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Like peas in a pod. |
The picture above (emailed to us as a tip) was snapped at the “Stop the U.S.-Israeli War” rally in San Francisco on August 12, 2006 (via Zombietime). It features a large mpuppet of Gandhi holding up a poster carrying perhaps his most famous quote. To the right is a large picture of Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. One of these men called for a long non-violent struggle against a military oppressor and a colonial economy, and the other calls for unguided rockets to be rained down upon the enemy and civilians. I keep hoping that at least some people at the rally may have been disgusted by this. I believe protesting the war of the past month is a very worthwhile activity but this kind of image just undermines the cause and negates the relevance of some of these protests.
good for you abhi. my own opinion is that the Right is insane on foreign policy right now (the Right that is in power). but stuff like this makes me itchy about the sanity of the Left (albeit, the far Left). this isn’t WW III, but neither is israel nazi germany. perspective.
The good news is that they atleast spelled “Gandhi” correctly. Wonder if Adnan Hajj recently of Reuters “fame” was covering the event.
my own opinion is that the Right is insane on foreign policy right now
An opinion shared by Charles Barkley:
After that, Barkley continued to identify himself as a Republican until recently, when he switched to the Democratic team.
“I was a Republican until they lost their minds,” he said earlier this month at a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada.
In 2004, I split my ticket between Bush for President and Obama for Senate. I think I’m going to sit 2006 out.
By your attacks on Islam you betray your zionist and hindutva allegience
I could have gone to the London march against the war, but I did not want to stand in a group that cheered Hezbollah and glorified Nasrallah. Speaker after speaker, banner after banner did so. Nasrallah has said some pretty disgraceful things about Jews, and Hezbollah have been implicated in bombings of Jewish targets outside the middle east, for example in Buenos Aires. I have attended anti-war demonstrations in the past and felt unease at some of the slogans and banners. This wasnÂ’t really an anti-war march, it was pro Hezbollah, pro Hamas, pro war. If there was a movement that refrained from glorifying Nasrallah and other extremist organisations and was not saturated in the rhetoric of classic anti-Semitism and called for peace on both sides, I would join that march. But the space has not been created yet. Other friends who are opposed to current Israeli policies have said the same thing.
Paging SpoorKhan!
Nice Photo.. You forgot to mention the party for socialism and liberation [Wiki] poster in the background. Pacifists, Communist revolutionaries and Hezballah nuts all captured in one frame.
Truly disgusting tactic!
Bleh. This is not the Left so much as a sliver of self-obsessed artistes who are usually more concerned with impressing their dates than with actually changing things. They exemplify the reason why most modern protests leave me angry and frustrated, even when I agree with the most general statement of the dominant marchers. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—-I fantasize about protests with respectfully clad marchers armed with clipboards and fact sheets, ready to buttonhole sidewalk watchers and engage them in a real debate. The posters would be actual infographics, and there would be no puppets. The closest I came to seeing something like this was during the immigration rallies in May—-there was at least enough discipline and focus for people to wear the same color t-shirt.
I’m with you on that. Unfortunately the space that is occupied by anti-war proponents contains Cindy Sheehan, those war protesting nuts that show up at soldiers funerals & left hating religious opportunists. I don’t see myself as part of that group.
Can I ask why? I generally vote Republican myself but have been breaking party lines as well and am not a fan of GWB. In fact I find myself disliking him more and more each day.
This reminds me of a protest that I saw in Union Square, NY a few weeks back. I was impressed at the maturity and ambivalent honesty of the speakers. They were lebanese and were educated and incensed at Israel, USA and indeed the world for letting this happen. There was no right or left there, just a need for peace.
In this day and age, what if anything would Gandhi do?
