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What did a man, who encountered both Gandhi and Hitler, say about the prospects of non-violence?  The comparison is startling, but at least one journalist covered both persons: William Shirer.  Hitler is regarded by many as the most concrete incarnation of devilry ever seen.  Dr. E. Stanley Jones said that “one of the most Christlike men in history was not called a Christian at all.”1  He was Gandhi, a Hindu.  For Christians, this is an eye-popping and controversial statement, yet there emerges from this juxtaposition a serious question: what is the role of non-violence, and more specifically pacifism, in the world today?  Reinhold Niebuhr, while admiring Gandhi, was also very critically aware of the strengths and limits of non-violence.  Pacifism was even heretical, according to Niebuhr’s standards.  So, what did Shirer have to say about these two men who, in moral terms, could not be farther apart?  And how does this inform our ideas about non-violence and war?

On February 23, 1904, William Shirer was born.  Though best known for his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, he also produced a biography of the father of modern India, Gandhi, A Memoir.  Shirer came away from meeting Gandhi deeply moved, writing that the experience taught him the comparative equality of world religions.  He also believed, however, that there might be a limitation to Gandhi’s non-violence.

There is a commonsense approach to this debate.  Just as we evaluate the weather each day, putting on a warmer coat or bringing an umbrella in response to the meteorological circumstances, we must also be able to evaluate the political climate to gauge if non-violence is practicable.  Reading weather conditions is certainly easier, but two of the most famous advocates of non-violence, Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were also aware of this question.

First, what did Gandhi say about the conditions necessary for non-violence?  Gandhi called his non-violent method satyagraha, or “truth force.”  It struck a non-violent blow to the opponent’s conscience, attempting to reform them.  Gandhi spelled out the criteria for the success of satyagraha:  

The Satyagrahi should not have any hatred in his heart against the opponent.  

The issue must be true and substantial. 

The Satyagrahi must be prepared to suffer till the end of his cause.2

Gandhi did not adamantly proceed with non-violence under all circumstances.  He called off satyagraha campaigns when violence erupted as an unintended consequence.  Gandhi even fasted for the victims of such violence.  The Mahatma could also be very pragmatic about the time and place for non-violence, famously saying, “Where there is a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.”3  Gandhi’s understanding of the capacity for non-violence could be quite nuanced.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was inspired by Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society.  There Niebuhr wrote of non-violence that, “if persisted in with the same patience and discipline attained by Mr. Gandhi and his followers,” it would allow African American boycotts to achieve some success and greater racial justice.4

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was inspired by both Gandhi and Niebuhr, and did, of course, lead a very successful, though arduous, civil rights campaign.  Yet he also reflected upon some of the strengths and limitations of non-violent campaigns.  He wrote that “long years of experience” taught him four criteria that contributed to the success of non-violence:

Non-violent demonstrators go into the streets to exercise their constitutional rights.  

Racists resist by unleashing violence against them. 

Americans of conscience in the name of decency demand federal intervention and legislation. 

The administration, under mass pressure, initiates measures of immediate intervention and remedial legislation.5  

Examining these two lists, a few interesting points emerge.  Firstly, both men humbly omit the status of their own charismatic leadership.  Non-violent campaigns involve intense risk and need great motivation.  An inspirational leader and motive should be a constant companion to their effort.  Secondly, King’s criteria are more conscious that the public, as well as the government, must be capable of responding with a just, moral reaction.  In short, there had to be a sufficient moral barometer, a climate that was responsive to the non-violent plea.  Non-violence had to be able to impact the top political ranks.

Did Gandhi’s non-violence stand a chance against Hitler?  Far removed from what was going on in Germany, Gandhi at one point thought that it did.  The Jews and British might, he once suggested, use non-violence as a tool against Hitler.6  These are some of the most difficult and least realistic words to read coming from Gandhi.  Shirer, who had covered Hitler and had a firmer measure of him, was more discerning that Gandhi’s methods could not appeal to the heart of a heartless man.7   Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson of the Mahatma, also recorded that Hitler had said he would just shoot Gandhi, had he faced him.8  This is a point of departure for realism.  Human nature can be good, but it also resists good norms and is sometimes shockingly morally numb.  Non-violence is an ideal as valuable to Christians as it is to Hindus or other world citizens, but it has its time and place.

The lesson to be learned here is neither to belittle non-violence nor to exalt exclusively the just war tradition, but to keep in mind that both have their time and place.  Indeed, though peace is the ideal, as Gandhi expressed well, the real world will rarely leave such accord unmolested.  What we fight for is the political and moral climate that allows for nonviolence more regularly, as King and Gandhi both exemplified, and to keep the tanks and soldiers in waiting for the worst of political weather.  Any moral belief system, whether Christian or Hindu, must have an ideal that inspires its adherents.  Yet it must also have a real measure that high ideals are always hard to implement and often only approximated in the real world.  Political climates, like the weather, are never fixed, and our tools of justice must be aptly chosen to meet them just as the choice of umbrella or snow jacket.  This is what William Shirer would say, the man who came close to the 20th century’s greatest devil and saint.

