Clearly, Gandhians in India are a whole different animal, and I should have distinguished them from Western Gandhians (some of whom, like David McReynolds, are politically admirable, even though their Gandhi is a projection of their own moral imaginations). And Gitlin, Naiman, et al. are no Gandhians at all . . . except when they are telling other people to be Gandhians. (Or did I miss them when I was out campaigning and going to jail for unilateral US nuclear disarmament?)
----- Original Message ----- From: // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Cc: Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2011 3:26 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Todd Gitlin: the most pompous ass ever?
On Jun 9, 2011, at 3:17 PM, Dissenting Wren wrote:
> I was once a pretty down-the-line Gandhian. My training as a political organizer came from the War Resisters' League, I spent time in jail for civil disobedience, etc. But during that time, I knew nothing at all about India, and the Gandhi I thought I knew something about was little more complicated than Attenborough's Gandhi. It wasn't until I went to grad school and actually started to learn something not tied to my own moral projections that I discovered (a) that Gandhi was a much more complicated figure - for better and worse - than I had imagined, and (b) that India's independence movement was far more than the Salt March writ large.
I agree with most of what you wrote, so I am not sure either what in my post (which you responded to) you are disagreeing with. Perhaps you are unhappy that I agree with R. Naiman that the obvious course for Palestinians to pursue is non-violence (on which Gitlin happens to be right). So be it. At this moment, I find it not needing debate and so obvious a point that even stating it invites the question of motive (and hence such questioning of Gitlin). However, I will read with good attention contrary writings here on the list. They might well change my mind on this point.
I would like to add that those of us who are still down-the-line Gandhians don’t fall into neatly divided camps of Attenborough idealists or 90-volume educated Westerners (no disrespect to Finkelstein; or you). When we talk about Gandhian non-violence we are not speaking either of Gandhi as sainted by Attenborough, or the single entity as embodied in his writings.
—ravi
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