Gandhi's Policies in the Middle East

Although Mahatma Gandhi is famous for his revolutionary peaceful protests, his methods have not always been successful. In India, where Gandhi began his civil disobedience campaigns, his anti-violence strategies often fell to pieces, as tensions grew and violence erupted. In many ways Gandhi was not fully responsible for India’s freedom – World War II largely enabled it. Despite his lack of triumph, Gandhi is still an inspirational figure, who has influenced numerous leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr. In King’s case, he led the Civil Rights Movement through non-violent campaigns and ultimately achieved equality for all people. If Gandhi’s techniques worked for King, then they should be able to apply to various types of situations. Unfortunately, the world seems to thrive on violence; there is agitation, anger, and age-old disputes everywhere, and peace is often hard to achieve.
Recently, throughout the Middle East, numerous protests for freedom have erupted. Some have been violent, and others have been fairly peaceful, and because of this there is potential for Gandhi’s ways to work anywhere as long as specific conditions are present. The protests began in Tunisia, where a fruit vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire. Ferment seemed to break out immediately as years of anger over oppression, inflation, and other issues bubbled over. In Tunisia’s case, violence was probably inevitable to achieve freedom because Tunisia is a very small country and therefore does not have the amount of people to band together and peacefully protest. Following Tunisia, the revolution spread to Egypt. Egyptians were able to overthrow their president Hosni Mubarak in a fairly peaceful manner. The Internet played a huge role in Egypt’s revolution (and Tunisia’s) because it helped recruit and “fire up” masses of people, who where willing to stand up together. In many ways the young people lead the revolution because there was so much unused young talent in Egypt, with a 35% unemployment rate. Another vital factor to Egypt’s peaceful victory was the army’s refusal to shoot the protesters. With a disobedient army, violence isn’t really necessary for the people.
Another place where revolution has erupted is in Syria. So far, Syrian protests have been fairly mellow, but it might be hard to keep them that way. Like in Gandhi’s case, religion plays a huge part in its ability to remain peaceful. Syria included two types of Muslims Sunni and Shi’a, and while it is mostly Sunni, tensions often build between the two groups. As seen with Gandhi, violence often broke out between Muslims and Hindus, causing Gandhi to call off his campaigns. If the Shi’as and Sunnis are able to stay united, and more people come out to protest, Syria’s revolution can stay peaceful. In addition to Syria, a revolution is taking place in Libya. There has been quite a bit of sadism in Libya for a few reasons. The rebel ‘army” is fairly small and is estimated to be somewhere around 1,500 people. When a group is so small it’s very challenging to keep the peace because the leader (in this case president Muammar Gaddafi) is easily able to shoot the protesters down. The probability of a peaceful revolution occurring in Libya is extremely low because there is not extreme anger and dissatisfaction amongst a large group of people like in Egypt’s or even India’s case.
Although the Middle East has been plagued with violence for an extremely long time, Gandhi’s cordial methods can work anywhere with the right factors. The most essential ingredient for a peaceful protest is widespread anger, because only then will people be willing to stand up for their government as one mass. Unity is an integral part of ever completing a successful revolution, so as long as the Middle East countries say strong and together, Gandhi’s methods may just be victorious.