7/19/02 Dearest --
Wow, two letters in one day! I was considering the specific reasons why Mohandas and Martin differ in outlook, strength of character, and yet take the very same course of action in their history of events in their lifetimes. The foundation of their philosophies is completely different, love, and you know that. Ghandi is played by Ben Kingsley, an Englishman, at the request of the Hindus and Pakistanis. Why would they do this, knowing filmmaking inside and out, and knowing their "Bapu" enough to entrust 300 million lives to the word of one goatherd? It is interesting to note that Martin Luther King started as a preacher, and moved away from his religious base in pursuit of the same spirituality of Ghandi, while Ghandi started out as a London-bred street lawyer and moved toward a generic Indian spirituality as he became more and more vital to the struggle for an independent India. I should need to say little more than I already have. First and foremost, the United States is not the British Empire, and Alabama does not have 300 million ethnically united but religiously divided people without autonomy. I should need to say little more. Or perhaps, I should need to say little more given the context of a historical timeline pre- and post- WW2, especially in the frame of our present third millennium. In 1946, the world needed Mohandas Ghandi and he was conveniently placed there from his history [of civil rights activity] in South Africa decades before WW2. WTF was or is Martin Luther King? Who exactly manufactured this man? I actually don't need to know, having read a letter from a jail in Selma. Yes, the Red Foxx Thelma, in _Sanford & Son_ [I was thinking of Esther, perhaps also Wilma Rudolph, but most probably Lemont]. I find the civil rights movement steaming along after the sudden independence of many nation-states in the late 40's, prodigious and efficacious case law in the 50's, spiritual and artistic development and endeavor in the 50's, and television, in the 50's. The sixties seem to me to be what George Harrison saw of the Haight-Ashbury in 1968: look it up. Timothy Leary. the 1960's were an awful time to live and to die; the 70's much better and I'm glad to have spent my childhood there. Anyway darling, I'm out of paper again, so I'll end this letter here. I love you. Mark <snip kanji for "bi" or "fire">
