist or the unselfish man of small income and simple tastes”. This spiritual slavery---the idolization of success, synonymous with a contempt for labor, a contempt for the human being---binds the majority of white Americans and Europeans and increasing numbers of people around the world. This spiritual slavery makes one judge one’s own life---and therefore the lives of one’s fellow human beings---in terms of one’s position on the ladder of socioeconomic status, thus alienating people from the dignity of their own humanity and preventing them from recognizing the humanity of their fellow human beings. The attaching of one’s self worth to one’s socioeconomic status, creates a perpetual fear of falling behind in the race for material success, and isolates one from their fellow human beings, pitting each person against the rest. This shallow view of human life, and the fear and spiritual death it engenders, makes us lose sight of the interconnected nature of our lives, of what makes us human. This loss of human spirit ultimately stands in the way of peace, preventing any possibility of inner peace and draining us of the moral courage required to stand up for outer peace.
On the eve of the last Christmas of his life, Dr. King spoke of the urgency of peace, “No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in this world. Now the judgement of God is upon us, and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools.” If humanity is to survive, we must believe that true peace is possible, that it is possible to build the Kingdom of God, where all men are brothers. We owe it to each other, to our children and the generations to come, to risk it all in the effort to build the temple of peace.
Today, Africa is still in chains---her people do not have control over her land and resources. In the prophetic words of Dr. Du Bois, which have been borne out by history time and again, “Just as far as any part of a nation or of the world is excluded from a share in democratic power and self-expression, just so far the world will always be in danger of war and collapse.”
Freeing Africa is indispensable to peace and democracy in the world, and will require a fundamental reorganization of the economic arrangements of the world. Freeing Africa will require a fundamental change in the way we see ourselves in relation to Africa, and to our own history. Freeing Africa will free us from the necessity of mass concealment, and enable us to face the truth about ourselves and our world. Freeing Africa will free us to finally recognize that all men are brothers, and to live our lives as such.
African civilization has shown us in the past, the glimpses of a society based in peace. On the west coast of Africa “was perhaps the greatest attempt in human history before the twentieth century to build a culture based on peace and beauty, to establish a communism of industry and of distribution of goods and services according to human need.” We need the full flowering of the unique gifts of African civilization to build a truly democratic world, our only hope for peace. As the great African doctor and poet Raphael Armattoe said, “I believe it is specifically the mission of African civilization to restore ethical principles to world civilization. Unless this attempt is made all civilization must come to an end.”
Peace is only possible in a society in which the dignity of man is recognized by the organization of work, and the distribution of wealth and services. For there to be real peace, i.e. the presence of goodwill and brotherhood, each worker must know fully, the results of his toil and its impact on his fellow human beings. Every man must have a voice in determining the conditions of his work, the kinds of goods produced, and the methods of production used, so that his work is a conscious act of service, an expression of his fellow feeling bearing the unique signature of his personality.
To build a society based in peace, we must recognize the ways in which all our lives are interconnected. We must become conscious of the spiritual unity of man, manifest in the majestic love of Buddha and Christ, which speak to the soul of man across the oceans of time. To build a culture of peace, we must revive the living traditions of peace in Africa and Asia which nourished the spirit of man in their civilizations, so we can nurture that human spirit which is present within each one of us.
In a sermon on peace in 1956, the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Peace is not merely the absence of some negative force—war, tension, confusion, but it is the presence of some positive force—justice, goodwill, the power of the kingdom of God.” He went on to say, “Jesus says in substance, I will not be content until justice, goodwill, brotherhood, love, yes, the Kingdom of God are established upon the earth. This is real peace–-a peace embodied with the presence of positive good. The inner peace that comes as a result of doing God’s will.” His words ring powerfully in our ears today, as we think of the true meaning of peace. Peace, that is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of justice. Peace that is not merely the absence of tension between men and nations, but the presence of brotherhood and goodwill, peace that brings with it an inner peace.
Today, more than six decades after Dr. King’s sermon, war rages on around the world---in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine---while millions of people in Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Korea, Libya, Sudan, Congo, Rwanda, Korea, to name a few places, continue to suffer from the ravages of past wars. Paradoxically, most of these wars have been fought in the name of lofty values such as democracy, and peace. Some of the most successful champions of war---Ted Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama---have even been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
To understand this paradoxical situation, we must look to the history of the modern world. We find that this is simply a continuation of the peace movement of the nineteenth century. As the great historian and sociologist Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois says in ‘The World and Africa’, “The paradox of the peace movement of the nineteenth century is a baffling comment on European civilization. There was not a single year during the nineteenth century when the world was not at war… What the peace movement really meant was peace in Europe and between Europeans, while for the conquest of the world and because of the suspicion which they held toward each other, every nation maintained a standing army which steadily grew in cost and menace.”
