What Gandhi Says about Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage

By: Norman G. Finkelstein

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Synopsis: There has been widespread recognition of the contribution of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi to the tactics underpinning the revolutionary upsurges in the Middle East and the burgeoning Occupy movements in Europe and the United States. But few have stopped to examine what Gandhi actually said about the relationship between nonviolence, resistance and courage. In these pages Norman Finkelstein draws on extensive readings of Gandhi's copious oeuvre in order to set out in clear and concise language the basic principles of Gandhi's approach as well as to pinpoint its contradictions and limitations. There is much that will surprise here: Gandhi was not a pacifist; he believed in the right of those being attacked to strike back and regarded inaction as a result of cowardice to be a greater sin than even the most ill-considered aggression. Gandhi's calls for the sacrifice of lives in order to shame the oppressor into concessions can easily seem chilling and ruthless. But Gandhi's insistence that, in the end, peaceful resistance will always be less costly in human lives than armed opposition, and his understanding that the role of a protest movement is not primarily to persuade people of something new, but rather to get them to act on behalf of what they already accept as right--these principles have profound resonance in the movement for justice and democracy that began to sweep the world in 2011.