Universal nonviolence includes
thoughts, words as well as actions
and includes opposition to war,
to execution, to the mowing
down of plants, the slaughter of
animals in laboratories or for
consumption.

Take a look at Wallstreetwinnersonline.com

RickJ

Take a look at Wallstreetwinnersonline.com

RickJ

Gandhi only enjoyed some measure of success because British India did not have a large, indigenous, white settler population. No large body of white people who remember that two generations ago they were white trash scum. Now they are landed lords. But if they lose they will be white trash scum again. For them the socioeconomic stakes are too high to allow for sentiment.

Gandhian methods were used in Algeria by Ferhat Abbas in the 1940s and by Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa in the 1950’s. They failed completely and utterly. They failed because the white settlers had no problem with using as much violence as they had to to preserve their privileged status quo. A British mother would be reluctant to send her son to fight in India to preserve the Raj. A white settler mother will sternly bury her fifth son to protect her way of life.

What is missing from this discussion, though, are the many examples, large scale and small, where an unarmed population used methods of ahisma (nonviolence) or satyagraha (soul-force) to resist tyranny, and not only against pansies like the British occupiers of India (he said ironically).

I wonder, for example, why no one has mentioned the nonviolent resistance of the Danes? Denmark was occupied, but never conquered, and almost all of the Danish Jews were protected and escaped the Nazis.

Or places like la Chambon in southeastern France, a Protestant village that protected and saved hundreds of Jews while being occupied by the Germans. There is considerable evidence there that the Chambonais’ courage and the social solidarity and cohesion in the area acted as a brake on the viciousness of the German occupiers. If the pacifism-doesn’t-work position is correct, the Germans should have — and would have — simply killed everyone, Protestant, Jew, and Catholic alike, until they got their way. But they didn’t. Why? Is it impossible to believe that the courage and solidarity of the Chambonais touched a place deep in the dark heart of the German occupiers that made it impossible for them to do what they were ordered to do?

Have these examples (and there are hundreds of others throughout history) brought about the Peaceable Kingdom on Earth once and for all? No. But neither has war.

If neither method — war or non-violence — has produced Paradise Restored, I ask: In which direction is each heading?

Has war (or preparation for war)made the need for war any less? I don’t think so. The war in Iraq, for example, has resulted in more violence than there was originally, just as the attacks of 9/11 created more violence than before, etc. Is there anyone who really thinks that war will ever end war?

What has the effect of nonviolence been on the injustices it was aimed at? On balance it has a better track record than war does. Because of the disciplined, mass use of nonviolent methods, there’s less need for nonviolent resistence — that is, less tyranny, more justice — in places like the Czech Republic or Slovakia; the Ukraine; South Africa; Birmingham or Selma.

So if we grant the obvious that neither war nor nonviolence has ended injustice or oppression on Earth, which method holds the most promise?

For me, I see much more promise in nonviolence than I do in war, acknowledging that each carries with it suffering. The difference is that with war the intention is to inflict suffering on others, while with nonviolence the intention is to take the suffering onto oneself. As Camus (Satre?) said, neither victim nor executioner.

It indeed takes courage whose source resides outside the mortal human experience to take the non-violent path. Sometimes you have to lose your life to find it.

Ignoring of course the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of innocent Vietnamese murdered by the brave Yankee nonpacifists.

The Vietnam War simply put off the reckoning among the Vietnamese people. Gandhi’s point, right there. Still, he was speaking to a smarter crowd than we have here.

Yep. In fact, I’ll take it further: Himmler And Company were only able to create the concentration camps because Jews had *already* been tried, and found guilty, in that same court.

They knew. Not the specifics, maybe - gas? fire? - but they knew.

And now I come hear and find that it’s Gandhi who is more like Hitler. Honestly. Look, Gandhi was a man, a flawed man, as all men are. Man is inherently fallible.

Gandhi’s comments regarding Hitler and the Jews are ridiculous, but that doesn’t change the fact that he served as the emotional and spiritual head of a movement whose cause was just. Ignoring that is like leftists willing to throw Jefferson to the wind because of owning slaves. And the Indians know full well independence was a complicated matter. Don’t turn men into gods; they won’t disappoint you as much then.

That’s very despicable, to tell people to keep on fighting, taking other people’s lives with them, instead of just killing themselves if they like dieing with nobility so much.

