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Be Like The Mahatma!

As I said before, I get lots of letters. Most are good, some are open discussions on difficult topics, some are bald-faced death threats. You deal with it, comforted by the fact that most leftists are terrible marksman, dont own guns anyway and every outlet of air from their mouths is a sheep like bleat admitting their general cowardace as a human being. As I said to "da goddess", I've faced death before, I used to own a 1974 Pinto.

There is one constant "stream of consciousness", that is often repeated in emails from people who consider themselves "pacifists", that I should reject violence, and follow the lessons of the "Mahatma".

This is interesting to me for many reasons, first the assumption is that I must be a "bloodthirsty warmonger" if I believe, as I do, that though war is always regrettable, it is often the only civilized answer to the question of genocide and enslavement. Second, that the "Mahatma" is an exemplar in the way to live ones life.

Through the power of the internet, I bring you the following:

George Orwell on Mahatma Gandhi.

Excerpts:

"In his early days Gandhi served as a stretcher-bearer on the British side in the Boer War, and he was prepared to do the same again in the war of 1914-18."

This - I didn't know.

"Even after he had completely abjured violence he was honest enough to see that in war it is usually necessary to take sides. He did not indeed, since his whole political life centered round a struggle for national independence, he could not - take the sterile and dishonest line of pretending that in every war both sides are exactly the same and it makes no difference who wins. Nor did he, like most Western pacifists, specialize in avoiding awkward questions. In relation to the late war, one question that every pacifist had a clear obligation to answer was: "What about the Jews? Are you prepared to see them exterminated? If not, how do you propose to save them without resorting to war?" I must say that I have never heard, from any Western pacifist, an honest answer to this question, though I have heard plenty of evasions, usually of the "you're another" type. But it so happens that Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 and that his answer is on record in Mr. Louis Fischer's Gandhi and Stalin. According to Mr. Fischer, Gandhi's view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence." After the war he justified himself the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly"

Well Golly! - You never hear that little tidbit do you? How does that translate into the pacifist view on Iraq? "Gosh, they were going to die anyway, so why should we go in and try to save them..."

"When, in 1942, he urged non-violent resistance against a Japanese invasion, he was ready to admit that it might cost several million deaths."

Million here, million there, who's gonna know one way or the other.....

and the "grand finale":

"It is difficult to see how Gandhi's methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary."

Free press, right of assembly, make a note of that. When we get rid of Ashcroft and Bushitler we might want to get some of that.

"Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing? The Russian masses could only practice civil disobedience if the same idea happened to occur to all of them simultaneously, and even then, to judge by the history of the Ukraine famine, it would make no difference."

For you kids out there, substitute "Iran" for "Russia".

"But let it be granted that non-violent resistance can be effective against one's own government, or against an occupying power: even so, how does one put it into practice internationally? Gandhi's various conflicting statements on the late war seem to show that he felt the difficulty of this. Applied to foreign politics, pacifism either stops being pacifist or becomes appeasement."

If Orwell was alive today, He'd be on my Blogroll. I'd "Tip his jar" big-time after a statement like that!

"Moreover the assumption, which served Gandhi so well in dealing with individuals, that all human beings are more or less approachable and will respond to a generous gesture, needs to be seriously questioned."

Ya think?

"It is not necessarily true, for example, when you are dealing with lunatics. Then the question becomes: Who is sane? Was Hitler sane? And is it not possible for one whole culture to be insane by the standards of another? And, so far as one can gauge the feelings of whole nations, is there any apparent connection between a generous deed and a friendly response? Is gratitude a factor in international politics?"

Oh monseuir Orwell, you are so simplesse...

As is often said, Read The Whole Thing

Posted @ August 31, 2004 09:17 PM | History file

Posted by: Kevin Baker at August 31, 2004 10:41 PM

Posted by: Les Bates at September 1, 2004 12:40 PM

Posted by: Bennie Reddin at September 1, 2004 09:20 PM