Digger Please: Racist Gandhi and the Death of the Hero

welcome to the first addition of DiggerPlease, a place for me to rant on length about shit I read about in a glorified rumormill. But seriously, Digg is a fancinating place full of interesting stories and more interesting insights into the uncensored minds and heart of net-surfers world whiles. So, every once in a while when things strike, I may or may not write it up right here. Enjoy!

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Post Overview:
A surprising tearjerker from a source many would almost be embarrassed to be caught looking at. This article was snatched from Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s site, self-help guru an d writer of the NYT best seller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In one of a series of interviews with the good doctor, Dr. Stephen is asked to classic “who is your hero,” question.

The response was immediate and obvious:

Mahatma Gandhi. Let me read you his personal mission statement:

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:
* I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
* I shall fear only God.
* I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
* I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
* I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

The big draw, and source for most of the comments, came in the form of the meat of that mission statement along with  from Ghandi and his grandson on the principles Ghandi proported to try to live by:

He was so angry that he wanted eye for eye justice. He wanted to respond violently to the people that humiliated him. But he stopped himself, and said ‘that’s not right.’ It was not going to bring him justice. It might make him feel good for the moment, but it wasn’t going to get him any justice.

Tears followed. Lives were changed. People threw up a little in there mouths.

Notable, the doctor’s fairly astute commentary on Gandhi’s life and it’s broader connection to concepts of true leadership where more or less ignored.

Kneejeck response:
It’s Ghandi! One of the few sacred cow of WORLD culture left. There is MLK (who appearantly had hoes on the side and is really stinky- fuck umm), JFK (more mobbed up then Corloni and even MORE hoes – check on that one) and there is Ghandi.

So of course, first hits came from those pesky optimisms extolling virtures of Ghandi and his words. Some…as usually were more elequent then others:

selme (23+ diggs): I just read an article on espn.com about the Stanford recruit that was just gunned down in LA…to read this Ghandi article right afterwards was illuminating. My first reaction to the LA story was of vengeance, kill the bastard that did this. But that is the animal response and just perpetuates the cycle, with no true justice…I wonder if our country could ever really accept Ghandi’s message on a societal scale. It would be great, but I doubt it.

selme (23+ diggs): “I just read an article on espn.com about the Stanford recruit that was just gunned down in LA…to read this Ghandi article right afterwards was illuminating. My first reaction to the LA story was of vengeance, kill the bastard that did this. But that is the animal response and just perpetuates the cycle, with no true justice…I wonder if our country could ever really accept Ghandi’s message on a societal scale. It would be great, but I doubt it.”

BuzzDiggity (+41 diggs) Ghandi for president!

Dino74 (+5 diggs) I feel lame for looking at this on a Covey site, but it’s powerful. Gonna go take a steel wool bath now.

THEN….things took a dark, forebodding turn!!!!!!!

First there was this:

suzywang (-16):Google Gandi and you might find the true Gandi, he owned a newspaper in Africa that was aimed against black`s ,calling them 2nd class and not god worthy animals.He also was a pedophile sleeping with his own grand daughters. Sorry but NO

poetheunclothed(-4):I’m not inspired by racists, sorry. Gandhi wrote books about how he hated black people. He did some good things but definitely not one of the greatest humans ever.

And then this one:

Brassbud (-1) The only reason Gandhi’s strategy worked is because he was against the British. If Gandhi was living under the rule of a real terror, He, his family, and anyone within about a 100 yard radius would have been dead within 5 minutes of anyone knowing who this guy even was.

Not that I don’t have huge respect for Gandhi, but people seem to think his methods could work against some other cultures. People like Osama could watch half the world population die and call it a good day, and that just wasn’t true of the British.

