For many here at NIU, Martin Luther King’s birthday means little more than an extra night at the bars and a day off from school. His birthday is an event that makes President Bush’s inaugural galas matter even less.

It is a strange and uniquely American contrast: Monday we celebrated the life of a man who cherished peace while tonight we celebrate the political victory of a man who chose war.

But with one celebration coming so quickly after the other, it’s hard not to wonder: What would King have said about our experiences in Iraq or in the war on terror? What would he say to those who dance in tuxedos and gowns tonight while the brave men and women they sent to war are sweating and bleeding in the desert?

The answer is not hard to find.

In 1967, King spoke at a church in New York (apparently there was a time when the church spoke out about issues besides abortion and gay marriage). He spoke against another unpopular war – Vietnam – but his words echo events today with an eerie harmony.

“They must see Americans as strange liberators,” he said of the Vietnamese, though he may as well have said it of the Iraqis, whose liberators quickly became occupiers.

King claimed to speak not only for the innocent civilians who’d been ruined by war, but also “for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption” abroad. As some military recruiters continue to target the poor, the U.S. casualty list nears 1,400, and corruption such as Abu Ghraib taints perceptions of America, it seems the poor still pay a double price – and worse, they have no one to speak for them.

King also quoted a Buddhist leader of Vietnam, whose warning is still potent and frightening today: “Each day the war goes on the hatred increases …The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat.”

Most interestingly, King proposed a way to defeat communism, which was the rhetorical terrorism of its day. “War is not the answer,” he said. “Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not call everyone a Communist … who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days. … We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.” Read “terrorism” for “communism,” and you’ll have the idea.

Of course, there’s no way to know just what King would say today to the country, or to those at the inaugural ball. But it’s hard not to think he would offer the same wisdom he offered in 1967, and if we don’t work harder to resolve our problems peacefully and justly, “we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.