Coretta Scott King Quotes
Dictators will be replaced, not by civil war and terrorism, but by organized nonviolent movements that will insure that freedom, human rights, and dignity will be honored under all flags.
Coretta Scott King, Wife of Martin Luther King Jr., The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Reflections on Working Toward Peace
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The African National Congress violent attack on apartheid in South Africa was amazing in the sense that with all the anger and the terrible behavior including murder and shooting of unarmed demonstrators, the ANC not only urged rejection of terrorism against civilians but managed to keep their followers under control. When apartheid finally fell and the ANC Black majority government came to power, the lack of retribution was not only a model of reconciliation for the world but maintained the best industrial economy in Africa.
Prevented by the Military from ever taking office
This quotation is used by the moderate Egyptians and other moderate Arab leaders as well as Israelis and other experts in combating Islamic Fundamentalism to illustrate the thinking process of the Muslim fundamentalist terrorist leader. They are more than willing to sacrifice those they lead (though rarely themselves) if they think that something is to be gained. But if there is nothing to be gained, their “moral” responsibility requires not “wasting” their followers’ lives. Therefore, the way these experts believe they should deal with the radicals is to face them with overwhelming force (a variant of the Powell Doctrine) and never concede anything or let them gain anything from violence. A single concession makes the terrorism, sacrifice and violence worthwhile, but if there is no gain, the leader has wasted the lives of his followers and is less likely to initiate another attack.
His assumption about whether an army was “willing or able to train its guns on inoffensive people” was a little naïve. The Ottomans had massacred the Armenians, and soon the German troops would murder innocent civilians. As did the Japanese. The Russian Communists on many occasions massacred civilians engaging in passive resistance. In Cambodia, the Kmer Rouge Army killed almost 2 million, most of whom had educations which might have made them passive resisters. Islamic Fascist governments like Syria and Iran used heavy weapons to kill citizens in their own homes because they were in neighborhoods that housed many passive resisters. Extreme Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists regularly killed innocent civilians in their homes, on the streets or in busses, just to intimidate others to surrender to their religious and political demands. He was right that democratic governments and armies would not engage in such killing of their own people, but there are unfortunately still many other governments.
Those who have fought against dictatorial governments for their basic human rights, found after victory and the overthrow of the dictator, that there was another force fighting for control which would deny citizens human rights based on a theocracy. They wanted the end of the dictator so they could use their interpretation of a religion as the excuse to deny all citizens basic human rights.
He was in a Turkish Prison when he made this statement. Some of his more militant PKK followers rejected the statement assuming that it was coerced. Most agreed and were tired of a fight against an overwhelmg Turhish military and police. However the PKK militsntd, devclsred terrorists by the US and many other nations, killed 40,000 Turks including many Kurds who are and have been an ethnic minority in Turkey who have been treated very badly..
Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, civil rights leader, and the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. As an advocate for African-American equality, she was a leader for the civil rights movement in the 1960s. King was also a singer who often incorporated music into her civil rights work. King met her husband while attending graduate school in Boston. They both became increasingly active in the American civil rights movement.