Death is death, it shouldn’t matter if you died by the enemy’s blades or by your own. All that matters is what you have accomplished on this planet before your departure.

If you want to die, go ahead, but leave the rest of us out of the nihilism party.

Not that I defend Ghandi. Nor do I vilify him. As a firmly convinced follower of Jesus Christ I understand that Ghandi was a sinful man in the very same sense that all of humanity is sinful, and therefore his life is not to be defended - nor accused.

That’s one of the reasons why I never subscribed to any religion, cause there’s just too much mumbo jumbo stuff about sin this, absolute state of conscience that, and none of it makes sense or is applicable in the real world.

Sin is not a justification of why someone’s actions favor some things over others.

But let’s look at it in a religious way. Religion teaches that there is an afterlife, hell and heaven, karma and reincarnation. And what exactly does religion teach about the temporal world?

They teach that you have to do certain things in this world, to get this reward in the other world.

Look, that sounds like a damn con to me, and I don’t tend to fall for cons.

I have nothing against the very HUMAN aspect of faith and spirituality, but the idea that you should work your ass off here and now, for a reward somewhere down the future, is a human fallibility, not a Deism product.

Historically, the Catholic Church took over the reigns of power from the Roman Empire. And one way they controlled things was to give hope, true or false, to the people who were growing the food and selling it in bazaars.

That’s a human teaching, it was a method to maintain temporal power. All the spiritualism came after, in the Renaissance and Reformation.

Ghandi’s problem was that he was using religion to control people, and that he did wonderfully. What’s the problem with that? Because religion was not designed to give people rewards in the temporal world, it was designed to give them the promise of a reward.

Without the institution of pacifism built to control the mob, human nature will take over. That means that much death, destruction, and Evil will be loosed upon the world. And this world has seen enough of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, it needs no more from Ghandi or anyone else.

This is an inherently flawed design for an institution that is supposed to control the desires and actions of humanity.

This is why I favor the building from scratch or reengineering model.

Which says that the way to control people is to give them control over the principles that have always controlled them before. Instead of shunning anger, rage, violence, and whatever sins they may fall into, (with the result of an exposion of hate unchecked) we harness them and purify them. (With the result that it will result in useful work done)

Instead of creating a sense of fear/greed to control people’s actions in the temporal world, we create a set of individual controls and discipline and standards that allow a person to control his own actions of his own will regardless of whether a reward is offered or not.

Hence, people will do what they really want to do, rather than what they are forced into doing by greed, fear, or whatever.

Instead of using a reward system as in the carrot and the donkey, we use a humanism model.

Ghandi was not using a humanism model, he was treating humans as animals. That might have been justified after the Roman Empire collapsed and barbarian hordes were everywhere, and you needed a central figure of authority like the Pope to hold civilization, what was left of it, together.

But in the 20th century, that excuse is no longer even plausible.

Ghandhi’s problem is that he sought to reshape humanity into something inhumane, something impossible and unworkable, unnatural and disfigured.

He transmuted God’s grace into the rage of the animal and the violence of the hawk, instinctual and emotional, never rational and heartfelt.

I am interested in achieving paradise on Earth, not reaching paradise in the afterlife. Anyone who is motivated to do harm in this world because of a reward in the afterlife, must be sent to the afterlife as soon as possible, to mitigate the damage on the human condition.

That includes not only intentions of violence, but the actual manifestion,through causality, of violence. In the afterlife, intentions may be the only things that matter, of nobility and Goodness. But in the real world, there are real consequences, whether you intended it or not on the road to Hell.

Not that I defend Ghandi. Nor do I vilify him. As a firmly convinced follower of Jesus Christ I understand that Ghandi was a sinful man in the very same sense that all of humanity is sinful, and therefore his life is not to be defended - nor accused.

Instead let us look again at Christ and the call of discipleship. Paul understood that this call was, in a similar sense to which I allude in my first paragraph, suicidal. Following Jesus meant taking up a cross, and when Christ first taught that concept, the context would have given them a gruesome picture for pondering, and the focus of that picture would not have been Christ’s sacrificial death on the believer’s behalf but the more general picture of a criminal carrying a cross-beam to his own place of execution.

Paul said that we are as sheep for the slaughter, and he delighted in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions. He willingly laid down his physical life even while calling his churches to submit to the very government that killed him.

