Mandela is Gone

My sister sent me the text. In my mind I was rattling through a bullet-point list of assignments to complete and emails to send out. As I rushed up the steps of Juilliard to use the computer lab, I paused to look at my buzzing phone. I read her message, took it in for a moment, and continued climbing the stairs.

A few months ago I decided to join a new project: a musical about Mandela and de Klerk. The musical has the booming bass of their older selves along with the rock operatic rage of a younger and fiery Mandela and a racist de Klerk. Every week we meet on Thursday to go over new pages, new songs, outlining scenes. The collaborative team of director, composer, lyricist, and I have a strong first act and we're on pace for finishing the book by the end of the year. Some of the songs are so epic and sweeping that it's become a 'can you match me game.' I try to write the next scene so that it crackles with the humor, subtext, and strategy that I imagine these two men must have had during the close negotiations to end apartheid. The music team comes back with these colorful, rich African songs inspired by the region and the prison choruses of the men who were wrongfully jailed during apartheid.

This Thursday evening was different. I didn't have any pages, they didn't have any songs. We just sat with the news. We went around the room and talked about what makes a man great, what made Mandela a part of a movement necessary in this world: forgiveness.

We each spoke about the ingredients of greatness. Love, vision, courage, a sense of fatherhood or motherhood for others. One of the elements that's underestimated about civil rights icons and inspirational leaders is strategy. Crowds just see the Dalai Lama smiling, Gandhi waving, Mother Teresa blessing the poor, Malcolm X kneeling at Mecca, and Martin Luther King standing in front of thousands of people talking about his dream and a nation's hope. These succinct snapshots become the short-hand for humility, love, grace, greatness. What doesn't come across is the strategist and tactician. These great figures were amazing organizers of large throngs of people and knew how to use them effectively, and for clear goals. In the Dalai Lama's case he remains a supreme balance of spiritual leader and thoughtful tactician maneuvering against a hostile Chinese government with only his words and carefully selected ambassadors.

Mandela ranks up there with the greatest civil rights strategists and thinkers. He would have his apostles fan out across the world to media centers like London, Paris, and New York City. They would carry the message of anti-apartheid in their own unique way crafted for their particular audience. This didn't go on for months, but decades. From this consistent and insistent message arose boycotts, international pressure, and diplomatic animosity toward apartheid.

What was put before South Africa's racist government wasn't a gun, but something much worse: a mirror. That was the only thing Mandela could arm himself with and give to his followers. Their words made the South African government see what their policies had done. It had turned them into the very monsters they thought they were shielded against with apartheid. The putrid ugliness of a system rooted in a lie and supported by a gun could no longer be denied. Once the ugliness can be traced back to an irrational hatred then that institution is finished. When the monster is forced to look at themselves, they turn back into the scared children of Cain who -in a desperate search for security- re-enact the same crime done by man against their own kind since the beginning. No system, however cleverly designed and brutally enforced, can overcome a spirit in despair or a society blinded by its hypocrisy.

The message of the mirror is undeniable when delivered from a loving heart. These inherent truths are in the gospels of the Bible and the sutras of Buddha. The conscience of an awakened populace is not only more powerful than a bomb; it is the bomb that ends the world in order to bring about the new.

Mandela was one of the few in the 20th century who ushered in a new way of life by lifting the mirror.  We ended the meeting in the African tradition of joining hands in a circle. We each had a moment to speak a eulogy to him. It was our moment to bring the spirit of Mandela into our circle. As we raised the mirror up to our faces, I saw his light in our simple words of gratitude. Thank you, Father Mandela. You can rest now.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King

I've been doing research for a few projects and keep coming across the Malcolm X/Martin Luther King debate. Last week I was walking through Crown Heights, when I stopped in on a arts gallery with paintings about protests throughout the world. The artist, Mildred Beltre, had several packets of Martin Luther King's speeches next to Malcolm X's, as if they were engaging in a dialogue by the close proximity they shared.

I took one speech from each and read through them on the subway. Two Black men were sitting next to me talking about the evils and corruption of the unions that controlled the Coca-Cola factory. One of the men was older and looked back on his troubles, while the younger one seemed to be living through the conflict. I wanted to hand them Malcolm X's speech to the workers about unity.

The main crux of the debate between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King revolves around love. How we as a people see and express love. How is love used and given? If love is seen as a burden, a passive allowed, taken by the strong, then Malcolm X's call to arms sounds appealing. As Blacks are continually called to 'love' those who seek to kill and beat them it seems demeaning and weak from this perspective. Love is like a mother or a vessel which allows itself to be filled.

If love is seen as strength, then Martin Luther King's position is more favorable. If love is stronger than hate, wiser than ignorance, bigger than fear, then love is the way. As King said, 'love is NOT bondage.'  Love is like a father or protector who guides and gives.

