Non violent, never passive: remembering Gandhi

Mark Seymour of Aussie rock's Hunters and Collectors, wore his heart on his T shirt while singing Holy Grail at the Melbourne Footy Final. He was acting as part of a noble tradition: Gandhian non violent protest and resistance to injustice.

Seymour, sang 'no-one deserves to die' while pointing to his T shirt emblazoned with Asylum Seeker

Describing an epiphany he had at a Victorian Detention Centre Mark says that he was stunned to see the welcoming energetic appreciation of refugees. He had expected to see a 'depressed browbeaten and sad crowd'. But they just erupted with excitement. Some had been in detention for 4years. Mark was experiencing the power of one, to effect many. Mark's protest was timely, While we counted footy scores another tally was taking place; the death toll from a boat sinking off the Java and the drowning of at least 20 refugee children and families. Many are still missing.

India celebrates the Mahatma Gandhi's birthday on October 2^nd which is also now the United Nations International Day of Non Violence.

The message from Gandhi is"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for. "Mahatma Gandhi
The Story of My Experiments with Truth, 1927" It is a cruel irony that the man of modest demeanour who brought the message of non-violent resistance to India and the world, Mahatma Gandhi was killed while on his way to evening prayers.

In an unfair twist, those whose lives have been about fighting in peace for equality, can fall victim to the forces they oppose. Like Gandhi Martin Luther King was killed [20 years later]by an assassin's bullet. In an interview in the year before his death, he responds to accusations that protest demonstrations have incited violence. King declares, that it is like blaming the Dr [who discovers cancer] for causing the cancer by its exposition. King deliberately adopted Gandhian principles of non violence

It is indeed a remarkable achievement that Gandhi should have inspired a movement against [British] oppression not only in India, but also symbolically played a part in the Civil Rights movement in the United States.

This alone makes his birthday worthy of continued celebration, decades after his death.

But is his message relevant today? Yes it is, more than ever.

There are enormous crises facing our world. These include the catastrophes that are predicted as a result of our failure to take real action against climate change, The latest IPCC report warns us that there is a greater need than ever for united global co-operative action to curb emissions. and to fight catastrophic climate collapse. Naïve attempts to protect narrowly conceived national interests will not contain the impacts. We will also be faced with feeding growing populations, and scarcity of arable land and of water.

There will be the challenges of increased displacement of people and the management of violent conflict that could ensue from these massive problems.

Despite protests of denial [raised inflamed and instigated by vested interests], against climate science; the latest IPCC report tells us that the jury is in. Global warming is happening , dangerous and caused by the greenhouse gas emissions of humans. We are left to face our failure to address climate change. If we refuse to act now ,we will increase the suffering of many in our own time, especially of the poor and of all future generations.

There will be increased occurrences and ferocity of fires and floods worldwide. In Australia we will lose much loved icons such as the Barrier Reef and Bondi Beach and suffer many more Black Saturday fires and Queensland floods.

This is violence perpetrated on a gargantuan scale, reaching ahead for generations.

Governments world wide are being accused of dereliction of duty with regard to climate change?

Our species like most animals has the primitive brain's survival mechanism of fight or flight or freeze. In the face of immediate threat this capacity to react can be life saving.

Beyond this the upper brain or neo cortex has enabled the development of spirituality, higher conscience, and civilization. It enables intentional strategic action.

Injustice can and should, enrage us; but Gandhi has shown us that the fight can be pursued, with dogged defiance, be non violent but never passive.

So remembering Gandhi on his birthday how may he inspire us?

Governments world wide are being accused of dereliction of duty with regard to climate change?

James Hansen, former head of NASA and Al Gore have advocated civil disobedience as an extreme last resort to block coal mining and export..Hansen was arrested protesting the building of the Pipeline that would carry crude coal from Canada to the US. Prominent Australians including academic Robert Manne and David Ritter CEO of Greenpeace Australia, have also backed, peaceful civil disobedience. in the face of the enormity of the calamity we are facing. They both spoke in support of six Greenpeace activists boarding a Korean ship carrying Australian coal.

Perhaps our most successful recent Australian example of peaceful civil disobedience, that occurred over thirty years ago, was the Blockade to save the Franklyn River in Tasmania. This inspiring event demonstrated that ordinary people can get involved. People of all ages and from all walks of life participated in the Blockade. I was one of the 1400 people who was arrested and spent time in a Hobart Jail. It feels like one of the better things I have done in my life

Each of us can choose to do what we can, to overcome wrongs, or otherwise become complicit, by doing nothing.

Anna Frank,at 13, has left us with a message as powerful as any left by heroic adults.

"How wonderful it is that no-one need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world". The Franks hid from the Nazis for two years in the 'secret annex' in Amsterdam. The Annex was revealed, and Anna died in a camp in 1945, on the brink of liberation. After the war her father returned and retrieved the diary.

Nelson Mandela reading the diary in prison, has said , 'the lessons of her tragedy sunk deep in our souls, but also encouraged us'.

We can stand by and choose to do nothing or be part of this tradition of resistance against injustice and its violence. With each considered deed, none of us needs to wait.

In the words of Gandhi "If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do. Be the change you want to see."