cell913blog.com #32

 Readers in this space may recall a reference to Nelson Mandela as “selfless” in that he paid the utmost attention to every person with whom he engaged, including his enemies. He frequently, and also somewhat surprisingly, deferred to his colleagues, in the event that his ‘view’ seemed unable to gain traction after his direct and clear advocacy. He sincerely lauded all of his colleagues and their respective skills, talents, fortitude, resilience, intelligence, grace under fire, and, as we have learned, even tipped his hat to de Klerk in his Nobel acceptance address, for recognizing the need to end apartheid.

Readers here will also recall the strong and lasting influence of Mohandas Gandhi on Mandela and the ANC in their long-standing and even longer-suffering struggle to bring about a democratic, non-racial, society where every person has a vote and all persons ‘count’ equally. In the headlines in the west the link to Gandhi centres around ‘non-violence’ and Mandela’s resistance to the use of violence for decades, until all other measures, strategies and tactics had been exhausted without effect.

Gandhi’s family practiced a kind of Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within Hinduism, that waw inflected through the morally rigorous tenets of Jainism—and Indian faith for which concepts like asceticism and nonviolence are important. Many of the beliefs that Characterized Gandhi’s spiritual outlook later in life may have originated in his upbringing. However, his understanding of faith was constantly evolving as he encountered new belief systems. Leo Tolstoy’s analysis of Christian theology, for example, came to bear heavily on Gandhi’s conception of spirituality as did texts such as the Bible and the Qu’ran, and he first read the Bhagavadgita—a Hindu epic—in it English translation while living in Britain. (britainnica.com)

Tolstoy’s Letter to a Hindu, reads in part:

The aim of the sinless One consists in acting without causing sorrow to others, although he could attain to great power by ignoring their feelings. The aim of the sinless One lies in not doing evil unto those who have done evil unto him. If a man causes suffering even to those who hate him without any reason, he will ultimately have grief not to be overcome. The punishment of evil doers consists in making them feel ashamed of themselves by doing them a great kindness. Of what use is superior knowledge in the one, if he does not endeavor to relive his neighbor’s want and mush as his own. If, in the morning, a man wishes to do evil unto another, in the evening the evil will return to him. (marxists.org)

On livemint.com, Payal Seth, in a piece entitled, Gandhi and the Gits: The Art of Selfless living and dying, writes:

Gandhi’s love for the Gita: The Bhagwad Gita is a sacred poem in the form of a conversation between Krishna and his disciple Arjuna…Mahatma Gandhi referred to the Bhagwad Gita as the Gospel of Selfless Action and was often said that it offered him solace in the darkest hours. He referred to the Gita as his ‘eternal mother’, placing it at a position superior to his earthly mother…..Gandhi’s Gita-A gospel of selfless action: The Gita, according to Gandhi, teaches us that while man might be embroiled in running after futile material desires (like fame, money, relationships, etc.), the only desire worth having is to realize that we are the self (or the soul), aspire to become like Him (God) (i.e. gain his supreme qualities 0 and gain eternal peace. This is the process of self-realization, which entails understanding that we are the soul (not the body and mind) and are caught in the endless cycles of life and death due to our karma. Karma simply means that any thought, speech, or action undertaken upon others will have a corresponding result in our lives. Usually, the result from karma do not ripen instantly, and when they do at some distant point in the future, we are unable to connect them0 with the cause (out actions). Any unripened karma becomes the cause of future life births. So how does one gain freedom from the endless cycle of birth and death? Giving up action and hence accumulation of karma? No. The Gita acknowledged that the world to continue running, action (whether mental or physical) needs to be taken. Then how does one free oneself from the bondagsh of karma? The Gita says, ‘Do your allotted work—have no desire for reward and work.’ Renunciation of the fruits of one’s actions is the central message in the Gita. Renunciation does not mean indifference to results. But a renouncer is one who performs his duty with cheerfulness and thoroughness and remains desireless of the fruit of the action. That is he remains equanimous whether the result is favourable or unfavourable. Gandhi believed that when one enforces the Gita’s central teaching in life, one is bound to follow Ahimsa and Truth. Nonviolence of Ahimsa as per Gandhi Ji is described as the state to do no harm in thoughts, words and actions to all living beings. It is not just refraining from violent action but also a whole way of life. Sinc e it extends to all living organisms, it encompasses consuming vegetarian food, a sustainable lifestyle, and the protection of the environment. Because when there is no desire for fruit, there is no temptation for untruth or himsa (violence). The cause of any untruth or himsa will be rooted in the fulfillment of attaining a desire fuelled by ego. For instance, sins like murder, theft etc. cannot be performed without attachment. But the one who knows that he is the Self (soul) residing in the body and that this Soul is a part of the supreme Soul (God), he will dedicate everything to Him and be freed of ego and the cycle of karmas. Finally, Gandhi untiringly adhered to another message int eh Gita: We should serve God through the service of mankind. To this, he elucidated how the soul’s natural progress is towards selflessness and purity. This is why he was able to dedicate his whole lifer to the freedom and betterment of the lives of the people of India.

