One Hundred Years Ago Today

As a counter to the slow evolution of September 11 into a nationalistic celebration of vengeance and bloodlust I want to mark today as the 100th anniversary of the beginning of Mohandas Gandhi's Satyagraha movement:

On September 11, 1906, in Johannesburg, Gandhiji initiated his Satyagraha against the Natal Government, which was trying to pass an Ordinance meant to disenfranchise the Indians and if passed would have made life impossible for the Indians in the country. It was on September 11, 1906, when the Indians gathered to discuss how to meet the challenge of the ordinance that Gandhiji thought of facing violence with non-violence, of fighting for truth and justice with suffering. He warned the meeting that pursuit of Satyagraha might mean prison or even cost them their life. Everyone who attended that meeting took a pledge to resist the ordinance with non-violence whatever the provocation. ...

September 11, 1906, was the beginning of Gandhiji's Satyagraha movement — it started in Johannesburg against the ordinance and was later used in India to fight for its independence. "Satyagraha," explained Gandhiji, "is a relentless search for Truth and a determination to search for Truth. Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit within. Satyagraha can be described as an effective substitute for violence." An eye for an eye, said Gandhi, only ends up making the whole world blind.

Explaining his philosophy of non-violence to the people, he said, "I saw that nations like individuals could only be made through the agony of the cross and in no other way. Joy comes not out of infliction of pain on others but out of pain voluntarily borne by oneself. Violent means would give violent freedom and that would mean a menace to the world. Real suffering, on the other hand, bravely borne melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha."

The peaceful liberation of India from British colonial rule stands out as a beacon of light and hope in a century otherwise filled with national madness, chaos, war, and industrialized murder. Today is much better remembered as the birthday of a philosophy of hope than for a bloody skirmish in the clash of civilizations.

(via Debbie Notkin)