The International Online Fellowship Program
on Nonviolence and Peace
IFPNP- IV, 2025-2026
Presidential Address of Dr. Michael Sonnleitner, IFPNP Opening Session
Dr. Michael W. Sonnleitner
Gandhi was born in Porbandar Gujarat on this day in 1869. I was born in 1949 just about a year and a half after Gandhi left this world. I didn't become familiar with Gandhi for 20 years. As a young man, I was a Republican. I was my father's child. I was patriotic. And originally, I was also very much pro-war because I saw the heroism in soldiers. I still do. I think what I came to become convinced of was the need for nonviolent soldiers. I would like to build on a little from the thoughtful presentation of Dr. Ogarit Younan. In 1969, I was born again not as a disciple of Gandhi, because Gandhi did not want Gandhiians. Gandhi wants people to follow their own truth. As we will see in this course, satyagraha is a dynamic process not merely a strategy. A process for conflict resolution that moves us from truth to truth. Gandhi proclaimed that we should listen to everyone including our opponents. That all of humankind was capable of being kind. We should always appeal to the best in the nature of others as well as ourselves. One of my big complaints, I have many about people who discuss Gandhi is that they do not want to get into his soul in soul force. They want to avoid religion and metaphysics. They want to make him secular thereby perhaps more accessible to everyone. It is my view that we cannot fully understand Gandhi without seeking to understand him. Not just his actions but his worldview, his view of the soul. That's something I will hope we can emphasize later.
Gandhi’s view of
the soul is very different from that of Martin Luther King Jr. . Martin Luther
King Jr. is not a disciple of Gandhi. He really couldn't be because he didn't
understand Gandhi very well. My research on Martin Luther King Jr., which also
included interviewing over 30 people who had known King personally, including,
for example, his best friend Ralph Abernathy and John Lewis, who later became
an icon in the US Congress. I won't get off onto that tangent, but we can
reflect on this aspect later in this course. See how Gandhi is distinct in many
ways. He inspires others, including myself. But we are to be our own people. It
is not a criticism of Martin Luther King Jr. to say he was not a disciple. King
was King. And there are a variety of strategies of nonviolence. People use the
same word. In fact, they sometimes use the two words soul force meaning
different things because we have our own cultures. But ultimately, I would like
to say Ogarit is very correct in saying we need to choose nonviolence for life.
What we mean by nonviolence, what we mean by soul force, that is something we
need to clarify if we are to be effective educators and activists. I have a
very slight disagreement with Ogarit. I like to openly show areas of agreement
and disagreement so that we can have a dynamic learning. That is the educator
in me. The very slight disagreement perhaps is I do not believe we need a new
Gandhi in the world.
That's a strange thing to
say. What I do think is we need to be a new Gandhi in the world. Each of us, we
need to be the change we want to see in the world. And that might not be simply
wearing khadi or having all sorts of photographs in your room that remind you
of your values and your commitments. It is to be yourself, the self within you,
the God within you. And that God is love. That God is the only way to truth. We
cannot claim to have all the truth. Or if we do, like President Donald Trump,
we have some problems because what can we say? Self-righteousness is not
righteousness. We don't need egotistical leaders, power- hungry, authoritarians
who want to silence speech and create havoc throughout the world. We don't need
that. What we need, I believe, is to be who we can be. Now, that is for you.
You've been given the gift of life. What are you going to do with it?
Are you going to
try to live nonviolence more and more each day, admitting your shortcomings,
your foolishness, and moving on gradually to be a better person, to build a
better world. That does require resistance but it's not a matter of strategy.
If we look at Gandhi or Martin Luther King or others as people advocating
strategies for change, we can do that. There is a place for Gene Sharp and his
monumental volumes on nonviolence, particularly The Politics of
Nonviolent Action, that he produced when he was at Harvard University. Very
intellectual, very stimulating, very inspiring. Yet it doesn't really
understand Gandhi. It looks only at a strategy. The strategy of nonviolence too
often is seen to fail as soon as repression of the activists take place. As
soon as Gandhi or King were assassinated, they failed. Their nonviolence didn't
stand up to violence. Well, yes it did. As Gandhi would and did say, repression
is a sign of your effectiveness. It's at that very point when the powers that
be are disturbed by your nonviolent direct action.
