The wolf and the lamb

I was intro­duced to the prin­ci­ple of non-vio­­lence by the books of Gand­hi and Tol­stoy. These authors made it clear that liv­ing non-vio­­len­t­­ly meant that they did not eat meat. After I had been veg­e­tar­i­an for a few years, I began to feel like a hyp­ocrite because I still ate the prod­ucts of the animals …

Overcoming evil with good

Mont­gomery, a south­ern city in the USA, in 1955. African Amer­i­cans, who make up the major­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion, are being treat­ed as sec­ond class cit­i­zens. Because of the so-called Jim Crow laws they have to use sep­a­rate restrooms, restau­rants and schools. In the city bus­es, ‘col­ored’ peo­ple can only use the rear seats. In …

Gandhi and Truth

Today is Mahat­ma Gandhi’s birth­day and con­se­quent­ly the day of non­vi­o­lence. I would like to quote from the intro­duc­tion to Gandhi’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy. In between the text are pic­tures that Fred­dy took when he was climb­ing Mt Kenya in March. … I have giv­en the chap­ters I pro­pose to write the title of The Sto­ry of My …

The great little man

On Sep­tem­ber 21, the inter­na­tion­al day of peace, ter­ror­ists killed dozens of civil­ians in a shop­ping mall, includ­ing chil­dren and preg­nant women. Most vio­lence in the world is no longer in the news. Drugs mur­ders in Mex­i­co, gueril­la wars in Con­go. Vio­lence always moves in cir­cles. After the attack in Nairo­bi, the dan­ger is that …