The Other September 11: Gandhi and 100 Years of the Peace Movement

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2002/10/06/stories/2002100600290500.htm

On September 11, 1906, in Johannesburg, Gandhiji initiated his Satyagraha against the Natal Government, which was trying to pass an Ordinance meant to disenfranchise the Indians and if passed would have made life impossible for the Indians in the country. It was on September 11, 1906, when the Indians gathered to discuss how to meet the challenge of the ordinance that Gandhiji thought of facing violence with non-violence, of fighting for truth and justice with suffering. He warned the meeting that pursuit of Satyagraha might mean prison or even cost them their life. Everyone who attended that meeting took a pledge to resist the ordinance with non-violence whatever the provocation.

In launching his Satyagraha movement in Johannesburg, Gandhiji said: "I had no companion. We were 2,000 men, women and children against a whole nation capable of crushing the existence out of us. I did not know who would listen to me. It all came as if in a flash. Many fell back. But the honour of the nation was saved. New history was written by the South African Satyagrahis."

September 11, 1906, was the beginning of Gandhiji's Satyagraha movement — it started in Johannesburg against the ordinance and was later used in India to fight for its independence. "Satyagraha," explained Gandhiji, "is a relentless search for Truth and a determination to search for Truth. Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit within. Satyagraha can be described as an effective substitute for violence." An eye for an eye, said Gandhi, only ends up making the whole world blind.

Explaining his philosophy of non-violence to the people, he said, "I saw that nations like individuals could only be made through the agony of the cross and in no other way. Joy comes not out of infliction of pain on others but out of pain voluntarily borne by oneself. Violent means would give violent freedom and that would mean a menace to the world. Real suffering, on the other hand, bravely borne melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha."

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Nonviolent 9/11

On August 22, 1906, the Transvaal government in South Africa under the British Empire gave notice of a new legislation requiring all Indians, Arabs and Turks to register with the government. Fingerprints and identification marks on the person's body were to be recorded in order to obtain a certificate of registration. Those who failed to register could be fined, sent to prison or deported. Even children had to be brought to the Registrar from their fingerprint impressions. At the time, there were less than 100,000 Indians in South Africa. But in Transvaal, there was an Indian lawyer working with a Muslim company, and his name was Mohandas K. Gandhi.

On September 11, 1906, Gandhi called a mass meeting of some 3,000 Transvaal Indians to find ways to resist the Registration Act. He felt the Act was the embodiment of "hatred of Indians" which if accepted would "spell absolute ruin for the Indians in South Africa", and therefore resisting it is a "question of life and death."

Among these 3,000 people attending the meeting was one Sheth haji Habib, an old Muslim resident of South Africa. Deeply moved after listening to Gandhi's speech, Sheth Habib said to the congregation that the Indians had to pass this resolution with God as witness and could never yield a cowardly submission to such a degrading legislation. Gandhi wrote in his Satyagraha in Africa (1928), that "He then went on solemnly to declare in the name of God that he would never submit to that law and advised all present to do likewise." Though Sheth Habib was known to be a man of temper, his action on September 11 was significant because of his decision to act in defiance of an unjust law and willingness to suffer the consequences in a spiritually-endowed fight for justice in the name of God.

Gandhi was taken aback by the Muslim's suggestion. He wrote, " I did not come to the meeting with a view to getting the resolution passed in that manner, which redounds to the credit of Sheth haji Habib as well as it lays a burden of responsibility upon him. I tender my congratulations to him. I deeply appreciate his suggestion, but if you adopt it you too will share his responsibility.

On that day, September 11, 1906, in South Africa, the Indian nonviolent movement was born. Gandhi later called his Indian movement: "Satyagraha" or " the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence." This movement went on to free 300 million people from the power of the British Empire and gave the twentieth century a most remarkable demonstration of the power of nonviolent struggle.

http://www.transnational.org/pressinf/2005/pi226_Chaiwat_Sept11.html

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Remember, and hope.