Mohandas Gandhi – Engaging Peace

CHIMES OF FREEDOM

Posted on May 28, 2020May 28, 2020 by kathiemm

by Stefan Schindler

William James, Mark Twain, I. F. Stone. Emma Goldman, Helen Keller, Molly Ivins. Jim Hightower, John Pilger, William Blum. Lewis Lapham, Michael Parenti, Victor Wallis. Vandana Shiva, Joan Baez, Naomi Klein. Ami Goodman, Abby Martin, Daniel Berrigan.

David Talbot, James Douglass, Thich Nhat Hanh. Oscar Romero, the Dalai Lama, Dan Ellsberg. And, of course, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. These are just a few of the torch-bearers of the spirit of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King and John Lennon.

Peace is possible. Progress has been made. Meanwhile, the struggle continues.

A crisis can be ongoing and deepening for a very long time. This has been the case with the USA for forty years at least. 1968 might well be seen as the pivot point. The full and fatal swerve toward economic apartheid and the rollback of FDR’s New Deal began in earnest in 1981 with Reaganomics. The hammer-blows against social enlightenment have kept the war machine in full throttle and kept too many Americans in thrall to sloganeering and sophistry.

The earth groans, bees disappear, and in 2020 the wasteland grows.

But danger is also opportunity. Breakdown is often breakthrough.

Behind the news there is a global dance. A collective invitation to give peace a chance.

What is true for the individual is true for the whole. Fate is determined by the choices we make. Let us use our freedom wisely. What Kant said at the end of the 18^th century is true now: “We live in an age of enlightenment; but we do not yet live in an enlightened age.”

Perhaps the essence of life really is learning and service. Siddhartha Gautama, Meister Eckhart and Thomas Merton thought so. I believe it too.

Keep the faith, my friend. We may yet be on the verge of something great. A turning of the civilizational wheel toward the wisdom of James and Twain and company. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Gandhi’s recipe for nonviolence: Stir in women’s voices

Posted on October 3, 2013October 29, 2013 by kathiemm

Born on October 2, 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) is probably best known for his promotion of nonviolence.

What is less well known is his conviction that achievement of nonviolence rests more on the shoulders of women than on men.

According to Cindy Ness in a 2007 article in Daedalus, Gandhi viewed men as:

lacking the discipline needed to carry out a nonviolent protest
arrogant by nature, easily angered, and prone to retaliate when insulted.

By contrast, Gandhi viewed women as:

intuitively superior at service and sacrifice
best suited to awakening the world’s conscience
capable of teaching the art of peace to a violent world.

What do you think of Gandhi’s characterization of men and women? Does it in any way ring true?

Ness asserts that there is no evidence to support Gandhi’s vision. In recent decades, she argues, women’s participation in violence across the globe—including terroristic violence–has skyrocketed.

She blames structural and cultural changes, including recognition of the political usefulness of women, as well as deterioration of the division between combatant and noncombatant status in war zones, for women’s violence.

In her view, women are biologically no less violent than men, contextual factors are the determinants of violence in both sexes, and Gandhi’s vision of a nonviolent world led by nonviolent women is an unrealistic dream.

What do you think? In the decades since Gandhi’s birth and death, has the dream of nonviolence become more and more unattainable? Have women become less and less likely to serve as role models for non-violence? Or was the recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to three women peace activists a sign of things to come?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

September 15: International Day of Democracy

Posted on September 13, 2012September 11, 2012 by kathiemm

Achieving and maintaining democracy—“government of the people, by the people, for the people”[i]–is an ongoing challenge.

Perhaps President Lincoln had no alternative to preserving the Union than to wage war, but the wounds of that deadly conflict can still be felt today.

Where are the models for better ways of resolving disputes, righting wrongs, and pursuing democratic institutions?

Our nomination, in honor of this year’s United Nations International Day of Democracy (Sept. 15), is Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi is the Burmese woman who:

founded the National League for Democracy in Burma (now Myanmar),
stood up to the military junta controlling the country
was under house arrest for 15 years for agitating for democracy
rejected the junta’s offer to give her freedom if she would leave the country
embraced the non-violent principles of Mohandas K. Gandhi
delegated to her sons the responsibility to accept the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to her in 1991 while she was under house arrest
was released from confinement in 2010
was elected to the national parliament in 2012
gave her own acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012

Here are two of Suu Kyi’s thoughts about democracy:

“To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.”
― Letters from Burma

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”
― Freedom from Fear

Please tell us what you think: Are these views as applicable to the US as they are to Myanmar and other countries emerging from military dictatorships?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

[i] Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg address, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863.

Vaclav Havel, crusader against tyranny

Posted on December 19, 2011December 27, 2011 by kathiemm

Yesterday, December 18, 2011, saw the passing of Václav Havel, an exemplar of moral engagement. Havel was a playwright and poet who became the leader of the opposition to Communist rule in Czechoslovakia starting in the 1960s.

He helped launch the nonviolent “Velvet Revolution” in Prague on November 17, 1989—which began with student protests, expanded to include labor unions, and led to his election as president of Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989.

For his role in the Velvet Revolution, Havel has been recognized as a leader comparable to Nelson Mandela and Mohandas Gandhi.

What resemblances do you see between the Velvet Revolution and the Occupy Movement that is spreading around the world today?

Havel was a model of moral agency, both inhibitive moral agency (he was a gentle man who resisted any call to violence) and proactive agency (criticizing Communist domination and seeking democracy, even though he was harassed and imprisoned for his views).

He used his plays, poems, and essays to spread his anti-Communist message. Even while plays such as The Audience gained critical acclaim around the world, they were banned in Czechoslovakia.

Havel’s best-known essay was “The Power of the Powerless,” a title carried forward into the award-winning documentary “The Power of the Powerless,” narrated by Jeremy Irons. (See trailer.)

Tom Stoppard’s play Rock n’ Roll, is dedicated to Havel, and part of it was inspired by Havel’s writings. (See trailer.)

Like Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other great crusaders against tyranny and terrorism, Havel’s name should echo in history as an example of what a single individual can achieve on behalf of peace and justice.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology