{"id":2608,"date":"2018-02-09T23:59:37","date_gmt":"2018-02-10T07:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=2608"},"modified":"2018-02-10T05:08:34","modified_gmt":"2018-02-10T13:08:34","slug":"winter-olympics-2018-north-korea-invites-south-president-to-pyongyang-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=2608","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Big business is hijacking our radical past. We must stop it&#8221;, The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gary Younge, Opinion, London, 9 Feb. 2018<\/p>\n<p>Ram Trucks distorted a Martin Luther King sermon to sell its cars. This is how the establishment whitewashes history.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"drop-cap\"><span class=\"drop-cap__inner\">I<\/span><\/span>n 1966, shortly before Martin Luther King branded America \u201c<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hartford-hwp.com\/archives\/45a\/058.html\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today<\/a>\u201d and insisted <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/dharmalog.com\/en\/2013\/08\/16\/who-owns-the-oil-and-the-water-and-the-iron-martin-luther-king-jrs-where-do-we-go-from-here-speech-from-1967\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">\u201ccapitalism forgets that life is social\u201d<\/a>, a Gallup poll showed two thirds of Americans viewed him unfavourably. In 1999, when Gallup asked Americans for the most admired figures of the 20th century, <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/20920\/martin-luther-king-jr-revered-more-after-death-than-before.aspx\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">King came second to Mother Teresa<\/a>. When his monument went up on the National Mall in Washington in 2011, 91% of Americans approved.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-2 | 1\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-comment--item rich-link--pillar-opinion\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>But when it comes to throwing its arms around a man it once loathed, American capitalism outdid itself last weekend, using a recording of a sermon King delivered about the value of service <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QUsz51Ep39U\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">to sell Ram Trucks<\/a> \u2013 \u201cBuilt to Serve\u201d \u2013 <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2014\/feb\/09\/coca-cola-super-bowl-ad-america-diversity\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">during the Superbowl<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Given that King was dead during the entire transition from being reviled to being revered, we should assume the journey owed less to what he did than to <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/misremembering-i-have-dream\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">how others chose to remember him<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the week when <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/live\/2018\/feb\/06\/womens-suffrage-centenary-follow-the-key-events-of-the-day-live-updates\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Britain celebrated the centenary<\/a> of the act of parliament that granted the vote to some women, it is worth examining the manner in which radical history is misrepresented and radicals themselves are routinely coopted. With the militancy that made them both possible denied or distorted, their achievements are instead folded into the official narrative as though challenging the establishment was, in fact, the establishment\u2019s idea all along. What was once considered dangerous and incendiary is repackaged as obvious and inevitable.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to America\u2019s conversion to marriage equality, veteran <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2013\/apr\/07\/gay-marriage-optimism-activists\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">gay rights campaigner Madeline Davis told me<\/a>: \u201cPeople forget that this did not erupt wholly from the head of Zeus \u2026 Those of us who did work hard all over the country put in many days and many hours going through rejection.\u201d Movements are reduced to individuals \u2013 Rosa Parks\u2019 momentary act of defiance on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama is credited with forcing change, rather than the subsequent year-long transport boycott by the city\u2019s black population.<\/p>\n<p>Individuals, meanwhile, are elevated to icons: Parks is sold as a demure seamstress, ignoring a life of activism <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.co.uk\/books?id=0FkDBwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PT67&amp;lpg=PT67&amp;dq=rosa+parks,+anti-lynching&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=jCPP4bLLyx&amp;sig=wrxjI7T0labGkk6r8IElrOpDTvU&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q=malcolm&amp;f=false\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">in which she insisted on the right to use violence<\/a> in self-defence. Or they are condemned to invisibility: Claudette Colvin was ejected from a bus nine months before Parks after also refusing to give up her seat, <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/theguardian\/2000\/dec\/16\/weekend7.weekend12\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">but her cause was dropped<\/a> after she became pregnant at 15. Until recently, she was left out of the story altogether.