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GUEST: Thandisizwe Chimurenga, writer, activist, and the Director of the Ida B. Wells Institute.

From Anbar Province to the Harbor Gateway, militarism will never be the answer

According to Coretta Scott King, a set of notes for a speech that her husband Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had never delivered, were taken from his pocket following his murder in Memphis, TN on April 4, 1968. She had hurried to Memphis hours after his death and represented him the following day at a march of striking sanitation workers that had requested Dr. King’s presence. At the end of the month on April 27, 1968 Mrs. King took these notes and read from them at an anti-war rally her husband was supposed to address in Sheep Meadow, New York. The notes were entitled “10 Commandments on Vietnam.”

If the references to Vietnam and communism in these notes were removed and the words Iraq and terrorism were substituted, one would not think that they had been written by Dr. King almost 40 years ago; one would think that someone else had jotted them down immediately after Pres. Bush addressed the nation last week calling for 21,000 more troops to be deployed to Iraq:

Thou shalt not believe in a military victory
Thou shalt not believe in a political victory
Thou shalt not believe that they, the Vietnamese, love us
Thou shalt not believe that the Saigon government has the support of the people
Thou shalt not believe that the majority of the south Vietnamese look upon the Vietcong as terrorists.
Thou shalt not believe the figures of killed enemies or killed Americans
Thou shalt not believe that the generals know best
Thou shalt not believe that the enemy’s victory means communism
Thou shalt not believe that the world supports the United States
Thou shalt not kill

In addition to reading her husband’s notes, Mrs. King offered her own words to those assembled at the rally. “My husband always saw the problem of racism and poverty here at home and militarism abroad as two sides of the same coin,” she said. “In fact, it is even very clear that our policy at home is to try to solve social problems through military means just as we have done abroad. The interrelatedness of domestic and foreign affairs is no longer questioned. The bombs we drop on the people of Vietnam continue to explode at home with all of their devastating potential.”

The bombs and spent shell casings that litter the neighborhoods of Fallujah, Tikrit and Basra continuously reverberate throughout South Los Angeles and the South Bay. Monies spent on these armaments should have gone to the kinds of programs that provide prevention, intervention and life-sustaining support in our communities, yet only a militarist solution of more police is touted as what is needed.

Just as the armed forces destroy the infrastructure of the nations they occupy overseas, police and prisons ultimately destroy the spirit of commonality and interconnectedness in our communities that insure true security.

Gang Injunctions and police sweeps may appear to be successful but in the final analysis, what they ultimately provide is a temporary and false security, continued division and antagonisms, and an unhealthy reliance on those who do not have our best interests at heart. These types of tangible results will never bring the true healing needed in our communities.

For Black and Brown folks, honest dialogue, a commitment to work through our issues and a healthy dose of self-preservation should be the primary weapons in our arsenal. Let the war for unity in the community begin.

Thandisizwe Chimurenga is a writer, activist, and the director of the Ida B. Wells Institute.
She can be reached at idabwellsinstitute@gmail.com