The call to follow Christ is a call to suicidal allegiance by virtue of the fact that the path of discipeship puts one in grave danger from the forces of evil, and the only forms of defense it allows are faith in the sovereign hand of God and anointed common sense.

Any phrase involving a word such as “suicide” makes itself vulnerable because of the emotional connotations that cannot be avoided. Nevertheless, let us understand what is meant and realize that even the call to discipleship was phrased in very vulnerable terms when Christ said things like “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, mother, wife, and children, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Jesus did not mind using language that made his teachings vulnerable to accusation, for He knew that those with ears to hear would appreciate the true message. Nor did He mind calling His disciples to a path of non-violence which made them vulnerable to physical aggression. He knew that they had a greater defense than any earthly weapon could offer.

I hope everyone who likes suicide, will go ahead and do it, at least that way they get the Darwin Award and I get to keep on living.

I recall that Ho Chi Minh observed that “if Gandhi had lived in a French colony, he would long since have departed this world.” (quote inexact).

Culture clearly influences one’s approach to the use of force. If there are Muslim clerics who are advocating Gandhi’s methods, as some Christian and Jewish clerics are, I have yet to hear of it. Pacifism of any sort does not even appear as an option in most times and places.* I am wondering if there are personality factors that influence whether someone embraces the pacifisms of various sorts. I have no hard data, and can only approach the question through observation and remembering what I used to think myself. Certainly the desire for a type of spiritual purity, to have my own hands blameless whatever the consequences, figured prominently in my own mind. That strikes me as shallow and self-centered now.

The “Not In My Name” movement seems to scream this by its very title. Perhaps those who believe that “society” equals “government” feel a special pressure to disassociate themselves from government actions they dislike. Those of us who regard the government as only a portion of what a nation is may feel less need to publicly distance ourselves.

As to the paperboy’s comment, I would essentially agree but add that two Hinduisms exist in India — the beliefs he mentions, running parallel to an ancient, bloody polytheism. While the two are not thoroughly incompatible, they are largely so. Individuals dip into each in different measure, but it is impossible to fully embrace both.

*A Viking or Mongol pacifist would make an excellent Monty Python bit.

Gandhi’s strategy wasn’t to just get beaten up, it was to get beaten up in front of the media

The eastern Hindu-Buddhist mindset is founded on the concept of reincarnation; that souls repeatedly come to Earth to inhabit human bodies. In the most esoteric circles, the belief is so extreme that the Earth is seen as a sort of cosmic prison, insane asylum, or laboratory of the universe, where immortal divine sparks of God go to temporarily incarnate in human bodies for a number of times to answer grandiose questions of “what if” (move over, HP.) Living in a world of spirit, eastern spiritualists eschew materiality to such an extent that many Indian gurus own nothing more than a loincloth and a begging bowl, yet are highly esteemed for their wisdom. By eschewing materiality and embracing spirituality, one is closer to attaining to God from which they came. So, it’s of little consequence if/when their temporal body should meet an untimely end; the Soul is immortal anyway. And Divine Plan will always work out for the highest and best interest in the end.

This spiritualist way of thinking is so foreign, so incomprehensible to us materialistic westerners that when the two cultures clash, there’s no way to resolve the differences except through violence, as was the case between India and Britain. The clash of cultures is exposed even more in the case of the Nazis. The Nazis managed to program out Conscience, and replace it with State, just as the communists replaced God with State. When there’s a disconnect from conscience, then the result is eventually insanity, as was the case with Hitler in the end. In Gandhi’s ideal of satyagraha, the idea was to appeal to the conscience of the oppressors by throwing their atrocities back in their face. If there is no conscience to appeal to, then satyagraha would have had disastrous results. If I could consult a cosmic chess computer and determine the final result if the Nazis had occupied India, or if the Jews had embraced satyagraha as Gandhi suggested, I think that either of those cultures would have been annihilated. As it is, it was fortunate that Pearl Harbor happened so that the US was drawn into the war, activating the Axis Powers pact, pitting the allied forces against Germany so that Germany could be defeated, and the Jews spared. Conspiracy theorists might bleat that Pearl Harbor was planned just as much as they bleat that 9/11 was planned, but in the end, the overall result proved to be for the greatest good.

