March 17, 1999
Peace is an everyday thing
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Arun Gandhi recalls the day years ago when he and his wife went to meet someone coming from South Africa at the boat docks in Bombay, India.
The grandson of India's deceased spiritual leader "Mahatma" Gandhi, Gandhi was shocked when he saw the person he was meeting was a well-known proponent of apartheid and a racist parliament minister. However, instead of rejecting this person or speaking harsh words to him, Gandhi welcomed the man and his wife into their home and entertained them for four days.
During that time, many intense discussions ensued about race and apartheid, although Gandhi was careful that the talks never became heated. When the man and his wife left, he embraced Gandhi and with tears streaming down his face asked for forgiveness. This man promised to go back to South Africa and fight apartheid.
"Four days of dialogue changed the man completely," said Gandhi, who followed this man's career over the years and saw that he kept his word, eventually losing his parliament seat because of it. "That's when I saw the real power of non-violence."
Gandhi told this story to a packed audience of more than 500 at the Milliken Auditorium at Northwestern Michigan College last Tuesday evening. He and his wife, Sunanda, founded the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in 1991 in Memphis, Tennessee, and travel around the world to speak about peace and non-violence.
The talk was sponsored by the Student Government Association and the huge crowd hung on his every word as Gandhi shared stories of the 18 months he spent living with his grandfather. He was sent to India from his native South Africa at the age of 12 when a series of beatings left him hungry for revenge against his tormentors. This time coincided with India's struggle for independence from Great Britain, so the then young man witnessed first-hand his grandfather's commitment to peace and non-violence.
"That time I spent with him laid the foundations of understanding his philosophy," Gandhi said. "I learned that you can use anger positively, not negatively. Like electricity, anger is just as powerful and useful if used intelligently. But if abused it is just as destructive."
Gandhi related another story of how he one day threw away a three-inch stub of a pencil without thinking because he decided it was too small to use anymore. When he asked his grandfather for a new pencil, his grandfather quizzed him about the pencil and made him go find it in the dark. After three hours of hunting with a flashlight, the young Gandhi found his pencil stub - and gained a deep insight to his grandfather's profound philosophy of non-violence.
"From that I learned two lessons from him: Even in the making of a simple thing like a pencil, we are using a lot of resources and that is violence against the world," Gandhi said. "And overconsumption of these resources when there are people with so little is violence against humanity. His philosophy covered all aspects of human life."
Local peace activist Sally Van Vleck, co-founder of the Neahtawanta Center, felt that Gandhi's central message was that peace and non-violence start by taking responsibility for our own actions and emotions. This is directly applicable in everyone's life, she said. In her work and Yoga teachings at the Neahtawanta Center, she and co-founder Bob Russell strive to help people find inner peace and thereby promote outward peace.
"In any situation, you can find common ground instead of an adversarial 'us versus them' stance," Van Vleck said. "Even in environmental disputes, polarizing groups just leads to long term battles where no one wins."
Gandhi's messages of peace and non-violence also have universal applications for Tom Shea, co-founder of the Michigan Peace Team and owner of a local conflict resolution service.
"The place for non-violence is everywhere and we were gifted to have him here," Shea said. "Most of us act non-violently in our daily life, yet all of us participate in the dark side. Some of that violence is the taxes we pay that go to corporations that make arms."
Shea had heard Gandhi speak years before at a National Conference on Peacemaking and Resolution. Active for years in the peace community, Shea believes that having someone of Gandhi's stature speak in Traverse City brings a piece of living history to the people here. He was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who came for the talk, including so many young people.
"It was hopeful to me to see that he was such a magnet to people," Shea said.