Below the surface
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s election-eve death and Trump’s expected rush to fill the vacancy with a right-wing judge is a hot subject I intend to ignore here. My mind right now is more taken with the astonishing range of interactions occurring among human beings, aided by recent innovations and our current confinements.
For example: In the last two days, I in my Urbana IL lodgings have heard, via Zoom and from the man himself, the incredible story of Mubarak Awad, the 77-year-old Palestinian who (inspired by Gandhi, Ghaffar Khan, Mandela and King) has enlisted Israelis in a joint and nonviolent struggle for justice for Arabs, and in a long-term goal of Arab-Israeli partnership. Two days back, I had an unforgettable conversation with the extraordinary William Barber, 57, the African American pastor who daily infects new people with a passion for solidarity in defence of the rejected.
I’ve also just corresponded with two young Indian intellectuals who believe in an India for all. Separately, these two individuals delight in separating – for expanding audiences -- propaganda from facts about recent Indian history. And yesterday I spoke with an older Indian intellectual who is similarly educating large North Indian communities.
Within the last two days, I’ve also had hope-giving exchanges with a U.S.-based Pakistani scholar, a U.K.-based professor of Jordanian origin, and informative discussions with several educators and activists in India. All this and much more, even as news continues to flow in of fresh assaults on democratic rights in India and elsewhere.
This other inflow is hurtful, though mercifully the wounds it causes are often followed by reminders of courageous struggles being waged by people I know, and by the realization that a great many others of whom I am not aware are also putting up brave battles.
I share these thoughts because the state of our world today – the virus, the economic suffering, challenges to mental peace, the return, in nation after nation, of hierarchy and domination by the strong as desirable goals, the capacity of nation-states to suppress protests – does not encourage morale.
During some earlier reactionary times, a few prominent nations would declare their resolve to protect liberty, equality and fraternity in the world. Not so today. “My nation first” and, within a nation, “My people first” seem to be the ruling emotions.
But that’s only the surface reality. Below the surface, human beings are interacting with one another and with the better angels of their nature. In substance, what I have related about myself is true today for large numbers in the world.
Understanding is growing. Trust is being nurtured. Bonds of alliance are being formed. Coalitions are being built. Minds are being cleansed of prejudice. Hearts are being freed of fear. How many bonds, minds, hearts? That question may not be relevant. In the shrinking number of the world’s democracies, votes may indeed install a government. But nowhere has history depended on countable heads.
“God’s ways are more than man’s arithmetic,” said Gandhi on 24 July 1939 in Abbottabad, then part of undivided India’s North West Frontier Province, to which Abdul Ghaffar Khan had invited him.
Putting it differently, others may say that Truth and Dignity will erupt from the crust of our earth when the moment is ripe.