It’s because starting with the 20th century that the world has been getting smaller that we have been seeing these clashes of disparate cultures. And that’s why Muslim culture, which finds non-Muslims to be incomprehensible and unacceptable, is in a state of jihad. I could imagine that the seeds of peace from satyagraha could take root in some far distant future generation, these differences would be more easily resolved, and we could just “all get along.” But for now, if it’s not possible to “agree to disagree”, then we’ll have to choose sides, and play out the part that best suits us as human beings from disparate cultures. For Gandhi, that meant submitting to death without compromising devotion to Spirit. For Islamic Jihadists, it often means martyrdom, murder, and violence for the sake of their ideals. Both cases are sad and incomprehensible to our western views, but that’s their way. It’s also our best effort toward resolving conflict by using military force to remove feudal warlords, dictators, and jihadists. And I don’t regret that one bit. And so, the war continues.

It was nice to read a very perceptive analysis of Gandhian ideology. Gandhi is basically regarded as the prophet of non – violence the world over. But there are instances in Gandhi’s political career which does not go down well with this image. Most of them being Gandhi condoning Muslim acts of violence against Hindus in the Malabar region {now Kerala} in glowing terms. Gandhi’s non – violence also had completely disabled the Hindus in facing up to the collective Muslim challenge. In the end, Gandhi’s
non – violence, could not save millions of Hindus liquidated in Muslim held territories now called Pakistan at the time of partition.

Gandhi in my view also completely overturned the message of the Bhagvad Gita, which gives the message of putting up a relentless battle against evil and to never compromise with any form of evil. To constantly capitulate to the Islamic terror tactics for the purpose of seeking an alliance with them against the British was one of the greatest Gandhian ambitions and he failed miserably.

Gandhi’s understanding of Islam and the Muslim movement for Pakistan. The understanding he displays for the German situation and the Jews. The advice he proffers to the Jews of Germany, all of it together reflects the infantile mind of Gandhi.

I am also doing my reading on the subject and it was nice to read your views on them.

Regards,

Indeed. There is a book *edited* by Harry Turtledove, (I believe it was “Alternate Leaders”) who is currently the Big Kahuna of the Alternate History genre, which postulates exactly that — A Britain defeated whose colonies have fallen to Nazi rule, and in which Gandhi attempts to use his techniques against the new Nazi rulers. Needless to say, the Nazis make it very clear that his techniques won’t work against them.

In truth, the reason his techniques worked is because of the essential decency of the peoples they were used on. Against a peoples like the Nazis, the Soviet Commissars, or against Islamofascists, they would fail utterly.

You cannot appeal to the humanity of a group of inhumans.

Thank gun registration for that — one of the first things Nazis did when they got power somewhere was to go to those gun registration lists and confiscate all the guns.

When you wonder why gun owners resist with great vehemence any effort to create a gun registration system, this would be precisely why.

There has never been a nation which, in the end, registration did not lead to confiscation, in fairly short order and in some way.

*******Alternate response:
> and the populace, unlike that of the US, was not armed.

Strangely enough, towards the end, neither were the guards. Films and photos from the time show that, towards the end, the guards were carrying empty guns — Ammunition being in sufficiently short supply that it was all sent to the fronts (I believe support for this can be found via Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership)

Had ANY of those Jews been familiar with weapons to the point of recognizing the fact that none of them were cocked, they could have overwhelmed their guards by sheer numbers, and had some chance of life.

A rather sobering thought, for sure.

Had he done the same techniques against the Nazis the world would never have heard of him, becuase he would have been killed immediately.

He tried his techniques against the Islamists who became Pakistan, apparently, and it failed miserably because Islam apparently does not have the same sense of humanity and empathy that the British had.

Those of today who want to apply Gandhian techniques to the Islamofascits today could not be more mistaken, because, as we saw on 9/11, the world of Islam is not appalled at slaughter but rather celebrates their strength over what they see as weakness and corruption.

The essence of the fascist mind is to glorify will, strength, and power. They become violently enraged at weakness and are compelled to destroy it (read “Escaspe from Freedom” by Eric Fromm). Gandhi pacifism in the face of fascism guarantees, no causes, massacre.

Gandhi’s only offering to today’s world is to show why his pacifism is insane in the face of the fascist mindset.

The example of the Holocaust, among others, is different. Some guys like to do that stuff. Others don’t mind it, a job like any other.
Example is lost on them.

I don’t know of a particular example to hold forth; one of my fellow demonstration marshals of that time had a list of Christian Saints that he used.

