Motley Moose – Archive

The March from Selma to Montgomery:

On 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had been campaigning for voting rights.

Dr. King:

I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” (Speak, sir) Somebody’s asking, “How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?” Somebody’s asking, “When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?” Somebody’s asking, “When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, (Speak, speak, speak) plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, (Speak) and truth bear it?” (Yes, sir)

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, (No sir) because “truth crushed to earth will rise again.” (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because “no lie can live forever.” (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

I’m republishing this diary from 18 months ago on the wonderful news that the mother of Stephen Lawrence, victim of a racist killing that continues to have repercussions among the police and press even now, has been elevated to the House of Lords.

I’m no fan of the honours system or our unelected second chamber, but before it’s abolished, the thought that Doreen Lawrence, who has campaigned tirelessly for twenty years to bring her son’s murderers to justice (and expose the collusion and institutional racism of the police) is to become a Labour peer is the best news I’ve heard in ages.

HT to Denise for the following video which shows Doreen meeting with the Trayvon Martin family in London last year at the Stephen Lawrence foundation

Below is a tribute to her, written by our poet laureate.

The Obama administration will be remembered in history as the one that brought Osama bin Laden to justice. Its handling of the situation was practically flawless.

Nevertheless, there are two things in which the government erred slightly. With respect to these two matters, the Obama administration’s mistake was to tell the truth. In this cases, it would have been better for the United States if the government had told lies.

President Barack Obama views a portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama before

a church service at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.,

on Inauguration Day, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

From Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall: Guided by the ancestors

When I heard these words spoken by President Obama at his second inaugural

We the people declare today that the most evident of truth that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall

and the echo of those same words in the invocation delivered by Myrlie Evers-Williams

we celebrate the spirit of our ancestors, which has allowed us to move from a nation of unborn hopes and a history of disenfranchised votes, to today’s expression of a more perfect union…

we ask for your guidance toward the light of deliverance and that the vision of those who came before us and dreamed of this day, that we recognize that their visions still inspire us. They are a great cloud of witnesses unseen by the naked eye, but all around us, thankful that their living was not in vain.

I was moved.  

Let me share with you a brief moment. I don’t know how many Mooq have followed the story of Stephen Lawrence, the 19 year old student who was randomly and viciously murdered by a  gang 19 years ago, in a famously racist part of South London, waiting at a bus stop, not far from where I used to live, and also close to the fascist  BNP headquarters in Eltham.

For many people, his murder, and the failure to prosecute his killers, was a seminal moment in race relations in the UK – and an acceptance of the double standard Black Britons face when it comes to receiving justice.

But above all, his parents campaigned for justice for their murdered son.

Well, this week, after three abortive trials and the Macpherson Report that concluded that Stephen’s killers were never brought to justice in the UK because of ‘institutional racism’ in the Metropolitan Police, a cold case investigation found conclusive evidence that linked two of the gang to the murder, and they were sentenced to the maximum sentence (still under review) for juveniles – as they were at the time.

But this is not why I am writing this diary. Our poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, who is not only the first woman poet officially appointed by the Queen to talk to the nation, and the first Scot, but also the first openly gay poet in that role, has just written this beautiful and moving tribute. I’ve always wondered how on earth any poet worth their salt could be paid to celebrate official birthdays and jubilees. But Carol Ann Duffy has restored in this brief lyric, the whole idea of the engaged public poet.

I’ve leaving a respectful place below the squiggle for you to enjoy. And grieve. And weep.  

There have been a number of public legal arguments regarding recent current events; the Troy Davis execution, the alleged extra-judicial assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki and the Murdoch investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.

There seems much well-informed, well-reasoned and well-intended opinion on the moral and ethical implications of these cases, and others, which is of the calibre of the the dialogues preserved of Greek and Roman legal arguments.  There is considerable merit in these public discussions on justice and propriety under the law.  But most of them seem to overlook a basic point that the ancients didn’t miss, and it is summed up best by the guy who would know:

There is no such thing as justice, in or out of court.

Clarence Darrow

This runs counter to progressive wisdom, and rightly so, but it remains true.  And it is not just because the law is imperfect and inconsistently applied, though that is certainly a fault we must constantly seek to remedy.  Fundamentally the occasional and significant absence of justice, in specific individual cases, is a feature not a bug.

Roman Law is founded on a refreshingly brief corpus of twelve tablets from 450BC which were concluded with the following phrase Salus Populi Est Suprema Lex:

Latin: the welfare of an individual yields to that of the community.

Salus Populi Est Suprema Lex Lloyd Duhaime

There seems to be a fundamental tenet in our tradition of law which suspends justice for the individual in the public interest; a moral and ethical question probably worthy of our consideration.