YOUNGSTOWN Professor stresses importance of Gandhi's nonviolent message

The new peace movement won't have a charismatic leader, the researcher said.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The more Michael Nagler follows the teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the more he's convinced of something a teacher once told him.
"When Gandhi returned from South Africa [to India], he quietly set about solving every problem in the modern world," Nagler said, quoting the teacher.
He's also convinced of something the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: "We ignore Gandhi at our own peril."
"With a full understanding of the man and his legacy, it's clear we have no choice but to go forward on the path he followed," Nagler said.
Nagler, founder and former chairman of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, will bring his message to Youngstown this weekend when he lectures on "Gandhi Today: Applying Nonviolent Genius in Troubled Times" during a "Searching for a Nonviolent Future" symposium at Youngstown State University.
The symposium is sponsored by the YSU Women's Center, YSU's James Dale Ethics Center, and WYSU-FM 88.5. It includes a kickoff from 7 to 11 p.m. Friday at the McDonough Museum of Art with a debate, play and concert.
There will be a peace fair from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday in Kilcawley Center. Nagler lectures at 4 p.m. Saturday. Mel Duncan, executive director of the Nonviolent PeaceForce, which has volunteers in Sri Lanka, speaks at 3 p.m. Saturday.
'Rehumanization'
Gandhi spoke of "rehumanization," Nagler said, and of finding common solutions, "not identifying the opponent as enemy."
The beliefs can apply in many areas, Nagler said, from international conflict zones to civil war zones to domestic issues, criminal justice and education.
The mainstream discourse in America, however, has probably never been further away from Gandhi's teachings than it is today, Nagler said. But there are some rumblings.
"Underneath, there's a very, very different turmoil and excitement happening among ordinary people," the researcher said. "The peace movement is bigger than it ever was, much more open."
Nagler said the new peace movement will not have the advantage of a charismatic individual like Gandhi or King.
Unlike those in free-speech movements or anti-Vietnam War protests, these new peace groups will not be afraid of mentors and will be more open to spirituality, he said.
Gandhi, Nagler said, experimented in his own communities with solutions to various social problems such as the depletion of natural resources, crime and the alienation that leads to drug abuse.
Opposing factors
Gandhi's peace and nonviolence theory never caught on because "he was way ahead of his time," Nagler said, and "because it is so advanced and because it has been so held down in this country by the advertising culture of selfishness, separation and materialism, which really are all about violence."
His solutions were challenging, not comfortable, Nagler explained, such as solving overconsumption by consuming less.
"To shift a paradigm is not an easy thing. No one knows how to do it, but we know it can be done," he said.
Nagler is co-director of the Marin Experimental Teaching, Training and Advising Center and chairman of the board of PeaceWorkers.
He has been a professor at UC Berkeley since 1966, serving a stint as a dean.
He has a doctorate and master's degrees from UC Berkeley and a bachelor's degree from New York University. He has written four books, and his most recent, "Is There No Other Way: The Search for a Nonviolent Future," won a 2002 American Book Award and is now in its third printing.