Bibliography:

1. Louis Fischer, Gandhi, His Life and Message for the World, (Mentor Books/ New American Library, New York, 1982), 130.

2. Mohandas K. Gandhi, edited by Shriman Narayan, The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. (India, Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House1968), volume 6, 186

3.  Louis Fischer, Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World, 89.

4.  Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man & Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics, (Louisville, Westminster John-Knox Press, 2001), 254.

5.  Martin Luther, King Jr, edited by James M. Washington, The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., (New York: Harper Collins, 1986), 127.

6.  Yogesh Chadha, Gandhi:  A Life, (New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 363, 369-370.

7.  William Shirer, Gandhi:  A Memoir, 211.

8.  Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire, (Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2008), 400.

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The BRICS countries, accounting for over 40% of the world’s population, have made significant progress in the last few years towards sustainable development

What are the prerogatives of the sovereign state? This is a question with which international law has wrestled in recent generations. Generally, international law assumes that a nation’s sovereignty is limited. Sovereignty cannot outweigh impunity; that is to say, where state sovereignty is absolute, international law is impossible. The more pressing question, particularly since World War II, is whether nations are morally obligated to defend basic human rights in scenarios in which there is egregious, outrageous socio-political evil such as genocide and mass murder. This question is no less urgent in the third decade of the 21st century. 

Human beings living in a moral universe cannot prosecute moral atrocity if nations, or coalitions of nations, do not take this task seriously. The very purpose of governing authority is to reward the good and prohibit and punish evil. International law, if it has teeth, must do more than simply honor the victims of socio-political evil (important as that honoring is). The challenge today, given the mix of moral erosion in the West and the extent of totalitarianism globally, is whether the international community has the ability to prosecute what are typically called “crimes against humanity.” This term, issuing out of post-WWII criminal tribunals, calls for constant reflection and reiteration. At the Nuremberg trials following on the heels of the end of the Second World War, three categories of international crime were identified: (1) “crimes against peace” (that is, aggression), (2) “war crimes,” and (3) “crimes against humanity.” Today we encounter all three of these challenges, not infrequently in the form of mass murder, ethnic cleansing, rape, and torture.

The natural law binds nations in the form of a ius gentium toward mutual obligations and duties (do good and avoid doing evil).1 This law and these obligations are perpetual in validity, for all times and cultures. Natural law reasoning acknowledges the realm of state sovereignty. However, that sovereignty is not absolute; the presumption of sovereignty is negated when and where the intolerable occurs, when and where a state permits egregious human rights violations either among its own people or among other peoples. International law does not need a “world government” for its enactment; what it does need is a federation or coalition of nations that are committed to holding accountable violators of the most basic of human rights. The prosecution of the above-mentioned categories of human rights violations is philosophically and politically justified. The great challenge to international law is to find the agreement among the nations and will toward holding violators accountable through punishment according to international criminal law. Justice, after all, requires an accounting, and therefore, punishment. Can, for example, the International Criminal Court get the job done?

It needs emphasizing that natural law reasoning does not equate to some form of colonialism or imperialism. It translates into responsible policy in the same way that it provides moral wisdom to nations through “just war” moral conditions that assist them in discerning whether or not to undertake coercive intervention. Hence, it operates on the basis of moral principles such as just cause, identifying sufficient harm, proportionality, public condemnation, and the restoration of basic rights that have been violated. “War crimes” are precisely that – crimes – because they are unchosen expressions of evil that are forced upon the innocent. War itself need not be evil or an act of cruelty. Nor is it the case that war is uncontrollable. The moral conditions contained in ius in bello (justice in executing war) guide military leaders and soldiers in terms of what may and may not be done.  

We react to catastrophic geopolitical events in the world because of natural law reasoning – do good and avoid doing evil – and we treat others as we would wish to be treated ourselves because of its practical application in the form of a “Golden Rule” ethic. This confronts relatively free nations with the difficult issue of both humanitarian and military intervention. Thirty years ago many were inclined to view the Cold War as the result of defects in the international order. However, the tragic reality is that (a) the Cold War never really ended but rather simply went underground while the West pursued appeasement, and (b) geopolitical disaster after disaster has visited the international community in the decades since. How, then, might those who are responsible for policy in relatively free nations propose to deal with the scale of humanitarian need in our day that is massive – situations that usually fall short of war per se but which require some measure of interventionary force for humanitarian purposes?

