The following is from the speech "On the Mindlss Menace of Violence" by Robert Kenndey on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and two months before his own assassination:
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason [....]
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter [...]
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence [...]
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
***
A group of my friends and I listened to these words as we watched the 2006 movie Bobby, We could not help but notice the parallels between the events portrayed in 1968 and our time in 2008. The nation was at war, hatred filled the streets, and there was a great longing for peace. I struggle many times with the ideas of non-violence and how to make it work on a macro level in these complex times. I do not presume to know the answers and I do not wish to tell smarter people what to do. The only thing I do know is that this world of violence is not what God envisioned for all his children. I know that my sister has traveled the countries of
And yet, we think of peace on a world-wide level and we cannot even keep peace in our own churches or in our own communities or in our own families. How can I preach peace when I still harbor anger and rage in my own heart and mind? We truly live in a broken world full of hatred and despair. But Christ calls out to us amid this fallen world and offers us a peace that surpasses all understanding. Can that peace move us to transform our own hearts, our own families, our own communities, our own churches, and perhaps even the whole world? As Iraqis, Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, Sudanians, gang members in L.A., the poor in our own streets and many many others die every day, can there ever be an end to the “mindless menace of violence” that Bobby Kennedy spoke of?
“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him;
I will guide him and restore comfort to him,
creating praise on the lips of the mourners in
Peace, peace, to those far and near,"
says the LORD. "And I will heal them."
Amen. May his peace come to those far and near.
2 comments:
I love this post. I couldn't agree more. I only wish I'd been exposed to this stream of thought at a younger age. Now more than ever, I want Paul's language of "the ministry of reconciliation" from 2 Cor. 5 to define my life. Hard to reconcile with violence.
Thanks, Dylan. This post was very meaningful for me. The verse from Isaiah really lifted me up. I look at the work that you and so many of your generation are participating in and I am hopeful for this world, more so than I have been since in my youth when we thought we could change the world through love and wished for peace. Change can be a slow process and is sometimes hard to see, but I have seen so much change in my lifetime and am hopeful at the present that more will be accomplished, especially in the name of Christ. Keep the faith!
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