Đấu tranh phi bạo lực được thể hiện trong một số tác phẩm điển hình của mahatma gandhi và martin luther king, jr

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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines

NONVIOLENCE GLEANED FROM SELECTED WORKS OF
MAHATMA GANDHI AND MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

A Dissertation
Presented to the
Faculty of Graduate School
Batangas State University
Batangas City, Philippines

In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Major in English

By

LE THI THU HUONG
2015


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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Socialist Republic of Vietnam

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines


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BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines

ABSTRACT
Title:

NONVIOLENCE GLEANED FROM SELECTED WORKS
OF MAHATMA GANDHI AND MARTIN LUTHER KING,
JR.

Author:

Le Thi Thu Huong

Degree:

Doctor of Philosophy

Major:

English

Year:

2015

Adviser:

Maria Luisa A. Valdez, Ph.D.

Summary
This study analyzed the philosophy of nonviolence as embodied in the
selected literary pieces of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
pointing out the events and situations which show the teachings on
nonviolence which may be drawn from the analysis that may benefit the
Vietnamese students. Likewise, this paper tried to present the historical root of
nonviolence in India and the United States; nonviolence as dealt within the
selected works; the humanitarian issues given focus on each of the selections,
and the rhetorical devices used by the writers in projecting the humanitarian
issues particularly nonviolence.
This study employed the qualitative method of research in analyzing
Gandhi’s and King’s concept of nonviolence in the representative literary works


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Socialist Republic of Vietnam

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines

chosen. Likewise, this analysis used the historical, sociological and
philosophical approaches as the bases for analysis. In particular, the
sociological and historical approaches were supported by Teixeira’s Theory of
Nonviolence, while the philosophical approach was supported by Holmes’
Theory of Nonviolence.
This paper also involved content analysis, which is a systematic
technique in analyzing message content and message handling. The data
analysis in this research centered on pattern seeking and the extraction of
meaning from Gandhi’s and King’s selected literary narrative or image data.
The essential features in the treatment of materials were considered in the
conduct of this study. The general rules cited by Stott (2014) as regards the
seven standards pieces of literature were considered in the selection of works
under study.
The representative literary works analyzed were Young India, The Story
of My Experiments with Truth, and Harijan by Mahatma Gandhi and Stride
Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, Letter from Birmingham City Jail
and I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr. From these literatures, readers
will be able to see in them the seeds of all these two writers’ most important
teachings. The said selections were chosen because of their correlation with


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BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Republic of the Philippines

the cited theme and subthemes.
Findings of the study revealed that nonviolence originated among a few
of the forest sages of India about three thousand years ago, crossed the seas
and came to America 2,000 years after and read by Henry David Thoreau,
who was

later inspired to write nonviolent protest against the war by the

United States government against Mexico. Both Martin Luther King and
Gandhi were nonviolent advocates who gained tremendous inspiration from
their faith traditions and were able to perform tremendous feats of courage
through the implementation of non-violence. Mahatma Gandhi viewed
nonviolence as a philosophy of life while Martin Luther King, Jr. viewed
nonviolence as a political strategy.
The representative literary works of Gandhi and King may be considered
as a socio-philosophical document showing the humanitarian issues of their
times in India and America. To give deeper meanings on the concept of
nonviolence and a logical framework to their works through language as well
as to motivate readers’ imagination to visualize the characters and scenes
more clearly, Gandhi and King employed various literary devices in the
selected literary pieces. The Vietnamese students can glean teachings on
nonviolence from the representative literary works of Gandhi and King and


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Socialist Republic of Vietnam

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines

imbibe the latters’ spirit and carry forward their legacy by practicing daily the
non-violent principle. The new Vietnamese students are certainly at hand, with
literature and thoughts intertwined through the identified literary nonviolent
advocates.


