With the world going through a turmoil, it should embrace nonviolence if the social, cultural and political crisis had to be addressed without making the world a terrible place, said Fernando A. Garcia, a writer and activist from Argentina,
Speaking at a function organised here on Sunday to mark Nelson Mandela International day, Mr. Garcia said that the rapid transformation of the world was inevitable. “But what does it transform into is in our hands. We need to take all the good things from the old world to the new world, the most important of that being nonviolence,” he said.
He added that violence was not just about physical violence but also involved economic, social, religious and psychological violence, which were to be addressed.
Pointing out the principles of Mario Luis Rodríguez Cobos, famously known as Silo, the founder of Humanist Movement, Mr. Garcia said that a person must transform himself first and then help in the transformation of the world.
India, where Buddhism and Jainism originated, was the birthplace of nonviolence and used as a tool for social transformation by proponents such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Silo.
M. William Baskaran, professor of Department of Gandhian Thought and Peace Science of Gandhigram Rural Institute and T. Ravichandran, Director of Museum of Constructive Programme of Mahatma Gandhi, also spoke at the function.
It was organised by The Humanist Club of Madurai.
