Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Gandhi's lesson
, a startling film that I last saw more than twenty years ago. His story is absolutely remarkable, the memory of which is worth refreshing. Today's world would much benefit from such a man.There are many moments in the movie that bear on our troubles today. Consider this bit, on the ultimate consequences of terrorism, and the power of non-violent non-cooperation:
PATEL (to business: Gandhi has been admitted to the
power circle, he is not the power): Well, I've called you here because I've had a chance to see the new legislation. It's exactly what was rumored. Arrest without warrant. Automatic imprisonment for possession of materials considered seditious . . .
He looks at Gandhi.
PATEL: Your writings are specifically listed.
Gandhi nods at the "compliment," but they are all angered
by the severity of it.
KRIPALANI: So much for helping them in the Great War.
. .
[Muhammed] JINNAH [the leader of India's Muslims and the father of Pakistan] (fire): There is only one answer to that. Direct action – on a scale they can never handle!
Again the temper of it produces a little silence. Then
NEHRU: I don't think so.
He moves to a servant who stands, holding a large tray with a silver service of tea. Of them all, Nehru's manner is the most naturally patrician and Jinnah watches him with a somewhat envious awareness of it.
NEHRU: Terrorism would only justify their repression. And what kinds of leaders would it throw up? Are they likely to be the men we would want at the head of our country?
His stand has produced a little shock of surprise. Holding his tea, he turns to Gandhi with a little smile.
NEHRU: I've been catching up on my reading.
He means Gandhi's of course. Jinnah looks at the two of them. Gandhi has removed his sandals and is sitting cross-legged on a fine upholstered chair. Jinnah's eyes rake him with anger and distaste.
JINNAH (coldly): I too have read Mr. Gandhi's writings, but I'd rather be ruled by an Indian terrorist than an English one. And I don't want to submit to that kind of law.
PATEL (to Nehru – diplomatically – but with a trace of condescension): I must say, Panditji, it seems to me it's gone beyond remedies like passive resistance.
GANDHI (in the silence): If I may – I, for one, have never advocated passive anything.
They all look at him with some surprise. As he speaks, he rises and walks to the servant.
GANDHI: I am with Mr. Jinnah. We must never submit to such laws – ever. And I think our resistance must be active and provocative.
They all stare at him, startled by his words and the fervor with which he speaks to them.
GANDHI: I want to embarrass all those who wish to treat us as slaves. All of them.
He holds their gaze, then turns to the immobile servant and with a little smile, takes the tray from him and places it on the table next to him. It makes them all aware that the servant, standing there like an insensate ornament, has been treated like a "thing," a slave. As it sinks in, Gandhi pours some tea then looks up at them with a pleading warmth – first to Jinnah.
GANDHI: Forgive my stupid illustration. But I want to change their minds – not kill them for weaknesses we all possess.
It impresses each one of them. But for all his impact, they still take the measure of him with caution.
AZAD: And what "resistance" would you offer?
GANDHI: The law is due to take effect from April sixth. I want to call on the nation to make that a day of prayer and fasting.
"Prayer and fasting"? They are not overwhelmed.
JINNAH: You mean a general strike?
GANDHI (his grin): I mean a day of prayer and fasting. But of course no work could be done – no buses, no trains, no factories, no administration. The country would stop.
Patel is the first to recognize the implications.
PATEL: My God, it would terrify them . . .
AZAD (a wry smile): Three hundred fifty million people at prayer. Even the English newspapers would have to report that. And explain why.
KRIPALANI: But could we get people to do it?
NEHRU (he is half sold already): Champaran stirred the whole country. (To Gandhi) They are calling you Mahatma – the Great Soul.
GANDHI: Fortunately such news comes very slowly where I live.
NEHRU (continuing, to the others): I think if we all worked to publicize it . . . all of the Congress . . . every avenue we know.
The idea has caught hold. As the others talk "papers," "telegrams," "speeches," Jinnah looks over his cup at Gandhi with an air of bitter resignation, but he tries to make light of it.
JINNAH: Perhaps I should have stayed in the garden and talked about the flowers.
If, at any time before the second intifada, the Palestinian Arabs had dedicated themselves to non-violent non-cooperation -- imagine, for a moment, that they had simply walked, unarmed and without resistance, to the beach at Tel Aviv to go swimming, much as Gandhi walked to the sea to make salt -- how would Israel have responded? Would the Palestinian Arabs have a country today, without a wall?
Discuss.
14 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Mar 14, 12:37:00 AM:
In T. Clancy's "Sum of all Fears" [the novel, not the revisionist garbage film] there is a Pali politician who reads Ghandi and leads a nonviolent protest that the Israeli police violently react to -- which opens the door to actual peace talks
As much as I might wish life to imitate art in this instance, I don't see it happening ...
"Buckaroo"
By , at
Tue Mar 14, 05:45:00 AM:
I think the answer to your question is yes – non-violent resistance would accomplish what terrorism has not: an unwalled, independent state. Closer to home, we have another example of the power of non-violent resistance: Martin Luther King, Jr. did a lot more to bring about the end of Jim Crow than a thousand Black Panthers.
But MLK also understood the limits of non-violent resistance. He said, “If your opponent has a conscience, then follow Gandhi. But if your enemy has no conscience, like Hitler, then follow Bonhoeffer.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian, had advocated pacifism against the Nazis and eventually came to understand that only violent resistance was appropriate against an enemy without a conscience. He was executed for his part in an assassination plot against Hitler.
By , at
Tue Mar 14, 06:18:00 AM:
Annonymous (12.37 am) raises a valid point. How many times do we complain that films change the truth. Read a book on the subject written before the revisionists have time to get their pens on the subject.
