Jaarboek 1965 - pagina 85

who commit injustice. It did not escape our attention that this is a most effective manner of battle, which has nothing to do with softness. It testifies of sharp insight in human relations: perhaps nowhere as good a school for the sociology of policy can be found as the observation of your battle, which uses the knowledge of social structures, of the possibilities under the law, of the value of public relations, of the anticipation of human conduct, of the manner in which the morale and self-respect of the group are strenghtened, and of the effect wrought by placing spiritual nobility over against physical force; in which the locations for action were carefully chosen: your insight that tokenism was a track on which the revolution ran dead. For these reasons the university grants you this honorary degree in the social sciences: you are working at the coming of a great social revolution. But there is also a wider ground on which you are granted this honor precisely by the Free University. The latter pretends to be led by the gospel of Jesus Christ in its scientific activity and policy and therefore is the last one that can afford to be blind for the oceans of personal sorrow ans social misery and for the lack of justice, wherever these are present and become the plight of fellowman. Woe to the Free University if it should not open its eyes. But when we wage battle against it with means unviolent, expressly based by you on the faith in the Saviour of the world, who did not threaten when he suffered and did not scold when scolded; in that case we want to let you know by means of this honorary degree how we also recognize the way of Christ in these methods. Dr. King, you give leadership to a social revolution in a very concrete situation, in a manner filling the christian with joy and the sociologist and political scientist with respect. This would be sufficient already for giving you this honorary degree. But the significance of your work transcends this and therefore I spoke of wider grounds. It gives courage to all who are suppressed for being a minority, deviating in the colour of their skin, in their faith or otherwise. They are all aching for a position in which they shall no longer be disdained, kicked or beaten, or threatened economically in their livelihood and psychically in their personality. They are dreaming of a reality, in which they shall no longer be judged 83

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