| Title | : | Revolution and Non-Violence in Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0198863691 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780198863694 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 |
| Publication | : | Published September 20, 2020 |
Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela tried to create transformed societies to replace the dying forms of colony and empire. They found the inequalities of Russia, India, and South Africa intolerable yet they questioned the wisdom of seizing the power of the state, creating new kinds of political organisation and imagination to replace the old promises of revolution. Their views, along with their ways of leading others, are closely connected, from their insistence on working with their own hands and reforming their individual selves to their acceptance of death. On three continents, in a century of mass mobilization and conflict, they promoted strains of nationalism devoid of antagonism, prepared to take part in a general peace.
Looking at Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela in sequence, taking into account their letters and conversations as well as the institutions they created or subverted, placing at the centre their treatment of the primal fantasy of political violence, this volume reveals a vital radical tradition which stands outside the conventional categories of twentieth-century history and politics.
Revolution and Non-Violence in Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela Reviews
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An inspired triad, Imraan Coovadia presents a hybrid of history, biography and literary analysis of Tolstoy, Gandhi and Mandela (plus a bit of Coetze in the epilogue), the ways they learned from each other, built on each other, and brought about moral and practical change with a combination of radical philosophies and each of their unique life paths involving some combination of violence and peaceful non-resistance. Throughout the book Coovadia brilliantly draws on many strands of thoughts, combining and recombining them in novel ways, all of which help support a passionate argument about the present and future particularly of South Africa but also of the world more generally.
Tolstoy lurks a bit more in the background than the foreground of this book, existing more as an influence on Gandhi than a fully fledged character in his own right. Moreover, it is not just the late Tolstoy one might have expected in thinking about non-violence and moral influences, but War and Peace in particular that shows up again and again, particular the model of Field Marshal Kutuzov as a model for a combination of violence but also minimizing violence and doing it all while achieving victory.
Gandhi gets the most attention, particularly his time in South Africa, his interactions with Tolstoy, the formation of his philosophy, and how it worked in practice. Coovadia makes something of Gandhi’s role in organizing military units for the British, likening it to Tolstoy’s start in the military and Mandela’s role in the armed wing of the ANC. It seemed like a bit of a stretch but I could be wrong about that.
Mandela gets the most creative and sympathetic treatment of the trio, a robust defense of his vision and legacy against what Coovadia sees as the alternative presented by Winnie Mandela, a corrupt/criminal approach that justifies itself in language that rejects the nonviolence and accommodation of Mandela.
Strongly recommended for anyone.
