Martin Luther King Jr. preached nonviolence not to be the better person, but because he knew any act of retaliation will be used against them.
Careful, you said: "he knew", but in reality
he thought* Non violence as its limits in term of activism and that's something MLK didn't understood. In fact, that's precisely why MLK is now quoted not only by simple liberals but also by the far right. MLK was what the system needed him to be: a symbol that could be recuperated.
Nonviolence would hold the mirror up to the real monsters oppressing them. This is one of the reasons the Civil Rights movement was so successful, as the media had no real evidence to fuel their lies.
Only to a
certain point. In reality, change was possible because other people were pushing behind. (Black panthers, communist and black thinkers). Revolutionary change cannot happen by asking nicely. Power is not given, power is taken. Especially under capitalism where the material interest of the power do not align with marginalized.
Leftism is infamously disorganized and fractured. They dont act with the media being against them in mind, and the media and politicians can use facts to tell lies.
And that's what you have been missing. You think that leftist don't take that into account. But I can assure you, that in reality we all do. In fact, France is a clear example where exemplarity doesn't align with success. And I think if you understood the importance of material interests, you would understand why I say all of that.
You are looking here at the leader of the main leftist movement in France, radical, but MUCH LESSER than I am. This guy is HATED by everyone else on its right (
from communist to socialist to liberals to far rightist etc.) and yet he succeeds.. why? Because he scream? Nah.... Because he or his movement can be conflictual? Yeah... but naaaaaah. :
In reality, the guy & people inside the movement like Rima Hassan here are hated because they are the incarnation of a necessary rupture between liberalism and what should be socialism and overall different question like antiracism, anticolonialism etc. And here lies the truth:
People vote for their material interest first in the hierarchy of gender, class and race
And under capitalism, today,
the interests are clear: The model of society can't be questioned, white supremacy must be used a tool for the elite to keep the power, meritocracy must not be questionned, productivity must be pushed, Marginalization must be shut down, revolutionnary thinking must be suppressed.
THIS, is the result of non violence under neoliberalism and unchecked power. This is but a taste of what you are about to witness in the US in the next few years
on non violent prostestor. There will be no such thing as a movement of change that take the power without anger or a form of violence, either vocal or physical.
Because it is not in the material interest of the power to allow what was allowed to MLK before. MLK wasn't a revolutionnary. He was the product of a system that pushed black people to conform. To assimilate. To be exemples and be later recuperated.
MLK was convenient for the power... until he wasn't.
The reality is that MLK radicalized later in life and was probably heading toward something much more radical than me and you or many leftists. The reality is that "I have a dream" overshadowed everything, not by design, but by the power and targeted education. The reality is that MLK would have hated the imperialism of Obama.
The power needs "non violent" or "non radical" leftists to maintain itself.
