Mohandas Gandhi: “I do dimly perceive that, whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together; that creates, dissolves and re-creates.”
One of the sad parts of our current state of Society in America has been our educational system. Painful evidence of that came the other day, while joining the protesters at Occupy Los Angeles I saw a placard with a portrait of Gandhi lying on the ground with several people standing over it asking who the "bald African-American guy was".
I responded it was Gandhi and was met with blank stares. I added he has been regarded as the Father of Non-Violent Protest and led the mass movement towards Independence in India in the late 1940's.
Didn't register.
Okay - it's a fair assessment that, if you're reading this page and have been for some time, you know exactly who Gandhi was and at the very least read about him or even saw the movie. But if you know people, have friends who just don't know, I would suggest you download this documentary, produced by the BBC in 1969, and play it for them.
In October 1969 a book was published in the UK called The Trial Of Mister Gandhi, written by the narrator of this documentary Francis Watson. The book deals with the beginnings of the non-violent protest movement in India in 1922 and the trial of Mohandas Gandhi for his role in it. In addition to the voice of Gandhi himself, there are numerous interviews with followers of Gandhi as well as members of the British Government who were involved in the prosecution and trial.
It's a little under an hour, but it makes for fascinating listening and certainly gives a better understanding of the concept of Non-Violent Protest and why it's playing such an important role in our current wave of protests taking place in, at last count, over 658 cities around the U.S.
Don't get me started on that "mind being a terrible thing to waste" rant.