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Socialist Republic of Vietnam

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Republic of the Philippines

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The researcher wishes to express her grateful appreciation to those who
helped and inspired her towards the completion of this paper.
First and foremost, she wishes to thank the Thai Nguyen University and
the Batangas State University for giving her the opportunity to finish this
undertaking under their International Academic Cooperation Program.
Dr. Dang Kim Vui, the President of the Thai Nguyen University, Assoc.
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Tuan Anh, Assoc Prof. Dr. Dang Xuan Binh, Prof. Dr. Nguyen
The Hung, the former Directors of the TNU International Training and
Development Center, Dr. Hoang Thi Bich Thao, the current Director of TNU
ITDC, Mai Van Can, MAPL, the Dean and Dang Thi Thu Huong, MAPL, the
Vice Dean of the Thai Nguyen University of Education, for their motivation and

wisdom that helped hasten the completion of this study.
Dr. Maria Luisa A. Valdez, the Dean of Colleges and Head of the
Graduate School of the Batangas State University ARASOF Nasugbu
Campus,

the

researcher’s

dissertation

adviser,

for

her

constant

encouragement, commitment, and inspiring personality which motivated the
researcher towards the realization of this study.
Dr. Matilda H. Dimaano, the Chairman of the Panel of Examiners, and


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Dr. Corazon B. Cabrera, the former External Panelist, for their thorough
dissection and candid remarks that drew up the essential and relevant
dimensions in this research.
Dr. Amada G. Banaag, Dr. Felix M. Panopio, and Dr. Myrna G. Sulit, the
Members of the Panel of Examiners, for their valuable suggestions and
constructive criticism which motivated her to analyze conscientiously all the
inputs during the conduct of this study.
Dr. Remedios P. Magnaye, the Recording Secretary and Ms. Le Quynh
Anh, the ITDC Administrative Staff, for their words of encouragement and kind
gestures.
The researcher’s friends, who generously gave their time, advice, and
prayers.
Her parents and child Lam Hoang Minh, along with her sister, Le Thi
Thanh Hoa, for the the wholehearted support to her during the writing process.

LE THI THU HUONG


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Socialist Republic of Vietnam

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines

DEDICATION

To my ever dearest son, Lam Hoang Minh.

LE THI THU HUONG


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TITLE PAGE........................................................................................ i
APPROVAL SHEET............................................................................ ii
ABSTRACT......................................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT........................................................................ vii
DEDICATION....................................................................................... ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................... x
LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................. xii
LIST OF MATRICES........................................................................... xiii
CHAPTER
I. THE PROBLEM
Introduction............................................................ 1
Statement of the Problem ..................................... 9
Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study..... 11
Significance of the Study ....................................... 13
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Conceptual Literature............................................. 16
Research Literature................................................ 50


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Synthesis................................................................ 57
Theoretical Framework ......................................... 62
Conceptual Framework ......................................... 68
Definition of Terms................................................. 69
III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURE
Research Design................................................... 73
Treatment of Materials........................................... 74
IV. ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION............................. 80
V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Summary of Findings............................................ 230
Conclusions .......................................................... 237
Recommendations................................................ 238
BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................241
APPENDICES………………………………………………………... 250
A. Summary of Selections.................................................. 251
CURRICULUM VITAE…………………………………………………… 262

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure
1

Title

Page

Conceptual Paradigm of the Study …………….....................67


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LIST OF MATRICES

Matrix
1

2

Title

Page

Matrix on the Teachings on Nonviolence
Drawn from the Analysis of the Selections
of Mahatma Gandhi……………………………………..

214

Matrix on the Teachings on Nonviolence
Drawn from the Analysis of the Selections
of Martin Luther King, Jr. ……………………………..

218


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Socialist Republic of Vietnam

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CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
Introduction
A lot of disciplines with distinctive tactics and theoretical orientations
have confronted the multi-level and multi-dimensional theory of nonviolence.
Such confrontation is analogous to the group of blind men approaching an
elephant for investigation; the disciplines being the blind men, and the huge
elephant,

nonviolence.

