GHANDI

Greetings,

Thanks Alan for that insightful response to my posting of Ghandi's 
1938 statement.  While I agree with some of the criticisms of Ghandi's
position on non-violence, especially in the context of the Holocaust,
I think that you (and others who have responded to me privately)
have overlooked some of the more relevant aspects of his position 
as it pertains to the PRESENT Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  In this sense,
his statement is prophetic in the following way:

1) I was struck by his statements criticizing Jewish Settlers
for their appropriation of Palestinian land "under the shadow of the
British gun," where he warns these Settlers against following a strategy
which depends on "the help of the British bayonet."  Giving the history 
of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this collusion like mentality of the 
Zionists has been a constant feature, one which strives to provide the 
imperial hegemon with a Jewish outpost in the Middle East in return
for services rendered.  This was clearly seen by Ghandi, and whereas
I disagree with his position on the "Jewish Question" in Germany, I find
his words, AS IT PERTAINS TO THE PALESTINIANS, as morally and 
politically sound.

To see what I'm talking about "as facts on the ground" take these well
known statements: 

Herzl: In an attempt to convince the European Powers to support the
establishment of a State in Palestine, he writes in 1895 
"We should there [Palestine] form part of a wall of defense for
Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.  We
should as a neutral state remain in contact with all Europe, which
would have to guarantee our existence."  

Our good friend Ronald Reagan, as many other imperial presidents
before him, understood quite clearly what Herzl meant: 
"Not only do we have a moral commitment to Israel, but being
a country that shares our same ideals, our democratic approach
to things with a combat-experienced military, Israel is a force
in the Middle East that actually is a benefit to us.  If there were
not Israel with that force, we'd have to supply that with our own,
so this isn't altruism on our part" (Reagan, 1981).

This is the prophecy of Ghandi: Israeli power, as understood by the 
Israelis themselves, is dependent on this "shadow of the British 
[and American] guns."  Take the 1966 statement of the Israeli
Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol:

"The United States has come to the conclusion that it can no
longer respond to every incident around the world, that it must
rely on a local power, the deterrent of a friendly power as a first
line to stave off America's direct involvement.  Israel feels that it
fits this definition."

And almost to the exact word of his predecessor Herzl, Eshkol
continues:

"The value of Israel to the West in this part of the world [Palestine]
will . . . be out of proportion to its size.  We will be a real bridge
between the three continents and the free world will be very thankful
not only if we survive, but if we continue to thrive in secure and
guaranteed frontiers." 

This is the message of Ghandi that I hear loud and clear TODAY, as
Israeli IDF forces are daily pounding unarmed Palestinians, this is the
message that I hear TODAY, as armed Jewish Settlers are on the hunt
for an Arab Palestinian, this is the message I hear TODAY, when US aid
has risen to its highest level on record to provide Israel with more 
death machines.  While what you read into Ghandi's very problematic
message to the Jews of 1938 is legitimate, I read Ghandi in the context 
of the present carnage.  And as one reads Gandhi's analysis of the 
situation in 1938, I can't help but thank the old man for his 
prophetic message.

Khaldoun Samman
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Ghandi's relevant statements (1938):

And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they
are going about it the wrong way.  The Palestine of the Biblical
conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if
they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home,
it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun . . . 

There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will 
only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are
co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no
wrong to them.
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A note on Ghandi's Nonviolence by an unknown author:

