1 Soul Bound
1.2 Taking Control
1.2.4 An Artful Carnivale
1.2.4.7 Sharpe Lecture: moral high ground (part two)
“But nobody has ever done this as well or as consistently as Gandhi did. He first became involved in politics when visiting South Africa which in those days was run by the people with Dutch and British ancestry who made up less than 10% of the population. People with ancestry directly from Africa or India, as Gandhi discovered to his shock, were not only denied a vote and voice in politics, they were also segregated and discriminated against.”
“Henry Thoreau advocated ‘civil resistance’ to unjust authorities: stopping the machinery of state, like irritating sand in the gears, by refusing to comply with their demands. Several religions in India contain the concept of ‘ahimsa’: do not cause harm to others, with word or deed, except as a last resort and, even then, only by the minimum amount required in order to restrain greater aggression by others.”
“Gandhi combined these concepts to create a new idea ‘satyagraha’: courageously sticking to sincerity. To act as a satyagrahi it wasn’t sufficient to be non-violent and to refuse to comply with unjust demands made by authorities; to meet Ghandi’s standards, you had to act as an exemplary law-abiding citizen in all aspects except obedience to the particular law you felt was unjust, going out of your way to voluntarily obey the just demands fully, not grudgingly but even when those other laws are inconvenient or burdensome to you. He told his followers not to curse or swear or insult their opponents; not to show disrespect to their flags and leaders, even when not submitting to them.”
“From 1907 to 1914 he led a campaign in South Africa against the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance of General Jan Smuts that, among other things, required all Indian people living in the Transvaal region to register for a card carrying prints of all their fingers (a measure previously only used for criminals). The campaign entered a cycle where Gandhi would lead people in a peaceful act forbidden by the law, he and others would be arrested, after a few months when the prison system grew strained Gandhi would be released and summoned to negotiate a compromise directly with Smuts, who would make some promises. Gandhi would accept the promises and end the resistance, Smuts would then break his promises, and the cycle would start again.”
Dr. Shape brought up a new slide, showing a picture of Gandhi now in simple Indian clothing, on a visit to London surrounded by suited Westerners. Under it was another quote:
A Satyagrahi bids goodbye to fear. He is therefore never afraid of trusting the opponent. Even if the opponent plays him false twenty times, the Satyagrahi is ready to trust him for the 21st time.
--M. K. Gandhi
“Gandhi and his followers received criticism from both sides, facing death threats and undergoing violence on multiple occasions. Yet he stuck to his principles and, little by little, as his moral authority grew, he started seeing tangible gains too. He didn’t achieve equality, but he made steps towards it: recognition of Indian marriages and abolition of a tax that applied only to Indians.”
“More importantly in historic terms, he learned that the British could be brought to question their moral rightness, just through patience, love and a willingness to compromise. So, when he returned to India and became involved in the struggle for self-rule, he already had his method. All he needed was the right issue - an issue so obviously unjust that even the British Raj could be brought to see the error of their ways.”
“Gandhi had his flaws, both as a person and as a leader. But through practice he gained excellent instincts and a sense of drama, always ready with a quotable line for the media.”
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong. A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. --Gandhi
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Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature. A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. --Gandhi
As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes. If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning. An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. --Gandhi
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession. --Gandhi
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse than starving the body; it is starvation of the soul. I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one’s self-respect. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. --Gandhi
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business. --Gandhi
I like Christ, I don’t like Christians. --NOT Gandhi
Western Civilisation? It would be a very good idea. --NOT Gandhi
They ignore you, then ridicule you, then attack you, then you win. --NOT Gandhi
“While he didn’t say the last, it describes him perfectly. There was no shortage of unjust issues to choose from, and when he picked the salt monopoly as his initial target, the viceroy of the time, Lord Irwin, ignored him, and newspapers laughed at him. But, being Gandhi, he didn’t just issue a press release calling upon people to not pay the tax; instead, he made an event out of it.”
“He gathered a core of 78 people at his home, people he trusted to understand and follow his principle of satyagraha, and set out for the coast, 380 kilometers away. He could have assembled a few cameras and let the viceroy find out from the media. He didn’t. He wrote a formal public letter to the viceroy, explaining his reasons and stating where and when he would be at the time he broke the law. He could have made the trip in a day by train, but he didn’t. Instead they walked on foot. It took them nearly a month, and each evening Gandhi would stop to address increasingly large crowds, many of whom joined in the march.”
“By the time he reached the town of Dandi on the coast, he had more than 10,000 people with him. The British had tried to forestall him, by smashing the naturally occurring salt crystals into the mud, but he calmly picked some out and produced his own salt by dissolving it in water then evaporating it over a fire - a method any Indian could do, no matter how poor. And he did it in full view of the media, which by now was avidly following the story.”
“The march continued down the coast towards an established saltworks, where Gandhi was arrested, but the protest continued. His core followers had used the time on the march to train those joining it in their principles, and they stayed non-violent and media-friendly. A year and more than 60,000 arrests later, Lord Irwin met with Gandhi as an equal, at a round table conference. Gandhi made only a small instrumental advance (Irwin made only minor concessions on that occasion), but the symbolic impact of the meeting is considered by some historians to be the turning point, the moment when Britain granting self-rule became conceivable, perhaps inevitable.”
“What Gandhi had seen, that other leaders had not, was that salt was something any Indian could make for themselves, just by walking to the sea. The law was unenforceable, once people’s minds were opened to the possibility. And salt affected every Indian, Hindu and Muslim alike, poor as well as rich.”
Dr. Sharpe’s voice took on an ironic turn.
“Well, almost every Indian. After all the time he’d spent in South African jails where they didn’t waste salt on non-European prisoners, Gandhi himself had become used to eating a salt-free diet.”
Dr. Sharpe went on to talk about Gandhi’s legacy, restorative justice and South Africa’s “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”, but what Kafana remembered best was that image of Gandhi being patiently betrayed at negotiation tables again and again, yet still retaining his faith in humanity, forgiving the hurt rather than retaliating, trying to turn an enemy into a friend.
Now she understood what had reminded her of the lecture.
Bungo had greatness of heart.