Relative

to

this,

theologians,

historians,

anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and political scientists have
shared their intelligent views on the topic with the people’s understanding of
nonviolence and nonviolent acts.
The complexity of non-nonviolence is greater than how people perceive
it. Nonviolence is not the nonexistence of violence; it is an action that employs
power and influence to accomplish a goal without inflicting physical injury to
the persons opposed to that goal’s achievement. Sometimes, nonviolence is
an ethical action grounded on a fundamental belief system that aims to fathom
the truth within a conflict, trusts in non-cooperation with evil, looks at violence

as something to be evaded, and manifests a willingness to accept the weight
of suffering to break the sequence of violence. The ultimate purpose of
principled nonviolence is to confront prejudice so as to cause an upturn of


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Republic of the Philippines

social justice minus the use of direct violence. Nevertheless, nonviolence may
be employed as a practical approach to attain one’s goals without a principled
belief structure to back it up. This pragmatic nonviolence considers behavior
that is nonviolent to be an effective method to determine the conflict, and uses
it in the confrontation of a conflict situation without employing direct violence.
Yet, it does not hold a belief system that is held by people who practice
principled violence.
Even with an astonishing lack of attention and broadcasting in the news,
as well as educational channels, nonviolence has been widely employed and
oftentimes successfully used all throughout the last two millennia. Even the
twentieth century, which is described by a lot of people as one of the bloodiest
times in terms of military and civilian victims of war, several nonviolent
movements made their impact on history by positive ends. Nonviolent activism
was, on a regular basis, quite successful around the world. This is evident from
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to the United States of America
(USA), from the Greensboro sit-ins to the Green Movement, from Cambodia to
Czechoslovakia, from the Orange Hats in Washington D.C. to the Orange

Revolution in Ukraine. Nonviolence also dealt with many grievance issues in a
range of contexts like those from dictators to democracies, from voting rights to


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human rights, from safety to Salt laws. The beginning of the twenty-first
century sustained the momentum generated in the twentieth century.
Because the twentieth century is remembered as a century where more
than 100 million lives were lost in war, it has been referred to as the bloodiest
century in human history. The twentieth century was also the first era in human
history wherein a lot of extensive nonviolent movements triumphed over
oppressive regimes, every so often in the face of devastating military control.
Despite the fact that men have transitioned into the 21st century, fierce human
fighting in Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, D. R. Congo, South Sudan, Iraq, Libya
Israel/ Gaza, Pakistan, Nigeria, and in the Philippines and other nations in the
Asia Pacific region get their attention and obscure the varied and countless
nonviolent social movements that are happening around the world.
Nonviolence has been used widely and oftentimes successfully over the
last two millennia worldwide. Despite the fact that many people might be more
acquainted with the fighting and armed conflicts of the 20th

century, the

dozens of nonviolent campaigns verified the prevalence and triumph of this
concept as a political tactic in a variety of locations, in a variety of contexts,
and across time. Political action without the use of violence has included the
dynamic engagement with degrading human conditions, with the practical


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objective of changing such conditions to more caring social situations.
A lot of people are familiar with nonviolent struggles through the lives of
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The activism of these two

individuals minus the use of violence has helped mold men’s concept of
nonviolence as a political tactic and as a philosophy of life as well.
As the forerunner of Satyagraha, or resistance by means of massive civil
disobedience without the use of violence, Indian pro-self-government leader
Mohandas Karamch and Gandhi, more universally-known as Mahatma Gandhi
turned into one of the key spiritual and political leaders of his time. Satyagraha
continues to be one of the most powerful philosophies in independence
struggles all over the world today.
In 1914, Gandhi went back to India, where he reinforced the Home Rule
movement, and emerged to be the leader of the Indian National Congress,

campaigning for a strategy of non-violent non-cooperation to attain
independence. His purpose was to support poor laborers and farmers in
protesting against oppressive taxation and discrimination. He fought hard to
liberate women, to alleviate poverty, and most of all to end racial and caste
discrimination, with the final goal being self-rule for India.
Shortly after his civil disobedience campaign (1919-1922), he was