This is not the Left so much as a sliver of self-obsessed artistes who are usually more concerned with impressing their dates than with actually changing things.
there is some truth in this. but, as someone who has lived in 70-80% democratic districts for the last 10 years, i think some of the same issues that we speak of in regards to islam can apply here: vocality tends to be proportional to nuttiness. and of course, “x is not the true Left.” “y is not the true Right.” the plausibility of these assertions is highly dependent on circumstance and initial bias (as a somewhat Right of center individual surrounded by liberals obviously Left hypocrisy stands out for me by the nature of my experience).
on another note, many on the Left acknowledge the importance of complex & subtle narratives and frames when discussing something like islamism. but all of a sudden that nuance seems to disappear when it comes to issues like israel.
again, only true of a subset.
RIDICULOUS!
I sort of doubt enough people actually recognized the Ghandi puppet to make the connection. My observation of these protests is much the same Saheli. Bored middle class kids.
Bush isn’t running in 2008. Kinda too late to vote against him.
Msichana,
In case you forget, Gandhi lived in far more violent times than today. Therefore, he would not have had any problems in dealing with today’s world. I am not much of an admirer of the Mahatma. I find his views on economics pretty naive. But I do believe that he had struck gold when it came to resolving conflicts in certain specific scenarios. I say this because I doubt the efficacy of Mahatma Gandhi’s theories if he had faced Germany ruled by “The Fuehrer” as the colonial power instead of the Great Britain.
In our obsession with the latest round of conflict all around the world, we neglect to see the obvious and i.e. the world today is a more peaceful place than it was 60 years ago. I say this despite all that we see on the media and the current threat of Islamist terrorism. A lot has been achieved in this time period. I also think that things are going to be better in the future. I only have issues with the pace of this change.
Regards, Aninda
but how doth you know that these two guys are together? the gandhi seems to be walking in front of the nasrallah guy. with a mask that big you gotta wonder if he even knows what’s ahead of him, much less behind.
Oh, I didn’t think they were together, did you? (But the Gandhi isn’t a giant in a mask, it’s a puppet*. . .the “person” is below the frame of the picture.) They didn’t need to be together, and we don’t need to be upset at the person moving the Gandhi forward. It’s the juxtaposition, and the shamelessness of the Nasrallah-promoter despite the close proximity of a reminder of a better, kinder way of approaching change. Did no one derive courage from the memory of Gandhi and then think to tap the guy on the shoulder and say, “I think it’s inappropriate for you to be at a peace march with a picture of a war-monger, and I hope you’ll reconsider hoisting it?” Well, I probably wouldn’t have either–who wants to start a brawl at a peace march?–but that’s the problem.
*BTW, Abhi, you really should refer to it as a puppet, not a Muppet. Muppets are the creations of Jim Henson et al, and they only sometimes play real people in productions–they are rarely created to be in their form. And yes, I’m one of those people who is proud of having met Oscar the Grouch.
does not anyone here ascribe to the view that gandhi’s non-violence was a strategic move because he knew it (self-sacrificial politics) would arouse the christian pity in the british soul?
or is that kind of stuff not allowed to be talked about post post-colonialism?
saheli, would you be just as offended if it was a picture of the halliburton logo conflated with gandhi? i’m just trying to discover whether its the principle here or nasrallah. i dislike the tool.
The papier mache competence of these protesters is sorely lacking, looks more like ET than Gandhiji. Not sure if I should extend a namaste or create a trail of Reeses Pieces. They should consult the anti-WTO protesters, them boyz have mad skills. And the pro-Zapatista squad…their Vicente Fox could be sold to Madame Tussauds.
Eteraz,
It is very difficult to determine what prompted Gandhi to take the concept of non-violence so seriously as the man is dead. There might be clues about these in his writings and letters. I have not read them. Your version might also be true.
But my version is that Gandhi had been deeply influenced by the ancient Hindu and subsequent Buddhist philosophies about non-violence at some point in his life. His procliivity for fasting, satsangs etc. do point towards that.
If we study some schools of thought about the “search for the truth” in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, they advocate non-violence among a host of other techniques in order to realize the “unconscious”/”self” within us. Gandhi took these methods prescribed for personal salvation in these philosophical traditions and probably applied them in the context of Indian independence struggle. This can explain his concept of universal brotherhood too.
