'kän(t)-sh&n(t)s

Generations to come, it may be, will scarcely believe that such a one, as this, ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.

— Albert Einstein

Indeed, current generations seem to not believe in the real Gandhi of flesh and blood, instead propping up or attacking some mythological figure who never existed.  As I so delicately noted about Anne Frank, the Mahatma was a human being--a rather weird one, in fact. 

He also said and wrote a lot in the several decades he fought injustice and naturally his philosophies evolved over time.  But in the age of Teh Google and Wikiquote, the same kind of soundbitesque blogging and lack of context is even plaguing the little fakir in a loincloth who non-violently liberated a few hundred million people [ed. note: contrast to wild claims about the Iraq war's value is left as an exercise for the reader.]

Speaking of Wikiquote, this is the thing that has our friendly 28-percenters up in arms about Ghandi [sic]:

I want you to fight Nazism without arms or ... with non-violent arms. 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. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered ...

How odd that the people who say we Peace Creeps are fucking pansies leave off a few lines from the beginning:

I appeal for cessation of hostilities ... because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans. The only difference is that perhaps yours are not as thorough as the Germans ... I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way, worthy of the bravest soldiers.

Note that Gandhi prescribed the same approach for his beloved India:

I think nothing more need be added when I have said that there should be unadulterated non-violent non-cooperation, and if the whole of India responded and unanimously offered it, I should show that, without shedding a single drop of blood, Japanese arms – or any combination of arms – can be sterilized. That involves the determination of India not to give quarter on any point whatsoever and to be ready to risk loss of several million lives. But I would consider that cost very cheap and victory won at that cost glorious. That India may not be ready to pay that price may be true. I hope it is not true, but some such price must be paid by any country that wants to retain its independence. After all, the sacrifice made by the Russians and the Chinese is enormous, and they are ready to risk all. The same could be said of the other countries also, whether aggressors or defenders. The cost is enormous. Therefore, in the non-violent technique I am asking India to risk no more than other countries are risking and which India would have to risk even if she offered armed resistance.

Did scores of millions not die fighting violence with violence during WWII?  So how can anyone say that dying fighting violence with non-violence is worse?  Might it not even prove to be more powerful because it removes any cause from the aggressors' case? 

Consider the 650,000+ Iraqis who have died since we invaded their country.  Why might a majority of Iraqis think it's acceptable to kill Americans and the people who support them?

Bottom-line: wingers love them a strawman.  In this instance they distill Gandhi's philosophy and writings--and by extension, the entire anti-war "movement"--into a "sit on your hands and let bad people do bad things" approach.  Yes, that would be pretty fucking crazy.

What they fail to understand is that we assume sacrifice, pain and even death are inevitable costs of NV action.  But just as the Earth spinning on its axis, orbiting the sun and galloping through the Cosmos appears to be stable and unmoving from our perspective, non-violence is ACTION and CONFLICT and real FIGHTING against injustice, aggression and evil.  It is not passive.

Many people, not just war apologists, also have a misconception about Gandhi's movement (as well as King's):

A...very common view, especially in Britain and among some Indians, is that Gandhi’s non-violent campaigns were only possible because the opponent was a British Government who were, of course, only very gentlemanly. While this has an element of truth in it, the degree of validity is almost always exceeded so that rather than this being a useful contribution to an analysis of the events, it becomes a means of dismissing those events without thought.

Admittedly, the British were not nearly so ruthless as Hitler or Stalin would have been, but they were far more brutal in repression than is today remembered. People not only suffered seriously in foul prisons and prison camps, but literally had their skulls cracked in beatings with steel-shod bamboo rods (lathis) and were shot while demonstrating. In a more famous and grave case, the shooting at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, unarmed Indians holding a peaceful meeting were without warning fired upon. According to the Hunter Commission 379 were killed and 1,137 wounded.

If the British exercised some restraint in dealing with the non-violent rebellion, this may be more related to the peculiar problems posed by a non-violent resistance movement and to the kind of forces which the non-violence set in motion, than to the opponent being “British”. The same people showed little restraint in dealing with the Mau Mau in Kenya, or in the saturation bombings of Germans cities.

It is interesting that Hitler saw no chance of a successful non-violent or violent revolt in India against British rule. “We Germans have learned well enough how hard it is to force England”, he wrote in Mein Kampf.

The view that non-violent action could only be effective against the British was more credible in the days when the Indian experiments were the main example of non-violent action for political objectives. Now that this is no longer true and the technique has spread to other parts of the world under a variety of political circumstances - as we shall shortly note - including Nazi and Communist rule, more careful examination of the circumstances for effectiveness is required.

Indeed, there are myriad examples now of NV resistance to the most brutal regimes, including Nazi Germany.  What if more ordinary people did "the decent thing" rather than resorting to violence or tacitly supporting state-sponsored violence?

The big problem is that our myths have made it seem as though only Great Men can force change.  Seems pretty damned undemocratic, doesn't it?  Really, those Great Men are just as flawed as the rest of us and, conversely we all have power and the attendant moral responsibility of conscience.

A corollary is that we must assume that even brown people can assume that moral responsibility and even liberate themselves.  So not only is it undemocratic to think that the Great Man must save the day, it is inhumane to think the Great Nation must invade and kill people to free them from evil.  White Man's Burden is about as quaint as war itself.

So what do I want?  To support our troops by bringing them home and supporting them once they are home, and to support the Iraqis by giving them their country back.  That's crazy enough, it just might work.

Now I know this was long and had lots of links and stuff, but if you've made it this far and are open-minded, here are a few items related to NV action that might help you start to understand the philosophy and history of non-violence a bit:

• Philosophy of Nonviolence
• A Peaceful World Won’t Happen By Itself
• There Are Realistic Alternatives

And now a pop quiz.  Who said this?

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back -- but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.

Amen.

ntodd

PS--As usual with these long things, I expect errors and expect to edit later.  Right now, I'm hitting the road.  I just didn't want to depart Liberal Mountain and have all this shit rattling in my head for 6 hours.