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imprisoned for conspiracy (1922-1924). In 1930, he directed a landmark 320
km/200 mi rally to the sea to gather salt in symbolic disobedience of the
government domination. After his discharge from prison (1931), he took part in
the London Round Table Conference on Indian statutory reform. In 1946, he
made negotiations with the Cabinet Mission which endorsed the new
constitutional framework. After the independence (1947), he tried to put an end
to the Hindu-Muslim battle in Bengal, a strategy which led to his murder in
Delhi by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.
Long after his death, Gandhi's commitment to nonviolent resistance and
his love for simple living - making his own clothing, eating vegetarian food and
fasting for self-purification as well as a means of demonstration have been an
inspiration of hope for beleaguered and marginalized people all over the world.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote a lot of quotations in English in a weekly journal
entitled Young India. It was a Week shed that he published from 1919 to 1932.

Such writings inspired many, and Gandhi used the journal as an avenue to
spread his distinctive ideology and insights in terms of the use of nonviolence
in establishing movements and to encourage readers to reflect on, collaborate,
and plan for India's subsequent independence from Britain.
Gandhi’s autobiography, showcasing his life since early childhood all the


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way through 1921, was entitled The Story of My Experiments with Truth. The
said autobiography was written on a weekly basis and was published in his
journal Navjivan, from 1925 to 1929. The publishing was initiated at the
assertion of Swami Anand and other close co-workers of Gandhi, who urged
him to expound on the background of his public movements. In 1999, a
committee of international spiritual and religious authorities regarded the book
as “one of the 100 Best Spiritual Books of the 20th Century."
Gandhi published a weekly newspaper called Harijan, in English from
1933 to 1948. Harijan, in other words, "People of God" or “Children of God”,
was likewise Gandhi's word for the untouchable caste. Gandhi was imprisoned
in India for the first time for his brave articles written in Young India. Despite
that, he never succumbed to any gagging instruction issued by the
Government.
On the other hand, one of the twentieth century’s most prominent figures
named Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a builder

of the nonviolent civil rights campaign.

He was an eloquent supporter of

nonviolence and an author of several books as well. Being one of the most
famous orators in U.S. history, his sermons, writings and speeches are very
inspiring and timeless.


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King’s book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story is a wideranging, revelatory, and intimate description of the first successful massive
application of nonviolent resistance in the United States. King regarded the
book as the chronicle of 50,000 Negroes who knew the principles of
nonviolence by heart, who learned to fight for their human rights by means of
the clout of love and who, in the course, acquired a new appraisal of their
personal human worth. It goes back to the remarkable journey of a community,
and illustrates the manner by which the twenty-six-year-old King, plus his
conviction for fairness and nonviolence, helped change the nation and the
world.
In 1963, after King took the movement of nonviolent force into
Birmingham, Alabama, he was apprehended and jailed, together with his
fellow supporters for leading a demonstration march. At the jail, King wrote the
Letter from Birmingham City Jail that explains and affirms his nonviolent and

straight action. The document catches the flavor of the peaceful movement
that carried such significant changes in the trend of social interaction in a lot of
cities and towns of South America.
Within the level of the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln, which
was delivered 100 years earlier, King’s I Have a Dream speech is, by far, one


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of the most unforgettable in America’s history. It was delivered on the
stepladders of the Washington, D. C. Lincoln memorial in 1963, where about a
quarter of a million people assembled for a March for Jobs and Freedom to
convince President John F. Kennedy and the Congress to issue a national civil
rights bill.
Nonviolence, as supported by Gandhi and King, upholds peace by
reaching up to the high power party’s cooperation, friendship and
understanding, instead of humiliation and defeat. Nonviolence is an avenue for
stirring a sense of moral shame and injustice in the high-power parties. It
conquers injustice by giving high-power parties the message that they will gain
more by stopping oppression and injustice, than by sustaining them. It is
geared at creating reconciliation, redemption, and a community described by
mutual benefit and equal justice. Advocates of nonviolence vouch for it as
providing the means of attaining peace and the defining feature of the peace
achieved indivisible.