It's at that point that repression takes place and you can say I am not invisible. They are threatened. The status quo is threatened. You must stand firm according to Gandhi to death. Death itself has a purpose. It is not to be avoided. A good soldier must be willing to die in the body. Gandhi and I do not believe that that is the end. That our soul lives on. Not simply metaphorically in the way that it inspires others but literally lives on. I believe that the soul is the force of God within us. If we surrender to it, nothing is impossible for God. Gandhi would say that time and time and time again in South Africa and later. Nothing is impossible for God. I believe that too and that leaves me more optimistic even when the US government shuts down. This is the day after my country has no operational budget. It's funny in my way. We have two million people in the military and a budget that is greater than any in the history of the world.
And yet the
budget cannot be continued without an act of Congress. A1 trillion dollar per
year annual budget for the military only. Just the Department of Defence cannot
be continued unless Congress, our legislative branch, agrees to it. And you
notice nobody is complaining about that. Not the Democrats, not the
Republicans. They're fighting over healthcare. Well, I would say the greatest
threat to health in the world is extreme militarism, which the United States is
the symbol of worldwide. This small country with less than 5% of the world's
population consumes over 40% of what the world produces. Which is logical
because we spend over 40% of what the entire world spends on its military. The
American empire and it is an empire. It is not at issue if this government
shutdown. The two major parties are not that far in disagreement when it comes
to money and corporate influence. Health care is important. On the other hand,
we're not going to have a lot of health if we have utterly destroyed our
environment through climate change.
We're not
going to have good health the next time, if we have a major nuclear
war. That'll be the end very quickly. So the bottom line is I believe we need
to be the change we want to see in the world. In this course, I hope that we
will gain some of the tools, a lot of the intellectual stimulation that will
help us produce our own plan of action in our own countries, in our own
neighbourhoods. My college, Portland Community College, is one of 2,000 2-year,
they are called associate degree institutions in the United States. My college
of the 2000 is in the top 20 in size. We currently have over 50,000 students.
We are the largest educational institution in the state of Oregon where I live.
Some 35 years ago, and yes, I'm a little older than 35 years. Thirty Five years
ago, when I first came to this state and this community college, I helped to
organize the first peace studies program in the United States at the community
college in the United States.
We were the first out of
2,000. This was 1988. That program has every year taught a core course that
includes Gandhi. At least a month of sessions are devoted to Gandhi and
non-violence. I find that very helpful for students in the United States
because I think in many parts of the world, Gandhi challenges us to think in
ways that are not binary. As you will see, Gandhi doesn't see violence and
nonviolence as two separate things. He sees violence and nonviolence on a
continuum where we are all each of us both violent and nonviolent at the same
time. We need to decide the degree of love that we want to embody in our lives.
We need to surrender to that truth within us to be more compassionate towards
others. I hope that this course helps all of you do that. Gandhi is respected
but nonviolence typically is not. Ogarit points out that I think has many roots
but a big one is a dualistic way of thinking of violence and nonviolence. Many
people reject nonviolence because they see it as weak and kind of impractical.
It's either
violence or nonviolence. Either or. Either or. That's binary thinking. And
because they feel oppression and they feel injustice and because violence is
strong and nonviolence is weak. They love Gandhi, but they do not have respect
for nonviolence. It's logical if you think of it in a binary either-or cultural
paradigm. I hope that we can go beyond that paradigm and see Gandhi as Gandhi.
And I hope that we can be inspired by his life which was his message for us. We
have a world to save unlike any other point in time in history. We now have the
capacity to destroy life on this planet through multiple means. Gunpowder
didn't do it. Crossbows didn't do it. Even the bubonic plague didn't do it. It
killed half of Europe. But today, we can do the entire destruction in less than
30 minutes through a large-scale nuclear war. We have the capacity and we
are playing with fire and we will be burned sooner or later.
We must, I
believe, commit ourselves to not a strategy, but to a lifestyle that radically
changes the foundation upon which much of human culture now seems bent on
glorifying wealth, status, riches and power. Gandhi was not about these things.
I hope that we can also be inspired by him and I'll finish with a last quote
attributed to Gandhi. One of my favourite quotes has always been but I will
share with you only recently a Muslim friend discovered that this is a very
common quote that Gandhi took from Islam. Gandhi borrowed it and he had many
Muslim friends including Sheikh Mahtab in his youth. I think he learned
many things and this quote I find inspiring. It is that we should learn as if
we would live forever and live as if we would die tomorrow. I hope that we can
learn from this course and live as long as and learn as long as we live. But
death is not the enemy. Death is something to be accepted. And if we live as if
we would die tomorrow, maybe we will find within us the radical capacity for
change that the world needs.
Thank you very much.
Michael Sonnleitner
October 2, 2025
Portland Oregon, USA
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