Nonviolence: but the real center and raison d'etre of 'Gandhi' is 
ahimsa, nonviolence, which principle when incorporated into 
vast campaigns of noncooperation with British rule the Mahatma 
called by an odd name he made up himself, satyagraha, which 
means something like "truth-striving." During the key part of his 
life, Gandhi devoted a great deal of time explaining the moral and 
philosophical meanings of both ahimsa and satyagraha. But much 
as the film sanitizes Gandhi to the point where one would mistake 
him for a Christian saint, and sanitizes India to the point where one 
would take it for Shangri-la, it quite sweeps away Gandhi's ethical 
and religious ponderings, his complexities, his qualifications, and 
certainly his vacillations, which simplifying process leaves us with 
our old European friend: pacifism. It is true that Gandhi was much 
impressed by the Sermon on the Mount, his favorite passage in the 
Bible, which he read over and over again. But for all the Sermon's 
inspirational value, and its service as an ideal in relations among 
individual human beings, no Christian state which survived has ever 
based its policies on the Sermon on the Mount since Constantine 
declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire. And 
no modern Western state which survives can ever base its policies 
on pacifism. And no Hindu state will ever base its policies on ahimsa. 
Gandhi himself--although the film dishonestly conceals this from 
us--many times conceded that in dire circumstances "war may 
have to be resorted to as a necessary evil." It is something of an 
anomaly that Gandhi, held in popular myth to be a pure pacifist 
(a myth which governments of India have always been at great pains 
to sustain in the belief that it will reflect credit on India itself, and to 
which the present movie adheres slavishly), was until fifty not
ill-disposed to war at all. As I have already noted, in three wars, 
no sooner had the bugles sounded than Gandhi not only gave his 
support, but was clamoring for arms. To form new regiments! To
fight! To destroy the enemies of the empire! Regular Indian army 
units fought in both the Boer War and World War I, but this was 
not enough for Gandhi. He wanted to raise new troops, even, in 
the case of the Boer and Kaffir Wars, from the tiny Indian colony 
in South Africa. British military authorities thought it not really
worth the trouble to train such a small body of Indians as soldiers, 
and were even resistant to training them as an auxiliary medical 
corps ("stretcher bearers"), but finally yielded to Gandhi's relentless 
importuning. As first instructed, the Indian Volunteer Corps was not 
supposed actually to go into combat, but Gandhi, adamant, led his 
Indian volunteers into the thick of battle. When the British 
commanding officer was mortally wounded during an engagement in 
the Kaffir War, Gandhi--though his corps' deputy commander--carried 
the officer's stretcher himself from the battlefield and for miles over 
the sun-baked veldt. The British empire's War Medal did not have its
name for nothing, and it was generally earned. ANYONE who wants 
to wade through Gandhi's endless ruminations about himsa and 
ahimsa (violence and nonviolence) is welcome to do so, but it is 
impossible for the skeptical reader to avoid the conclusion--let us 
say in 1920, when swaraj (home rule) was all the rage and Gandhi's 
inner voice started telling him that ahimsa was the thing--that this 
inner voice knew what it was talking about. By this I mean that, 
though Gandhi talked with the tongue of Hindu gods and sacred 
scriptures, his inner voice had a strong sense of expediency. Britain, 
if only comparatively speaking, was a moral nation, and nonviolent 
civil disobedience was plainly the best and most effective way of 
achieving Indian independence. Skeptics might also not be surprised 
to learn that as independence approached, Gandhi's inner voice began 
to change its tune. It has been reported that Gandhi "half-welcomed" 
the civil war that broke out in the last days. Even a fratricidal 
"bloodbath" (Gandhi's word) would be preferable to the British. 
And suddenly Gandhi began endorsing violence left, right, and 
center. During the fearsome rioting in Calcutta he gave his approval 
to men "using violence in a moral cause." How could he tell them 
that violence was wrong, he asked, "unless I demonstrate that 
nonviolence is more effective?" He blessed the Nawab of Maler Kotla 
when he gave orders to shoot ten Muslims for every Hindu killed in 
his state. He sang the praises of Subhas Chandra Bose, who, 
sponsored by first the Nazis and then the Japanese, organized in 
Singapore an Indian National Army with which he hoped to conquer 
India with Japanese support, establishing a totalitarian dictatorship. 
Meanwhile, after independence in 1947, the armies of the India that 
Gandhi had created immediately marched into battle, incorporating 
the state of Hyderabad by force and making war in Kashmir on 
secessionist Pakistan. When Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu 
extremist in January 1948 he was honored by the new state with a 
vast military funeral--in my view by no means inapposite. BUT it is 
not widely realized (nor will this film tell you) how much violence was 
associated with Gandhi's so-called "nonviolent" movement from the 
very beginning. India's Nobel Prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, 
had sensed a strong current of nihilism in Gandhi almost from his first 
days, and as early as 1920 wrote of Gandhi's "fierce joy of annihilation," 
which Tagore feared would lead India into hideous orgies of 
devastation--which ultimately proved to be the case. Robert Payne has 
said that there was unquestionably an "unhealthy atmosphere" among 
many of Gandhi's fanatic followers, and that Gandhi's habit of going to 
the edge of violence and then suddenly retreating was fraught with 
danger. "In matters of conscience I am uncompromising," proclaimed 
Gandhi proudly. "Nobody can make me yield." The judgment of 
Tagore was categorical. Much as he might revere Gandhi as a holy 
man, he quite detested him as a politician and considered that his 
campaigns were almost always so close to violence that it was utterly 
disingenuous to call them nonviolent. For every satyagraha true believer, 
moreover, sworn not to harm the adversary or even to lift a finger in his 
own defense, there were sometimes thousands of incensed freebooters 
and skirmishers bound by no such vow.