Author: Mary King
Publisher: Mehta Publishers
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 529
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9798188039073
Description
Mahatma Gandhi started his adult life as a shy law student, yet he went on to provide dynamic leadership for eight historic struggles and to counter the maltreatment of women. Through his grasp of the power of Truth, Gandhi experimented with building justice, human rights and democracy in a manner that would leave no bitterness.
Martin Luther King Jr, neither seeking nor wanting leadership, had to be cajoled into becoming the leader of a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, that would change the face of the United States.
Transmitted mostly by word of mouth, the wisdom of Gandhi and King has been employed successfully by any number of peoples and popular movements-including the Poles, East Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, the Burmese and the Thais.
This book looks at nonviolent political strategy and change in the twentieth century by chronicling some of its theorists, their strategies and their struggles, and by comparing the words of Gandhi and King.
The stories of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr lie at the heart of Civil Rights Movements In Asia, Africa and America, movements that transformed the lives of countless millions dis-empowered by their own societies. These stories need to be told time and again, to a world still struggling to fight social inequalities, racism, terrorism and dictatorships.
As the twenty-first century approached, nonviolent movements-using methods such as boycotts, demonstrations, and strikes-against totalitarian bureaucracies and despotic regimes brought about social and political change in East Germany, the Czech Republic, and other parts of the world. These struggles prevailed against heavily armed authorities and seemingly indomitable internal security systems. A nonviolent transformation succeeded again in the Balkans in October 2000,when student activists brought down the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic with ridicule and mockery, rock music, marches, artful sloganeering, and most of all, methods of political noncooperation such as civil disobedience.
COMMENTS:
'I have in my lifetime witnessed an almost unimaginable social and political revolution in our region of the American South brought about through the philosophies and strategies of nonviolent struggle. Mary King has chronicled this most powerful force for altering the human condition in the twentieth century. This volume is UNESCO's superb gift to the twenty-first century and the pursuit of human rights, freedom and justice.
= Jimmy Carter 39th President of the United State of America.
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
A note about jiu-jitsu
Introduction
Various uses of nonviolent tools
Two giants of nonviolent struggle
Bibliography
Chapter 1. Confronting power itself: Mahatma Gandhi's campaigns and the power of truth
A kind of power
Influences on Gandhi
Thoreau's civil disobedience'
The early years
Return to India
Brick by brick: the constructive program
The Ahmedabad textile mill Satyagraha
Gandhi rises on the Indian stage
The Vykom temple Satyagraha
The Bardoli peasant Satyagraha
The Salt March
Return to the village
The Calcutta fast
The power of truth for all the world
Bibliography
Chapter 2. Standing face to face with power: Martin Luther King, Jr, and the American civil rights movement
The young Martin
First encounters with Gandhi and Thoreau
Intellectual pilgrimage to nonviolence
Nonviolent resistance is not for cowards
The Montgomery struggle sparks a movement
The Montgomery bus boycott
The boycott sets the parameters of nonviolent struggle
Resident Gandhian tutors
‘When the gun gets too heavy, you will put it down’
After 381 days of boycott
Rediscovery of Gandhi
To India
The sit-ins and the freedom rides
Civil rights, civil disobedience, and civility
Letter from a Birmingham jail
The children's crusade
The Selma march
‘Fire that no water could put out’
‘Mine eyes have seen the glory’
Bibliography
Chapter 3. East to West: contacts between the Indian and American movements
Millions learn of Gandhi
Gandhi and the African-American press
A black Gandhi
Visits with Gandhi
The least of these
A living bridge linking Gandhi, King, and the present
Unadulterated message delivered to the world
Almost any country or any century
Bibliography
Chapter 4. Gandhi and King: in their own words
Gandhi on himself
King on Gandhi
Gandhi on Thoreau and other influences
King on Thoreau and other influences
Gandhi and the African-Americans
Gandhi on truth and nonviolence
King on truth and nonviolence
Gandhi on love and reconciliation
King on love and reconciliation
Gandhi on Satyagraha
King on the necessity of sacrifice and struggle
Gandhi on means and ends
King on means and ends
Gandhi on the tools of nonviolent struggle
King on the tools of nonviolent struggle
Gandhi on democracy, human rights, and justice
King on democracy, human rights, and justice
Gandhi on the news media
King on the news media
Gandhi on religious faith
King on religious faith
Gandhi on human equality
King on human equality
Gandhi on the human family
King on the human family
Gandhi on global prospects for nonviolence
King on global prospects for nonviolence
Gandhi on violence and cowardice
King on violence and cowardice
King on freedom
Gandhi on education
Bibliography
Chapter 5. Seven struggles: traditions on which to build
New tools, forged in practice
Charismatic leadership is not required
The nonviolent struggle in Burma
The Polish fight for freedom
The Pastors' Movement of East Germany
The Czechs and Slovaks: A Velvet Revolution
Thailand: a transnational movement for democracy, human rights and nonviolence
Nonviolence is never too late: the Palestinian intifada
The struggle of the indigenous peoples of Guatemala
Bibliography
Epilogue
Appendix 1: Gandhi's fasts
Appendix 2: Last Sunday sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr
Glossary