Extremes: Peace and War on September 11!

New Delhi, Jan 29: Is there anything common between the peaceful Satyagraha launched by Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa in 1906 and the terror strike on the World Tower in New York in 2004? Both the events, though diametrically opposite in character, happened on the same day, September 11.

While Mahatma Gandhi, as a young lawyer, launched satyagraha at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg in South Africa on September 11, 1906, Al-Qaida terrorists launched the terror strike at the mighty World tower on the same day in 2004.

''It is a strange coincidence,'' former South African President Nelson Mandela said in reference to both these events.

In a televised message shown at the International Conference on Peace, Non-Violence and Empowerment, organised by the Congress party here today to commemorate the centenary of the satyagraha, Mr Mandela, who was greatly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, said ''the Mahatma launched his satyagraha movement on September 11. But 9/11 has an entirely different and more horrific connotation.'' ''September 11 in our own times has become a watershed date,'' Congress President Sonia Gandhi said, while inaugurating the two-day Conference, being attended by delegations from 90 countries.

''Ironically, it was also on the 11th day of September in 1906 in Johannesburg that a young lawyer, dissatisfied with the idea of mere passive resistance, unveiled the concept of satyagraha...For him, it was the end of a quest for a moral equivalent of war.'' She said Satyagraha and all that it entailed was a competely novel mode of mass mobilisation and non-violent action. ''Over the years, it was used with wondrous effect. It showed how the individual can bring about social and political change.'' Mr Mandela described the Mahatma as ''one of the influential persons of the 20th century,'' and said he ''holds the key to human survival in the 21st century.''

UNI

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