This is just my hypothesis and need not be true. I am not an expert on Gandhi.
Regards, Anindo
as;ldfkjaas;ljdfk, arrg Pagal he! my head hurts, you got to be kidding me, seriously. I questions these marches to begin with. Marches like these are pretty open and ANYBODY can go with costumes and parade around like pieces of shit. To have a nasrallah poster AND to walk in “solidarity” in protest of the war is completely counterproductive and serves to further negate the message oh and further strengthens conservative elements watching tv from home or walking away from the crowds itself that the liberals have totally gone coo-koo-nuts, COMPLETELY a-wall whacko.
As someone who has always admired the festive nature of such marches, one must question if such elements within them are truly supporters of the serious message itself or perhaps something else is going on that everyone seems to be over looking. Its a puppet show for the most part and somehow the gravity of the situation is always lost. I simply miss how a ghaustly homemade ghandi puppet or nasrallah hand sock puppet gets the message of innocent lives suffering across. This is empowerment? This is the solidarity? Lol, this is resistance? C’mon, this is just sad and pathetic, albeit nonviolent. Its pretty much the same all over. Oh, of course, let us not forget the musing Shake-ur-ass-beat-my-homemade-recycled paper-drum bashing that goes along with it, yeah, those are the best, YES!!!! I really do feel the magnitude of the crisis whenever i hear the bongos bashing the rally cry with glee. Come support.
commenter no. 14 – It is GandHI, not GHandi.
Not nit-picking but it hurts the eyes, especially on a site like SM.
As long as the Gandhi effigy and the Nasrullah Picture weren’t intentionally being paraded together and weren’t intended to be juxtaposed or linked in any way – i see no issue here.
The rally was titled “Stop the US Iraeli war”…not just the War in the Middle East but the “US/Israeli war”. Therefore, attendees would be of 2 categories; those against war in general and those that believe the war is perpetuated by Israel. I assume an attendee of the former group carried the Gandhi effigy and someone who supports Lebanon/Palestine/Hezbollah/anyone else against Israel, carried teh Nasrullah picture.
I don’t see why anyone would be surprised at both figures being present at a rally that draws a broad range of ppl. If,however, someone was trying to liken the two figures…well yes, that’s quite a stretch but i really dont think that’s teh case here so…meh
this question is for FOB Pakistanis and is an academic one…..How much did/does Gandhi figure in high school curriculum?
Anindo
Gandhi’s non violence were influenced by Christian pacifism as well as the ideas of Ruskin and Thoreau.
Most famously, he corresponded with the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy
Gandhi was a clever and canny man.
Thanks Red Snapper!
Regards,
Yes.
However, the basis of his philosophy was that one should not abstain from violence purely because one does not have the strength/capacity to inflict damage on the opponent, but to have the strength yet refrain from using it. He regarded the former as cowardice.
His autobiography “The Story of my Experiments with Truth” goes into extensive detail about his ideas and motivations. I strongly recommend that anyone wishing to gain an insight into Gandhi’s mind should obtain a copy and read it thoroughly.
I say this because I doubt the efficacy of Mahatma Gandhi’s theories if he had faced Germany ruled by “The Fuehrer” as the colonial power instead of the Great Britain.
Since that never happened your guess is as good as mine. I say that Gandhi being the smartest politician of all time would have known how to disarm an opportunist (among other things) like Hitler. The collected works of Gandhi run into over 50,000 pages; and more books have been written about Gandhi than anyone else except Jesus. For Gandhi all theories had to be driven by concern for the helpless and the least able. Gandhi was looking ahead, far ahead into the future, and wanted to usher in a world that would not be obsessed with the scarcity of anything. He is a person ahead of his time, that’s why he seems so out of step with our times.
