Gandhi applicable in today’s Burma?

Gandhi applicable in today’s Burma?

 
I don’t think I’m the first guy to think about it.
 
I’ve watched Gandhi, the movie that won the 1982 academic awards, many times, especially after the September massacres in Rangoon. Maybe too many times, because in my mind’s eye, whenever I think of Gandhi, it’s not him but Ben Kingsley who fills up my vision. And whenever I see him playing other characters in other movies, I can’t help but feel a pain in my heart.
 
For over a hundred years, that little brown man in a loin-cloth has been an icon to unarmed people fighting for justice. He had fought against Apartheid in South Africa and later against British rule in India with nothing but truth, love, his powerful personally and, I’m not forgetting it, with the press. “When you fight for a just cause, people seem to pop up like you right out of the pavement (to help)”, he told a Christian clergyman who came to South Africa from India to offer his assistance.
 
Right from the beginning, he explained why he was employing non-violence against the oppressive rulers. “We do not seek conflict. We know the strength of the forces arrayed against us. We know that because of them, we can only use peaceful means. But we are determined that justice will be done.”

He had also rationalized that armed resistance and its accompanying chaotic consequences were only letting the enemy to exploit the situation by justifying its authoritarian rule. “If we fight back, we become the vandals and they (the British) the law. If we bear their blows, they become the vandals,” on of his followers told the 15,000 people gathering in Amritsar, before the carnage that left 1,516 casualties, among them women and children.
 
He was also a fervent believer in the New Testament’s “If your enemy strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the left.” It was not just a metaphor, as he elaborated: “You must show courage, be willing to take a blow, several blows to show you will not strike back. Nor will you turn aside. And when you do that it calls one something in human nature. Something that makes his hatred for you decrease and his respect increase. I think Christ grasped that. And I have seen it work.”
 
Naturally, he was not out for revenge. “An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind,” is his most famous quotation, but there are others too. Like what he told Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), who later became independent India’s first prime minister: “When there is injustice, I always believe in fighting. But the question is do you fight to change, or do you fight to punish. For myself, I’ve found we’re all sinners. We should leave the punishment to God.”
 
Human nature he understood well and he did not blame his enemies. “I want to change their minds, not kill them for weaknesses we all possess,” he said. He also told a gathering of his supporters: “We must defy the British not with violence that will inflame their will but with firmness that will open their eyes.”
 
However, it would be a mistake to think of him as a mere pacifist. “It is not just the generals who know how to plan their campaigns,” he said on his way to the sea to prove that the sea salt belonged to all and was not just a British monopoly. “The function of a civil resister is to provoke response. And we will continue to provoke until they respond or they change the law.”
 
That film also taught me a lot of other things and also raised some questions, particularly, “Is Gandhi relevant to today’s Burma?”
 
After all, Gandhi was not fighting against lawless powers. Both South Africa’s apartheid regimes and the British have been known as apostles to Rule of Law. Even one British official had fretted, “We too damned liberal.”
 
Even Life’s Margaret Bourke-White asked him, “Do you really believe you could use non violence against someone like Hitler?”

Gandhi’s answer to such question was:
When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and, for a time, they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it. Always.
 
I think I should think of it too. So should all of us who want freedom, peace and harmony in Burma. Seriously.