In 1980 while on a climbing expedition in the Sinkiang province of China, I was one of two from our group asked by the Chinese hosts to teach an English class to a group of professional (engineers, teachers, doctors), educated Han Chinese who advanced their careers by studying English. We were in Kashgar, a 2,000-year-old city. Like all of Sinkiang, Kashgar is ruled by China, but three-fourths of its citizens are Uighur Muslims with little or no ethnic, political, social, linguistic, cultural or, of course, religious affinity with China. As in Tibet, the peace in Kashgar, such as it is, is maintained only by an overwhelming Chinese military presence. Then and now there is conflict, violence, enmity and stark social division between Chinese and Uighur in Kashgar, just as exists between the Chinese and Tibetans in the more publicized tensions of Tibet. As both modern and ancient history shows, a powerful military may keep an occupied populace somewhat in line, but it will never win their hearts and minds, nor will it keep the peace. This was evident in Kashgar even to us, the first Americans allowed into that part of the world in more than 40 years, as it is evident today in several areas of the world where unwelcome foreign armies are attempting to keep an occupied populace somewhat in line.
Teaching the class was a fascinating, rewarding experience and after it we were warmly thanked and given lovely gifts for our efforts. It was suggested that if we had any books in English to donate to their tiny English language library they would be gratefully accepted, deeply appreciated and assiduously studied.
In response I committed the most subversive act my conscience would approve and my circumstances could get away with against the government of the People's Republic of China, which, like all corrupt, tyrannical, brutal, militant dictatorships that exemplify every antonym of freedom, should not be confused with the people of China. I gave to the small library of the small group of professional Han Chinese studying English in order to solidify the power of China over the native Uighurs of Kashgar my copy of "Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of my Experiments With Truth." Gandhi's ideas and life are dangerous to violent, repressive governments like China's because, as he said, "There is a limit to violent action and it can fail. Non-violence knows no limits and it never fails."
If even one member of that long-ago class in English read Gandhi's autobiography, the world, China, Kashgar and that person are the better for it. In my view, Gandhi's autobiography is about much more than his experiments in truth, valuable and engrossing as they were; it is a manual of practical politics for every day, including the present one. I was and am pleased that I happened to have it and was able to contribute it to the study of much more than English in Kashgar.
America's Martin Luther King, the youngest man to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize, said, "Mahatma Gandhi has done more than any other person of history to reveal that social problems can be solved without resorting to primitive methods of violence. In this sense he is more than a saint of India. He belongs—as they said of Abraham Lincoln—to the ages. The Gandhian influence in some way still speaks to the conscience of the world as nations grapple with international problems. If we fail, on an international scale, to follow the Gandhian principle of non-violence, we may end up by destroying ourselves through the misuse of our own instruments. The choice is no longer between violence and non-violence. It is now either non-violence or non-existence."
In this time America's foreign affairs are operating under the ill-defined "Bush Doctrine," which, whatever else it does or does not mean, includes the oxymoronic and, under international law, illegal "preventive war." In this time in the only nation to ever use the atomic bomb as a weapon and which currently has 4,000 or 5,000 of them ready to go in the blink of a Bush eye, thinking of Gandhi is more than just an exercise in idealism or, as King pointed out, a choice between violence and non-violence. Thinking of Gandhi is practical and peaceable politics, and practical politics takes place one person at a time.
It is worth mentioning that on Oct. 2, 2008, the 139th anniversary of Gandhi's birth, U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, who has a portrait of Gandhi hanging in his office, called on Americans to, "rededicate ourselves, every day from now until Nov. 4 (election day), and beyond, to living Gandhi's call to be the change we wish to see in the world."
And it is worth mentioning that Pat Buchanan, that old conservative pol who worked for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and who abandoned the Republican Party in 2000 to run for president under the Reform Party banner (he finished fourth with 0.4 percent of the popular vote) said of candidate John McCain, "He will make Cheney look like Gandhi."
Yes, thinking of Gandhi is practical and peaceable politics.
Thinking about Cheney looking like Gandhi is black comedy or blacker tragedy, depending.
