Gandhi in The Handmaid’s Tale

Behram,

Even though you did not ask for advice, I am forced to give it to you.

Do yourself a huge favor. Please STOP posting on this thread and topic. Move on.

It is quite obvious that you have no leg to stand on. You have painted yourself into a corner and are desperately clutching at straws. You are babbling. I am telling you that it is pathetic.

In future, please think before you leap. For now, please move on...there is always another thread ...and an another day....

Mantolives

You find Behram`s arguments cogent?

---

Dear Netizen

To say that you are casting pearls before swine will be unfair to the swine.

Also Gandhi was naive in his belief that Hitler could be transformed were the latter to really read the Bible. You are being similarly naive in believing that a person who has chosen to be what he is can be turned into a human being were he or she to actually read Gandhi`s words.

But then evil cannot always be destroyed. Sometimes one just hopes it will be reformed.

Re: # 1092

manto miya:

i am not trying to belittle jinnah to uplift gandhi

my attempt is to turn behram arguments upside down. just stay tuned.

also, it would help you if you read all the posts and try to make sense of them.

Behram akalband

``Gandhi who recommended his nonsensical ``non-violence`` strategy against Hitler`s aggression is why most Jews hate Gandhi``

Man! can you answer one straight question? Who are these ``most jews``? Can you quote some?

Re: # 1089

manto miya:

still no replies.

it is pathetic to still a fiery ``debator`` turning into a docile cheer-leader.

The oldest trick in the book... can`t defend Gandhi attack Jinnah... well Jinnah`s integrity was admitted by even his doughtiest opponents... but he is not the topic of discussion... Gandhi is...

So let us see you defend Gandhi against Behram`s cogent arguments...

Re: # 1084

behram:

you havn`t got back with your ``facts`` regarding gandhis views on women. are you ever going to?

also, i asked you about jinnahs ``integrity``. waiting for your reply

Re: # 1065

Dear Beej:

It is disconcerting that you chose to show your gibberish thought. In truth telling one has to remain laconic. Being from Bihar, you may not have known that we also have a saying in Persian. We use the term “thookme-shaitan” for the evil seed or Beej. You did an excellent job to prove that you have a “thookhm”, of what? That is what we have to decide. I just hope that this “thookhm” is not shaitaan’s. But again, I am not familiar with your leanings, since I have so far seen just gibberish thoughts, gibberish words, and indeed gibberish deeds.

And I expect that you will work towards Good thoughts, Good Words, and Good Deeds.

No, Beej, it is only your [These are a couple of final janitorial comments on this board.] thoughts that need janitorial work done to it.

If you see my first few queries on this site, I have always been a seeker, and I am still a seeker of truth. Thanks to your behavior I remain a seeker about Gandhi’s greatness, if any.

And that is all the reason that you should just shut up [which I honestly do not buy – I know I have a tough time coming up with a thousand of ANYTHING] Those pictures showed absolutely nothing about Gandhi not hating women, which obviously he did. And that is the discussion at this site.

Beej, what is the real story, you got out from those picture [The pictures tell a different story – they tell the real story] Why don’t you tell us the real story.

You are once again wrong [One needs pictures to counter pictures – and guess what – there just aren’t any!] If this is about validation then look at Mother Theresa’s contribution to humanity, which is widely recognized and we don’t need pictures to validate that. So, why do we need Gandhis?

I agree with you that Gandhi was a work in progress [He was always trying to better himself and always trying to identify faults in himself to correct] And that is what we see a Gandhi with inadequacies when it came to women. That is all what this article is all about. Even you can now accept that. Can you? Would you?

Beej, the dilemma is that you love Gandhi and I respect that. By this very notion, I will refrain from encouraging you to participate further on this subject. Please Beej move on, and may God help your soul.

I will not recognize the rest of your post.

With due respect,

I submit,

Behram B. Atashband

Behram Atashband,

I salute your courage in standing for the truth in wake of some of the most horrible abuse and insults by our Indian friends, who obviously can`t handle disagreement.

