His second one that stuck with me was a total distaste and disenfranchisement of Gandhi-esque politics. He thought that Gandhi was in many ways a well intentioned pawn�used by governments and those in power to stop people that had built up threats to their power in a manner of physical force by cutting the rug out from under them. By promoting Gandhi as a symbol of resistance, people become fearful of the use of force to overcome tyranny or corrupt power leaders. They believe that only the use of non-violent resistance is a way to overcome this system.
The guy I talked to thought this idea was both false and being fed to us by those in power. First, he pointed out that Gandhi never really caused the collapse of British India. He claimed that India was a colony no longer producing profit for the British empire and had turned into a liability after WW2. The British only gave it up after it no longer became useful and the country, given to Gandhian government was bankrupt, and eventually became an ethnic and economic disaster that supported capitalism and environmental degradation and often being the exact opposite of what Gandhi had envisioned. Gandhi did sow seeds of rebellion but those seeds never really challenged the British empire. The Ben Kingsley movie about Gandhi from the early 80�s actually stresses this view, even though it was a heartfelt pro-Gandhian tactics movie. For example, one saw many times in the movie the British saying �oh�and I was actually worried that they were going to do something� and there is no discussion on the internal reasons why the British decided to give over India, only that they wanted to and wanted to keep it separate (which they succeeded in doing). To top it all off, faced with Indian pacifist rebellion the British on numerous occasions simply killed thousands, and the people responsible did nothing.
This isn�t to say that Gandhi did nothing or that his method wasn�t noble, it�s simply to say that it did not succeed in the form that it took. Many people died and it was contingent on a lot of other things. In the movie, while an army of people are being beaten down, a US reporter actually makes it all worthwhile, something that in today�s daily-shock coverage would be something more left to chance and not to non-violent tactics. It is also not to say that riots and violent revolution would not be any better. Although the guy I talked believed that that was a better way, he failed to point out to me that even though this occurred in Leninist-Russia, they ended up both breaking apart ethnically, committing atrocities and embracing capitalism in the long run.
One of the main things that stuck with me, was his argument about how both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. (pacifists) were emphasized in revolutionary movements these days over combatants like Malcolm X and Lenin (non-pacifists). Why are these important revolutionaries lost in pages of history when Americans are celebrating a non-confrontational Martin Luther King Jr. Day and why does data show that the public has decreasing support for actions direct and ultimately violent political actions? I believe the guy I was talking to was correct in assuming that this is to stop people from this.
But trained in the schools of Aristotle�s and Giddens 3rd way and the elements of Yin and Yang, while watching the movie Gandhi, the scene where a group of Gandhians are trying to shut down a factory by an army of them walking into British-India soldiers who beat them to hell struck me as wrong.
I saw an ocean of people who could in unison, and non-violently have easily shut down ced factory with sheer numbers. They could have overwhelmed the guards, broken the fences, broken windows, caused fear, and simply wrecked the production to hell and making sure all were out�burned the place to the ground. It would have taken hours�but ultimately been easy.
People considered as rats by the powers that be�simple mice�running through the cracks of society and chewing all the wires that run the very fabric of authority. No violence but martyred death, confronts and total shut down.
Ken Kesey and his Merry pranksters believed that the best way for the US population to deal with the Vietnam war was to all join hands and collectively walk away from the Vietnam war. Though I don�t believe that armies and killing are good to fight revolution are wise ways to win against an enemy, there are ways to combine the two. In rioting and violent confrontation there is no control, neither on the ground or in planning centers. Revolutions and political sea-changes are not mathematical equations that can be set off by one specific action that comes to a uniform conclusion. Rioters can lose purpose, kill innocents and turn on any authority warping the aims of a revolutionary force. Management of ced force could be usurped, overtaken, corrupted by fear, corrupted by power etc. But shifts in consciousness can be achieved and change is possible and constant�the events that befell the roman empire do not follow us as closely as some would say.
I can imagine a mass of people addicted to change and to a world view that is possible. And this mass of people being neither violent, nor passive, but invading the workings of oppression and shutting them down by sheer numbers. Then, leaders of a broken system have no choice but to cave or hide�though it is momentarily no matter�until memory fades and the next wave begins.