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Lessons we could learn from MLK

Monday, 19 January, 2026 was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. After criticism for not recognising the day, the President of the United States released a proclamation to “honour the brave men and women who remain steadfast in their commitment to law, order, liberty, and justice for all.” While previous proclamations on the federal holiday included mention of continued work toward racial justice, the one issued this year avoided mention of race, racism, and the treatment of black people in the country.

In contrast, former president Joe Biden delivered a speech at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (once led by Martin Luther King Jr.) in 2023. “It’s still the task of our time to make that dream a reality, because it’s not there yet,” he said. “To make Dr. King’s vision tangible, to match the words of the preachers and the poets with our deeds. The battle for the soul of this nation is perennial. It’s a constant struggle. It’s a constant struggle between hope and fear, kindness and cruelty, justice and injustice, against those who traffic in racism, extremism and insurrection. A battle fought on battlefields and bridges, from courthouses and ballot boxes to pulpits and protests.”

Every year, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, there are arguments about the man, his work, and his legacy. Many try to use excerpts from his speeches and writing to justify their action and inaction where the rights of all people are concerned. “Today, let us remember Martin Luther King as he TRULY was: A black radical anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, revolutionary Christian internationalist who was deemed an enemy of the State and assassinated for his radical work,” Marc Lamont Hill said earlier this week. “Just about everything else is a lie.”

As we find ourselves in the midst of global upheaval with human rights violations filling the news, it is useful to turn to King’s words and the message he consistently delivered. There is no excuse for inaction.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

For more than two years, the genocide enacted against the Palestinian people by Israel has been broadcast to the world. Many have ignored the cries of Palestinian people who have been terrorised in every way possible: from denial of basic needs including housing, food, and water to experiencing tremendous loss to witnessing the destruction of their land and murder of their family members, friends, and community members. Many have somehow managed to believe that the genocide in Palestine is separate from the lives we live in other parts of the world. They think we have no part in violence inflicted. They do not see how easily we could be on the receiving end of the same violence, due in part to our refusal to rebuke it and withdraw our participation, however indirect.

There have been many signs that Palestine is being used as a testing ground. Oppressors are not only testing equipment and various kinds of technology, but international law and both the apathy and the resistance of people everywhere. Events in Venezuela and commentary by the US government on Greenland certainly give an indication of the far-reaching consequences of silence on violence and injustice inflicted on people, whether or not it is seen to be contained by borders.

“Empire never stops at one place. Gaza was the test. Greenland, Venezuela, Iran now loom as the victory’s bounty. [Is this the beginning – of a new world (dis)order?] What goes around comes around, and fools are those who didn’t see it coming,” Francesca Albanese recently posted on X.

UNRWA reported on January 20 that its headquarters in Al-Quds (referred to as East Jerusalem) was stormed early in the morning. “On January 14, Israeli forces stormed into an UNRWA health centre in East Jerusalem and ordered it to close,” they reported. “Water and power supplies to UNRWA facilities – including health and education buildings – are also scheduled to be cut in the coming weeks. This is a direct result of legislation passed by the Israeli parliament in December, which stepped up existing anti-UNRWA laws adopted in 2024.”

In addition, UNRWA said, “These actions, together with previous arson attacks and a large-scale disinformation campaign, fly in the face of the ruling in October by the International Court of Justice, which restated that Israel is obliged under international law to facilitate UNRWA’s operations, not hinder or prevent them. The court also stressed that Israel has no jurisdiction over East Jerusalem.”

United Nations experts, including independent experts on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order:

Special Rapporteur (independent experts appointed by  the UN Human Rights Council) on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context;

Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance;

Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons;

Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change;

Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health;

Special Rapporteur on the right to food;

and Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 spoke out against the ban imposed by Israel against 37 organisations providing aid in Palestine.

“The ban is not an isolated act,” the experts said, “but part of a systematic assault on humanitarian operations in the occupied Palestinian territory and another step in the deliberate dismantling of Gaza’s lifeline.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed.”

Where, laws, policies, and courts fail, there must be people who stand together and raise their voices to speak truth and make clear demands for justice. This is not limited to protest signs and chants, petitions, or even organised acts of civil disobedience. It includes strategic decision making at the personal and community levels to affect the economy and, by extension, the ability of governments to fund war and genocide.

“The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”

While Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to the laws and policies that create and maintain such (concentrated) power, redistribution can and must include our own practices. The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls on people everywhere to be intentional with our spending, refusing to give money to companies that support Israel in its genocidal action against Palestine and Palestinian people.