To understand the roots of war today, we must once again look to the historical developments leading up to the present moment. In an essay titled ‘The African Roots of War’, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that the race for the theft and pillaging of the labor and resources of the darker nations of the world was the real cause of the first world war. He writes, “... but the ownership of materials and men in the darker world is the real prize that is setting the nations of Europe at each other's throats today. The present world war is, then, the result of jealousies engendered by the recent rise of armed national associations of labor and capital whose aim is the exploitation of the wealth of the world mainly outside the European circle of nations.” Speaking of the methods employed for the theft of Africa, Dr. Du Bois writes in the same essay, “The methods by which this continent has been stolen have been contemptible and dishonest beyond expression. Lying treaties, rivers of rum, murder, assassination, mutilation, rape, and torture have marked the progress of Englishman, German, Frenchman, and Belgian on the dark continent. The only way in which the world has been able to endure the horrible tale is by deliberately stopping its ears and changing the subject of conversation while the deviltry went on.”
The roots of the second world war also lay in the drive for exploitation of labor and resources for the sake of profit, by organized industry backed by military might. In ‘The World and Africa’, written shortly after the second world war, Dr. Du Bois writes, “In America organized industry rose in its might to realize fantastic profits through domination of world industry. It fought labor unions and tried to nullify democracy by the power of wealth and capital... Make no mistake, war did not cause the Great Depression; it was the reasons behind the depression that caused war and will cause it again.” The drive to profit from the exploitation of human labor and natural resources of the darker nations of the world, has led to two world wars, and shows itself most starkly in Africa, whose wealth of natural resources and human labor is still forcibly held in thrall by the erstwhile colonial powers.
Across the world today, from the neighborhoods of America’s richest cities to the masses of people in Africa and Asia, poverty strangles the lives of people, relentlessly tightening its grip. Hunger and homelessness grow in the richest country in the world and possibly in history, while her military expenditures continue to far outstrip the rest of the world, and war and industry work hand-in-hand to ensure the continued accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few.
Why do we find ourselves in this position today? Where along the vast landscape of history, were the seeds of our present world situation sown? The answer brings us back to Africa, and to the transatlantic slave trade. As Dr. Du Bois writes in ‘The World and Africa’, “The slave trade; that modern change from regarding wealth as being for the benefit of human beings, to that of regarding human beings as wealth. This utter reversal of attitude which marked the day of a new barter in human flesh did not die with the slave, but persists and dominates the thought of Europe today and during the fatal era when Europe by force ruled mankind.” Our inability to face this sordid history which continues up to the present day, is the reason for our inability to change our present situation.
Confronting this history is made further challenging by the extent to which it has been wilfully distorted, and this distortion reinforced by culture and the economic organization of the modern world. “A system at first conscious and then unconscious of lying about history and distorting it to the disadvantage of the Negroids became so widespread that the history of Africa ceased to be taught, the color of Memnon was forgotten, and every effort was made in archaeology, history, and biography, in biology, psychology and sociology, to prove the all but universal assumption that the color line had a scientific basis.” This massive effort at degrading human beings in the eyes of the world inexorably led to a moral decay of Western civilization. “A gracious culture was built up; a delicately poised literature treated the little intellectual problems of the rich and well-born, discussed small matters of manners and convention, and omitted the weightier ones of law, mercy, justice, and truth.” While this ‘gracious’ culture was developing, unspeakable atrocities were being committed by Europe against the darker nations of the world. “There was no Nazi atrocity---concentration camps, wholesale maiming and murder, defilement of women or ghastly blasphemy of childhood---which the Christian civilization of Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race born to rule the world.”
Upon the defilement and despoiling of the darker nations of the world, became increasingly dependent, the lives of people and the economic organization of the western world. “The dependence of civilized life upon products from the ends of the world tied the everyday citizen more and more firmly to the exploitation of each colonial area: tea and coffee, diamonds and gold, ivory and copper, vegetable oils, nuts and dates, pepper and spices, olives and cocoa, rubber, hemp, silk, fibers of all sorts, rare metals, valuable lumber, fruit, sugar. All these things and a hundred others became necessary to modern life, and modern life thus was built around colonial ownership and exploitation.” This situation continues today, unabated in essence.
