Think about it
We remember Martin Luther King Jr.
By Jun Velasco
“Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that,” Martin Luther King Jr.
THERE’s this guy who is hooked in illegal activities–jueteng, fishpens, gambling, etc.– who does not see the point why we have laws.
Could this be something of getting too close to the trees he can’t see the forest?
Or probably it’s a case of when you’ve been in a long or deep-seated habit, including being immersed in the negative, illegal or immoral, it becomes tough to see the big picture already.
So we are defined by our environment?
Which must be why there are still many among us who don’t see the evil or odium of certain acts due to long association. It’s environment defining our reality.
So why reject jueteng when our experience with is good; we receive cash, lots of cash even without working for it. Sinesuerte ka, but why turn your back on what gives lots of cash even if it’s immoral, illegal?
This brings up the question on values. It’s not fair game. It’s stealing because thru it you are promoting an evil, immoral, illegal society. You are violating God’s commandment.
The reason we have laws is so that we have order. Break that and eventually we become a part of creating an evil society.
* * * *
That Socratic wisdom “No man is to be reverenced more than the truth” has guided the excellent reportage and crusading character of the Sunday Punch.
That is why we consider it unthinkable that detractors would just so easily throw mud and venom at the paper when they get a scathing report in its pages. Scathing because truth pricks the conscience.
As history would show, a bullet could not snuff out the paper’s life.
Its voice, its crusade, its battle cry live in. How so?
Because truthful reporting is the voice of God.
* * * *
Speaking of righteous cause, we can’t help remembering Nobel Peace Awardee, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who championed civil rights in America.
When he was young, everywhere in his hometown, he saw the signs, “WHITE ONLY.”
Every time Martin read the words, he felt bad, until he remembered what his mother told him: “You are as good as anyone.”
He became a minister like his father.
And he used the big words he had heard as a child from his parents and from the Bible. He studied the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. He learned how the Indian nation won freedom without ever firing a gun.
Martin said “love,” when others said “hate.”
“Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
He said “together” when others said “separate.”
He said “peace” when others said “war.”
“Sooner or later, all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together.”
In 1955 on a cold December day in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was coming home from work. A white man told her to get up from her seat on the bus so he could sit.
She said “No,” and was arrested.
Montgomery’s black citizens learned of her arrest.
It made them angry; they decided not to ride the buses until they could sit anywhere they wanted. For 281 days they walked to work and school and church; in rain and cold and in blistering heat. Martin walked with them, sang with them and prayed with them until the white city leaders agreed they could sit anywhere they wanted.
“When the history books are written, someone will say there lived black people who had the courage to stand up for their rights.”
Mayors and governors and police chiefs and judges ordered them to stop.
But they kept on marching. They have waited more than three hundred and forty years for our rights. They were jailed and beaten and murdered. But they kept on marching. Some black Americans wanted to fight back with their fists. Martin convinced them not to, by reminding them of the power of love.
“Love is the key to the problems of the world.”
“Remember, if I am stopped, this movement will not be stopped, because God I with this movement.”
“I have a dream that one day in Alabama little black boys and black girls will join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
After ten years of protests, the lawmakers in Washington voted to end segregation.
The WHITE ONLY signs in the South came down.
In 1964, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He won it because he taught others to fight with words, not fists.
In April 1968 he went to Memphis, Tennessee.
He went to help garbage collectors who were on strike.
He walked with them and talked with them and sang with them and prayed with them.
On his second day there, he was shot.
He died.
His big words are alive for us today.”
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