It requires that we break away from our habits of picking up the same products we always have, watching the same movies we always have, and keeping our money in the same banks and investment portfolios that we always have. It requires vigilance. It requires research. It requires a commitment to people, like us and not like us, and a set of shared values that include equality and justice, and that commitment must outweigh the exhaustion and laziness that capitalism levies against us. We have to push past inertia to take responsibility for everything that is in our power, making decisions that eliminate or reduce harm to others and move us toward a world of peace and equality.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

In a post on X, Bernice King invited people to remember her father by taking the following actions:

1. Amplifying and advocating for the end of state-sanctioned and facilitated violence against black and brown immigrants and against people, period.

2. Speaking up for people who are suffering genocide in Sudan, Palestine, Congo, and other nations.

3. Calling and writing your Congresspersons in support of democracy as opposed to dictatorship.

4. Supporting policies to eradicate poverty (higher minimum wage, affordable housing, etc)

5. Learning the truth about and challenging anti-black racism, which is still prevalent in healthcare, media, lending practices, the criminal “justice” system, etc.”

Recommendations

1. Join Feminist Book Club with Equality Bahamas and Poinciana Paper Press. This evening, Feminist Book Club is meeting at Poinciana Paper Press, 12 Parkgate Road, to discuss Theory and Practice by Michelle de Kretser. The selection for next month is P. Djèlí Clark’s Ring Shout, “a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror.” Ring Shout will be discussed on February 18 at 6pm. Register to join Feminist Book Club and receive updates at tiny.cc/fbc2026.

2. Exhibition openings at National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. On Thursday, January 22 at 6:30pm, What the Landscape Holds, an interactive exhibition by Jason Bennett of The Bahamas and David Gumbs of Saint-Martin, opens. It invites us to “step directly into constructed environments shaped by synthetic materials and technology, where everyday objects are transformed into immersive landscapes that can be touched, moved through, and activated by the viewer.” On the same evening, War Dog: Teeth, Thorns, and Iron, new works by Reagan Kemp opens in the Project Space. “Through painting and ceramic works, Kemp draws inspiration from Ajagunda, the warlike manifestation of the Yoruba orisha Obatala, reflecting on guardianship, survival, and the fragile line between defence and harm.”

3. Pot Luck: Cartoons from The Guardian and The Tribune of the 70s and 80s, featuring works by renowned artist and architect Eddie Minnis, opens at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas on Friday, January 30 at 6:30pm. The exhibition includes a “vital body of editorial cartoons that captured the pulse of Bahamian life at a time when public discourse looked very different, yet feels strikingly familiar today.”

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The politics of power

In a military operation, the United States abducted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from their home in Caracas. Maduro and Flores are now being held at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, New York. They were taken to court on Monday, January 5. Maduro, when asked to confirm his identity, stated that he was kidnapped on January 3, and was cut off by the judge.

Discussions about the abduction and the subsequent statement by the US president about “running” Venezuela are going in many different directions. Some people, very unfortunately, believe it’s an attempt to bring stability to Venezuela, ignoring evidence to the contrary. Others believe it’s a move to control the oil. Still others see it going even further than oil, using it to inflate the value of the US dollar. Some point to the US fear of BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and trade outside of the US.

This is certainly not about establishing a legitimate government in Venezuela.

There’s a tremendous amount of history to digest on the subject to fully understand what took place on January 3 and the path that not only Venezuela, but the world, is on. Venezuela has experienced economic booms and busts since the discovery of oil in the Maracaibo Basin in the 1920s.

In the 1970s, the oil embargo imposed by the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on countries backing Israel, led to an exponential increase in oil prices and revenue in Venezuela. In 1976, President Carlos Andrés Pérez created Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), nationalising the oil industry and securing 60 percent equity in joint ventures.

Oil prices dropped in the 1980s, which significantly impacted the Venezuelan economy and led to a financial bailout by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 1998, Hugo Chávez became president and his decisions, including gutting PDVSA, led to a decline in the oil industry and the conditions for an authoritarian regime.

In 2007, the oil industry was partially nationalised, and foreign companies were required to partner with Venezuelan companies, which had to hold 50 percent ownership. Exxon sued for damages over nationalisation and Venezuela was ordered to pay $1.4 million. This was later annulled. Exxon resubmitted its claim and was awarded $76 million in 2023.

Maduro succeeded Chávez and maintained his position in 2018, in an election that was considered undemocratic. Economic sanctions were imposed by the US government in 2017.

In recent years, Venezuela has experienced a decline in oil production, increased debt, hyperinflation, and increasing autocracy. Within the last year, we have seen María Machado—previously funded to overthrow Chávez—dedicate her Nobel Peace Prize to the US president, attacks on Venezuelan boats, threats to the national security of Venezuela, and leveraging of Trinidad and Tobago’s land, sea, and airspace.

The abduction of the president of Venezuela is an act of imperialism.

