Jaarboek 1981-1982 - pagina 51

Meneer de Rector Magnificus, Dames en Heren, Toen eind 1964 in faculteit en Senaat eenstemmig mijn voorstel werd aanvaard dr. Martin Luther King jr. een eredoctoraat te verlenen wierp een collega wel de vraag op of dat niet een goedkoop gebaar zou zijn, gezien het feit dat de strijd van de zwarte mensen ver van ons bed plaats vond en een dergelijke situatie van een grote minderheid en in sommige staten zelfs een meerderheid van gekleurde mensen in Nederland niet voorkwam. Goede vraag, waarover ik toen veel heb nagedacht. Ik heb gemeend de oplossing te kunnen vinden in de laatste van de drie passages uit mijn toespraak na het uitspreken van de promotieformule, die ik vanwege de authenticiteit in het Engels zal citeren. De gronden waarop de verlening van de graad werd gefundeerd: ,,Therefore we have a deep respect for the manner in which you lead your suppressed fellow-negroes in the battle for a new society: not a bloody revolution, but a revolution without violence, which heaps coals of fire on the heads of those 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 observation of your battle, which uses the knowledge of social structures of the possibilities under the law, of the value of relations, of the anticipation of human conduct, of the manner in which the morale and self-respect of the group are strengthened, and of the effect wrought by placing spiritual mobility 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." De betrokkenheid van de Vrije Universiteit; waarom schonk juist zij u dit eredoctoraat? ,,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 could afford to be blind for the oceans of personal sorrow and 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 unviolent means, 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 recognise the way of Christ in these methods." ,,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 according to the false picture one has of them, in which their antagonists have projected their own dark desires; of a reality in which they are judged and treated on the ground of their character in a society in which justice rules." Tenslotte de passage waarom het met name gaat: ,,how easy we, with our craving for distinction, can murder everything human and so damage Gods image and transgress 49

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