Gandhi

“Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always.”

What an amazing film – beautifully acted, scripted, and directed with bold and compelling visuals. So many thoughtful, moving scenes but my favorite has to be when Gandhi and his wife entreat the people to break free of their desire for English-made cloth as it has ruined the local farmers and factories and contributed to the enslavement of the Indian population by the British. In response, the crowds create enormous bonfires in which they destroy the foreign made cloth.

Do you think there will ever come a day when Americans, en masse, break free of the shackles of foreign oil dependence and instead rely on “home-spun” (as Gandhi referred to locally produced cloth) solutions?

Gandhi touched the lives of 3.5 million people and compelled them to embrace his message of peaceful resistance (if only for a short time). As history has shown many times, the difficulty is not in uniting many factions against a dictatorial power, but in breaking the cycle of oppression inherent in subsequent ruling parties.

The message is just as important now as it was back then – maybe even more so.