(I’ve been cribbing the Gandhi quotes from: http://www.mkgandhi.org/nonviolence/Gandhi’sstruggle.htm )

“Violence, rather than Cowardice

I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.

But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns the soldier. But abstinence is forgiveness only when there is the power to punish; it is meaningless when it pretends to proceed from a helpless creature. But I do not believe India to be helpless. I do not believe myself to be a helpless creature. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

473. The people of a village near Bettiah told me that they had run away whilst the police were looting their houses and molesting their womenfolk. When they said that they had run away because I had told them to be nonviolent, I hung my head in shame. I assured them that such was not the meaning of my nonviolence. I expected them to intercept the mightiest power that might be in the act of harming those who were under their protection, and draw without retaliation all harm upon their own heads even to the point of death, but never to run away from the storm centre. It was manly enough to defend one’s property, honour o0r religion at the point of the sword. It was manlier and nobler to defend them without seeking to injure the wrongdoer. But it was unmanly, unnatural and dishonourable to forsake the post of duty and, in order to save one’s skin, to leave property, honour or religion to the mercy of the wrongdoer. I could see my way of delivering the message of ahimsa to those who knew how to die, not to those who were afraid of death.

474. The weakest of us physically must be taught the art of facing dangers and giving a good account of ourselves. I want both the Hindus and the Mussalmans to cultivate the cool courage, to die without killing. But if one has not that courage, I want him to cultivate the art of killing and being killed, rather than in a cowardly manner flee from danger. For the latter in spite of his flight does commit mental himsa. He flees because he has not the courage to be killed in the act of killing.

475. Self-defence is the only honourable course where there is unreadiness for self-immolation.”

The Italian journalist you mentioned might be an example, sadly almost forgotten.

As I read the quotes you’ve posted, it seems Gandhi is positing a hierarchy of actions. The noblest, best, and only really recommended action would be a combination of nonviolence and bravery–in other words, to stand firm and offer your chest to the bayonet.

If a person is not ready to do that, then a very distant second would be to hold one’s ground and fight. This is brave, but also violent.

The lowest of the low is the third way, the way of the coward, who shrinks from either standing in the path of the bayonets or fighting, and runs and hides instead. This is neither brave nor violent.

So it seems that Gandhi held bravery to be a higher and more laudable virtue than nonviolence per se. Nonviolence without bravery was mere cowardice to him.

My guess is that Gandhi also had in mind a hierarchy of responses to satyagraha. The highest and best reaction would be what happened with the British–that is, adhering to their moral code caused them to give in to the demands of Gandhi and followers.

Next best would be what Gandhi counseled the Jews to do with the Germans–submit, and die a glorious and courageous death–as long as, in the act of dying, you somehow manage to “convert the hearts of your violent opponents.”

The quotes you offered have lead me to the almost inescapable conclusion that Gandhi considered running away from danger inexcusable and despicable, as opposed to proving your bravery by allowing others to butcher you.

Sorry, but to me it seems that Gandhi crossed over the line into a sort of rigid idealistic madness, a stance that was inclined to lead to more death, not less. The tyrants and bullies get to kill with impunity, and even if one has the chance to flee one shouldn’t.

According to what you wrote, Gandhi said (and this seems to be at the heart of his belief), “history is replete with instances of men who, by dying with courage and compassion on their lips, converted the hearts of their violent opponents.” It is??? I’d like to hear some examples of this–not the stuff of legend or myth, but actual history. Gandhi seemed to think it was quite commonplace; I’m hard-pressed to come up with a single example.

How, exactly, is if the act of violence in defense of babies morally worse than letting babies die?

Believers in non-violence are a well-read version of the Darwin Award guys who get drunk and do dumb pickup truck tricks.

Actually, that’s an insult to the guys who do dumb pickup truck tricks - at least they don’t rationalize their dumb, selfish choices with an insufferably bloated sense of moral superiority.

Well, it is.

But it’s stupid, too.

However, as some have implied, if the act of violence in defense of others is morally worse than letting those others die, it makes sense.

I’ve had that argument and it is based on the moral equivalence between the aggressor and the potential victim. In that case, who’s to choose?
But if the aggressor, by definition, is morally worse than the potential victim who has done nothing, then violence in defense of the potential victim is justified.

Pointing out that there can be no moral difference in “who’s to choose?” arguments seems to be annoying to the other arguer.