And followed by a swift right from this guy:

morpheus69(-1)Gandhi was a religious extremist who forced the partitioning of India which resulted in the endless Hindu-Muslim violence that we have seen over the past 60 years.
India was well on its way to independence before Gandhi…the British had already decided to cut their losses and were looking for a graceful exit and handover of power to a coalition of Hindu and Muslim led by Nehru. Ghandi saw an opportunity to exploit this situation to his own advantage. He stirred up populist Hindu anger against Muslims and is largely responsible for the religious violence we have seen in India and Pakistan since. India would have been far better off had noone ever heard of a man named Gandhi.

And suddenly, appearantly, the truth of the article was found. It had nothing to do with leadership, being brave in the face overwhelming odds or standing for what you believed in. No, this was just one more tool the Ghandi propaganda machine was using to get you to think having hunger strikes against the government was a good thing. That and that black people are stupid. Which is a horrible racist thing to say of course. Unless, you know, it’s true. Are there ghetto black people in africa?

Commentary:
I remmber similar conversations coming up when Micheal Eric Dyson released his biography of MLK. In it, Dr. Dyson included some apparently well founded details on several affairs he had on the side. Some critized him for tansishing the one example of aferican american leadership EVERYONE seems to think highly of. Other (including me) praised him for showing MLK to be, not a massiah, but a man who did the best he could dispite making the same mistakes everyone does. But a quite few others, some of which I had conversations with, took the veiw that these affairs basically showed Martin to be a fraud, worth of more scorn then praise. JFK, Clinton and Ben Franklin (though strangely in that case, the fact that Ben loved him some french hoes seems to just make people like him more.

Looking at the info, just as in these other cases, it seems that the rumors are indeed true. [more on Ghandi rasicm and other arguments] It is also true that he [good things about Ghandi] and that ultimately the lagecy of these actions inspired millions of people world wide. Both true. My question is, why does it have to be one way or another. Why do people have to be either saints or self-interested assholes? Why oh why do some so vimentaly hate people who even TRY to make this world a better place.

I have hypothsis. I think that cynics are ultimately just smart cowards. They prefer to see the world go to shit, hoard their own little piece of wealth and then die into a black hole of nothingness then even imagine that the problems they bitch about could be things worth fighting against. They perfect the easy way, to be selfish, lonely inteletuals in a world where everyone is looking out for number one. It’s a very american point of view and, admitatly, an easy one to accept considering the state our world has ended up in. It is esp. convent if you are living a relatively comfortable life in general and thus have no self-interest anything being improved beyond your own wallet (or conversely if you have nothing and no-one has ever really believed in you)

Whatever the case, the only danger to your little objectivist paradise is anyone else who tries to make change in the world and ESP. those that seem to be doing. People like this break both of the major tennets of modern cynics:
1)    that everyone is ultimately just looking out for themselves
2)    that the world is doomed and it is futile for anyone to try to save it
And of course, there is nothing proud people hate more then someone that seem to prove there worldview wrong. So what do you do? Bash heros, left in right. He’s not so good. There not so tough. Sure, they SEEM good, but ultimately it’s just a fasade. Don’t look here, for nothing exist that conflicts with this tiny little world I have created for myself. [waves he’s hands misteriously]

One of my best friends is among the most racism people I know. Most white people I know have said shit that has been really fucked up a times, often personal directed towards me. Shit, Rocky has some overtones that don’t jive with me, but you know what? Rocky is still a good ass movie with a lot of heart. And those white friends of mind are still cool people the vast majority of the time. And that rasict best friend of mine is like a brother to me (and is, incidentally, now dating a sister) Racism sucks and continues leads to some incredible fucked up justifactions for things , but it doesn’t mean racist people are evil, stupid, or don’t have some good things to offer in life. It just means that they are ignorant. (Some are willfully ignorant, but that is another story) We need heros in life, they give us something to look up too. And we need those heros to be imperfect humans, as that shows us that being a hero is not beyond the relam of normal people. If you want to be a cynical bastard, fine, but don’t fight those that try the best they can in life. Just get the fuck out of the way.