Being a researcher studying conflict and peace, I agree to a certain extent that the world has become a more peaceful place, but how peaceful has it really become. Here’s an excerpt from a report titled Politics in the Next 50 Years: The Changing Nature of International Conflict
Add to the above figure the number of people who have perished in wars and terrorists attacks (which can be likened to acts of war by non-state parties) since 2000, and the resultant figure would be extremely high.
The troubling aspect of the picture of Gandhi and Nasrallah juxtaposed together is that Nasrallah is getting elevated to the level of Gandhi, who espoused values opposite to that of Nasrallah. And to a certain extent its a legitimazation of terrorist activities, giving it the garb of an independce struggle. The picture is also extrem(ist)ely funny, appalling as well, but funny too.
-Ken
p.s. I can’t seem to get the quoted bits to left align. how do I do it in here?
Disregard the left align bit, the preview tricked me.
And that’s legitimisation not legitimazation. Where’s a spellchecker when you need one! :p Sorry Ken
It is very difficult to determine what prompted Gandhi to take the concept of non-violence so seriously as the man is dead. There might be clues about these in his writings and letters. I have not read them. Your version might also be true.
As Shiva and Jai have pointed out, after Jesus, Gandhi is the most written about person, including his autobiography. He was also a journalist, ran a press, and he wrote a lot of stuff in Indian Opinion, and Harijan. Sometimes, it gets taken out of context.
About non-violence as a tactical move, it is much more complicated, it goes to his childhood experiences, and most importantly, the role of Jainism in Gujarat and on his mother (his mother was very influenced by Jain philosophy, and ahimsa is the core of Jainism), working as an ambulance volunteer in the Boer war. Eterez, Why don’t visit ANC (African National Congress) website on Gandhi. They have some excellent articles, including ones by Nelson Mandela and James Hunt.
At some point he knew in South Africa, he could invoke a high ground using non-violence.
“I grow more and more convinced the Republican majority will end itself by 2006 if the Left will just shut up for five minutes.” – quoted on instapundit
Abhi: You state that Nasrallah “calls for unguided rockets to be rained down upon the enemy and civilians”. This simplified, “Daily News/CNN Headline News” description of Hizbullah’s modus operandi is typical of what we read and hear on most if not all US based press outlets. Remember, this conflict between Israel and Hizbollah dates back over 24 years and such your reductionist comments, though great fuel for discussion (kudos), fail to account for the geo-political context of the current conflict in the Levant, which, I might add, is considerably different than the one faced by Gandhi. I will stipulate that killing of innocent civilians in ANY context is morally reprehensible and is never justified, regardless of the religious or secular mandate one subscribes to. This is the beauty of Gandhi’s legacy – his unfettered respect for human life. Nonetheless, Nasrallah’s alleged call (if any) for “unguided rockets (to be) rained down upon the enemy and civilians” was not “unprovoked”. Your simplistic editorializing does disservice to SM and your readers. Respectfully I remain. A. Sachedina (Brooklyn, NY)
this conflict between Israel and Hizbollah dates back over 24 years and such your reductionist comments
yes, there was a reduction here, but abhi’s point stands in the generality. the analogy to gandhi is ludicrous. whether this is fundamental or contextual, it is what it is.
i myself have issues with the gandholatry that seems prevelant among indian americans (my own bacground as a non-indian brown american might have something to do with this, gandhi’s anti-modernist outlook probably more), but the juxposition still struck me as worthy of attention and concern.
Razib: It is a political rally – a haphazard collective of individuals motivated to rally by the same set of events and which probably encompassed persons from a wide array of political leanings (e.g. Leftists, Anarchists, Artists, Socialists, Secularists, Lebanese, Arab-Nationalists, Muslims, peace activists, FBI informants) I seriously doubt that the various participants of this rally planned the analogy. Do you really think that “the analogy” is intentional or a function of a photograph brought to our attention via “a tip”. I assure you, the only one making “the analogy” or “juxposition” is Abhi, you and I, not Nasrallah nor Hizbullah.