Of course love is neither one of these things. Love is God. It doesn't pick sides or gender pronouns. Love is total, all there is and the greatest force. The application of love to political movements is something done by man. Once love is taken from its God-like placed and used in the world of binary concepts then it must be one thing or the other: masculine or feminine, aggressive or passive, gay or straight, Black or White.

After all these years, the beauty of MLK and Malcolm X's argument is that they are both right deceptively and both wrong ultimately. And I have a feeling they both were aware of this. In the deceptive world of social movements, love can be big or small. It can be hunger strikes and sticking flowers in rifle barrels. Love can be Gandhi, bringing an empire to its knees from the lotus posture of meditation. And when the time is right, even Gandhi himself stood up and marched. But he didn't march to the capital or march to the army bases. He went to the sea. Deceptively he was fighting for the rights of Indians to make their own products such as salt and clothes and that was the reason for the march to water. But ultimately he was reminding people of that even an empire can't stop us from going to the water. He was tapping into people's instinctive power that is as vast as an ocean. He was walking to a body of water to bathe, eat, pray, and Be.

MLK's walks through the south had a similar tone of surface goal combined with a greater theme. Marching to the schools to prove that learning trumps even the greatest intolerance. Marching over the bridge to show that there is a path to bring people together. Sitting at the lunch counter to eat. Love can become a marching force as much as a sitting posture.

The two were reflecting different aspects of the same jewel. And as their lives progressed they moved toward each other. Reluctantly, Martin Luther King stood up for peace protests against the Vietnam War. He was slammed by many Black and liberal leaders for taking a strong stance against violence abroad. Conversely, Malcolm X had his epiphany on love at Mecca. And he realized that things weren't black and white any more than having to choose between night or day.

Love transformed both great leaders because it came from someplace higher.

NO PEACE, NO JUSTICE

The protest call is 'NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE' All around the world people chant this simple battle cry.

Give me justice! I demand justice! And if I do not get justice, I will not be peaceful. 

To barter justice for peace, implies that one must come before the other. That the victimized, abused and accursed will no longer be peaceful until they are given what is owed to them. The chant underlies a belief that justice is in the hands of those 'others' out there. These 'others' are more powerful and must be called to task with the threat of unrest.

Trayvon Martin is the latest in the line of tragedies in which we demand justice or there will not be peace.

Today while skimming through the headlines it suddenly struck me that it should be the other way around.

NO PEACE, NO JUSTICE

There will always be injustice as long as there's a lack of peace. But while the former calls for others to do something, the revised call demands my hand in creating peace. No justice, no peace is a battle cry shouted for cameras. No peace, no justice is a heart mantra to be repeated softly throughout a day when facing any conflict.

If I could remember that all the justice I seek comes out of peace, then it would be very hard to get angry. The goal shifts and I must find the peace. There is only one place to look for this peace.

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King were peace activists. Their marches stirred the disharmony present in the system and brought it to the surface in all its ugliness. Once in the light, the disharmony could not continue in its hidden state. It had to change because Gandhi and King were coming from a God-centered consciousness. This is a state of being that is the pure non-duality of love. It doesn't demand, differentiate, or hint. It offers love and peace that extends out to all who are willing to accept it.

The difference between peace marches and 'no justice, no peace' movements couldn't be any clearer. Peace marches employ God-centered consciousness, which removes the systematic injustice. 'No justice, no peace' marches seek to fight anger with anger.

Last year's Occupy Wall Street movement was an example of a successful group awakening that could not organically sustain itself. The marchers were mostly peaceful, they had not specific demands, and they merely wished to highlight the issues. But OWS could not succeed in the long-run. There was no God consciousness. Bereft of love, all social movements turn to hatred and accusation. There has never been an exception in human history to this rule.

In Myanmar there was an election this week for the first time in decades. Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has carried the message of peace into the heart of a brutal dictatorship. When she was urged to raise up a rebel army, she sat and prayed. When the military junta put her under house arrest, she sat and prayed. When her followers demanded that things go quicker, faster, that justice appear at their beckon call she merely shrugged her shoulders. The timing of peace wasn't up to her. Her job was to just surrender to it and allow. Allow for peace. Create the space of love. They fought her, killed thousands, censored her voice, but they could not stop this God-centered consciousness. It flowed out effortlessly and shifted the axis of global debate. This love shined a light on the injustice that was so bright that countries with no immediate interests or dealings with Myanmar began speaking up on the people's behalf.

Justice and peace go hand-in-hand. One does not precede the other. They move in-sync with each other. It is my impatience that sees the error in other's hearts before I check the one in my own.

PEACE>>>JUSTICE<<<<PEACE