Ghandi, Aung San Su Kiy and other arseholes

[solidgoldbrass]

Isn't it just the case that it's nearly impossible to achieve huge memorable changes in the world without being a bit of an arsehole? You've got to have a massive ego to think you can take on such a challenge, and so it's really not that surprising that pretty much everyone who achieved massive changes for the good turns out to have been a bit of a sod round the house and have various other unattractive traits.

That's true mrgin, last 600/700 years?

It's in the western democratic tradition that anyone with a grievance (i.e. women) has the right to bring it out into the public forum. Then there can be a free debate and a political process, and that's how the suffrage movement and later feminists achieved some progress, and agitate for more.

In other societies, there's no such thing as a "public forum" and anyone who raises an issue that doesn't fit with tradition, or the current whims of the rulers, gets slapped down fairly quickly. So there are feminists in Iran and in Saudi Arabia; it's not clear that they really have a complete agenda, but they hardly get a chance to organize or speak, so it's a mystery.

There are feminists in India too, and there they can speak, but it's obvious that they have a huge weight of native tradition to push aside-a tradition which was reinforced rather than weakened by the national hero Mohandas Gandhi.

Anyone ever hear what they call sexual harassment in India? It's called "Eve teasing".

SiliBiliMili.

The Cathars for sure, the Gnostic were branded heretics in early Chrisianity.

It's one of those telling things that it was women who whitnessed the resurrection, Magdelene, Mary ... not sure of the other weren't given voice.

Would love to know the Druid attitude to women , but they're history is lost ( I believe )

An issue that comes to my mind when reading this conversation (and similar ones) is the problems in teaching history and current events to children, particularly the usage of role models. Kids enjoy role models (and argueably need additional role models alongside real life and popular culture with all the problems that often brings when using people/characters in popular culture as role models), but what would anyone recommend doing in tackling the difficult issues raised -- in that people often used as role models often have big flaws as well as how other people that could be used as 'people in history' and the like are often overlooked (particularly women as well as other under represented groups).

TeiTetua

I am arguing that maybe women in those societies did not need a public forum to discuss feminist issues as they were few and far between?

That maybe it was acceptable in those days to give birth to Jesus without being married and it was only later on that it was converted to being a 'virgin' birth. Maybe it was why there were lots of Egyptian Queens (Hepsetput, Nefertiti etc). Maybe this why the yin and the yang are recognised equally in Chinese tradition?

Maybe in the last 1000 or so years there has been a slow change and women are now 'fighting' back?

India now is a hotch potch of ideas and ideals. The diversity is huge. The difference between the rich and poor, the difference between the literate and the illiterate, the difference between the 'eve teasers' and the men who respect women. We will need another thread to get to the bottom of that I think!

Iran, afganistan etc is slightly comparable to the witch burning era of the west I think.

Not meaning to go off on a tangent. But this is from the gospel According to Mary Magdelene

--------------

3. Peter answered and spoke concerning these same things.

4. He questioned them about the Savior: Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?

5. Then Mary wept and said to Peter, My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Savior?

6. Levi answered and said to Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered.

7. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries.

TeiTetua - "Western Democratic Tradition" Tradition for who?

That is a gross over-simplification of just how some form of democracy came to be in the West, and erasing the different ways communities elsewhere in the world discussed things.

See, I'm sure you didn't mean to be racist, your post plays into the stereotype of the "enlightened West".

In a discussion group like this we have to make a point quickly and simply, or nobody will read it.

It's so easy to say "racism", but I think that some kind of democratic system is the only fair one to run a state, rather than a tribe. Yes, if that's enlightened and we're western, we're the "enlightened west" which others may not be, but we hope they'll aspire to it--and now we're enlightened enough not to do it for them at gunpoint. If we have excluded others in the past, it's an obvious contradiction to the democratic system, which can lead to a change in the right direction. I think there was a particular horror in the South African racist progression, that the group known as "Cape Coloreds" were initially included as voters, and were disenfranchised in the 1950s. At least some of those people lived to see that decision reversed.

I don't see how you'll ever get around the drawback that unless there's public discussion of issues and a means for individuals to influence government, there will be groups who are oppressed and silenced. Ironically, if there's racism (and there is, in many parts of the world) there's no way under that system to bring any attention to it or to halt it, so I'd be careful about using the word "racist". Not that any system run by human beings will ever be perfect, but there are better and worse ones.

Interviewer: Mr Gandhi, what do you think about western civilisation?
Gandhi: Oh, what an excellent idea!

(I'm sure that never happened.)

TT - You're kind of missing the point.

There has been many forms of community participation throughout history. But political history (and have a think who gets to write that) erases things that don't tally with the White Western Blokes Do It Better theory.

As feminists we know that women and their contributions have constantly been erased from written history, yet there seems to be surprise when it happens to other groups too.

Note also, the groups most often help up as being unlike "civilised Westerners" are often the people most screwed over by the West, the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia being big examples of this.

So the Pankhursts and Millicent Garrett Fawcett were failures forgotten by history? And Martin Luther King? And Wilberforce/Pitt?

