Comparing Martin Luther King Jr. and Marjane Satrapi in historical context

Marjane Satrapi & Martin Luther King

Converging Philosophies: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & Marjane Satrapi

Introduction to Marjane Satrapi

The madness, bloodshed and ethnic slaughter goes on in the Middle East, very near to where Marjane Satrapi was born and raised, and the insanity may never stop because hatred is alive and well all over the world. And because the United States is seen as a bully and is targeted in jihads by militants who hate the West. Meantime, when she was living in Iran, Satrapi suffered a lot of confusion and witnessed far too much cruelty for a little girl, and yet she achieved a degree of catharsis by writing about it; and also, her grandmother gave her some of the best advice that a child could get. On page 150 of her book, her grandmother advised this:

In life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself its because they're stupid. That will help you keep from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance...always keep your dignity and be true to yourself."

Meanwhile, the thesis of this paper is very plain and straightforward; there are very strong parallels between the philosophies of author Marjane Satrapi and the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Even though the two individuals were born and raised a half a world apart from each other, and one is an African-American in North America and the other is Iranian, their views on the use and abuse of political power, on the human rights of all people, dovetail in many respects. Both rebelled against what they saw that was unjust, unfair, and dark.

As for author Marjane Satrapi, she was a young girl (six years old to 14 years old as the book unfolds) who very alertly picked up on the wrongs that go along with social injustice, and she could not understand why persons of one social class could not interact with persons of a different social class. She was an active participant in the large demonstrations against the Shah of Iran in the late 1970s. She learned that her voice could be heard, even though it was just one voice among thousands who were shouting protestations at the same time. She lives through part of the Iraq-Iran war. Her life is a constant series of revelations and changes (like having to wear a veil when the Ayatollah Khomeini took over).

She also learned that forgiveness is necessary even when there has been a terrible injustice done; she has a strong desire to be a revolutionary, not necessarily a violent one, but one who will bring justice and civility to her culture.

She grew up during the last years of the Shah's power and the beginning of the Islamic Revolution in Iran; she was coming of age when the Shah of Iran still held power. The Shah had been placed in power by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States in 1953.

What was life like for Marjane Satrapi as she was growing up? A brief look at the history of her times is appropriate here. Many Americans remember that the U.S.-backed Shah was pushed out of Iran in 1979, and the Ayatollah Khomeini took over the government, which set off the Islamic revolution that Marjane Satrapi writes about. The demise of the Shah also set off a hostage crisis; U.S. embassy staff members were held by pro-Khomeini militants in Teheran for 444 days.

It is not in her book but that incident had a ripple effect on the U.S. political power structure, as Ronald Reagan used the hostage crisis during his campaign for the presidency in 1980 as evidence that President Jimmy Carter was weak on military issues. But not as many Americans probably realize that the CIA had in effect installed the Shah in power in a coup on August 18, 1953, thanks to a plan called "Operation Ajax" put forward by President Dwight Eisenhower. That power move by Eisenhower, to dump the existing president of Iran and install one more favorable to the U.S., was the fuel for the revolution that was to come to Iran, which Marjane Satrapi was caught up in (Kinzer 2003), but managed

Dr. King and Similarities with Marjane Satrapi's Philosophy

The changes that Dr. King was seeking in his role as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the unofficial leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, involved giving African-Americans the freedom to conduct their lives as white people were able to. He wanted all black Americans to have the right to vote, to get good jobs, to be able to ride the bus on any seat that was available (instead of the seats in the back). He wanted schools to be integrated so white students and black students could have an equal education; before the civil rights movement, black schools were not nearly as updated and effective as the schools whites went to. At the time of his death, he had made great progress in bringing social justice to black Americans. He died a martyr, shot down by a racist in Memphis, Tennessee. But he was a real martyr, not the kind of martyrs that Satrapi wrote about on page 115.

The walls were suddenly covered with belligerent slogans," Satrapi wrote. "The one that struck me most by its gory imagery was, 'To die a martyr is to inject blood into the veins of society.'" That concept of martyrdom among Islamic radicals is to kill people and die in the meantime, then you will go to paradise; in King's case, he died for his cause, but his followers did not feel like it helped society at all; quite the contrary.

The revolution is like a bicycle. When the wheels don't turn, it falls" (Satrapi, p. 10). That is very close to the view of radical social change that King held, and it is why his march on Birmingham would not be stopped, could not be stopped, by police dogs that attacked innocent demonstrators, by high-pressure water hoses. The police beat the black demonstrators and the Ku Klux Klan burned down and bombed churches that belonged to black congregations. In Iran, the Shah's military burned down the Rex Cinema in Iran, and those citizens who came and tried to help rescue people who were trapped inside were beaten. The repressive tactics used by the Shah were very similar to those used by the southern police.

And the repressive tactics by the young Islamic militants who took over (with Khomeini) when the Shah was driven out, were just as bad as the tactics used by racist citizens and bigoted police in the south of the United States.

Meanwhile, the policies that led Dr. King to get involved in his movement for justice were based- and the solutions proposed - on the struggle for justice, in a period of time, the late 1950s and early 1960s, in which social change was happening fast in the south, and many people were afraid of change, even though they may not have been outright bigots.

A very good way to show the reasons that King fought for change, his underlying philosophy, his beliefs and values, is to examine closely his well-known Letter From Birmingham Jail. King was of course a minister, and he hoped to get Protestant ministers and Jewish Rabbis and Catholic Priests to support the movement for fairness, for many reasons.