Betty Cracker makes a point regarding who you opponent is. But I think she gets the protagonists wrong. It is not the Israelis the non-violence marchers would have to worry about, it would be the Palestinian Authority.
If my memory serves me correctly there were at least two palestinian political groups in the West Bank and Gaza before Oslo. After Oslo was partially implimented and Arafat came back the political parties received a message. You are with me or you die. After a few deaths, the message was received and there became a united front - only one party. The moderates became surrogates for Arafat.
All was lost. Or should I say all would have been lost if the West had not decided that only one party, Israel, was to impliment the accords.
Stop blaming Israel.
The Palestinians have been teaching their children to hate for a least one generation. The West and the Middle-East are complicit in this. There will be no peace until they start teaching their childrean about peace.
By , at
Tue Mar 14, 06:20:00 AM:
PS:
You forget that the wall is in response to lack of movement by Palestinians.
By , at
Tue Mar 14, 06:32:00 AM:
Davod, you misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that the Israelis are an opponent without a conscience; in fact, I implied just the opposite in my first sentence. The reason I believe non-violent resistance on the part of the Palestinians would succeed where terrorism has failed is precisely because Israel is on the whole a civilized "opponent" to the Palestinians.
Unfortunately, the principle is unlikely to be tested. As you pointed out, the Palestinians teach their children to hate as a matter of public policy. You're right about the Palestinian Authority too. NPR did a piece on a small Palestinian pacifist group awhile back, and predictably, the group met the most resistance from the violent factions, who accused them of complicity with the Israelis.
By 
Cardinalpark, at
Tue Mar 14, 08:48:00 AM:
Non violent resistance is a non starter for a number of reasons:
1) Mahatma Ghandi was no Muslim jihadi. the concept of non-violent jihad doesn't seem to penetrate the Muslim resistance culture
2) It worked in India because the Indians weren't trying to take territory; they were merely trying to assume self government. They had their territory.
3) The Palestinians are not trying to exple Israel from the West Bank and Gaza. They, especially Hamas, intend to expel Jews from Israel and retake all of their theoretical Palestine. You don't "expel and take" non violently.
Hence. War.
By Gordon Smith, at
Tue Mar 14, 10:57:00 AM:
Hawk,
I get you. Non-violent resistance would be a much more powerful tool than terrorism for the Palestianians and any other small group/nation that seeks to end oppression.
I'm with you 100%. I also agree that it ain't gonna happen, but the tactical criticism is well-taken.
By Gordon Smith, at
Tue Mar 14, 05:15:00 PM:
Shorter Texas 10: Gandhi wasn't perfect, so don't practice non-violence. Non-violence only works against British people, American people and Israelis.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Mar 14, 08:33:00 PM:
You know, your apparent interpretation of Texas10's words and mine are WAY different. Probably because I didn't warp them to fit what I wanted to see and thereby mock.
Part 1: Ghandi's public image was different from what he was like in private.
Part 2: (agreeing with other posters) Non-violent resistance will only work against people who have moral issues with beating up/shooting peaceful protesters, such as Israel.
It's really quite simple.
By TigerHawk, at
Tue Mar 14, 09:05:00 PM:
Non-violent resistance will only work against people who have moral issues with beating up/shooting peaceful protesters, such as Israel.
I think that non-violent resistance can also work against people who are influenced, directly or indirectly, by popular opinion. This can include people who are not inhibited by morals, but who are subject to pressure from people who are.
Today's world is far more transparent than Gandhi's world. May I suggest that his tactics would have been far more potent and Britain's options far more limited if he would have been able to exploit today's transparency -- blogging for example.
Here's a thought experiment: If the Chinese people arose in peaceful protest as they did in 1989, would the government smack them down as brutally as they did at Tiananmen Square in 1989? I would say no, even though the morality of the government in China has probably not improved.
By honestpartisan, at
Wed Mar 15, 07:27:00 AM:
I agree with the main point to a great extent. The first intifada (which started out as a grass-roots movement which the PLO leadership in Tunis didn't want partly because it was out of their control) started in 1987 and, despite all of the news coverage of rock-throwing, mostly used nonviolent tactics like economic boycotts. And that led to the Oslo accords. Consciousness of public opinion on Israel's part had something to do with it, but I think a lot of Israelis just got sick of occupying the West Bank and Gaza.
By Dan Kauffman, at
Wed Mar 15, 08:21:00 PM:
Non Violent resistance is only effective against those with some concept of the sanctity of life what Ghandhi used against the British would have resulted in what when used against Hitler or Stalin?
Here is his advice to the British and the Jews at the Dawn of WW2
"In 1940, when Hitler was scoring victory after victory throughout Europe, Gandhi addressed the following advice to the soldiers of Great Britain: "I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them."
Two years earlier, in the months before World War II began, Gandhi reacted to the outrage of the Nazi-inspired Kristalnacht (the national pogrom of November 9 to 10, 1938) by offering the following advice to German Jews for overcoming Nazi anti-Semitism: "I am as certain as I am dictating these words that the stoniest German heart will melt [if only the Jews] … adopt active nonviolence. Human nature ... unfailingly responds to the advances of love. I do not despair of his [Hitler's] responding to human suffering even though caused by him."
We have too many like Ghandhi today. At least to many who say lay down and let them slaughter you, in time they will tire.
By , at
Thu Mar 16, 08:22:00 PM:
You all have missed the most recent and perhaps the best example of non-violent resistance that succeeded in liberating many nations from their tyrannical bondage. Hint, most of it happened in 1989. Yes, the correct answer is the breakup of that Soviet east European block when Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, etc. became free of Soviet oppression. People power is an amazingly effective force when harnessed.
I think that we forget that governments only exist with the concent of the people that they govern.
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