When someone makes supposedly "free" people live up to their ideals, they prove more than one thing! But there's an urge of some kind to say "We're awful and there's no hope", which I wish we could suppress. There have been good and bad things and people, and we ought to recognize them all.

Gandhi did not reject western civilisation outright. In his autobiography, he claims to be an Anglophile. He made lots of English friends during his time in England. What he loathed what what the Western civilisation were doing to his beloved South Africa and India.

I quote:

"England has got successful competitors in America, Japan, France, Germany. It has competitors in the handful of mills in India, and as there has been an awakening in India, even so there will be an awakening in South Africa with its vastly richer resources ? natural , mineral and human. The mighty English look quite pigmies before the mighty races of Africa. They are noble savages after all, you will say. They are certainly noble, but no savages and in the course of a few years the Western nations may cease to find in Africa a dumping ground for their wares."

Gandhi admired a lot of Christian thought of Charity and forgiveness.

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."

To quote *TeiTetua "There have been good and bad things and people, and we ought to recognize them all."

Exactly. THerefore I do not believe the western way to be more supirior to another way.

On a visit to London in 1931, for a conference on determining India?s political future, Gandhi was asked by a British journalist what he thought of Western civilization. ?I think it would be a good idea,? he replied.

How Witty!!

So we could argue that he saw the British as un-civilised. but the truth is more complex than that.

Here is another example of what Gandhi thought about western ideals.

"In 1946, Yusuf Meherally was in the United States. He was dying of tuberculosis, and had come to rest from his labours in India. His past ten years had been spent mostly in prison, yet Bertram Wolfe, his host in New York, found his friend in an unusually mellow mood towards the British.
On earlier visits, Meherally had been full of righteous indignation about the evils of colonialism, but this time around, he was even willing to offer the British some praise. Wolfe was puzzled at this change, this 180-degree shift in tone and attitude. He asked for an explanation. They are leaving, answered Meherally. Any day now, we will be free. Gandhiji says that now that they are going, we must remember the best of British civilization the rule of law, their sense of fair play, and so on. Remember it, and keep it."

cresentmoon I will now remember to use the word 'Prescient' when I mean 'before his time'.

I think he was an 'awesome' dude and would have enjoyed our discussions on mumsnet!!

@ 'awesome dude'

Brainsurgeon

Gandi, awesome dude. I can dig that.

Thanks SiliBiliMili I've enjoyed reading your posts. You clearly know your Gandhi.

Mcgin You clearly know your Christian history.

Re. your post on the resurrection. Here are the possibilities:

1. It happened when Mary Magdelene was about because we know Jesus believed in her. He trusted her.
2. It did not happen but Mary was very clever to give people that hope when all was lost.

We can also put a negative stance on it which perhaps non-believers may try to do.

But it does not really matter does it? Mary gave the people who believed in Jesus hope. His teaches still survive today. What about the doubters ansd the people who called her a prostitute? Di we even know their name? No.

Thats what matters.

?I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.?

Gandhi

Always loved that quote.

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do

As any decent historian will tell you, if the West didn't do it, someone else would have. We got guns and steel first is all. Also, don't forget our germs, conquered America for us.

Note also, the groups most often help up as being unlike "civilised Westerners" are often the people most screwed over by the West, the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia being big examples of this

Nomads/Hunter Gatherers have been screwed over by every more advanced civilisation going, from the beginning of agricultural civilisation. Its not a Western thing, its a Human thing.

What Western countries did do which was different to nearly all before*, was bring modern inftrastructure and techniques, laws, and to local squabbles and warlords - not perfectly, and not always nicely - which did jump start a lot of countries.

The Christain church has a LOT of women in positions of power until about the 3rd century AD, after which St Augustine et al squeezed it down do The menz..

*As in "What have the Romans ever done for us...."

"As any decent historian will tell you, if the West didn't do it, someone else would have. We got guns and steel first is all. Also, don't forget our germs, conquered America for us."

No, if the west were so civilised, they would have been like the Parsis of Iran who came to India.

"There are many legends of how the Parsis were allowed to settle in India. The priestly leaders were brought before the local ruler, Jadi or Jadhav Rana, who presented them with a vessel "brimful" of milk to signify that the surrounding lands could not possibly accommodate any more people. The Parsi head priest responded by slipping some sugar into the milk to signify how the strangers would enrich the local community without displacing them. They would dissolve into life like sugar dissolves in the milk, sweetening the society but not unsettling it."

Hinduism is older than Christianity by atleast a 1000 years. There have been many notable 'female' saints in Hindu mythology and legends. So if you are implying that it was the ROmas who paved the way here too, I disagree.

I remember hearing ( prob radio 4 ) about the East India Company early on, and how initially some of ttheir staff married local women which understandably created good relations.

The practice was then banned by the EIC which led to much less harmony ( understatement )

wickety by civilised, I meant it to mean 'at a higher plain, morally developed, polite and well mannered'.
mrgin yes, that's right. Then greed took over.