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Preeti on the Web |
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Providing Food for Thought |
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Would a Muslim Gandhi Please Step Forward? |
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Colonial India had Mahatma Gandhi. Black Americans had Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. And now, if Arabs wish to fight Israeli oppression, they need a Muslim Gandhi to step up to the plate and lead them in non-violent resistance. |
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Only a Muslim Gandhi can break the cycle of violence |
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October 2, 2006 |
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Today, October 2, is Gandhi’s birthday. In his honor, I have written this opinion piece Colonial India had Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu who brought the British Empire to its knees through non-violent resistance. Black Americans had Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Christian who mobilized religious groups and tapped the conscience of America with non-violent civil disobedience. And now, if Arabs wish to fight Israeli oppression, they need a Muslim Gandhi to step up to the plate and lead them in non-violent resistance. The violent tactics of the past just aren’t working. For decades, Israelis and Arabs have been fighting one another back and forth over disputed territorial claims and the rights of Palestinians. Most recently, Israel and Hezbollah battled one another over the summer. The cycle of violence simply continues back and forth with each side blaming the other. A Muslim version of Gandhi, however, could break that cycle. A Muslim Gandhi who led non-violent mass protests in the Middle East would give Arabs the moral high ground—the one crucial thing they lack right now. When an oppressed group and it supporters embrace non-violence and flock around a non-violent, religious leader, they gain the moral edge. They become morally unimpeachable. A Muslim Gandhi will have to be exceptionally bold. Both Gandhi and King met untimely deaths as a result of standing for their convictions. In the Middle East, a Muslim Gandhi will face all manner of persecution. But if no Muslim Gandhi emerges, what alternative solution is there to the violence and terrorism? Currently, only violent groups such as Hezbollah are giving a loud voice to Arab grievances. Ultimately, however, violence doesn’t prick the world’s conscience; it only reinforces negative stereotypes. That’s exactly why Arabs need their own Gandhi—someone who can win by moral authority. But, is it possible? Some argue that Islam is a religion of the sword that is completely incompatible with the principals of non-violence. It doesn’t take much more than a basic Google search, however, to prove that there are Muslims in the past and present who have interpreted their religion quite differently. Most notable is the figure of Abdul Ghaffar Khan. As a Muslim leader from the Pashtun tribe in what is today Pakistan, he organized 100,000 Muslim followers in non-violent resistance against the British during colonial times. In 1930 they shut down Peshawar for five days through non-violent tactics. Ghaffar Khan defied the stereotype of the violent Pashtun fighter. He embraced non-violence and required all his followers to sign a 10-point pledge that included a renunciation of violence. Unlike today’s so-called Middle Eastern freedom fighters, he saw Islam as a religion of non-violence. He believed that non-violence was a form of jihad: non-violence could lead to the purest form of martyrdom because it put one’s life at the mercy of one’s enemies. Believing that Ghaffar Khan sets a precedent for Muslim non-violence, Mohammed Abu-Nimer, a professor of international peace and conflict resolution at American University in Washington, DC, writes, “Palestinians can follow the same path in mobilizing hundreds of thousands [of] nonviolent soldiers instead of relying on small armed groups or individual bombers.” Just imagine: hundreds of thousands of non-violent Palestinians marching hand in hand through the streets, singing their own Palestinian version of We Shall Overcome. Hunger strikes, sit ins, blockades—all with a Middle Eastern twist. Each round of Israeli arrests of peaceful Arab protestors would only strengthen the Arab cause, just as did the arrests of black Americans who sat at whites-only lunch counters. For young Arabs in the Middle East, the ball is in their court. Arabs there can’t choose how they are treated by Israel, but they can choose how they respond. Decades of fighting hasn’t brought jobs, prosperity or peace. It’s time to change tactics. It’s time to put down the sword and pick up a more powerful weapon. That weapon is the one described by Abdul Ghaffar Khan when he said to his fellow Muslims, “I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it.” Some Arabs in the Middle East may think that a Gandhi-style resistance movement is too idealistic or too naïve. Without a non-violent champion, however, the Arab cause lacks the moral high ground needed to shame Israel and the United States into a resolution to the conflict. In a New York Times article last month, Yomana Samaha, a radio talk-show host in Cairo, she said, “Hezbollah is a resistance movement that has given us a solution.” Wouldn’t it be great if Samaha could instead say that a non-violent Muslim Gandhi has given Arabs a solution? |