A Brief Analysis Of Gandhian Pacifism

It has long been people’s dream to realize and maintain peace. However, negative factors that threatening peace like wars, religious or national conflicts, and terrorist attacks are still troubling and afflicting some of the world people. Meanwhile, as the meaning of the word "peace" gradually expands and begins to cover several significant perspectives like politics, economy, culture, human rights and environment, the question of how to realize peace in its full extent becomes one that matters most to people’s fundamental interests and well-being.Johan Galtung, well known as "the Father of Peace", is a leading role that represents many of the peace scholars who believe in "Realizing Peace by Peaceful Means". They try to testify that this peaceful method is the basic principle and guiding ideology for the people in the contemporary world to fight with violence and conflicts, and to realize peace. What is more important,"non-violence" will be the root for creating and developing peaceful methods.Therefore, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the master of peace, should be given extensive concern. By deeply understanding Gandhi’s ideas, all ethnic groups or countries can do better in constructing peaceful culture. Moreover, peace scholars studying more about the theoretical and practical content of Gandhi’s idea of "non-violence" is very conducive for peacefully resolving the worldwide traditional or non-traditional conflicts in the21st Century.In conclusion, this thesis is an interpretation of Gandhi’s ideas using documentary analysis method, the analytic hierarchy process and case study. Also, the main problems being solved are what Gandhi Pacifism is and how these ideas can benefit the contemporary world.First of all, by combining Gandhi’s explanation on "peace" and the relevant understandings from the contemporary peace scholars, the word in this thesis is defined as a broad concept covering many aspects of violence, wars, human rights, poverty and ecology environment, etc. Also,"peace" has close connections with people’s equal and harmonious world view. That is to say, the concept belongs to the category of "positive peace" that includes two perspectives on culture construction and conflict resolvement.Secondly, by interpreting Gandhi’s ideas on peace culture, the significances of morality gradually appear, since it has the power of restricting and educating. Gandhi firmly holds that the peace culture should be constructed through three levels, namely individual, societal and universal. The individuals need to obey the moral and ethical system, which is the basic step for building peace culture. As the individuals are the fundamental units of society, when everyone of them is able to get out of the control of desire and serve others with love and passions, the society will have chance to evolve and develop. In this way, violence and conflicts deriving from material desire and power can be decreased. Furthermore, Gandhi’s idea of "Unity of All" argues that all things in the universe are actually holistic. Therefore, both human society and natural environment are covered by Gandhi’s idea of peace culture. If the human society can gradually become peaceful and impartial on the basis of people trying every effort to realize self-improvement and moral models educating and influencing others, the natural environment will be maintained balanced according to the impartial world order. Thus, the universe will finally follow the conception of Gandhi and gradually moves toward peace and development under the influence of morality and peace culture.On the other hand, the theoretical basis of Gandhi’s ideas on resolving conflicts includes "non-violence" and "Satyagraha". Both of the theories can help to obtain peace through peaceful means. Gandhi always says that "The Way is the Goal", therefore, only by influencing the enemies and changing them with love and compassion can the peace be finally realized. Thus, solving conflicts nonviolently through consultation and dialogue is very critical. By communicating and understanding each other, the opportunities for opponents reaching win-win solutions will increase. So, it is indispensable for people to learn negotiation skills, such as cooperation, focusing on the core of conflicts and encouraging the participation of the Third Party, etc. However, seeing from this perspective, the educating power of morality and belief still exists in Gandhian theory of conflict resolvement. And the final goal for Gandhi is to change his enemies through converting their faith and thoughts.In the end, after interpreting Gandhi’s view on constructing peace culture and resolving conflict nonviolently, the thesis reviews and summarizes Gandhian Pacifism from four different levels, namely micro, intermediate, macro and super. Generally speaking, Gandhian Pacifism has three traits. To start with, it is based on the power of morality, which is able to influence and educate people. Then, the guiding principles for Gandhian Pacifism are "Peace by Peaceful Means" and "The Way is the Goal". Finally, transforming the conflicts is the ultimate goal. To further explain, two practical cases were studied. One is the influence of Gandhi’s idea of peace culture construction on combating religious extremist terrorism and the other is using Gandhi’s conflict resolvement theory to solve Turkish Kurdish problem.All in all, Gandhian Pacifism is closely connected with morality and non-violence. It concentrates on guiding people’s mind and solving conflicts and contradictions with peaceful means. Nowadays, terrorism activities, wars, poverty and other hindrances for realizing peace still exist. What should be learned from Gandhian Pacifism is to build the soul-purifying peace culture, since it can help people to give up desires for materials and power. When this goal is achieved, people are more likely to believe in "Unity of All" and "All Men are Equal", both of which encourage compassion and conflict resolvement. Therefore, Gandhian Pacifism does have practical significance to the contemporary world.