Re: # 1085

``Allow me to explain the basic principle of the Zoroastrian doctrine. It is to destroy evil regardless of where they are found, and not to surrender to it. ``

what has Zoroastrian to do with gandhis philisophy? anyway, if you are too bent to teach it, go and tell this to your irani brethen who enmasse surrenderred to the invaders faith.

``It is an established fact that Gandhi suggested the Jews should not resist Hitler`s evil, because Gandhi thought his non-violent strategy is better.``

behram,

gandhi believed in his philisophy and as per #1087 advised jews for non-violent struggle against hitler. this was before the mass killings and Auswitch. the most you can say is gandhi was wrong wrt hitler. hitler proved to be a far greater maniac than it was thought initially. moreover when asked later would he defend the country by satyagraha if hitler invaded india, he said no. even the allies didn`t enter war to protect jews, they had their own territories to defend. havn`t you heard of how americans didn`t bomb the railway lines ferrying the jews to the slaughter house, as they had more important job at hand? so what it makes the americans now? anti-semitic?

Re: # 1085

Gandhi on Jews & Middle-East


A Non-Violent Look at Conflict & Violence

Article Written on November 20, 1938
Published in Harijan on November 26, 1938
This Web Page Last Updated: October 09,2005

It is of utmost importance to remember the time of this writing. It is 1938, Hitler is ruling Germany, and the clouds of a terrible conflict have begun to form. Gandhi`s article shows his incredible sense of right and wrong, his blind faith in his methodology, and his profound vision of things to come. -Ed.

by Mohandas K. Gandhi

Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question.

My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.

But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.

The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colorable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.

But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which many inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.

But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means?

Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.

Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Musalmans or the Hindus, though, as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all the one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment . And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the god fearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.

It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for the Jews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. The persecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that the white Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beings created to serve the whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and colored races including Asia tics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government. Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis (soldiers of non-violence) from their contemplated step. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid after eight years of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of a threat of war.

But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. they are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And they have organized world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in nonviolent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turned in to a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanized man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted that latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.

And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart, who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown in to the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in the their favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.

I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.

Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilization by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the word`s Literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jews can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West, to be despised or patronized. He can command the attention and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.

© 1987 Navajivan Trust.

Dear Respected Mr. Behram1

Allow me to explain a basic fact of humanism.

It is sufficient that you pit yourself against Gandhi. One of the two is certainly a great failure as a human being. But please don`t pit Zoroastrianism against Gandhism. Why spread the harm to other good Parsi people?

Returning your respect to you, and sending you best wishes

Glad to see you harmed neither by nature nor by neighbor.

Re: # 1081

Dear friend:

Allow me to explain the basic principle of the Zoroastrian doctrine. It is to destroy evil regardless of where they are found, and not to surrender to it. Gandhi with his non-violent strategy was wrong in this basic philosophy. It is an established fact that Gandhi suggested the Jews should not resist Hitler`s evil, because Gandhi thought his non-violent strategy is better. This is where he should be in ``cookoo land`` with the rest of his lovers. Besides he never cared for women anyway!

As always,

Respectfully submitted,

Behram B. Atashband

Dear Gandhi lovers:

Of course, you have a right to love your leader. Of course, you have a right to consider him a saint. This is the best you can do.

But, political Gandhi was a complete failure. And some of you did acknowledge that. Gandhi who recommended his nonsensical ``non-violence`` strategy against Hitler`s aggression is why most Jews hate Gandhi. Then of course by now most people on this site do recognize that Gandhi was also a ``women hater``. Oh, yes, the facts. Can you handle the facts?

As always respectfully submitted,

Behram B. Atashband

Re: # 1079

`Well I did not see that he was Khalistani``

well you don`t see many things ....

Re: # 1079

i saw you replied to 1078, i hope you were not blind to 1077. Read it and reply back.