A vow of unity (3/3)

April 19, 2023

This the last post in a series (links to first and second parts) looking at an article Gandhi wrote in April 1919, The Vow of Hindu-Muslim Unity. It built on the spirit of unity after the first national day of fasting, or as he described it, ‘this auspicious occasion… when a wave of satyagraha is sweeping over the whole country.’

The two major political parties in America often engage in similar provocative behavior as the two major religions in India did. Gandhi’s article concluded with a proposed vow of unity that individuals and assemblies could make, which leads to the obvious question; what would a vow of political unity look like? First, here’s what Gandhi wrote:

With God as witness we Hindus and [Muslims] declare that
we shall behave towards one another as children of the same parents,
that we shall have no differences, that the sorrows of each shall be the
sorrows of the other and that each shall help the other in removing
them. We shall respect each other’s religion and religious feelings and
shall not-stand in the way of our respective religious practices. We
shall always refrain from violence to each other in the name of
religion.

In America, our political parties are children of the same parent; the Constitution. One idea I’ve been developing is that sorrows spring from people facing coercion, with the difference arising from the type each identifies with. In the case of Republicans, the primary concern is physical coercion. Since the government generally has a monopoly on physical force, this leads naturally to a desire to limit government. It also explains an obsession with guns, as a way to resist physical coercion.

Democrats, on the other hand, primarily see sorrow in people being subjected to economic coercion. This leads to a desire to see wealth and income more evenly distributed, including strong protections for workers who may be at the mercy of an employer who controls their income. It also explains a focus on legal access to abortion, since the well-off have always had access to those services regardless of the law.

What would it look to build consensus around reducing BOTH forms of coercion? This, I believe, is what the American Union can accomplish, with its three planks of ending poverty, mass incarceration, and the endless wars.

I took a shot at tweaking Gandhi’s vow of unity for American politics;

“We Republicans and Democrats declare that we shall behave towards one another as fellow Americans and devotees of the Constitution, that the sorrows of one shall be the sorrows of all, and that we shall help the other in minimizing or removing them. We shall respect each other’s party preference and shall not stand in the way of governing. We shall always refrain from violence to each other in the name of politics.”

It’s a start, anyway. Like the fast Gandhi used to create the feeling of unity, the fast for peace each month on the 15th is an opportunity for all people and parties to come together and create a shared intention.

What do you think of the theory that the major parties try to address different types of coercion Americans face?