SAJA Forum reports that Arun Gandhi, the South African-born grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and the founder of the MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, has resigned from the institute following charges of anti-Semitism. The uproar arose over his remarks in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section online, in a Jan. 7 post titled, “Jewish Identity Can’t Depend on Violence“:
“Jewish identity in the past has been locked into the holocaust experience — a German burden that the Jews have not been able to shed. It is a very good example of a community can overplay a historic experience to the point that it begins to repulse friends. The holocaust was the result of the warped mind of an individual who was able to influence his followers into doing something dreadful. But, it seems to me the Jews today not only want the Germans to feel guilty but the whole world must regret what happened to the Jews. The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on the regret turns into anger.
“The Jewish identity in the future appears bleak. Any nation that remains anchored to the past is unable to move ahead and, especially a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs. In Tel Aviv in 2004 I had the opportunity to speak to some Members of Parliament and Peace activists all of whom argued that the wall and the military build-up was necessary to protect the nation and the people. In other words, I asked, you believe that you can create a snake pit — with many deadly snakes in it — and expect to live in the pit secure and alive? What do you mean? they countered. Well, with your superior weapons and armaments and your attitude towards your neighbors would it not be right to say that you are creating a snake pit? How can anyone live peacefully in such an atmosphere? Would it not be better to befriend those who hate you?”
Click here for Gandhi’s apology and clarification–and here for the statement by the University of Rochester President Joel Seligman.
Both Gandhi and his critics might want to read Judith Butler’s chapter “The Charge of Anti-Semitism” in Precarious Life. An excerpt:
“…every progressive Jew, along with every progressive person, ought to be vigorously challenging anti-Semitism wherever it occurs, especially if it occurs in the context of movements mobilized in part or in whole against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. It seems, though, that historically we are now in the position in which Jews cannot be understood always and only as presumptive victims. Sometimes we surely are, but sometimes we surely are not. No political ethics can start with the assumption that Jews monopolize the position of victim. The “victim” is a quickly transposable term, and it can shift from minute to minute from the Jew atrociously killed by suicide bombers on a bus to the Palestinian child atrociously killed by Israeli gunfire. The public sphere needs to be one which both kinds of violence are challenged insistently and in the name of justice.”
