Arun Gandhi and James Lawson share lessons of nonviolence

At the 2018 Parliament of the World's Religions, I had the privilege of hearing Arun Gandhi speak of his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi, who guided Arun in his formative years. Angry at racism in South Africa, Arun was sent to live with his grandfather in India to learn how to transform his anger into positive action. Two powerful practices was journalling about anger in order to find peaceful ways to address it, and reflecting on the overt and tacit violence he saw or committed as a 14 year old. What wonderful life lessons in peacebuilding for us today!

I also had the honour of hearing James Lawson on the same panel. Lawson was a key compatriot of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s in the

nonviolent resistence movement in the United States. Reflecting on the 20+ year history of the movement, Lawson outlines the twenty to thirty dimensions of the struggle, including the desegration of education, restaurants, and entertainment venues, and the Supreme Court's denial of black people's and women's rights. Martin Luther King was the first leader in the western world to announce that its violence has no future; it could only lead to massive global disaster, not peace and truth. Gandhi and King both said that if people did not adopt nonviolence, the Western world would leave a dire negative legacy to the world, leading to its destruction if we do not reject its global influence of racism, technological warfare, and enriching the west at the expense of the rest.

It is well worth your time to listen to the these tested and timely truths from these leaders of peace.

 

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