ravi wrote:
>
>
> That's not the point. Heartfield wrote earlier:
>
> > Pacifism, on the other had, is submission before the authority of
> > the ruling class.
>
> And in listing the imperialist struggles that inflicted real defeats
> he leaves out one of the most significant ones: the Indian
> independence movement.
Gandhi was a disaster for the Indian people. The kind of struggles he allowed did not involve the politicization of masses of people and led to the continued misery of the masses of the people and the continued close collaboration of the Indian elite wtih world capitalism.
The struggles in South Africa failed at a certain point -- but they were struggles. The struggle in India nevere got started, thanks to Gandhi.
Struggles grounded in some metaphysic such as pacifism are fundamentally authoritarian in nature. Pacifism as an ism is contemptuous of people. They don't measure up to its high standards and therefore are not worthy of freedom. This is not true of many individual pacifists; in their case practice and theory divide.
Carrol
Carrol