It is an overreach of the United States, extending power over another territory through military force. The US is attempting to display and exercise dominance over a sovereign country—one that has independent power to govern itself. And Venezuela is not a standalone case. It is, in fact, emblematic of a nefarious ambition to control resources and people.

“Gaza exposed the hollowness of western universalism, liberalism and globalisation,” Middle East Eye’s Sami Al-Arian wrote. “Venezuela extends the lesson into the western hemisphere, with a clarity that even allies cannot easily obscure. When legality is enforced only against opponents, as Gaza and Venezuela show, it ceases to function as law and becomes an instrument of power. And when aggression is openly linked to oil, empire stops pretending to be anything else.”

In response to alleged human rights violations in Venezuela, the United Nations Human Rights Council established the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in September 2019.

Expert member of that mission, Alex Neve, was blunt in his assessment of the situation in the January 2026 report, titled “Venezuela: UN Fact-Finding Mission expresses grave concern following US military intervention and calls for accountability for human rights violations and crimes.

“The Maduro government’s longstanding record of grave human rights violations does not justify a US military intervention that breaches international law. Similarly, the illegality of the US attack does not in any way diminish the clear responsibility of Venezuelan officials, including Mr. Maduro, for years of repression and violence amounting to crimes against humanity. The Venezuelan people require and deserve solutions that fully comply with international law.”

The report expressed concern about the increased risk of human rights violations in Venezuela in the coming weeks, particularly as the United States government stated its intent to “run” Venezuela.

In a Facebook post on January 3, Menominee author, organiser, and educator Kelly Hayes was equally critical of the US government’s action, calling it a “fascist imperial power grab with implications for future foreign policy moves.” She noted that it’s also an indicator of the direction US democracy is taking. Hayes said the US president is acting out his fascist fantasies.

“We can hold compassion for the range of emotions Venezuelans may be experiencing — including positive emotions — and also be clear that regime change by a fascist superpower is dangerous, destabilising, and sets precedents that will not stop at Venezuela. Those aren’t contradictory positions,” she said.

Recognising the sovereignty of a country is not optional, regardless of the view anyone has of the way it governs itself. Foreign invasion does not bring great leadership. It’s for the people to rise up and stand together to create change. We need not see the Venezuelan case play out as the US intends, to understand that foreign invasion is dangerous and chaotic, negatively affects control of resources, prioritises extraction, and disproportionately impacts people in situations of vulnerability.

In her response to the January 3 press conference held by the US president, Venezuela-born campaign coordinator of CODEPINK Michelle Ellner made important points about the effects of war, sanctions, and military escalation.

“They fall hardest on women, children, the elderly, and the poor. They mean shortages of medicine and food, disrupted healthcare systems, rising maternal and infant mortality, and the daily stress of survival in a country forced to live under siege. They also mean preventable deaths, people who die not because of natural disaster or inevitability, but because access to care, electricity, transport, or medicine has been deliberately obstructed. Every escalation compounds existing harm and increases the likelihood of loss of life, civilian deaths that will be written off as collateral, even though they were foreseeable and avoidable.”

Ellner went on to challenge the assumptions made about the Venezuelan people: that they are and will be passive. With resistance, under circumstances like those created in recent days, comes a violence that is manufactured by oppressive forces, though often framed as unreasonable and caused by those who refuse to submit. The lack of unity in a country is not and cannot be a license for imposition by another.

“This moment demands political maturity, not purity tests,” Ellner said. “You can oppose Maduro and still oppose US aggression. You can want change and still reject foreign control. You can be angry, desperate, or hopeful, and still say no to being governed by another country.”

Do we live in a world where it is acceptable for one country to claim the right to control another?

What does it mean when a country can enact violence, operate outside of the law, and deem itself an authority on another country?

What are we called to do in the face of the genocide in Palestine and the imperialist threat to Venezuela?

“Power has displaced law, preference has replaced principle and force has been presented as virtue,” Howard University School of Law Professor Ziyad Motala wrote in Al Jazeera. “This is not the defence of the international order. It is its quiet execution. When a state kidnaps the law to justify kidnapping a leader, it does not uphold order. It advertises contempt for it.”

People are sharing opinions on this situation without sufficient information. It takes time and effort to access accurate information, process it, and come to a strong position. It’s easier—and irresponsible—to make assumptions based on headlines and snippets being passively shared on social media. In a Facebook post, Kelly Hayes reminded people that we need not make enemies of one another.

“The ignorance of folks who are flailing in their efforts to make sense of this moment does not make them the enemies[…] They are poor stand-ins for your actual enemies.”

This, of course, is not permission to shirk the responsibility to share information, challenge positions, and speak in support of human rights and the international laws that promote, protect, and uphold them.

It is a call to see the violent systems and the people who uphold them for exactly what they are, and to dismantle those systems in the interest of all.

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