Is that what people should encourage their children to do to? How about grandma and grandpa, and babies too?

Instead of using violence to defend the defenseless, let’s all die together. That’s real bravery, right?

It is.

Well, I’ll be damned. He’s a just-war believer. (If the enemy can’t be repelled by non-violence, violence is okay)

Who would have thought?

No.

“My creed of nonviolence is an extremely active force. It has no room for cowardice or even weakness. There is hope for a violent man to be some day non-violent, but there is none for a coward. I have, therefore, said more than once….that, if we do not know how to defend ourselves, our women and our places of worship by the force of suffering, i.e., nonviolence, we must, if we are men, be at least able to defend all these by fighting.

No matter how weak a person is in body, if it is a shame to flee, he will stand his ground and die at his post. This would be nonviolence and bravery. No matter how weak he is, he will use what strength he has in inflicting injury on his opponent, and die in the attempt. This is bravery, but not nonviolence. If, when his duty is to face danger, he flees, it is cowardice. In the first case, the man will have love or charity in him. In the second and third cases, there would be a dislike or distrust and fear.

My nonviolence does admit of people, who cannot or will not be nonviolent, holding and making effective use of arms. Let me repeat for the thousandth time that nonviolence is of the strongest, not of the weak.

To run away from danger, instead of facing it, is to deny one’s faith in man and God, even one’s own self. It were better for one to drown oneself than live to declare such bankruptcy of faith.”

and

“The strength to kill is not essential for self-defence; one ought to have the strength to die. When a man is fully ready to die, he will not even desire to offer violence. Indeed, I may put it down as a self-evident proposition that the desire to kill is in inverse proportion to the desire to die. And history is replete with instances of men who, by dying with courage and compassion on their lips, converted the hearts of their violent opponents.

Nonviolence cannot be taught to a person who fears to die and has no power of resistance. A helpless mouse is not nonviolent because he is always eaten by pussy. He would gladly eat the murderess if he could, but he ever tries to flee from her. We do not call him a coward, because he is made by nature to behave no better than he does.

But a man who, when faced by danger, behaves like a mouse, is rightly called a coward. He harbors violence and hatred in his heart and would kill his enemy if he could without hurting himself. He is a stranger to nonviolence. All sermonizing on it will be lost on him. Bravery is foreign to his nature. Before he can understand nonviolence, he has to be taught to stand his ground and even suffer death, in the attempt to defend himself against the aggressor who bids fair to overwhelm him. To do otherwise would be to confirm his cowardice and take him further away from nonviolence.

Whilst I may not actually help anyone to retaliate, I must not let a coward seek shelter behind nonviolence so-called. Not knowing the stuff of which nonviolence is made, many have honestly believed that running away from danger every time was a virtue compared to offering resistance, especially when it was fraught with danger to one’s life. As a teacher of nonviolence I must, so far as it is possible for me, guard against such an unmanly belief.

Self-defence….is the only honourable course where there is unreadiness for self-immolation.

Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenceless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right.”

So he recognized, at least at times, that his tactics depended on the moral beliefs of his opponents; but he apparently would send people to die rather than oppose violence with violence of any level.

Gandhi was lucky in that the enemy he faced had a conscience - and also understood that a handful of expats could, in the face of the resistance of over half a billion, never maintain the Raj.

I am astonished to see how there is an attempt to overcomplicate Ghandi, et al, re pacifism.

Pacifism may be a noble endeavor to some, as it relates to wars of a political origin and nature.

Ghandi clearly made the distinction when it came to facing and dealing with evil.

War is not ‘permitted,’ so to speak, when facing evil- it becomes obligatory.

Well said and well done.

hg wells: As I wrote, Gandhi was indeed focused more on the world to come than this one, and this can lead to ignoring–and even fostering–great suffering in this world for the sake of a belief that a reward will be had in the next. Not that it’s exactly the same, by any means, but that’s the sort of reasoning that also leads to suicide bombers.

abde: If you study the history of what the Nazis actually did, they practiced all sorts of clever deceptions to make sure the people they were rounding up did not know what was happening. There were told they were being relocated, and to pack bags, and many believed them. The entire roundup apparatus was geared to maintaining the deception to the bitter end, including the false showers at the death camps, in order to forestall any chance of rebellion. In additon, as many have pointed out, there were many women, children, and old people involved, and the populace, unlike that of the US, was not armed. Furthermore–and this is also of the utmost importance to remember–where would they have gone, even if they had been successful? Remember that Jews who managed to flee were turned back in droves, into the arms of the Nazis. Most of Europe would not accept them, nor would the US, and they were not even able to go to Israel (see the film “Exodus,” which contains a fictionalized version of some real incidents of this nature where ships were turned back to certain death). This fact is one of the main reasons the world later allowed the founding of Israel.

