Gandhi... valores para una propuesta de futuro

25 pontificia universidad católica de puerto rico The adoption of this practice brought us a world of experience. It enabled us to know, from direct contact, the conditions of life among the weavers, the extent of their production, the handicaps in the way of their obtaining their yarn supply, the way in which they were being made victims of fraud, and lastly, their ever growing indebtedness. We were not in a position immediately to manufacture all the cloth for our needs. The alternative therefore was to get our cloth supply from handloom weavers (Gandhi 1927: 407–8). To conclude, much of Gandhi’s nationalism was developed abroad, and in the context of a distinctively Atlantic style of oppression. This is why they had so much meaning for Atlantic leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr, and perhaps why leaders and citizens in Puerto Rico see such a connection. Atlantic thought on racial discrimination influenced Gandhi. He was very aware of US racial politics. In Satyagraha in South Africa, we see much of this. Aspects of plantation life presented traumatic racial terror that Gandhi shared with the transplanted indentured ”coolies” from India and the struggle against which formed the basis of his activism. The battles Gandhi fought in South Africa are similar to those in the Atlantic world in the following ways: 1. Racial exclusions 2. Oligarchic Colonial Elites’ separation/identification with the mother country (Afrikaaners and British were like American plantation owners) 3. Creolization: The processes of mixing, and the hypocrisy surrounding it 4. Racial Terror - How racial power was enforced. Here in Puerto Rico, the following connect with Gandhi’s experience: 1. The experience of frequent displacements, like Gandhi, and the strengthening of loyalty to homeland 2. The experience of the racialization of labor, both within and without the island 3. The experience of being in-between, in the racial polarity of the US.