A Message Inscribed on the Body

First witness video moments after Moscow Domodedovo airport bombing



From Washington Post:



Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak calls suicide bombing "a message inscribed on the body when no other means will get through." No other means? And I thought "Marxist-feminist-deconstructionists" never deal with absolutes.

There is, however, another means: ahimsa. It is the non-violent struggle that her fellow Indian, Mahatma Gandhi, used against British colonizers.

As a practitioner of ahimsa, Gandhi swore to speak the truth and advocated that others do the same. (Wikipedia)

For example:

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

(from The Quotations Page)

Yes, there are things such as truth, and we can speak it with confidence. We do not need to strap our women and children with bombs and send them to their deaths. Gandhi has shown by example that truth has its own power, and has no need to resort to violence.