This year 2010
the Thakore Family Foundation, The India Club of Vancouver, Institute
for the Humanities and the J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities at
Simon Fraser University celebrates the 20th annual Gandhi Jayanti
Celebration with an Award to Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley Adam,
distinguished authors and teachers whose books on peacemaking and
non-violent change in South Africa and in divided societies have
brought them many honors.
They will speak
on October 3 at 7:30 p.m. on the subject of
Gandhi and
Mandela: Reconciliation in Deeply Divided Societies
The talk will
compare Gandhi and Mandela who have been elevated to global icons of
non-violent change. They stand for a secular, universalist and
cosmopolitan vision. Linked by their struggles to dislodge
exploitative external colonialism in the case of India, and internal
colonialism in South Africa, they soared above the extremists of their
times to seek out alternatives to restore dignity to the human
condition regardless of caste, class, color or creed. Yet these noble
ideals often founder on a contrary reality. The ‘burden of history’
shapes collective memory.
By comparing
Gandhi’s and Mandela’s successes and failures we can draw lessons for
post-conflict reconstruction. How do societies deal with the crimes of
their past? How can perpetrators and victims of gross human rights
violations be reconciled and justice as well as peaceful co-existence
secured?
The two-part
lecture demystifies Gandhi and Mandela by referring to India,
‘rainbow’ South Africa and the elusive peace in Israel/Palestine. By
asking, How can Gandhi and Mandela’s visions of reconciliation be
revived in a violence-prone world, the talk will add to our
understanding of the cultural and political roots of violence and
peacemaking.
Kogila
Moodley
is Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Education at UBC and was the
first holder of the David Lam Chair. Raised in the Indian community of
apartheid South Africa, her research is focused on critical
multiculturalism and anti-racism education. She has served as President
of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on
Ethnic, Minority and Race Relations (1998-2002).
Heribert Adam,
FRSC, is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at SFU and also holds an annual
appointment at the University of Cape Town. Educated at the Frankfurt
School of critical theory with Adorno and Habermas as mentors, his most
recent books, co-authored with Kogila Moodley, are: Seeking Mandela:
Peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians (Temple University
Press, 2006) and, as editor, Hushed Voices: Unacknowledged Atrocities
of the 20th Century (Berkshire Academic Press, 2010).