Gandhi

If blood be shed, let it be our own
Let us cultivate the calm courage
To die without killing

Volgens Gandhi moet je nooit geweld gebruiken, wat de ander ook doet. Geweld kweekt nieuw geweld. De ander moet zelf tot de overtuiging komen dat het niet goed is wat hij doet.

De filosoof Bertrand Russel zei hierover:
‘Non-violent resistence –it certainly has an important sphere; as against the British in India, Gandhi led to triumph. But it depends upon the existence of certain virtues in those against whom it is employed. When Indians lay down on railways and challence the authorities to crush them under trains, the British found such cruelty untolerable.’

Om te geloven in geweldloosheid moet je geloven in het goede in de mens. Dat Gandhi daarin geloofde blijkt ook uit zijn brief aan Adolf Hitler:

23.7.’39.
Dear friend,
Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of humanity. But I have resisted their request, because of the feeling that any letter from me would be an impertinence. Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must make my appeal for whatever it may be worth.
It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success? Any way I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing you.
I remain,
Yours sincere friend
Sd. M.K. Gandhi
Herr Hitler
Berlin
Germany.