Monday, August 23, 2004
Gandhi and the Middle East
I have often wondered why the Palestinians haven't ever adopted lessons from the Gandhi playbook on dealing with a militarily powerful opponent. Clearly, stones and AK-47's are no match for Apache helicopters and M1A1 Abrams tanks, so why bother? What may work is moral superiority of the sort Gandhi used so effectively against the British. Instead, the Palestinian movement seems intent on destroying their own case and credibility (in the court of world public opinion) by the continued use of violence as a weapon. Why? This is a question I have never managed to answer, but Brian Whitaker attempts to, albeit in a different context. He asks this question in terms of the wider middle east region, rather than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He didn't believe in killing people - or animals, for that matter - but he did understand the principles of asymmetric warfare, now used by bin Laden and others to fight a more powerful enemy with ingenuity and minimal resources. It might be argued that Gandhi took asymmetric warfare to its logical conclusion: dispensing with weapons altogether, he relied instead on mass public support and moral superiority."Nothing but organised non-violence," he wrote, "can check the organised violence of the British government."
In the Middle East, though, his ideas have less appeal. Maybe it's because a wispy vegetarian in granny glasses and loincloth doesn't fit with Arab views of a manly hero.
A number of Muslim writers have made a plausible case for Islamic non-violence. One is the elderly Syrian scholar, Jawdat Said, who watched the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the 1950s and predicted that the use of violence by Islamic movements would eventually prove self-destructive. One problem with "non-violence" is that the word sounds rather negative when translated into Arabic, implying passivity and surrender. Khishtainy therefore uses an alternative term - "civil jihad" - which sounds more positive and in some ways better reflects Gandhi's methods.
Whatever people call it, though, it's still liable to freak out the authorities. In the Syrian town of Darya, a small group of citizens got together, influenced by Jawdat Said's ideas of Islamic non-violence. They set up a free library and showed a number of videos (all of them licensed by the authorities) - including one on the life of Gandhi. They also discouraged bribery and smoking, and did some voluntary work to clean up the town. In Syria, as in much of the Arab world, it is easy to see how a bit of unpaid street-cleaning might be interpreted as a subversive message to the government, and quite possibly that is what the people who did it intended.
Now, Gandhi's interpretation of of "asymmetric" works when one's opponents are the British or anyone imbibed with some sense of fairplay. What if you aim your non-violent protests at the Syrian government instead?
In Darya, the final straw came in May last year when the non-violent activists held a silent march protesting against the invasion of Iraq. A few days later, 22 men were ordered to report to Military Security. Eleven were kept in detention until January this year, and seven more until April. The remaining four were tried in secret by a Field Military Court and convicted for the bizarre offence of "attempting to establish a religious organisation, involvement in unlicensed social activities and attending unlicensed religious and intellectual classes".
Gandhi once cheerfully remarked that prison enabled him to catch up on lost sleep, but the experience of the four Syrians has been very different. The men are now being held in Sednaya prison, about 15 miles north of Damascus, in what Amnesty International describes as "extremely unhealthy, dehumanising and degrading" conditions. "They have been subjected to various forms of torture and ill-treatment, including threats and insults; having their fingers crushed; beatings to their face and legs; having cold water thrown over them or their blankets; being forced to stand for long periods during the night; hearing loud screams and beatings of other detainees; sleep deprivation; being stripped naked in front of others; and being prevented from praying, and from growing a beard.
It is true that one must choose one's opponents with care when applying methods from the Gandhi playbook. Like I said earier, a sense of fairplay is key. That said, what may not work against the Syrian or Iranian government will certainly work against more fair minded (which the large majority of Israelis are) opponents. And that's why I remain puzzled as to why the Palestinian do not adopt Gandhian methods. Whitaker does a reasonable job of explaining why Gandhi's ideas lacks appeal in the wider middle east, but in the territories?
He didn't believe in killing people - or animals, for that matter - but he did understand the principles of asymmetric warfare, now used by bin Laden and others to fight a more powerful enemy with ingenuity and minimal resources. It might be argued that Gandhi took asymmetric warfare to its logical conclusion: dispensing with weapons altogether, he relied instead on mass public support and moral superiority."Nothing but organised non-violence," he wrote, "can check the organised violence of the British government."
In the Middle East, though, his ideas have less appeal. Maybe it's because a wispy vegetarian in granny glasses and loincloth doesn't fit with Arab views of a manly hero.
A number of Muslim writers have made a plausible case for Islamic non-violence. One is the elderly Syrian scholar, Jawdat Said, who watched the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the 1950s and predicted that the use of violence by Islamic movements would eventually prove self-destructive. One problem with "non-violence" is that the word sounds rather negative when translated into Arabic, implying passivity and surrender. Khishtainy therefore uses an alternative term - "civil jihad" - which sounds more positive and in some ways better reflects Gandhi's methods.
Whatever people call it, though, it's still liable to freak out the authorities. In the Syrian town of Darya, a small group of citizens got together, influenced by Jawdat Said's ideas of Islamic non-violence. They set up a free library and showed a number of videos (all of them licensed by the authorities) - including one on the life of Gandhi. They also discouraged bribery and smoking, and did some voluntary work to clean up the town. In Syria, as in much of the Arab world, it is easy to see how a bit of unpaid street-cleaning might be interpreted as a subversive message to the government, and quite possibly that is what the people who did it intended.
Now, Gandhi's interpretation of of "asymmetric" works when one's opponents are the British or anyone imbibed with some sense of fairplay. What if you aim your non-violent protests at the Syrian government instead?
In Darya, the final straw came in May last year when the non-violent activists held a silent march protesting against the invasion of Iraq. A few days later, 22 men were ordered to report to Military Security. Eleven were kept in detention until January this year, and seven more until April. The remaining four were tried in secret by a Field Military Court and convicted for the bizarre offence of "attempting to establish a religious organisation, involvement in unlicensed social activities and attending unlicensed religious and intellectual classes".
Gandhi once cheerfully remarked that prison enabled him to catch up on lost sleep, but the experience of the four Syrians has been very different. The men are now being held in Sednaya prison, about 15 miles north of Damascus, in what Amnesty International describes as "extremely unhealthy, dehumanising and degrading" conditions. "They have been subjected to various forms of torture and ill-treatment, including threats and insults; having their fingers crushed; beatings to their face and legs; having cold water thrown over them or their blankets; being forced to stand for long periods during the night; hearing loud screams and beatings of other detainees; sleep deprivation; being stripped naked in front of others; and being prevented from praying, and from growing a beard.
It is true that one must choose one's opponents with care when applying methods from the Gandhi playbook. Like I said earier, a sense of fairplay is key. That said, what may not work against the Syrian or Iranian government will certainly work against more fair minded (which the large majority of Israelis are) opponents. And that's why I remain puzzled as to why the Palestinian do not adopt Gandhian methods. Whitaker does a reasonable job of explaining why Gandhi's ideas lacks appeal in the wider middle east, but in the territories?
