Prepared to Fail? II

This week I spoke again with the "good man" from last week's blog entry. He has lived most of his life as a missionary in Africa so I asked him what he sees as Africa's future. How will Africa break it's cycles of oppression and poverty? He really didn't have much of an answer except to say that he has hope that it will happen. He told me a bit of the history and then he said something funny; he said that he tells newcomers not to talk too much to the old guys because he doesn't want them to be discouraged. It was a gentle way of saying that he was telling me discouraging things but didn't want me to be discouraged. He thought I would fail but still wanted me to try. He is hopeful but the facts don't seem to support that hope. His hope has been forced into a deep patience that almost threatens to overwhelm it and yet this kind of patience is the only way for hope to survive decades of discouragement. It is hope buried and stifled under infinite patience like a man hiding under the cold snow to stay warm.

Hope long delayed is a strange thing. I look with admiration on those who have led successful fights for freedom. I know what to make of them. They fit my belief that good men should stand up and that God will bless their efforts to protect the vulnerable and the oppressed. But I don't know what to do with the centuries that preceded these people -- centuries in which the oppressed were not rescued. Centuries in which people lived and died with hope turned to a despair that is more bitter because it comes from crushed hope. I may not belong those who, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., "have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant." But I do resonate with King's impatience toward those who claim to agree with his cause but say the time is not right. Those who pretend that time will heal injustice if we just wait. How can I learn to act on the conviction that now is the time for righteousness and justice knowing that righteousness may not win this battle? Righteousness may not win in my lifetime. This has been the case in the lives of many better men.

I also share MLK's frustration with the sort of person "who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods . . . '; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

That is why I am sometimes offended at the admiration Malawi gets for being a "peaceful," "non-violent" country. Oppression, abuse, and injustice are rife. Rape, taking widows' property, rulers who loot the country's resources for their own benefit, exploiting habitually passive, powerless people. The praise comes from those who prefer "a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice."

So it is also with those who prefer to get along with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Palestine, Israel, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Kenya . . . fearing to disturb the status quo in favor of a "positive peace which is the presence of justice." Choosing to stay on the side of the powerful and leaving the poor with no advocate. When good people become infinitely patient with the plight of the poor, it is the poor who suffer. They really suffer.

If you have time to read the rest of MLK's Letter From a Birmingham Jail I think you will find it to be time well spent. We could stand to have many more people like that in the world.