ABSTRACT
In the past seventy years, the experience of nonviolent changes in the political works of Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi exemplify each universal value of the global Gandhian moment. Far from being utopian, the Gandhian emphasis on an ethical politics based on nonviolence and mutual respect may be the most practical path to achieve democracy in a world exhausted from the seemingly endless repression and bloodshed that has resulted from the belief that violence is the real source of power. The core of Gandhi’s theory of politics is to show that the true subject of the political is the citizen and not the State. This chapter thus reiterates that in a world challenged by new forms of conflict and violations of human rights it is ever more important today to think and ask questions about the universality of nonviolence.