In her exhaustive and insightful work entitled The Lost Art of Scripure, Karen Armstrong writes:

The Bhagavad Gita….challenges the radical separation of humanity and divinity, since in the person of Krishna, God is as aspect of the human. Indeed, the scripture contrasts the humanisation of God with the inhumanity of war. The Gita acquired its high status in India relatively recently. It is in many respects a ‘colonial text,’ because it spoke directly to the predicament of the people of India during the period leading up to their struggle for independence of British colonial rule. While it functioned as a foundational text for anti-colonial politics, it also addressed the problems of any post-colonial society. By putting the issue of war squarely at the centre of a debate about India’s future, the Gita forced Hindus to face up to the unwelcome realisation that they would have to fight the British…..The Gita was also a revelation to Western people, because it challenged the Orientalist paradigm of the ‘passive spirituality of the East,’ often patronisingly contrasted with the ‘active ethos’ of the Protestant, rational West. It dealt squarely with the problems of violence, the individual’s duty to society and its limits, and the tension between the individual and fate. It therefore challenged Locke’s separation of religion and politics…. (Armstrong, The Lost Art of Scripture, p.429)

Not only was Mandela influenced by the teaching and writing and reflections of Gandhi and his honouring of The Gita, he was also impacted by his own religious experience in the Methodist faith. First, though, his father remained aloof from Christianity and instead reserved his own faith for the great spirit of the Xhosas, Qamata, the God of his fathers. My father was an unofficial priest and presided over ritual slaughtering of goats and calves and officiated at local traditional rites concerning planting, harvest, birth, marriage, initiative ceremonies, and funerals. He did not need to be ordained, for the traditional religion of the Xhosas is characterized by a cosmic wholeness, so that there is little distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the natural and the supernatural….While the faith of the Mbekela brothers (Christian) did not rub off on my father, it did inspire my mother, who became a Christian. In fact Fanny was literally her Christian name, for she had been given it in church. It was due to the influence of the Mbekela brothers that I myself was baptized into the Methodist, or Wesleyan Chruch as it was then known, and sent to school. (LWTF, p.13)