Here perplexing issues confront us. When, if ever, should a nation engage in coercive intervention for the primary purpose of saving lives or protecting innocent lives where vital national interests are not (seemingly) directly at stake? Should governments respond and intervene to prevent – or at least retard – the effects of genocide, mass murder, enslavement of peoples or people-groups, and egregious human rights violations? Why or why not? If so, by what rationale?

Writing on the ethics of humanitarianism five decades ago, Princeton ethicist Paul Ramsey set forth the argument that military intervention for the sake of justice remains both a right and a duty. According to Ramsey, the failure of free nations to intervene, based on a stewardship of responsibilities in the world, would be:

“tragically to fail to undertake responsibilities that  . . . are not likely to be accomplished by other political actors.”

Paul Ramsey, “The Ethics of Intervention,” in The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility (New York: Scribner’s, 1968), 23. 

Responding to the common objection that intervention can be unjust, Ramsey acknowledged both possibilities – unjust as well as just causes. But the mere possibility that intervention can be unjust, he insisted, did not release political actors from their moral responsibility.

“Anyone who is impressed only by the immorality and probable ineffectiveness of interventionary action,” he noted, “should sensitize his conscience to the immorality and probable ineffectiveness of nonintervention.”

Ramsey, “The Ethics of Intervention,” 22.

Nor, in Ramsey’s view, did the presence of the United Nations change this moral reality, since the UN does not supplant individual states’ sovereignty or reorder their respective societies. In addition, the UN has become increasingly powerless to prevent or retard socio-political evil around the globe.

Ramsey’s views were popular neither then nor now. Nevertheless, Ramsey’s wrestling with the international obligations that attend “neighbor-love” placed him squarely within the mainstream of classic just war thinking and the Christian moral tradition. All people, based on their shared humanity, possess an intrinsic dignity and hence are to be sheltered from arbitrary and inhumane acts of oppression. To wrestle with our response to egregious and massive human rights violations around the globe is to be caught between two accusations, namely, that of “imperialism” (or Western bias) and cultural particularity (or state sovereignty). Political responses in relatively free nations to atrocity tend generally to be predictable and weak, without any moral-philosophical basis upon which to construct responsible policy as it applies to humanitarian disaster. And if we look to Christian thinkers and moral philosophers we find a paucity of substantive contributions to public debate that might bear on responsible policy.

While a detailed discussion of humanitarian debate among political, legal, and social theorists remains well beyond the scope of this essay, a general rule of thumb regarding intervention may be stated: intervention must always be proportionate to the degree of human suffering where it is found and oriented toward a greater good in a reasonably comprehensive manner. This is self-evident moral truth assumed by natural law reasoning and embodied in a “Golden Rule” ethic, even when wisdom and political prudence are needed to discern the particular strategies – what, where, and how – that should be applied in responding to a specific catastrophic scenario in order to implement justice.

Human goods need protecting. For this reason, just war moral reasoning, with its severe qualification of intervention, represents a necessary mediating character – between ideological pacifism and Realpolitik – in the face of geopolitical evil. One political historian frames the matter in this way:

there [are certain moral] goods worth the risk [of intervening] . . . and “peace at any price” is unacceptable. . . The pacifist misses this complex reality of the possibility and political conditions for human flourishing . . . The realist approach, by which the conduct [of intervening] is bound by no moral limit, undermines the very moral and political legitimacy of the regime.

John P. Hittinger, “Just War and Defense Policy,” in David F. Forte, ed., Natural Law and Contemporary Public Policy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1998), 335.

The fact that certain human goods need protecting and force can be morally guided finds confirmation both in domestic policy and in foreign affairs, particularly in the context of possible humanitarian or military intervention. Both natural law reasoning and the Christian moral tradition contain the most important element to the moral equation by which humanitarian intervention in some cases is justified. Because of its view that human beings are a representation of the image of God, one significant ramification is that human beings qua human beings possess an intrinsic dignity and thus deserve equal regard. This dignity cannot be revoked by governments or political actors. It follows, then, that

the spectacle of people being harried, deported, slaughtered, torture, or starved en masse constitutes a prima facie justice claim. Depending on the circumstances on the ground as well as the relative scales of power, an equal regard claim may trigger a [needed] movement toward armed intervention on behalf of the hounded, tortured, murdered, and aggrieved.

Jean Bethke Elshtain, “The Responsibility of Nations: A Moral Case for Coercive Justice,” Daedalus (Winter 2003): 67.

