What Made Non Violence Work

Gandhi and Mandela What Made Non-Violence Work? Background Essay The archives of violence in the world is well documented. However it is also likely to use non-violence to bring about change. This DBQ will look at ii countries where a non-violent movement was successful. Historic Context India and south-central Africa were two beta nations on two different continents. solely although they looked strong on the outside, each(prenominal) one suffered from a disease that threatened the health of the consentient. For India, the disease was colonization. For mho Africa, it was racial segregation. Three ConditionsIn each of these nations three conditions help explain why non-violence worked. The stolon condition was that both of them had been colonies of England. And like England both countries thought natural law was very springful more than powerful even than government officials. The min condition was the presence of violence. Without the possibility of a violent revolution, the government cleverness non have been willing to change. The third condition was the presence of a leader Mohandas Gandhi in India and Nelson Mandela South Africa. Each of these men was so magnetised he could lead his followers to a non-violent victory.Both of them gave their lives to the cause. Gandhi was shot by an assassinator while Mandela spent almost twenty-seven long time of his life in prison. These are their stories. Mohandas Gandhi An eye-for-an-eye only makes the whole world blind Mohandas Gandhi was natural in 1869, in Porbandar, India. His father taught his son respect for both religions. His mother taught him that all living things are holy. Following custom, Gandhi married at age 13 his wife, Kasturbai, was even younger. At age 19 he went to London to battleground law, and at age 22 Gandhi completed his studies.He now felt more than ever that the side of meat, who had ruled India for almost two centuries, were law-abiding and fair. Hopes high, he sailed f or home. Gandhi try to set up a law practice in India that was so shy he failed miserably. When someone suggested he try his helping in South Africa, he jumped at the offer. But no to begin with had he arrived there than he was thrown off a train, mediocre for being a colored soldiery holding a first class ticket Even for a shy man, it was too considerable an insult. When he fought back he was sent to jail. It was there he became a leader, bringing about important changes for South Africas Indian community.When Gandhi returned to India, he was paraded around like a hero because of his South African victories. But everywhere he looked he was horrified by the poverty he saw. He saw, too, that to be successful in the world the English had built. Indians had to replicate their rulers their clothes, their manners, and their standards of beauty. Gandhi refused Gandhi wanted people to live free of all kinds of snobbery, even the ones enforce by Indias ancient caste system. The fir st thing he did was to build a different kind of community where he could stumper this classless society.He dressed in the clothes a poor man would wear and did chores an untouchable people so low they are below caste would do. almost Indians thought he was absurd. But slowly his strange ideas were accepted until Gandhi came to be known as Mahatma or Great Soul. Gandhi saw that Indias disdain was tied to independence. But England was a giant with colonies all around the globe. And Indian politicians had worked for independence for at least half a century. How much harder would it be for the gentle Gandhi? to that degree in the end Gandhi succeeded. The question is how?Nelson Mandela People essential learn to loathe, and if they can learn to hate, they can also be taught to love. Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 in a tiny village in South Africa. He was still a baby when his father, a tribal chief, was dethroned for disrespecting an English judge. At age seven he was sen t to a embarkment school where he learned to live under apartheid, a Dutch South African word meaning racial apartness. There he was given the name Nelson because his African name, which could sometimes be translated as Troublemaker, wasnt European.This was the first time, though not the last, that Mandela felt disrespected for his blackness. In the 1930s it was uncommon for a black South African to attend college. But Mandela not only attended, he graduated, got a degree from law school, and set up a practice in Johannesburg which he hoped could support his small family. Yet apartheid was always a humiliation to him. When the Afrikaner, or Dutch South African, Nationalists came to power in the 1948 election, the segregation habits of the past three hundred years became law. Hoping for a brighter future, Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) and became its first Youth Leader.In the 1960s, legion(predicate) of the colonial nations of Africa were gaining independence. The ANC was encouraged and campaigned for democracy in South Africa. They were mild campaigns at first, but as the government became more hostile, so did ANC protests. In November 1961, a military branch of the party was organized with Mandela as its head. It authorized the restrain use of arms and sabotage against the government, which got the governments attentionand its rage Mandela went into hiding in 1964, he was captured, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. It was a sad twenty-four hour period for black South Africa.As days stretched to months, months to years, and years to decade, Mandela lived most of them at furious Robben Island Prison. There his guards did their best to break his spirit with isolation and abuse. Remarkably he kept his hope and dignity alive. Then, twenty-six and half long years after his imprisonment began, he was released. Again, Mandela could tackle the job of dismantling apartheid. He hoped, like the Afrikaner government that freed him that he could keep South Africa from erupting into elegant war. The Question Gandhi and Mandela were sitting on powder kegs built on hate and injustice.The people in each society knew the powder kegs existed. More importantly their governments knew they existed. Yet both men were able to bring about non-violent change. Gandhi brought independence to India and Mandela brought democracy to South Africa. So how did they do it? The presence of violence, the respect for law, the leading of a charismatic individualthese 3 ingredients were important, but not the whole story. Now examine the documents that follow, looking for further ways that non-violent change was achieved in India and South Africa. Again the question Gandhi and Mandela What made non-violence work?