“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”, a quote often associated with Martin Luther King. He said that while paraphrasing abolitionist minister Theodore Parker.
I tend to hear this from people after something horrible has happened. Almost like a throwaway inspirational phrase used to keep you feeling okay.
“It’s horrible that this happened, but hey, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.
“It bends towards justice”, I don’t know how much I believe that.
Feels like every day there’s more and more reason to not believe that.
On July 25, 2025, in the wake of two major storms flooding the country, 54 areas (both cities and provinces) in the Philippines declared a state of calamity, 30 people have been reported dead.
The government, instead of responding appropriately, waved off the phenomenon as “the new normal”. A government that collects the most tax in the South East Asian region but doesn’t have the infrastructure and systems to protect its people.
How is the country that collects the most tax in the region not able to build appropriate flood control systems? Well, it turns out that the answer is the same thing that has bogged down so many nations in the global South for so many years. Corruption. Congress, the Senate, and contractors have been pocketing billions of Philippine Pesos for years – sorry, billions of Filipino taxpayers’ pesos. Taxes that were intended for flood control projects. This money then funds these people’s extravagant lifestyles with multiple homes, luxury cars, and designer products. Meanwhile, the Filipino people are forced to fight to survive.
Currently, there are senate hearings and congress sessions running ‘investigations’ into this situation. But really, who knows what difference that’ll make. Over and over again, politicians and other people of influence manage to get away with all their crimes. All while regular people suffer in prison or have been killed by law enforcement for much lesser crimes.
This isn’t new to the Philippines. Year after year, disasters hit, people struggle to make it out, and are then praised for their ‘resilience’. This year, while the country flooded, the government prioritised caving in to American imperialism – agreeing to a trade deal that benefits America more than their own people. Since its independence from the US (and Spain), the Philippine government has been in a constant cycle of appeasing its former coloniser and making deals under the table to benefit those involved.
“It bends towards justice”
In October 2024, Israel began its genocide of the Palestinian people. An extinction mission long in the making. The world watched. Western media carried on its mission to justify the bloodshed. To justify genocide. The genocide is “complicated”. Opposing the genocide is ‘antisemitic”.
By July 2025, Israel had killed more than 60,000 Palestinians while blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.
At the same time Western media began walking back its anti-genocide rhetoric, after the damage had become irreversible. The West made empty condemnations against the genocide while supplying arms to the oppressors. Governments pretend to take action. The West, once again, shows that if the victims of tragedy aren’t white, it will do nothing (well, okay, some European countries have taken actual action, but it’s pretty late in the timeline). Those in the public eye have decided that it’s time for them to start speaking out against a genocide after a year of saying nothing and doing nothing. They’ve learnt that it’s bad for their public image not to say something
This isn’t new. In the 1490s, European settlers began their 400-year massacre of over 100 million indigenous people on continental North America. In 1943, the British implemented the ‘scorched earth’ policy and forced mass starvation in Bengal. In 1941, the holocaust began. In 2025, Israel forces mass starvation in Gaza.
From September 8-10 2025, Israel attacked six different countries. Western governments do nothing. If this happened in Europe, NATO probably would’ve intervened by now.
“It bends towards justice”
People are dying
“It bends towards justice”
People are dying
“It bends towards justice”
People are still dying
It seems like the arch of the moral universe bends towards wherever the West bends it. It bends towards colonialism, it bends towards the oppression of people of colour, it bends towards injustice.
Mychal Denzel Smith wrote an interesting piece about this quote in light of the Trump presidency. One paragraph stands out to me:
“King’s single sentence is a more tightly wound rhetorical punch, easily deployed for immediate inspiration, but it carries the unintended effect of suggesting that justice is inevitable, so that no matter what we do now, the arc of the moral universe will care for us later. Parker’s sermon, however, forces us into a more active role. He starts by admitting that he does not “understand the moral universe,” which King’s more declarative statement elides. He is less sure of that universe’s contents and of where it may lead, since the “arc is a long one” and his eye “reaches but little ways.” Unable to “calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight” he is left to “divine it by conscience.” This could still be read as somewhat passive. Parker is not reaching out to bend the arc himself; rather, he is envisioning what it must look like through his own seemingly enlightened conscience. As an abolitionist and Christian, of course he is sure the arc bends toward justice, or else his work and faith must both be called into question. But his uncertainty about the moral universe is what makes his strong faith a necessity. For Parker, there is no guarantee, that he sees clearly, of the moral universe doing as he wishes. It is only through his own conscience, and thereby his own actions, that justice will be achieved.”
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. Sure, but only if we bend it. The question is, how do we bend it? Like the Philippines, Indonesia and Nepal have recently taken action against the corruption of their governments, very violent actions. I’ve never been one to encourage violence; hell, I’m from a country famous for a peaceful revolution. But, where has that gotten us? Still in the same damn place.
I don’t want to condone excessive violence, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel like the solution. There have been a lot of instances throughout history of violence being the necessary solution to freedom. From the uprisings that led to the abolition of slavery, to the fight for civil rights in the US. From the anti-colonial uprisings like the Haitian Revolution to the French Revolution (and all the mini-revolutions that followed). Hell, even the Philippines fought against Spanish colonial rule from 1896-1897, only to be followed by the Philippine-American War in 1899.
So, does the moral arc of the universe bend with excessive force?
The truth is, I don’t know how. I don’t know how to bend it. I don’t know if there is one way to bend it. I wish I did. I want to have the answer, I just don’t.
All I know is this: we have to find a way to bend it. Bend it towards justice for everyone, not just the West, not just for those in power. We need to bend it towards equality, towards hope. One way or another.