The current distribution of wealth and human services, and the dependence of the ‘civilized’ world on the exploitation of the labor and resources of the darker peoples of the world, survives only by mass concealment. In Dr. Du Bois’ words, “... when the nature of work, its methods and results are hidden behind legal barriers so that a man knows neither what he is doing nor what the results of his toil will be, or who will enjoy it, or why nor whence nor how his income is made, nor at whose hurt or weal; then the opportunity for human degradation is limited only by the evil possibilities of the lowest of men; murder and theft may ensue with no chance to fix the guilt. Not mass production but mass concealment is the sin of the capitalistic system. This is the meaning of African slavery and this is the virus it poured into the veins of modern culture and fatally poisoned it.” Mass concealment, which has become an integral part of the modern world, has indeed fatally poisoned modern culture.
Perhaps its most devastating effect has been a spiritual slavery in which, “we continually set before us the successful rich man as more typical of what America means than the student or the philanthropist or the unselfish man of small income and simple tastes”. This spiritual slavery---the idolization of success, synonymous with a contempt for labor, a contempt for the human being---binds the majority of white Americans and Europeans and increasing numbers of people around the world. This spiritual slavery makes one judge one’s own life---and therefore the lives of one’s fellow human beings---in terms of one’s position on the ladder of socioeconomic status, thus alienating people from the dignity of their own humanity and preventing them from recognizing the humanity of their fellow human beings. The attaching of one’s self worth to one’s socioeconomic status, creates a perpetual fear of falling behind in the race for material success, and isolates one from their fellow human beings, pitting each person against the rest. This shallow view of human life, and the fear and spiritual death it engenders, makes us lose sight of the interconnected nature of our lives, of what makes us human. This loss of human spirit ultimately stands in the way of peace, preventing any possibility of inner peace and draining us of the moral courage required to stand up for outer peace.
On the eve of the last Christmas of his life, Dr. King spoke of the urgency of peace, “No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in this world. Now the judgement of God is upon us, and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools.” If humanity is to survive, we must believe that true peace is possible, that it is possible to build the Kingdom of God, where all men are brothers. We owe it to each other, to our children and the generations to come, to risk it all in the effort to build the temple of peace.
Today, Africa is still in chains---her people do not have control over her land and resources. In the prophetic words of Dr. Du Bois, which have been borne out by history time and again, “Just as far as any part of a nation or of the world is excluded from a share in democratic power and self-expression, just so far the world will always be in danger of war and collapse.”
Freeing Africa is indispensable to peace and democracy in the world, and will require a fundamental reorganization of the economic arrangements of the world. Freeing Africa will require a fundamental change in the way we see ourselves in relation to Africa, and to our own history. Freeing Africa will free us from the necessity of mass concealment, and enable us to face the truth about ourselves and our world. Freeing Africa will free us to finally recognize that all men are brothers, and to live our lives as such.
African civilization has shown us in the past, the glimpses of a society based in peace. On the west coast of Africa “was perhaps the greatest attempt in human history before the twentieth century to build a culture based on peace and beauty, to establish a communism of industry and of distribution of goods and services according to human need.” We need the full flowering of the unique gifts of African civilization to build a truly democratic world, our only hope for peace. As the great African doctor and poet Raphael Armattoe said, “I believe it is specifically the mission of African civilization to restore ethical principles to world civilization. Unless this attempt is made all civilization must come to an end.”
Peace is only possible in a society in which the dignity of man is recognized by the organization of work, and the distribution of wealth and services. For there to be real peace, i.e. the presence of goodwill and brotherhood, each worker must know fully, the results of his toil and its impact on his fellow human beings. Every man must have a voice in determining the conditions of his work, the kinds of goods produced, and the methods of production used, so that his work is a conscious act of service, an expression of his fellow feeling bearing the unique signature of his personality.
To build a society based in peace, we must recognize the ways in which all our lives are interconnected. We must become conscious of the spiritual unity of man, manifest in the majestic love of Buddha and Christ, which speak to the soul of man across the oceans of time. To build a culture of peace, we must revive the living traditions of peace in Africa and Asia which nourished the spirit of man in their civilizations, so we can nurture that human spirit which is present within each one of us.