One likes to think there was a way out. It would have required 20/20 hindsight, perfect organization, knowledge, arms, and a safe haven–none of which were possible. As for awakening the German conscience–another nice dream, I’m afraid. Although the Germans (like the Jews) were not especially aware of death camps at the time, they witnessed and participated in terrible persecutions of Jews on a daily basis, mostly with no pangs of conscience whatsoever. It is hard and painful to look back and see how truly evil the behavior was, even without the death camps, but it was.

The best survey I know of his teachings is the collection of his writings called “All Men Are Brothers”. Avoid those who teach the distilled cowardice that they claim he preached.

A belief is one thing. Forcing others to die because of it is another.

Pacifists are just as accountable for the results of their beliefs made into public policy as are the more conventional warmongers (or just-war believers). The difference is that the pacifists refuse to look at consequences.

In my admittedly limited experience, I have never met or encountered or read of a real pacifist–I hadn’t read much of Gandhi’s appalling ideas–but I met plenty whose pacifism was supposed to apply to the US or the West, alone.

In El Salvador, why doesn’t the FMLN turn pacific? Because that’s about land redistribution, said a local, noisy and annoying lefty some years ago. War to protect the US was wrong, but killing to facilitate land redistribution was okay.

Never met a pacifist who didn’t make an exception for our enemies.
Real pacifists presume the enemy will remain violent, but that’s immoral. But the ones I’m talking about didn’t see the moral problem with our enemies remaining violent.

And if unilateral disarmament was guaranteed to work, why shouldn’t the other side go first? Um, well, you see, it’s ….

I don’t say that to justify him or his pacifism, but I do think it’s necessary to understand him. If one truly believes that the soul is eternal and that one reincarnates as a human being repeatedly, then allowing oneself to suffer or even be killed as a moral gesture make a certain sense.

I have no answer to this.

But I do think that while my instincts are for war, I cant dismiss Gandi’s vision as easily as you did.

in general though, the oppresssed outnumber the oppressor. And their victory hinges on the conscience of a silent majority that tolerates the oppressor’s actions - but only to a point.

Could HItler have even created the concentration camps had the Jews taken their stuggle to the public counrt of German opinion?

again, I dont know. But it hurts my heart.

The Jews resisted more than history records. When armed men are rounding up women, children and old people, there isn’t much they can do, but many young men and women resisted. Jewish partisans were an awesome force in Poland for instance and the Warsaw ghetto resistance is well documented.

In the case of Hitler’s Nazi menace, or the civil war in his own country, these forces cannot be appeased. Gandhi’s pacifism descended into a permanent state of martyrdom. That position can leave you zealous, inflexible, irrational, selfish, blind, and dead, along with your people.

If Gandhi had given up total pacifism right after the British left India the world now would probably be a better place. He who was revered because of his humility proved to be so prideful that he could consign many to death rather than abandon a tactic. By the way, he cribbed his ideas from Thoreau’s essay, “Civil Disobedience.”

And what of the fall of great civilizations? Almost always their descent can be ascribed not to outside forces but to internal weakness, usually because of self-destructive policies they seem unable to abandon – even though some of their leaders & thinkers easily comprehend the danger. Another interesting & somewhat frightening point is that civilizations may seem the most powerful just before their collapse.

The US is able to wage war but is fast becoming unwilling. We haven’t lost a battle in Iraq but the folks at home grow weary of the war & seem to believe we are losing. Sure, there’s leftist & MSM propaganda which has been operating since the start but I wonder if we haven’t reached a certain psychological stage as a nation where war is virtually untenable.

Ask yourselves what would have happened after the fall of Hitler if Austria, Poland & Belgium had sent ‘insurgents’ composed of former Nazis & Nazi sympathizers into occupied Germany & started blowing up American troops, German citizens & police. Even though America was then also tired of war, with even more reason then than now, Truman would have hammered them. Im