Gandhi in Palestine:
Grandson of all battles By Ashish Kumar Sen
WASHINGTON - Drawing on the success of the first
intifada of the late 1980s, Palestinian groups are
launching hunger strikes and mass rallies across Israel
in an effort to protest Israeli oppression peacefully.
With lessons of history not far from
their minds, the groups have invited Mahatma
Gandhi's grandson, Arun Gandhi, to lead a march in Ramallah
on Thursday and preach his illustrious grandfather's mantra
of non-violence. Arun Gandhi heads the M K Gandhi
Institute for Non-Violence in the United States.
Mohammed al-Atar, of the US-based Palestinians
for Peace and Democracy, explained: "In the first
intifada we, the Palestinian people, called the shots
and the occupation reacted to it. We boycotted their
products. We called labor strikes when we wanted. They
closed our schools. We opened our homes as schools. We
refused to pay their taxes. We were in charge. And we
did not fire a single bullet."
Palestinians for
Peace and Democracy, a group of social and political
activists, was formed after a ruling of the
International Court of Justice in The Hague against
Israel's security barrier. The Israelis justify the
construction of the barrier of part concrete block, part
concertina wire saying, "Its purpose is to stop
Palestinian attacks in the Jewish state. The
Palestinians see it as a wall that divides families and
farmers from their fields. They see the motive behind
the wall as being not about Israeli security, but rather
the creation of a situation that will force Palestinians
to leave their homes."
An opponent of the wall,
Arun Gandhi told Asia Times Online that building such
barriers to separate people is the "ultimate expression
of violence". "It doesn't bring about any solution, it
only adds to the problem. The whole point of building a
wall is not only keeping people out, but you are locking
yourself in," Gandhi said in a telephone interview.
On an independent mission to help stop the
bloodshed in the Middle East, Gandhi said, "No one can
deny the Palestinians' right to their freedom and to
resist occupation. No one can deny the Israelis' right
to their own state and to security."
He is
confident that his grandfather's philosophy of
non-violence can work in a different land and a
different age. Non-violence worked in helping liberate
India from British colonialism, it worked for black
Americans in claiming their civil rights, it worked for
the South Africans in winning their freedom from
apartheid, and, said Gandhi, it will work in the Middle
East as well. "My grandfather showed us that
non-violence can work and we can transform the hearts of
people and gain what we want through peaceful means."
There are many aspects to a non-violent
movement. Like his grandfather, Gandhi suggests boycotts
and strikes could play a crucial part. "If one begins to
think non-violently one will find effective ways to
dealing with the situation. One has to be more conscious
of what issues will rally more people together," he
explained. Recalling the success of the salt
satyagraha in Dandi, Gujarat, in 1930 [1], Gandhi
pointed out that there were many who were skeptical of
his grandfather's plan. "Yet it was a success. He was
able to rally the whole nation on this issue. It's
important that we take up issues that people can rally
around."
Growing up in a racially segregated
South Africa, Gandhi felt an affinity to the Jewish
cause. "I read all of Leon Uris' books and other
writings on the Holocaust and I thought to myself that
people who have experienced such pain, hate and violence
will certainly not direct the same at others," he said.
His boyhood sympathies, however, gave way to disillusionment
in adulthood. "The violent way in which the
state [Israel] was created, it just turned me off, all
the sympathy I had got lost," said Gandhi, who founded
and heads the M K Gandhi Institute for
Non-Violence at the Christian Brothers University in
Memphis, Tennessee. "I also despise suicide bombers and
all kinds of related violence."
Admitting that
the Israeli attitude has, in part, been molded by the
extent of violence in the region, Gandhi said if the
Palestinians had been non-violent all along "they would
have gained a great deal morally - the world would have
sympathized with them".
Last week, more than1,500
Palestinian prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest
the conditions in Israeli prisons. Prisoners' rights
groups also participated in sit-down protests. According
to Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Minister Hisham
Abdelrazaq, "This hunger strike is not a political
strike." Instead, he said, "It's a strike about basic
fundamental rights."
Mary Rose Oakar, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee in Washington, compared the treatment
of Palestinian prisoners to that of
inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and called on the
administration of President George W Bush, the US Congress
and human-rights organizations to "take action and
express their deep concern against these human-rights
violations".
"Non-violent methods [in the Middle
East] have not shown a lot of results," Gandhi admitted.
But that's because "we haven't understood the concept of
non-violence. It's not simply about being anti-war. It
is something we have to live and change in our own
attitude."
Bemoaning the "culture of violence"
that he says has become a part of human nature, Gandhi
wants to sow the seeds for a "culture of non-violence
that will create relationships between people within our
neighborhoods, that is based on respect and
understanding".
In 1946, at the age of 12,
Gandhi went to live with his grandfather in India. He
fondly recalls the Mahatma's "legacy of love".
"The most profound lesson grandfather taught me
was about understanding anger and being able to channel
that energy into positive action. Grandfather said anger
is like electricity, 'it can be useful and
destructive'," he said.
On his first trip to
Israel, Gandhi sees his role as that of a catalyst for
peace. He hopes Palestinians and Israelis can learn to
live together. "It is wrong for the Palestinians to
think they can wipe out the Jews and drive them into the
ocean," he said. "Similarly, it is wrong of the Jews to
think they can wish away the Palestinians. They are
there in the same land, fate has brought them together -
it was unpleasant, but we cannot rewrite history. They
need to learn to forget about the past and try and focus
on the future."
It is obvious to Gandhi that the
Israelis and Palestinians need two separate nations.
"But they can live as good partners as well," he said.
Advocating an Israeli return to its 1967 borders and the
creation of a "federation", he added, "The Israeli
people have done well and can help the Palestinians
achieve the same level of success."
Acknowledging that the United States "has always
supported Israel" and the Arab nations the Palestinian
cause, Gandhi said, "It's going to be a long road back
again, but we have to make the effort to turn things
around. Generations have grown up in this atmosphere of
hate, prejudice and violence, and it doesn't help anyone
at all."
Israel's decision to ignore the recent
World Court's non-binding ruling on the legitimacy of
its security wall, Gandhi says, is another example of
its disregard for international bodies. "They [the
Israelis] know they have the US on their side and the US
has never taken these organizations seriously. That's
where the US needs to start playing a more positive
role. The US needs to start respecting the UN and set an
example for other nations," he added.
In addition to the rally in Ramallah
on Thursday, demonstrations are planned in Abu Dis the next
day, and Gandhi will participate in a candlelight
vigil in Bethlehem on Sunday in Manger Square.
"Non-violence will work for the Palestinian
people," Gandhi claimed. "It is their choice. There is no
amount of walls and fences that can keep a people from
their freedom."
Note [1]
Satyagraha means "insistence on truth". In 1930,
Gandhi launched another of his disobedience campaigns.
He wrote to the viceroy demanding the abolition of taxes
on salt and the government monopoly on the manufacture
of salt. When the viceroy refused to do so, Gandhi
started the satyagraha movement. The "Dandi
march" started from Sabarmati Ashram and went to Dandi,
a small village on the coast in Gujarat. On the route,
thousands of people joined him and on April 5, 1930, the
satyagrahis reached Dandi. Gandhi picked up salt
from the sea, and after flouting the law himself, urged
all Indians to follow suit. The Dandi march started the
civil disobedience movement in all parts of country.
Ashish Kumar Sen is a Washington
DC-based journalist.
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