The statues of Gandhi and Churchill standing side by side

I interviewed Jacque Attali, a private advisor of former French President François Mitterrand, in 2007. He wrote two biographies on Mahatma Gandhi and Karl Marx. When I asked him to compare the two people, he said that Marx was the first philosopher who knew the risk of capitalist globalization, which started in the Western world, and Gandhi was a person who unexpectedly responded with “non-violence” the colonial rule caused by globalization from outside the Western world, adding that they are complementary.

A statue of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled in London`s Parliament Square on Saturday. British Prime Minister David Cameron said, "This statue is a magnificent tribute to one of the most towering figures in the history of world politics.” What a sea change. Churchill, who opposed India’s independence, said, “It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace.” Now, the statues of Churchill and Gandhi stand side by side in the Parliament Square.

While Marx, a Westerner, claimed that inequalities of this world must be corrected by violence, Gandhi came up with non-violence, though he was a man from a colony who suffered the inequality in person. Gandhi’s philosophy is hard to understand even for Koreans who experienced a similar colonial rule. However, Gandhi’s non-violence is far from adaptation. His non-violent movement emphasized that all means other than violence should be used to fight against inequalities, and the gist of it is to create a consensus.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed a “forward-looking, future-oriented vision” to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in an interview with NHK, a Japanese broadcaster, aired on Monday. “Forward-looking” is a term that Japanese politicians like to use but it is Japanese politicians who are “least” forward-looking in terms of the relationship of Korea, China and Japan. “Forward-looking” is also in the context of British Prime Minister Cameron’s “world politics”. Gandhi is great and the U.K., which recognized Gandhi in the context of world politics beyond the bilateral relationship between India and the U.K., is not narrow-minded, either.

pisong@donga.com