Open Letter To Professor Juan Cole

I urge all readers to go read Juan Cole's blog today, in which he pays an inspiring tribute to the legacy of Martin Luther King. His post inspired me to write this comment...

Juan, your continued efforts on your blog and elsewhere are testimony to your inspiring faith in your readership. But as you note MLK said:

"If we assume that mankind has a right to survive then we must find an alternative to war and destruction. "

Under current circumstances, the assumption that mankind has a (divine) "right" to survive must be questioned. If nothing else, the Iraq War has provided us with a ghastly insight into the base failings of human nature. Is this is who and what we are, the world is better off without us.

Men like MLK and Gandhi rise up from among the thronging masses of the deprived. They are feted as heroes. Their message of peace is trumpeted around the globe.

And then we kill them.

And then we forget them.

What is wrong with us? How do we transcend the greed, hatred, fear and bloodlust that holds us down in the pits of evolutionary primordialism?

In the end, perhaps it is only faith and hope that offer a solution. And I am not talking about faith in a divine being who offers us a "right" to survive all our self-made horrors, but faith such as you, sir, show in your own readers.

Thank you.