REFLECTIVE MOMENTS

Rajmohan Gandhi, a human rights activist and historian is a visiting professor at the South Asia and Middle East Program at the University of Illinois. He recently authored a biography of his grandfather, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and an Empire, and Pasadena City College was the site of his first lecture tour. He talked about the stature of his remarkable grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi, and how this ordinary man became a revolutionary who believed in the efficacy of non-violence and became the Great Soul who liberated India from the yoke of Great Britain.

I was moved by Rajmohan’s discourse about how his grandfather continued to live by the principle of non-violence even as he was beaten in South Africa by Whites, Blacks and his own South African Indians who refused to embrace non-violence during South Africa’s tyranny of apartheid. One of those beatings nearly took Gandhi’s life. Perplexed, his eldest son asked, “Father, you always preach non-violence to us at home, but if I had been at this beating, what should I have done?” And Gandhi replied, “If you cannot immediately think of something to do that is non-violent, then hit him!” That statement surprised me.

PCC’s Sexton Auditorium was filled to capacity, and I was fortunate to be sitting in the front row. I was charmed by the smile of a rugged looking Latino who, with camera in hand, sat next to me. He introduced himself and told me he was going to video Rajmohan Gandhi’s talk and post it on his website. Wearing a Che Guevara beret, he said he had recently filmed the Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus and we both agreed that Dr. Yunus, the small-loan banker from Bangladesh who is lifting the poorest of the poor out of poverty, was most likely today’s Mahatma Gandhi. That conversation triggered my thinking about how the very ordinary can become totally principled and never waver from their core, and how they can affect the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. And the image of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. came to my mind. He is a hero to many Armenians, but this principled man worked at developing his strengths by what he referred to as building his moral muscles.

The young Henry Morgenthau at age fourteen composed twenty-four rules of actions he wished to acquire and vices he needed to avoid. He made a chart and every night he marked breaches of that day. He titled his chart: Tabulating virtues to be acquired and vices to be avoided
1. Do not use any profane words.
2. Do not eat much sweet food as it darkens the mind.
3. Always speak the truth.
4. Spend nothing unnecessarily, for if you save when young, you can spend when old.
5. Never be idle as it will cause you to think of wrong things.
6. Talk little, but think much.
7. Study daily, or else your knowledge will not improve.
8. Keep your own secrets, for if you do not keep them, no one will keep them for you.
9. Make few promises, but if you make any, fulfill them.
10. Never speak evil of anyone.
11. Work for your employer as though it was for yourself.
12. Deal fairly and honestly with your fellow clerks, but be not too intimate.
13. Be not inquisitive.
14. Neither borrow nor lend if avoidable.
15. Trust none too much, but be not distrustful.
16. Be not vain, for vanity is the destruction of men.
17. Be grateful for the smallest favor.
18. Never leave for tomorrow what can be done today.
19. Drink no kind of intoxicating liquor nor smoke any weed.
20. Never play at any game of chance.
21. Conquer temptation though it be ever so powerful.
22. Keep yourself clean, as cleanliness is next to godliness.
23. Wonder not at the construction of man, but use your time in improving yourself.
24. In deciding any doubts in the meaning of above maxims, let conscience decide.

These moral muscles he practiced as a teenager built within him an honest power that eventually led to the world’s recognition of him as a wealthy entrepreneur, a diplomat extraordinaire and a noble humanitarian.

YOU REJOICE MY HEART Taderon Press, London

This story filled my heart with rejoice. Written by a Turk who lives and teaches in Germany, this is the story of his search to find Turkish Armenians who masked their Armenian identity. His friendship with a fellow German naturalized citizen, Melanie, triggered his curiosity when he discovered she was an Armenian born in Turkey. He made a promise to Melanie, a colleague whom he deeply admired, that he would learn about Armenian history and why Armenians, especially those living in Turkey, felt a need to hide their Armenian heritage.

As an American born to immigrant Armenian parents, I never considered being Armenian as an impediment. I knew opportunities were around every corner, but apparently that is not the case for Armenians living in Turkey. Yalcin’s story is a reminder how painful it is for those who are told they don’t fit into the everyday mold and feel safer by hiding their heritage. My heart also goes out to American Moslems who abhor the destructive activities of some of their extremist brethren and to light- skinned blacks who, in our recent past, felt opportunities were greater if they passed as whites.

I am grateful to Kemel Yalcin, a Turk who understands the Armenian question and is open to creating dialogue, especially in Turkey. He understands we all belong to this planet earth, whether male or female, old or young, Turk or Armenian or Kurd, Israeli or Palestinian....and whenever there is an exclusion of certain groups from the circle of friendship, there are far sighted ones like Kemel Yalcin who understand that the circle needs to be expanded to enclose everyone.