<\/p>\n<p>The <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/magazine-16945901\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">suffragettes were reviled by the establishment<\/a>. And for good reason. They smashed windows and started fires. They preferred jail to second-class citizenship. They went on hunger strikes. Some were communists. They did not just break the law \u2013 some flouted it ostentatiously. \u201cTo say I enjoyed making fires sounds rather awful,\u201d said <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thesuffragettes.org\/map\/outer-london-boroughs\/richmond-upon-thames\/lilian-lenton\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Lilian Lenton<\/a>. \u201cBut it was really lovely to find that you\u2019d been successful; that the thing really had burned down and you hadn\u2019t got caught.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their challenge was not just against the political class, but the media that lent it legitimacy. In 1913 <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sheffield.ac.uk\/polopoly_fs\/1.71450!\/file\/clifford.pdf\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">the Daily Express described suffragettes<\/a> variously as \u201cwild\u201d, \u201cfanatical\u201d, \u201ccrazy\u201d and \u201cfrenzied\u201d. A year later the home secretary disparaged them as \u201cfoolish and mischievous\u201d. Even those who supported suffrage would routinely condemn the means by which it was fought for. In 1905, when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney were <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/radicalmanchester.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/14\/free-trade-hall-meeting-13-october-1905-the-beginning-of-the-militant-campaign-for-votes-for-women\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">forcibly removed from a Liberal party meeting<\/a> for heckling in favour of female suffrage, <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2007\/nov\/13\/research.highereducation\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">the Guardian condemned their behaviour<\/a> as being \u201csuch as one was accustomed to attribute to women from the slums\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It would be churlish not to celebrate the fact that once controversial and radical ideas, such as women\u2019s suffrage or racial and gay liberation, have shifted from the margins to the mainstream. Even if we are not where we would want to be in terms of equality we are, thankfully, not where we were. But we should be wary of how these celebrations are conducted \u2013 who is given the floor, to what end and with what message \u2013 for two main reasons.<\/p>\n<p>First, because before radical history can be embraced by the establishment <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/cifamerica\/2012\/feb\/01\/black-history-month-whitewashing\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">it must be washed clean<\/a> of whatever ideology made it effective. Radical change is most likely to come from below, be fiercely resisted by entrenched interests from above and achieved through confrontation. \u201cIf those who have do not give, those who haven\u2019t must take,\u201d <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/feb\/07\/ambalavaner-sivanandan\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">argued the late anti-racist intellectual Ambalavaner Sivanandan<\/a>. This is not a message <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2006\/may\/15\/comment.usa\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">those in power are keen to promote<\/a>, lest their own interests be challenged.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of the Ram Trucks ad, this whitewashing couldn\u2019t have been more blatant. In another part of the sermon that was used, <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2018\/2\/4\/16972220\/martin-luther-king-dodge-ram-super-bowl-ad\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">King literally tells the congregation<\/a> not to be fooled into spending more money than necessary on cars by sharp advertisers. \u201cThese gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion,\u201d <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=l_v1h6Zoi-Q\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">he says<\/a>, \u201chave a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying \u2026 In order to make your neighbours envious you must drive this type of car \u2026 And before you know it, you\u2019re just buying that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Second, because history does not stop because someone puts up a plaque. If we understand that what was radical yesterday could be accepted as common sense tomorrow, that might change how we act today. Knowing that some of our most cherished rights were won by often uncelebrated people facing great odds, unrelenting vilification and, at times, state repression, suggests that at least some of those being denigrated today will be celebrated one day. The means by which we might achieve progressive change may shift according to the context \u2013 but the need for it never goes away. And the stories we have been told about how things happened are intimately connected to the stories we tell ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe belief that we have come from somewhere,\u201d wrote the historian EH Carr, \u201cis closely linked with the belief that we are going somewhere \u2026 our view of history reflects our view of society.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2018\/feb\/09\/big-business-radical-past-ram-trucks-martin-luther-king-whitewash\">The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gary Younge, Opinion, London, 9 Feb. 2018 Ram Trucks distorted a Martin Luther King sermon to sell its cars. This is how the establishment whitewashes history. In 1966, shortly before Martin Luther King branded America \u201cthe greatest purveyor of violence in the world today\u201d and insisted \u201ccapitalism forgets that life is social\u201d, a Gallup poll [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2608"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2617,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions\/2617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}