FROM THE HALLS OF MONTEZUMA TO THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI
(The title refers to the Official Hymn of the US Marine Corps)
Hanns F Skoutajan
“I have a dream!” Fifty years ago those four words sounded again and again from the podium under the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Thousands had gathered and were energized by the power of those words. They rang across the United States and indeed around the globe.
President Obama himself is a sign of the impact of that dream. But he also warned that the dream is anything but fulfilled. True enough there are no more lynchings, passengers on a bus can sit anywhere they want, “whites only signs” have disappeared , children black and white are educated together, well more or less. The pejorative term “nigger” has largely disappeared from the American vocabulary.
But the dream needs more fulfilling as Obama pointed out. Blacks still vastly predominate in the prisons of the United States. They are also more likely to be among the poor. One can go on. But the amazing thing about that dream is that all of the fulfillment was accomplished in peaceful ways, at least on part of the blacks and many whites. King’s movement was non-violent.
Gandhi’s ways have proven more effective in bringing about change. It won India’s independence. King and his associates walked in his footsteps.
I have a dream that disparities and injustices still so rampant in our world can be resolved in non-violent ways , that people of different religions and skin colour, language and ideology will live together in peace and harmony.
But I also have a nightmare, particularly in these days as the guns of war resound throughout Syria, as thousands die by cruel means and other thousands flee their homes and stream across the borders of Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.
My nightmare has been sharpened by American sabre rattling as the US prepares “to punish” Assad for his atrocities. Assad is not a nice man, nor was Saddam Hussein. However, the question is whether this “punishment” will make any difference to the Syrian leaders and its people other than bring them more death and destruction.
Ann Wright, a retired US army Colonel and former diplomat who has served in virtually every hotspot on this globe shares my nightmare. In an article published in Common Dreams ( Aug 31) she lists the possible consequences of cruise missile deployment from US navy ships in the Mediterranean:
“As U.S. warships gather off the shores of Lebanon to launch Tomahawk Cruise missiles at targets in Syria, we can make some educated guesses of what the “unintended consequences” could be:
- Syrian anti-aircraft batteries will fire their rockets at incoming U.S. missiles.
- Many Syrians on the ground will die and both the U.S. and Syrian governments will say the deaths are the fault of the other.
- The U.S. Embassy in Damascus will be attacked and burned, as may other U.S. Embassies and businesses in the Middle East.
- Syria might also launch rockets toward the U.S. ally in the region—Israel.
- Israel would launch bombing missions on Syria as it has three times in the past two years and perhaps take the opportunity to launch an attack on Syria’s strongest ally in the region, Iran.
- Iran, a country with a population of 80 million and has the largest military in the region untouched by war in the past 25 years, might retaliate with missiles aimed toward Israel and toward nearby U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, Turkey, Bahrain and Qatar.
- Iran could block the Straits of Hormuz and impede the transport of oil out of the Persian Gulf.”
Her nightmare is no mere dream but has about it an air of irrefutable reality. A Middle East conflagration is a very real possibility.
The difference between a dream and a nightmare is between peace and violence, between the way of Rosa Parks of Montgomery, Alabama and Bull Conners of LIttle Rock, Arkansas fame.
The US and the United Nations face a daunting situation to which there is no simple solution militarily or negotiated. Peaceful action has never been construed as an easy road. Results are never guaranteed. On the other hand, violence guarantees one thing, more violence, death and destruction. Iraq is proof of that.
Martin Luther King’s dream is not an easy dream. There is no ready made solution to the Syrian crisis. However, my hope and prayer is that the US Congress will not grant Obama his wish but opt in favour of non-violence.
I know some of you will say, “Dream on!”
SQ 01/09/2013
