Ghandi to visit City of London for anniversary of 9/11

-01/09/06

Mahatma Gandhi is to


Ghandi to visit City of London for anniversary of 9/11

-01/09/06

Mahatma Gandhi is to make a surprise visit to the City of London later this month to mark the anniversary of the World Trade Centre disaster.

11 September is not only the 5th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, but also marks 100 years since Gandhi made his famous declaration of non-violent passive resistance (“satyagraha”) in front of 3000 Indians in the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg.

Gandhi’s far-reaching action is to be commemorated with a short act of commitment to his principles of non-violence at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in the City of London, which itself was destroyed by a terrorist bomb.

The first church of St Ethelburga was built around 1180. But having survived the Great Fire of London (1666) and the Blitz (1941-3), it was devastated by a massive IRA bomb on April 24 1993. However it was then rebuilt in a new form, reinstating its medieval exterior, whilst creating a remarkable new meeting space inside to serve as a Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.

The act of commitment to be held at the Centre will include readings from Gandhi’s writings, a short talk and some prayers. The Centre has also arranged to borrow the life-size image of Gandhi from Madame Tussaud’s waxwork museum.

Mahatma Gandhi lived in South Africa for 21 years. In opposition to a proposed new legislation in 1906 imposing pass laws on the Indian community in South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi and his colleagues in the Congress movement mobilised and convened at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg on 11th September.

The meeting passed a famous Fourth Resolution by which the Indians solemnly determined not to submit to the Ordinance in the event of its becoming law in the teeth of their opposition, but also to suffer all the penalties attaching to such non-submission. All present took an oath with God as witness.

Since then the use of Satyagraha as a mode of opposition to oppression has been utilised by many leaders through out the length and breadth of the world. It was used by Gandhi to win Indiaís independence, by Martin Luther King to win civil rights in the United States and by Nelson Mandela to change South Africaís liberation.

A similar strategy of non-violent regime change in Iraq was also suggested to Tony Blair by church leaders at a meeting before the invasion.

Peace campaigners around the world suggest that as 9/11 has become synonymous in modern language for the furtherance of hatred, war and terrorism, by celebrating the birth of the Satyagraha peace movement it will serve as an important contrast to messages of hate and war. They also hope that it will demonstrate, as St Ethelburga’s has done in its own recreation following its destruction by terrorists, that there is another response to terror.


Ghandi to visit City of London for anniversary of 9/11

-01/09/06

Mahatma Gandhi is to make a surprise visit to the City of London later this month to mark the anniversary of the World Trade Centre disaster.

11 September is not only the 5th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, but also marks 100 years since Gandhi made his famous declaration of non-violent passive resistance (“satyagraha”) in front of 3000 Indians in the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg.

Gandhi’s far-reaching action is to be commemorated with a short act of commitment to his principles of non-violence at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in the City of London, which itself was destroyed by a terrorist bomb.

The first church of St Ethelburga was built around 1180. But having survived the Great Fire of London (1666) and the Blitz (1941-3), it was devastated by a massive IRA bomb on April 24 1993. However it was then rebuilt in a new form, reinstating its medieval exterior, whilst creating a remarkable new meeting space inside to serve as a Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.

The act of commitment to be held at the Centre will include readings from Gandhi’s writings, a short talk and some prayers. The Centre has also arranged to borrow the life-size image of Gandhi from Madame Tussaud’s waxwork museum.

Mahatma Gandhi lived in South Africa for 21 years. In opposition to a proposed new legislation in 1906 imposing pass laws on the Indian community in South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi and his colleagues in the Congress movement mobilised and convened at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg on 11th September.

The meeting passed a famous Fourth Resolution by which the Indians solemnly determined not to submit to the Ordinance in the event of its becoming law in the teeth of their opposition, but also to suffer all the penalties attaching to such non-submission. All present took an oath with God as witness.

Since then the use of Satyagraha as a mode of opposition to oppression has been utilised by many leaders through out the length and breadth of the world. It was used by Gandhi to win Indiaís independence, by Martin Luther King to win civil rights in the United States and by Nelson Mandela to change South Africaís liberation.

A similar strategy of non-violent regime change in Iraq was also suggested to Tony Blair by church leaders at a meeting before the invasion.

Peace campaigners around the world suggest that as 9/11 has become synonymous in modern language for the furtherance of hatred, war and terrorism, by celebrating the birth of the Satyagraha peace movement it will serve as an important contrast to messages of hate and war. They also hope that it will demonstrate, as St Ethelburga’s has done in its own recreation following its destruction by terrorists, that there is another response to terror.