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Showing posts with label Martin Luther King. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martin Luther King. Show all posts

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Banalising The Beautiful. Lok Satta Does Martin Luther King.

Happened to click on the Lok Satta site the other day and was confronted by an alleged quote from Martin Luther King.


I carry the music of Martin in me and this just did not sound like my beloved prophet.

So tame. So plaintive and boring. "More dangerous"! - what is this?

So I Googled.

Not only did I come up with the original melody, but also a lovely photograph, that is so typically Martin.

About ten years ago, I went to meet Dr Jayaprakash Narayan and came back empty handed.

But here you see two men traversing whole worlds.


And the quotation ?

" History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

Can you hear the passion? The conviction? Can you see the shadows of history and Martin's clear vision of the future?"

In my meeting with the good Doctor Jayaprakash Narayan - he had done a pretty good job of de impressing me.

This misappropriation of greatness, by a media anointed crusader against corruption, does nothing to raise him up in my eyes.

It gets worse. It is Malalai Joya, an activist, writer and former politician from Afghanistan to whom those words are attributed.

This is "robbing Peter to pay Paul" taken up a few notches.

This is distorting Ms Joya to dull Dr King.

Certainly not my idea of "New politics for a new generation".