Gandhi, Big fat racist or not?
- Thread starter Gromit
- Start date
D'wards
IT'S YOUR DECISION DANIEL
Emmeline Pankhurst was a leading light in the White Feather movement - it appears no one is innocent, as the Sex Pistols pointed out back in the 70s.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
I really do despair at times. We cannot and should not judge happenings in the past by the standards of today.
To do otherwise is utterly ludicrous. You rather expect it in the fetid and callow milieu of student politics, but not amongst adults who should know better.
Then how on earth do we learn from history if we're not allowed to make value judgments? Its OK to understand that racism was a lot more normal years ago but equally understand it was as shit and damaging then as it is now.
I had to endure 5 years of studying history and the only thing that made it fun was laughing at historical craziness and utter bellends. I understand that being a tyrannical despot was quite a normal thing for leaders in the past. I still think it's OK to suggest that Pol Pot was a bit of a cock.
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
George Davis was innocent!
So we can look back in awe at things like gulags and the holocaust as historical spectacles rather than lessons to be learned.
Oh, we’re just excusing racism, not the other stuff?
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
I agree completely, if you fail to learn from the past, you keep on making the same mistakes. (That seems to have bypassed us at times.)
What I'm talking about is, for example, students wittering on about removing the statue of Rhodes from Rhodes College etc. Particularly risible was the demand from the cretin who was there on a Rhodes Scholarship, obviously completely oblivious to the fact that Rhodes generosity was the reason he could attend the college.
Glasgow university is wringing its hands at the moment, over money donated centuries ago by someone associated with the slave trade. If they want to go down the reparations road, great stuff, I'll have my claim in for loss of livelihood caused by my ancestors moved off their croft to make way for cattle. This was done by someone who donated to Glasgow university... ridiculous, isn't it?
Accept that the practices of the past have been superseded, learn the lessons, and move on.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
Ummm... I didn't say that, nor do I agree with that.
What I did say was that judging events of the 1600s by today's standards is risible. Times change, as does custom and practice.
The 1600s? The thread is about Gandhi not King James I.
Fine by me if they want to break up the big estates and sell them off to compensate descendants of those affected by the Clearances. People at the time knew it was wrong, same as a lot of them did with slavery.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
He was a massive racist though. I mean I'm not sure how anyone could deny that, apart from by sheer ignorance.
Was he ever violent though? The non violent protest crowd cream their pants over him and (bizarrely) Mandela.
He was massively anti-black. I've heard he was a bit rapey too but I've not looked at the evidence. Also that letter he wrote Hitler was properly pathetic
Didn’t he have some martyr-like claim on celibacy whilst simultaneously enjoying sleeping naked with female disciples?
We shouldn’t judge him by today’s standards though.
Thimble Queen
Called away to another place
They were children, right. Like I said many moons ago... a bit rapey.
I agree, my last point was sarcasm at Sas.
Thimble Queen
Called away to another place
I generally don't read what sas has to say.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
But was not regarded as being so... at the time. I dare say he was no more racist than many people were, at that time.
By today's standards, yes, he was indeed racist. Square that with the fact that he is one of the most highly regarded people that ever lived.
Winston Churchill was racist by today's standards, does that completely negate his service to the country?
Times change, but sadly the thing that hasn't changed is slavery, which still flourishes.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
Feel free not to. I shall return the compliment.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
Fair enough, be deliberately obtuse.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
People usually associate Scrooge from A Christmas Carol with mean-spiritedness, overlooking the fact that by the end of the novel he becomes a kind person. Similarly, one can say that Ghandi was a racist when he was young, but it's surely unfair to overlook that he abandoned those views when he got older?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Judge him by his own standards if you're having trouble christian.
mx wcfc
Well-Known Member
We named our daughter Indira. She's half indian, so we thought it was a reasonable start - you know - english surname, indian first name. we sought of thought that was cool. and sort of naming her after a woman who had led her country etc, years before thatcher seemed liked a good thing... Turned out that her indian grandad hated Indira Ghandi (bugger sp?) almost as much as he hates muslims. But hey ho.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
His brother Goosi Goosi was a bit of a laugh
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Racism is racism, regardless of when it happened. It may not have been as unacceptable back then but that doesn't negate the fact.
It’s this oh don’t judge the past by today’s standards yet making get out clauses for stuff that sticks in his craw that reveals the double standard.
Colonial racism was fine, the gulags and holocaust not.
Colonial racism was fine, the gulags and holocaust not.
seventh bullet
sovietwave
You had to endure it? That's my dream. And Pol Pot is one of my hobbies. One person's dull is another's technicolour and all that...
seventh bullet
sovietwave
There will be a new Gulag to reform the pompous and well-fed with tough love, comrade.
mx wcfc
Well-Known Member
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