The wisdom exemplified in the selection of works of Mahatma Gandhi
and the selection of works of Martin Luther King, Jr. may help the Vietnamese
students to contemplate on their values and lives when they develop
awareness of their true philosophical dimension. Their works could describe


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behaviors that define these students’ attitude about life in a broad spectrum
and about specific actions in particular. They may appropriately be regarded
as transformers of human acts, manipulating their profound motivations. They
are interwoven in the raw materials of the societal development of a
Vietnamese student as an individual co-existing in a community of people.
Certainly, they provide a peaceful avenue to sustain the struggles for nation
building.
With these thoughts in mind, the researcher, who is an English teacher
at the Thai Nguyen University of Education is deeply motivated to explore and
undertake an analysis of how nonviolence is reflected in the selected works of
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and gain honest implications on
the teachings of nonviolence that may be drawn from the analysis which shall
benefit Vietnamese students.
Statement of the Problem
This study is an analysis of nonviolence gleaned from the selected
works of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. with the end view of

identifying the teachings that may be drawn from the analysis which shall
benefit Vietnamese students.
Specifically, it sought answers to the following questions:


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BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines

1. What is the historical root of nonviolence in India and America?
2. How is nonviolence dealt with in the following selected works?
2.1 Mahatma Gandhi
2.1.1 Young India
2.1.2 The Story of My Experiments with Truth
2.1.3 Harijan
2.2 Martin Luther King, Jr.
2.2.1 Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

2.2.2 Letter from Birmingham City Jail
2.2.3 I Have a Dream
3. What humanitarian issues are given focus on the selections?
4. What rhetorical devices are used by writers in projecting the humanitarian
issues particularly non-violence relative to:
4.1 ethos (ethics);
4.2 pathos (persuasion); and
4.3 logos (logic)?

5. What teachings on nonviolence maybe drawn from the analysis which shall
benefit Vietnamese students?


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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines

Scope, Delimitation and Limitation of the Study
This study analyzed the philosophy of nonviolence as embodied in the
selected literary pieces of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
pointing out the events and situations which show the teachings on
nonviolence that maybe drawn from the analysis that may benefit the
Vietnamese students. Likewise, this paper tried to present the historical root of
nonviolence in India and the United States; nonviolence as dealt within the
selected works; the humanitarian issues given focus on each of the selections,
and the rhetorical devices used by the writers in projecting the humanitarian
issues particularly nonviolence.
This study employed the qualitative method of research in analyzing
Gandhi’s and King’s concept of nonviolence in the representative literary works
chosen. Likewise, this analysis used the historical, sociological and
philosophical approaches as the bases for analysis. In particular, the
sociological and historical approaches were supported by Teixeira’s Theory of
Nonviolence, while the philosophical approach was supported by Holmes’
Theory of Nonviolence.
This paper also involved content analysis, which is a systematic

technique in analyzing message content and message handling. The data


12

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Republic of the Philippines

analysis in this research centered on pattern seeking and the extraction of
meaning from Gandhi’s and King’s selected literary narrative or image data.
Much effort was focused on the task of recording texts or making notes
through concepts and categories; linking and combining abstract concepts;
extracting the essence; organizing meaning; writing an understanding; and
drawing conclusions.
The essential features in the treatment of materials were considered in
the conduct of this study. The general rules cited by Stott (2014) as regards
the seven standards pieces of literature were considered in the selection of the
works under study.
The representative literary works analyzed were Young India, The Story
of My Experiments with Truth, and Harijan by Mahatma Gandhi and Stride
Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, Letter from Birmingham City Jail
and I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr. From these literatures, readers
will be able to see in them the seeds of all these two writers’ most important
teachings. The said selections were chosen because of their correlation with
the cited theme and subthemes; the humanitarian issues given focus in the
selections; the rhetorical devices which helped in projecting the humanitarian
issues particularly nonviolence relative to ethos, pathos and logos; and the