Reply #43: so what exactly *is* your point? [View All]

[iverglas]

You're the one who chose to bring up this arcane bit of history for us. Will you give no idea of what you are presenting it as establishing?

You say:

Gandhi to Hitler: "You are Not the Monster Described by Your Opponents."
"We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents."

in answer to the question of whether you have read the site. Shall we presume you have? Shall we therefore presume that you have a reason for disregarding the rebuttal of the point you seem to be trying to make, contained within the site you are citing?

Gandhi's second letter to Hitler

On 24 December 1940, on the eve of Christmas, which to Christians is a day of peace when the weapons are silenced, Gandhi wrote a lengthy second letter to Hitler. The world situation at that time was as follows: Germany and Italy controlled most of Europe and seemed set to decide the war in their favour, the German-Soviet pact concluded in August 1939 was still in force, and under Winston Churchill, a lonely Great Britain was continuing the war it had declared on Germany immediately after Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939.

On this occasion, Gandhi took the trouble of justifying his addressing Hitler as "my friend" and closing his letter with "your sincere friend", in a brief statement of what exactly he stood for: "That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed." This very un-Hitlerian reason to befriend Hitler, what Gandhi goes on to call the "doctrine of universal friendship", contrasts with the Hitler-like hatred of one’s enemy which is commonly thought to be the only correct attitude to Hitler.

Gandhi certainly earns the ire of post-war public opinion by stating: "We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents." To be sure, this was written in a period of fairly limited warfare, well before the total war with the Soviet Union and the USA, and well before the mass killing and deportation of Jews. But the prevailing attitude today is one of judging Hitler and his contemporaries’ dealings with him as if they all had the knowledge that we have acquired in and since 1945. By that standard, anyone doubting the British government’s hostile depiction of Hitler, including Gandhi, was practically an accomplice to Hitler’s crimes.

That -- the boldfaced bit -- was Gandhi. Nobody has to like it -- but nobody gets to portray what he said to Hitler as an expression of Nazi sympathy, either.

And hmm, I gotta wonder. That was in 1940. Where was the great and good USofA in 1940? Being practically an accomplice to Hitler's crimes, I guess.

At least Gandhi wasn't just sitting on his thumbs.