Entry 54. The assassin comes calling

Mahatma Gandhi, who freed his nation with nonviolent civil disobedience, died Jan. 30, 1948, shortly after being shot in the chest while walking  onto the prayer grounds at his home in New Delhi.

A few days before his death, the 78-year-old Gandhi said, “Should I die by the bullet of a madman, I have to do so with a smile. There must be no anger in me. God must be in my heart and on my lips, and you must promise me one thing: Should such a thing happen, do not shed a tear. I have done my deeds for humanity not requested by any human and I cannot stop on request of anybody. I am like God wanted me and I do as he advises me to do. Let him do with me as he pleases. If he wants to, he may kill me. I believe that I do as he orders.”

Martin Luther King, who used Gandhi as a model in his efforts to free his people, died April 4, 1968, shortly after being shot as he stood on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis.

The night before he died, King concluded his last speech by saying, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”

Ramsey Sardonicus was shot by a sniper during the inaugural ball marking his second term as president of the free nation of Colorado; he was 41 years old. Jesus was crucified at age 33. Real life is not so gentle with those of us who seek to lead nonviolent revolution.

It gave me little comfort to know Henry David Thoreau died at home in bed, seeing as Thoreau first contracted tuberculosis when he was 18 years old in 1835 and spent the next 27 years suffering from it on and off before the damn bug finally killed him at age 44. I figured I had a four-out-of-five chance of dying a violent death and a four-out-of-five chance of dying before I hit 45.

And since Thoreau was not an especially public figure until years after he died, I figured the main reason old Henry David wasn’t shot was because he wasn’t famous enough to kill. It was only a matter of time, I figured, before some nutbag came calling at the door. I only hoped I had a chance to talk to the guy before he pulled the trigger.

So, yes, it’s true that when Frederick Miles Masterson stepped in front of me that day as John Hemlock and I strolled along my familiar beach on Lake Ptolemy, I  raised my eyebrows and told the stranger with a smile and just the slightest gasp of recognition, “Oh! It’s you.”

Oh, dear, I think I’ve gotten ahead of myself again.

Entry 55

Entry 35. The man in the jail cell

It’s a little hard to believe, but once upon a time a person’s worth was measured by the tint of his skin color. A little more than 100 years after Thoreau, a man led nonviolent protests against laws that prohibited dark-skinned people from sitting in the same restaurant seats or bus benches as lighter-skinned people.

His revolution, as a darker-skinned man, consisted one day of sitting in a chair reserved for lighter-skinned people in an Earth city called Birmingham. He actually was thrown into jail for this act, and while sitting in his cell, he wrote about the value of taking direct action in a nonviolent fashion:

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. 

Martin Luther King Jr. was successful in shining light on how silly the laws were, and it wasn’t long before dark- and light-skinned people were sitting together in the same places. It was many years, however, before some people got over that weird prejudice. In fact King was murdered by someone who thought he was taking people too far too fast.

He had addressed that issue, too, in the Birmingham jail, because some of his critics argued that the protests came at the wrong time and he would have done better to wait.

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” he wrote. “Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”

Dark-skinned people had to wait literal centuries to achieve justice; the people of Sirius 4 found their freedom in a matter of decades. The reason, in part, was that resisters like King had demonstrated the path to liberty.

Entry 36. March to the sea

Entry 12. They all ended up dead

The first time I ever suggested passive resistance as a solution, I was prepared to be mocked, and I wasn’t disappointed.

I was between my sophomore and junior years in college, and my childhood friend Badiah Sinclair had already begun to make his name as one of the youngest people ever to be elected to the legislature. He had won on the strength of his persuasive passion for an independent Sirius 4, and his faction succeeded in  getting a meeting with the governor and a representative of Earth to negotiate the possibilities.

As college friends do, a group of us were debating the issues of the day while well stocked with beer. And as college students, we were filled not just with brewskis but with ourselves, confident that we were the most insightful observers of the human condition ever to connect two dots.

The independence talks were the main news of the day, and we naturally all had opinions about it. Ralph Emerson was sure they would fail and glad of it – he thought we were still too small a colony to survive as a unified people. Nate Maples was for independence but convinced it could not be won without a war. I was knee-deep in my studies of nonviolence and believed lasting freedom could be won without bloodshed. Ed Raven didn’t believe much of anything; he got his pleasure in finding the flaws to shoot down everyone’s beliefs.

“What, you never heard of Liechtenstein? or Andorra? They did OK,” Ed teased Ralph in one of his weaker efforts.

“Those are little countries on Earth, moron,” Ralph replied. “I’m talking about a whole planet with barely more than  a half-million million people trying to stand on their own against the universe.”

“Why does it have to be ‘against’ the universe?” I jumped in. “Civilization advances faster and farther when we’re not blowing each other up or slicing and dicing people.”

“You really think Earth is going to give up Sirius 4 without a fight?” Nate said. “We have the natural resources to sustain ourselves, including every scarce and precious commodity that Earth is afraid will run out soon. They’re not going to let go unless we cut off their grabby little hands and make it deadly to challenge us.”

“I thought I wasn’t free because I had no gloves, so I beat up a guy who had no hands,” Ed intoned as if he was quoting some famous proverb. Clearly the beer was winning its war against his brain cells.

“Violence just begets violence,” I said. “The best way to win a battle is by using your mind and soul, not your fists. Look at people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus, Ramsey Sardonicus –”

“They all got a lot of people killed,” Nate snapped back.  “Oh, and one more little problem, Mr. Let’s Have Peace – they all ended up DEAD. All those people who said ‘I want to talk this out, I’m unarmed’? Somebody said ‘Good!’ and blew them away.”

For some reason everyone else found that hysterical. Even I had to laugh, although I don’t know why – must have been the brew.

“But they all won, Nate. Don’t you see that? Gandhi and Sardonicus won lasting independence for their countries, King got equality for his people, Jesus founded a whole religion –”

“More people have been killed in Jesus’ name than just about anyone in history,” Ralph said. I had no real answer for that one; I hadn’t met John Hemlock yet.

“Hey, it’s brilliant if you want to try winning wars without hurting anyone,” Nate said with a conciliatory tone. “I’m just saying don’t be surprised if somebody decides to blow you away for it.”

It was kind of a grim thought. Like Moses and the promised land, the leaders who led their people to a nonviolent solution often didn’t live to see their goal achieved.

“I guess that’s the price I’d have to pay,” I said as confidently as I could. I admit I wasn’t eager to march into martyrdom, but there was one positive about the idea. “It would be worth it.”

Entry 13. After class