Courage: Mohandas Gandhi
Gandhi's Dandi [Salt] March Courage is not a macho roar of defiance. More often, it is the quiet and tenacious refusal to hate. Today’s world needs to relearn that lesson and Mahatma Gandhi can be an ideal teacher. History usually confuses courage with the ability to strike. It celebrates those who conquer, defeat, and dominate. But every once in a while, a figure emerges who redefines courage. In their definition, courage is not the power to destroy, but the strength to endure. Courage is not domination, but restraint. Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin, as well as his burgeoning number of followers today, failed to understand the profundity of Gandhi’s vision. Godse argued in the court that Gandhi’s nonviolence made Hindus “weak.” It replaced what Godse saw as assertive, masculine strength with emasculated restraint. Godse lacked the ability to understand that restraint was moral courage, not enfeebling passivity. The brutal might of the British Empire was opposed by Gandh...
