Those Who Truly Fight for Justice Don’t Live Very Long

1/28/2011

Socrates

Since the Martin Luther King holiday last week, I’ve been musing over something Socrates said during his trial: “He who would really fight for justice, must do so as a private man, not in public, if he means to preserve his life, even for a short time.” If true, Socrates’ words mean Martin Luther King would have been assassinated even sooner had he been a public man, a politician, espousing the same views. In every age, men and women, public and private, have been rewarded with premature death for fighting for justice: Guevara, Lumumba, Gandhi, Nat Turner, Joan of Arc and, of course, Socrates himself.

3 Comments

Fred

1/31/2011 02:18:23 pm

Dana, I like your blog and wish you well with it.

I have to express some surprise, however, to see this list of names in your blog post, which places a man who oversaw warfare, firing squads, and the dawn of a nation's darkest age, next to some of the most brilliant and noble figures in history. Was this intentional?

"Guevara, Lumumba, Gandhi, Nat Turner, Joan of Arc and, of course,
Socrates himself."

Regards from just down I-95 (Philly).

Dana Crum

2/6/2011 06:25:41 am

Fred, you raise an important point. Certainly, Guevara is a controversial figure. Some laud him; others castigate him. I think Guevara truly wanted to help the poor. Whether his methods of helping them and his punishment of those he perceived as enemies of the poor, enemies of justice were themselves just is debatable. That is an important debate, one I wouldn't dare downplay. When writing my blog post, I was certainly aware of how much Guevara’s methods differed from those of Gandhi, MLK, Socrates and others. I put him in the list for that very reason. I wanted to list a variety of social-justice leaders. I wanted to include nonviolent activists but also armed revolutionaries. In such a short blog post, I didn’t even try to answer the huge question as to which form of resistance – nonviolence or armed revolt – is moral or more effective. Which is appropriate, which is moral, which is effective depends on the situation, I would argue. One last thing. Guevara did indeed oversee firing squads, but so did some American patriots during and after the Revolutionary War – they executed some Loyalists (American colonists who remained loyal to Britain). Who executed more enemies (actual or perceived)? Guevara and his cohorts? Or American patriots? Good question. I’d have to research that. What's undeniable is that America doesn’t have a pristine record when it comes to execution (or torture), and America’s very origins as a country are steeped in warfare, in bloodshed.

yolaine

4/23/2011 01:30:59 am

Altogether thought-provoking and insightful. Thank you gentlemen.

Those Who Truly Fight for Justice Don’t Live Very Long

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