‘My Life Is My Message’: Global Activists Continue Gandhi’s Nonviolent Legacy

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When asked for his message for the world, Gandhi responded with the now famous line, “My life is my message,” reflecting his lifelong struggle against violence.

As most of the world ignores or hypocritically celebrates Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s 147th birthday on the International Day of Nonviolence on October 2, some of us will quietly acknowledge his life by continuing to build the world that he envisioned.

Gandhi’s life was dotted with many memorable quotes but one that is less well known is this: “You may never know what results come of your actions but if you do nothing there will be no results.”

An Open Letter To The People Of Brazil: A Nonviolent Action Plan

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As I read of the latest coup in Brazil, once again removing a democratically elected leader from power, my anger surged. Not again!

However, as I see and read about the ongoing massive protests, as well as calls by prominent community leaders to mobilize in defense of your country’s democracy, I feel great hope for Brazil. Having been a nonviolent activist for many years, I would like to support Brazilian activists to develop a nonviolent strategy that will increase your chances of success.

On August 31, 2016, the Brazilian elite executed a political coup to remove your democratically elected president, Dilma Rousseff, from office in a desperate attempt to halt corruption investigations in which they are clearly implicated. Behind the scenes, of course, the United States elite was heavily involved. With vast quantities of highly profitable fossil fuels, mineral and forest resources, as well as fresh water at stake, the U.S. and its allies are not going to stand aside while Brazil and BRICS endeavour to create a more just world for at least some of its human inhabitants.

Justifying War: “Just” Wars (Part 2)

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President Obama has said that he and other Americans are weary, fatigued of war. That may well suit his own thinking, but I think American’s weariness is more than just fatigue at the presence of conflict; it’s an exhaustion with the justifying of it all.

Author Herman Wouk put it best, in the words of Julien Benda, a character in his book, ‘The Winds of War.’ He wrote: “Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.”

Barack Obama, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, actually used that occasion which celebrated peace to lay down justifications for war; ‘Just Wars’ he called them. The new president wrapped his militarism in a blanket of history in his acceptance speech in Oslo. He spoke with the detachment of a professor lecturing students about a “living testimony” to the “moral force” of the teachings of King and Gandhi; a U.S. president who just happened to be commander-in-chief over dual, bloody occupations.

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