He was a student at Mqhekezweni, a mission station of the Methodist Church and far more up-to-date and Westernized than Qunu. People dressed in modern clothes. The men wore suits and the women affected the severe Protestant style of the missionaries: thick long skirts and high-necked blouses, with a blanket draped over the shoulder and a scarf wound elegantly around the head…..The Two principles that governed my life at Mqhekeweni were chieftaincy and the Church. These two doctrines existed in uneasy harmony, although I did not then see them as antagonistic. For me, Christianity was not so much a system of beliefs as it was the powerful creed of a single man: Reverend Matyolo. For me, his powerful presence embodied all that was alluring in Christianity. He was a popular and beloved as the regent (the central force in the world of Mqhekezweni), and the fact that he was the regent’s superior in spiritual matters made a strong impression of me. But the Church was as concerned with this world as the next: I saw that virtually all of the achievements of Africans seemed to have come about through the missionary work of the Church. The mission schools trained the clerks, the interpreters, and the policemen, who at the time represented the height of African aspirations. (LWTF p. 18-19) ….At Qunu, the only time I had ever attended church was on the day that I was baptized. Religion was a ritual that I indulged in for my mother’s sake and to which I attached no meaning. But at Mqhekezweni, religion was a part of the fabric of life and I attended church each Sunday along with the regent and his wife. The regent took his religion very seriously, In fact the only time I was ever given a hiding by him was when I dodged a Sunday service to take part in a fight against boys from another village, a transgression I never committed again. (LWTF p. 20)

From the World Council of Churches, we learn:

The MCSA (Methodist Church of South Africa) rejected the apartheid ideology from the    beginning adn was a vocal critic fo government policy throughout the nationalist supremacy. Faced by governmnet pressure to divide along racial lines, the 1958 conference declared its 'conviction that it is the will of God for the Methodist Church that it should be one and undicvided, trusting to the leadering of  God to brin gthis ideal to ultimaate fruition.' Six years later the first African to serve as president of conference was elected. The life of  the MCSA reflects the strains and tensions of an apartheid society. In spite of this, the conference connexional executive and synods have long since been non-racial. The ideal of a one adn undivided church has still to be realized at the congregational level. (from oikoumeme.org)

Mandela had to have felt and appreciated the support and guidance of his affiliation with the Methodist Church of South Africa, throughout his life.

It is not surprising, nor is it far beyond the obvious that both men, Mandela and Gandhi, were imbued with an intense, life-long commitment to ‘free’ their respective ‘people’ from bonds and shackles of oppressors. It is also clear that both men were inculcated in faith ‘systems’ of different names and sources. And yet, the convergence of their ‘personal identities’ and the personal ‘fires’ that burned in their minds, their hearts and their souls seem to have been birthed from a similar, if not the precisely “same” match….The light from those fires, of idealism,  of endurance and persistence, of courage in the face of deeply threatening and powerful opponents, and of personal conviction and sacrifice, continues to light the paths of many decades later.

What must not pass unnoticed or unnoted, is the sham of the kind of ‘radioactive’ passion that infuses many among the so-called Christian right, the Dominionists, the Seven Mountainists, and those who are committed to birthing and generating a theocracy in the United States, analogous to the ‘caliphate’ that is envisioned by many Muslims. Even to conceive of and then to begin to enact a movement determined to ‘save’ the liberal democracy of the United States (and likely beyond) in the name of the Christian God, and then to prosletyze, under the deceptive ruse that trump has been chosen by God to ‘free the American people’ from the ravages of evil, is a proposition and a project that both Mandela and Gandhi would have trashed.

Their (Mandela’s and Gandhi’s) independent yet comingled vision, imagination, education, formation and discipline, in the service of destroying what were real, factual, historic and legal, if tragic, forms of oppression, depression, dis-empowerment and alienation, in pursuit of the authentic freedom, equality, and equity of their respective people, so eclipses and denigrates and defies everything that the current ‘Christian nationalists’ are about. Indeed, the comparison is an insult to both men!

Nevertheless, the Speaker of the House of Representatives has declared himself to be embodying the image of Moses, as the liberator of the people of Israel.

As vice-presidential candidate Lloyd Benson remarked to his Republican opponent, Dan Quayle, who in a debate in 1988 compared himself to President Kennedy, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine, Senator you are no Jack Kennedy!...so too, can the sentient, conscious, thinking and reflective men and women of the world, especially within the United States, retort to the Dominionists and the Seven Mountainists, and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, “You are not, and never will be worthy of the name Moses!”