In the case of Cindy Sheehan, there is one thing more than any other that to my mind is abominable and utterly loathsome; and that is the characterization of her protest behavior against the Iraq war as being on a par with the noble behavior of individuals such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. This elevation of her status is being done by people who should know better. Political leaders and college professors. The proof of this is that she was even a finalist for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
I fully support Sheehan’s right to advance her message; and I understand all too well that there are many who agree with her. But not no one has the right to elevate her at the expense of denigrating the good that others have done. And that is precisely what is being done when, Emeritus Professor Michael Nagler of UC-Berkeley, for instance, would dare to compare the anti-war struggles of Cindy Sheehan with the struggles against racial injustice led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sheehan is no more a Martin Luther King than is Sir Elton John a Mozart or a Beethoven.
Here is a simple difference that any intellectual, and surely a Berkeley professor, ought to grasp from the very start. By definition, obviously, racial injustice is wrong; whereas it is not the case that by definition war is wrong; otherwise, one would have to declare the war against Nazi Germany morally wrong—a declaration which borders on sheer lunacy.
So, the most that Ms. Sheehan can claim is that the war against Iraq is wrong. What she cannot possibly claim is that all wars are wrong. This, then, constitutes an enormous difference in magnitude between the efforts of King and the efforts of Sheehan.
Of racial injustice: It was wrong; it is wrong; and it shall always be wrong. And in the 1950s, only those with a corrosive mind could have thought otherwise. King took on a nation that was complacent in its commitment to equality for all. Sheehan’s cause does not even come close to being a parallel to King’s cause.
Conceptually, her cause cannot be on the same plane as his. This one can say without denigrating her cause or deriding her character. Indeed, this one can say without disagreeing one iota with her cause.
That Sheehan has been steadfast in her opposition to the war in Iraq, which may very well be admirable, does not by any stretch of the imagination put her efforts on the same plane as King’s struggle for racial equality. And I cannot fathom how anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the history of the struggle for racial equality in America could suppose that we have anything remotely resembling a parallel here.
I thus find it unforgivable and inexcusable that in the name of advancing a political agenda anyone could suggest that Cindy Sheehan anti-war efforts are comparable to the King’s struggle for racial equality.
How shall I put this? When King began his struggles he was, for all practical purposes, less than fully human in the eyes of a great many whites. He was a nigger.
This straightaway gives us a most dramatic difference between Sheehan and King. Her moral status as a person has never been in question. She was never without a right to protest. Quite the contrary, the privilege to protest has, from the very start, been part of the social backdrop against which she has acted. King did start with that privilege. Rather, he earned it. And Sheehan knows nothing about earning such a privilege in a world that regards one as not-quite-human.
Has she been courageous? I allow that she has. Do we have the courage of Martin Luther King here? That is simply not possible, given the multitude of differences between their two situations. King pressed on even though he had to fear for his very life and the lives of his loved ones. For once again, there is the simple truth that in the 50s and 60s many whites in America took him to be an uppity nigger who needed to be reminded of his place in society.
From the beginning, Sheehan has been flanked by all sorts of gurus and groups singing her virtues.
Let me pause here to acknowledge the pain of the loss of her son. Surely, there is no grief like a mother’s grief. Many mothers have lost their sons. And whether we agree with the war in Iraq or not, I believe that straightforward decency requires that we all acknowledge the depth of that loss.
Ms. Cindy Sheehan—at an enormous distance, from the opposite side of the universe no doubt: I am truly sorry for the loss of your son.
A society that is mindful of Sheehan’s loss is a decent society. Just so, her loss does not give her any special moral authority. It does not give her special insight into the character of war, contrary to Maureen Dowd’s assertion.
In a New York Times Op-Ed piece, “Why No Tea and Sympathy?”, 10 August 2005, Maureen Dowd wrote:
The moral authority parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute
Is Ms. Dowd suggesting that losing a child in a war is rather like experiencing injustice? Racial injustice? No one has ever suggested that loosing a child gives one moral authority. And the most obvious question would be: Moral authority over what? Mothers who lose their children in drug or gang wars are not thought to gain any moral authority on that account alone. Certainly, the loss of a child in war does not give parents special insight into the character of war. Such a loss most certainly does not give the parents special insight into whether the war is just or not.
Now, contrast Sheehan with King. Quite straightforwardly, King could say that he new something about living a just life; for he could say that notwithstanding the truth that many whites in America treated him unjustly, he grasped the truth that not all whites are unjust and he acted accordingly. Now, that is moral self-command forged in the crucible of experience. Is Dowd suggesting that Sheehan has acquired this kind of moral insight through the loss of her son in the war in Iraq? There is no reason to believe that such a thing is even remotely possible.
But the Left has been more than a little eager to equate Cindy Sheehan opposition to the Iraq war on a par with the Civil Rights Movement. Some have even called her the Rosa Parks of the Anti-War Movement. The analogy breaks down before it even has a chance of being interesting. But that does not seem to bother the Left.
My view of Cindy Sheehan is this. She has been a tool of the Left and the Left in the name of pushing its political agenda has been more than willing to desecrate the Civil Rights Movement.
When we think of Gandhi and King, we think of individual who had the courage to stand up to forces that could easily have crushed their very being at any given moment—forces that, from the start, barely acknowledged the humanity of these two individuals. They displayed nobility in the face of ignoble circumstances at every turn. And they inspired those who not yet fully embraced their humanity to do so. Whatever good Cindy Sheehan has done and is doing, and have no interest in detracting anything from her, that good pales in comparison to the nobility in deeds, courage, and dignity of Gandhi and King in the struggle for racial equality.
