Thursday, June 17, 2010

Gandhi is Dandhi (In the Proper Context), But "Human Rights" Is Crap

A statue of Mohandas Gandhi, a leader who once opined that the Jews of Europe should have willingly "offered themselves to [Hitler] the butcher's knife" (in the name of non-violence and self-sacrifice), will adorn Canada's mausoleum for "human rights," reports the Winnipeg Sun:
Six years after its arrival in Winnipeg, a bronze sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi has finally found its permanent home.
The Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights held a ceremony Wednesday officially unveiling the 500-kg statue where it is now expected to spend the rest of its days — on a path just to the south of the museum site.
"I think it's appropriate that the statue is here at this great institution," said Shashishekhar Gavai, India's high commissioner to Canada. "Mahatma Gandhi's belief in human rights was indivisible, absolute and uncompromising."
The government of India presented the statue as a gift to the Friends of CMHR in 2004.
Gail Asper, national campaign chair for the Friends, said the Indian government did so at the urging of Winnipeg doctor Naranjan Dhalla, who got the idea after discussing the museum with Asper's father Izzy, who envisioned the CMHR.
Gandhi is widely seen as one of the greatest champions of human rights, having helped lead India to independence while promoting non-violent political action.

"His was a message that peace and justice belong to all people of the world, no matter where we live," said Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt, who attended the unveiling on behalf of the city...
I can see proferring Gandhi as a symbol of passive resistence and maybe vegetarianism. (If PETA ever builds a museum, he's their man.) But "human rights"? I don't think so. Nonetheless, there he will stand, frozen in bronze, a silent witness to a concept that has been hijacked by those (Marxists, Islamists, bien-pensants, etc.) who abjure genuine human rights, and that is therefore utterly bereft of value.

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