Ela Gandhi shares her grandfather’s message
Former South African official urges work to find nonviolent solutions
SAN JOSE >> Hundreds of people gathered in East San Jose Sunday for a unique opportunity to hear a message of nonviolence and peace from Ela Gandhi, a peace activist and granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi.
Gandhi spoke to the crowd as part of a workshop that included table talks and discussions about what matters most to them.
The event, called “Be the One,” was hosted by the San Jose-based nonviolence education organization Carry the Vision, in conjunction with Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese.
Gandhi, a former member of the South African democratic parliament, said the most important thing in any corner of the globe where differences exist is to bring people together
so they can discuss a path to peace.
“You can only arrive at a solution when you talk to people and look at what nonviolent solution you can find,” she said in an interview with this news organization Sunday at the Mexican Heritage Plaza.
“So the bottom line is nonviolence, but how you get to that is something that people will look at in their own way,” she said.
Cortese said workshops and events like this, where people discuss differences with each other in a peaceful setting, have never been more needed and relevant, making reference to the violent riots witnessed in Charlottesville in 2017.
“That really isn’t productive, to say the least,” Cortese said. “What came out of that, besides a death, and a lot more name-calling, a lot more lack
of understanding?”
Even when many say the current political climate is unprecedented and requires harsher tactics, Gandhi said nonviolent methods are still the most effective in the long term.
“When you use violence, you’re making more and more enemies. But when you use nonviolence, you’re making more and more friends. Because nonviolence is about getting the opponent to see the truth,” she said.
“The message is that at the end of nonviolent methods that my grandfather spoke about, Martin Luther King spoke about, Nelson Mandela spoke about, and used … they arrived at a solution that was much better than a solution that you can see from wars and from misery,” she said.
“It might take long, it might take a lot of patience. But that is what we have to cultivate,” she said. “The patience, and to have the hope that it will happen at the end.”
Marissa Gonzalez, of San
Jose, said she came to the workshop Sunday hoping to find some “jewels of wisdom” in the spirit of the call to action most widely attributed to Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Gonzalez also brought her 14-year-old daughter, and hoped she would be able to see that “people who have done these great things aren’t that far out there, we’re sitting in rooms with some of the people doing that.”
The opening of the workshop included a slam poetry performance, as well as a discussion among Gandhi, Cortese, Yogacharya Ellen O’Brian, who founded Carry the Vision, and Marcel
Davis Sr., a “spiritually committed life learner.” The conversation was moderated by State Assemblymember Ash Kalra.
Adam Mendoza of Mountain View, who works with Silicon Valley Latino, one of the media sponsors of the event, said these kinds of gatherings are beneficial for everyone, but especially youth.
“For the first time, young people are completely globally conscious, and think outside of the walls of the room they are sitting in,” he said.
He said today’s generation of young people better understand their power of influence, and can wield it to help spread ideals of social justice and inspire action.
In an interview, O’Brian said a common misunderstanding of nonviolence is that it is passive when in
reality it is “active engagement” through nonviolent means.
“So that’s a very important distinction,” she said. “It doesn’t come from a place of weakness. It comes from a place of strength, conviction and commitment.”
Gandhi said just as people and armies must train for battle and violence, people must train themselves in nonviolent methods, and promote it in their communities to spread it.
She said she’s inspired by seeing a lot of people who are “keen to follow Gandhi” and his teachings in society today.
“And I think once you have that keenness, we just have to capture the moment,” she said.