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March 02, 2005

Starting in the middle

Let's starting in the middle:

When facing down the British Empire, Mohandas Gandhi led mobs of hundreds of thousands of people to face violent attack, without dealing it back. The common experience of being beaten, even shot at or shot, eventually formed a common ethic of determination, a common bodily experience, and a common, silent, aesthetic of care. It, along with the pressure of worse alternatives, more violent mobs that would likely grow more powerful, eventually pushed the British from India.

This exercise in street democracy created what is still the world's largest democratic state, a billion people. Can its lessons be ignored in the quest to democratize other oppressed states?

Posted by Xiao at March 2, 2005 12:17 PM

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