I have the very same issues about “gandholatry” (great term) but I don’t want to touch that issue for various self-serving/self-preservation reasons…
I seriously doubt that the various participants of this rally planned the analogy
of course not. but the juxposition says something of the movement. is a moral focus comptabile with ‘haphazard’?
“the analogy to gandhi is ludicrous. whether this is fundamental or contextual, it is what it is.”
was the analogy actually made though? I still don’t think so.
If there are two different ppl with, most probably, two very different ideas on one situation present at a rally…how can any sort of analogy be made? It’s just 2 different ppl making 2 different statements. The coincidence of these two figures being captured in 1 image hardly creates an analogy btwn them.
Most of the Lebenese ppl i know support Hezbollah’s defense of Lebanon over the past many years…and I’m pretty damn sure that not many of them will try to liken Gandhi to Nasrullah. It’s sheer coincidence! What’s ludicrous is how offended ppl are getting over a coincidence.
i withdraw the use of the term “analogy,” it wasn’t appropriate (i started its use). here is the last sentence of abhi’s post: I believe protesting the war of the past month is a very worthwhile activity but this kind of image just undermines the cause and negates the relevance of some of these protests. i think that’s a much more defensible and less tenditious assertion.
Jane Of All Trades – “I generally vote Republican myself but have been breaking party lines as well and am not a fan of GWB. In fact I find myself disliking him more and more each day.”
Welcome to the “reality-based community” my dear. We’re glad to have you! ;-)))
Regarding the photo – let’s not paint the antiware movement with one broad stroke simply based on this out of step protester.
Of all the issues that this march is related to, this fool with the Nasrallah sign is such a ridiculous thing to focus on. Yes, Nasrallah is a piece of sh@t. F@ck him. But that’s not even the point of this rally or the reason why this rally is significant. Why focus on a few idiots who chose to hold up a Hezbollah sign?
one broad stroke simply based on this out of step protester
but with all due respect, my exp. talking to anti-war folks is that there is a broad distribution of people, and a large segment do tend to have some disturbing sympathies, or, are out to make their girlfriend happy (i went to kosovo protests in ’99 to hang out with a chick, so count me guilty in the past too!).
Razib: Sorry…I missed something in the exchange. What “moral focus” are you referring to?
I think the word we are looking for to describe the juxposition in the photograph is “irony”.
fair enough apu, but you just said this about republicans in the context of the george allen controversy:
yet anit-war rallies are routinely organized by communist groups and there’s been a strong islamic fascist and anti-semitic element for a long time now. i sure you wouldn’t let right wing rallies frequented by tim mcveigh types or the american nazi party off the hook so easy.
I think the word we are looking for to describe the juxposition in the photograph is “irony”.
irony is often a subjective perception. i think if the anti-war left wasn’t so righteous and holier than thou these sort of “gotcha” juxpositions wouldn’t be as common.
Razib – i enjoyed your comment, but like “brown fury” alluded to, there is a bigger cause worth examining here
Also, you’ll have to elaborate on the “disturbing sympathies” of some of these folks, though I can guess some of them.
This being said, with apologies to my Living Theater-esque friends – the nonviolent anarchist revolution ain’t gonna occur in this country, and if it does, it will NOT be televised. 🙂
i sure you wouldn’t let right wing rallies frequented by tim mcveigh types or the american nazi party off the hook so easy.
bingo. like this.
Manju, you make a fair point, but there are very many groups involved in these rallies that are not islamofascists or anti-semites. As for “communist” elements, y’all know that is played out – discount them heavily.
To reiterate, I like what conservative values are SUPPOSED to be, I am only commenting on what the practice really seems to be these days. I know many conservatives who hate Bush/Cheney, but unfortunately, many of them are afraid to say it too loudly.
In Canberra Australia the so called anti-war left protesters cheered the death of a young Israeli-Australian reservist who went back to defend his homeland. Disgusting.
brown, that is quite a statement – please provide a link about the cheering of this person’s death, and who exactly was doing the cheering