The point his letter is that the houses of worship in the South failed to live up to their own stated ideals, purposes and philosophies. The priests, rabbis, and ministers stood up on the wrong side of the road when it came to morality, human rights, the laws under the Constitution of the United States, and common sense.

The Letter From Birmingham Jail written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 16, 1963, is (and was) more than a mere response to questions posed by eight members of the clergy, all of them Caucasian in ethnicity. The letter in fact was a kind of manifesto for basic human rights under the Constitution of the United States. It is thought of today by many scholars - with perfect validation - as the most powerful justification, explanation, and motivation for the Civil Rights Movement.

Although King's "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C., is probably more well-known (and offered more soaring rhetoric, more memorable lines), it cannot compare to the point-by-point scholarship and theological craftsmanship that went into King's Letter From Birmingham Jail (hereafter referred to as Letter).

Indeed, the Letter is viewed today as far more than an answer to questions posed by members of the Alabama clergy, or as a reasoned response to Alabama Governor George Wallace's militant 1963 pronouncement at his inauguration that he would defy federal law and not permit integration of public schools.

In the Letter, King explains to the clergymen why, as "an outsider coming in," he made the decision to take part in the Birmingham demonstrations; "I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere," King went on, "is a threat to justice everywhere."

As to the social and racial injustices King is speaking of, a bit of background into conditions in the South - and specifically, in Alabama - is worthy of some space in this paper. In fact, just a few years prior to the civil rights activism in Birmingham (that saw King arrested and placed in a jail), the lynching of African-Americans in Alabama was not uncommon. The New York Times (August 30, 1933) reported that two "Negroes" were found lynched near Birmingham on a Sunday morning, but the good news was "mob murders have declined"; indeed, the paper reported, "...in the last ten years there have only been four lynchings" in Alabama. And on July 26, 1947, The New York Times quoted the Tuskegee Institute's data that "six out of every seven potential lynchings have been prevented" over the past ten years in the south.

Between the years 1937 and 1947, the Times' story continued, "there have been 273 prevented lynchings, against forty-three cases in which a mob succeeded" in hanging black men in the South. "Alert public officials" and ordinary citizens have been the heroes in the 273 cases of attempted but failed lynching incidents. That having been said, a total of 4,717 black men had been lynched since 1882, an appalling statistic and part of urgency for the push for civil rights justice in 1963.

King always preached to people to use non-violence; he employed tactics used by Gandhi, who is mentioned by Satrapi on page 20 ("The Hindus and the Muslims must make peace to overthrow the British").

In the Letter, King wishes that the clergy - who "deplored the demonstrations" - would express "a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations." The Letter specifically rejects a "superficial kind of social analysis" that addresses "effects" and not "causes." One cause clearly on King's mind was the injustice in education; indeed, a month after King was imprisoned, the New York Times (Lewis, 1963) reported that Alabama was the only state in the U.S. that refused to integrate public schools. In Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana blacks were blocked from voting, and white segregationist's mob actions against blacks were commonplace.

Meanwhile, in Satrapi's book, (p. 118) her Uncle Taher tells her mother that "The butcher told me he's seen kids executed in the street without even having been judged. The shame of it." The war with Iraq was going on at that time, but there was also a war at home in Iran, as "anyone showing resistance to the regime was persecuted," Satrapi writes.

In the Letter, King wrote that "...there have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation." His message has been thoroughly validated in the press; to wit, in January, 1957, "4 Negro Churches and Homes of 2 Ministers [were] Attacked" (NY Times, Jan. 11, 1957). King's Letter was reasonably gracious in its condemnation of the white clergy; "I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leaders," he wrote. Satrapi and her family endured many bombings in their community during the war with Iraq; one even destroyed the house of her friend Neda; "When we walked past the Baba-Levy's house, which was completely destroyed, I could feel that she was discreetly pulling me away. Something told me that the Baba-Levys had been at home. Something caught my attention" (Satrapi p. 142).

King continued, saying that instead of rabbis, priests, and ministers being "among our strongest allies" some have in fact "been outright opponents...and too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows." As harsh as that statement was, King wasn't through with the clergy; "In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities."

The news media had often covered the very Christian-themed issues that King alluded to: On July 7, 1959, the New York Times' headline read "Birmingham Resists Church Integration: Few White Ministers Have Taken a Stand on Race..." The clergy had publicly commended the Birmingham police for "preventing violence," but "I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police...if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes."

Meanwhile, what are the solutions posed by King in the Letter? He calls on the church to live up to the message of Christianity. King prefaces his call for backing from church leaders with his own recollection of traveling through the southern states "on sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings." He remembers looking at the "beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward," and he recalled asking himself "over and over...'What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

The solutions King presented were not so much solutions, as they were demands that churches live up to their pronouncements, that churches stop being "archdefender[s] of the status quo." He was basically saying, there are two problems here; one, racial injustice (including police and citizen violence) was obviously and publicly being perpetrated on African-Americans in Alabama (and elsewhere); two, the spiritual leaders in Alabama communities, the churches and their clergy leadership, were either silent or indifferent to the plight of those who were seeking simple social justice. "God, where are you," Satrapi cries out on page 17. God did not come to visit her that night, and in jail, King was crying out to religious leaders to be more God-like.

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour," he wrote, but in almost every case where he offers a hopeful phrase, he tempers it with the reality of how the church has acted up until that moment. He protests as much as he does put forward positive pronouncements. For example, he rakes today's clergy through the coals of their own indifference when he says that once upon a time "the church was very powerful...when early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed."

He noted that early Christians were "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators," but in modern times, the contemporary church is "a week, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound." That said, he believed that "The judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century."