Remarkably, humanitarian scholars have identified no less than twenty-one international humanitarian and human rights accords between 1946 and 1990 to illustrate the extent of codification and institutionalization of the humanitarian ideal.2

These conventions cover an extraordinarily wide range of scenarios in which basic human rights are denied; they include political asylum, international refugee status, prevention and punishment of genocide, political rights of women and children, war crimes, hostage-taking, and torture. In addition, a 2005 United Nations World Summit which brought together various heads of state affirmed the responsibility to protect (R2P) populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. At the heart of R2P is the principle that states must act to prevent mass atrocity and protect population-groups from such risks. Accordingly, when states lack the capacity to take such measures, the international community has a responsibility to provide assistance in doing so. Should peaceful means be inadequate and a state be either unable or unwilling to protect its population, then military intervention is justifiable.

However, at least three phenomena in our day challenge the efficacy of R2P thinking. On the one hand, the increasingly aggressive nature of rogue and totalitarian states such as North Korea, China, Iran and Russia currently indicates that the international community lacks either the will or the authority (or both) to apply interventionary assistance. Secondly, failed states and unstable states present a challenge to the free world, not infrequently in our day due to a third factor, namely, a resurgent radicalized Islam that is resistant – and violently so – to any form of Western intervention. Making matters worse, as political philosopher Jean Elshtain has noted,

all too often UN “peacekeepers” are obliged by their rules of engagement (rules of “disengagement” would be more like it) to stand by as people are being slaughtered. International bodies have tended to avoid using coercive force in order to protect innocent victims of political chaos. As a result, in many cases it will be other political institutions that must respond to the grievances and horrors at hand, provided they can do so in a manner that avoids – to the extent that this is humanly possible – either deepening the injustice at hand or creating new instances of injustice, doubly difficult to sort out.

Elshtain, “The Responsibility of Nations,” 67-68.

To intervene or not to intervene? This should always be a difficult question. The use of force in other nations should always induce hesitation and anxiety. At the same time, the mood of Western nations currently is decidedly non-interventionist. The aim of much humanitarian assistance, where it is found, is only to ameliorate symptoms of the catastrophe – for example, bringing food and medical supplies to population groups that are under siege or oppression – rather than to interfere with the siege and oppression at the causal level, that is, at the level of power structures. Nevertheless, non-intervention is not an absolute moral principle. In fact, it is becoming increasingly apparent in the third decade of the 21st century that a regime can do things to people either within its own borders or beyond that are so evil and so thoroughly wrong that another nation or coalition of nations would be justified in intervening. Stated differently, the right of a people or people group to escape evil being inflicted upon them cannot necessarily hinge on whether they themselves possess the strength and resources to defend their own interests.

“Peace,” in the end, must be highly qualified, for it is not a social-political good unless it is justly ordered, as the Mafia, pirates, terrorists, and any cartel of organized crime well illustrate. The principles of justice are primordial and pre-political in nature. They existed before states were formed and particular laws were enacted. Justice demands that duty – i.e., moral obligation – comes first (i.e., serving others). This commitment, doing good and avoiding evil, is anchored in natural law moral reasoning, yielding a wedding of justice and charity. In accordance with a “Golden Rule” ethic, we treat others as we ourselves wish to be treated. This is the foundation of any morally just interventionary theory and policy.

It has been said that people will not cherish their own freedom if they are unwilling to intervene on behalf of others. Ancient proverbial wisdom beckons people of principle, irrespective of their location in life and history, to intervene on behalf of the traumatized. Such a call bears repeating in our post-consensus, non-interventionist cultural climate:

If you faint in the day of adversity, How small is your strength. Rescue those who are being led away toward death, Hold back those stumbling toward the slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” Does not He who weighs the heart consider it? Does not He who guards your life Not know it? And will He not repay each person According to what that person has done?

Prov. 24:10-12.

Citations:

1. This is the burden of Hugo Grotius, considered the father of international law, in The Rights of War and Peace (1625).

2. Thomas G. Weiss and Cindy Collins, Humanitarian Challenges and Intervention, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview, 2000), 19.

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Members of the BRICS countries have been holding a seminar in the eastern Chinese city of Yangzhou in Jiangsu Province, focusing on governance and cultural exchanges. Representatives from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are attending

BRICS countries overtook G7 in 2020 by making up a larger share of global GDP in PPP terms, with China & India respectively in second and third positions globally that year

China’s dominant position in its partnership with Russia has implications for India’s security and critical technology choices

China’s yuan is gaining global momentum as Russia is set to use the currency in settlements with other world economies, while Brazil and China are ditching the dollar in bilateral trade

Virtually the entire US propaganda machine has been disseminating the „leaks“ for days and neither the Pentagon nor the White House have pressed any charges or activated any emergency mechanism to prevent further revelations.

According to recent reports, Ukraine’s neo-Nazi regime may have lost grip of its intelligence agents.

Western media now begrudgingly admits Ukraine is in a desperate situation.