We all know what happened five years ago. The events are seared in our minds. The horror. The violence. The rage. The pain.
Ironically, far fewer of us know what happened 100 years ago on September 11. On that day, Mahatma Gandhi began his first campaign of non-violent resistance.
Born in India, Gandhi moved to South Africa after studying law in Britain. He and other Indians living there were subject to demeaning and discriminatory laws. In a Rosa Parks like moment, Gandhi was removed from the first class compartment of a train because he was a person of color. His reaction, rather than agression or retreat, was non-violent resistance to South Africa’s discriminatory laws.
Though it took years, Gandhi’s leadership contributed to the repeal of some of the most egregious of these laws, and, of course, after his return to India, to the independence of India from Britain.
Gandhi’s movement was known as Satyagraha, roughly translated as “truth force” or “soul force.”
The principles of Stayagraha can be distilled into the following principles:
Means determine ends: we can never use destructive means like violence to bring about constructive ends like democracy and peace.
Evil is the enemy, not the person committing it. In Christian terms, ‘hate the sin, but not the sinner.’ The clearest sign that ‘truth power’ is at work is when your opponent ends up becoming your ally, even your friend. Indeed, activists often discover that the more they can bring themselves to accept the person opposing them, the more effectively they can reach common ground.
Our actions have far more consequence than the immediate, visible results. In fact, it is perfectly possible that our efforts may ‘fail’ to deliver the immediate result we want but succeed in doing more than we may have dreamed of.
Gandhi considered violent resistance against a well-armed opponent to be futile. Moreover, he realized that the hatred and enmity such actions would elicit would make ultimate reconciliation virtually impossible.
Needless to say, Gandhi’s philosophy and actions caused a great deal of consternation.
This emphasis on nonviolence jarred alike on Gandhi’s British and Indian critics, though for different reasons. To the former, nonviolence was a camouflage; to the latter, it was sheer sentimentalism. To the British who tended to see the Indian struggle through the prism of European history, the professions of nonviolence rather than on the remarkably peaceful nature of Gandhi’s campaigns. To the radical Indian politicians, who had browsed on the history of the French and Russian revolutions or the Italian and Irish nationalist struggles, it was patent that force would only yield to force, and that it was foolish to miss opportunities and sacrifice tactical gains for reasons more relevant to ethics than to politics.
Yet we know what Gandhi was able to accomplish despite the naysayers. We know what such great leaders as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela were able to accomplish by adhering to Gandhi’s basic principles.
So as we remember the horror of one anniversary, let us be inspired by the other.
I leave you with some words of wisdom from this great man.
I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
Namaste.
