Gandhi’s Wonder Years

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Your opera traces Gandhi's ideas from Tolstoy to Martin Luther King Jr. In our age of global terrorism, do you think those ideas can work in the Mideast? In Tibet?
They are the only ideas that can--and will--work. Even generals are now saying, force is not the answer. We've seen it again and again. In Iraq, we see the disaster of the Bush administration's utter lack of understanding of how history works. They've turned that country into a living nightmare. The only thing that can help us is active nonviolence. If that does not work, I don't know what can. It's hard to be optimistic, but we can be inspired by Gandhi and King. Gandhi is more present in our lives now than he ever was.

Gandhi used boycotts to great effect. Should we boycott the Olympics?
Absolutely. The Olympic Committee must--the Chinese were given the honor of presenting the Games on the basis of their agreement to respect human rights, and they've begun a genocide. They must be censored, and if the Olympic Committee doesn't do so, individual countries--starting with ours--must do it. Sports, art and culture are powerful tools. I wrote the music for the 1984 Olympics' lighting of the torch, and a piece for the Olympics in Athens in 2004. I have a great belief in the power of sports as a culture. Human values are shared through sports. People can come together. The Olympics should be a model of our behavior, they should not be given away to murderers and despots. But that story is not yet over.

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Posted By: leighE @ 05/05/2008 1:14:12 PM

I am disturbed by Mr. Glass's irresponsible and unsubstantiated statement that "China's engaged in a genocide of an entire nation". His glib use of the word "genocide" diminishes the gravity of the true meaning of a genocide. He is obviously capitalizing on the China demonization bandwagon and in doing so, trying to find relevance for an opera conceived thirty years ago. If his opera is worth its salt, it should be able to stand on its own merit without having to resort to the use of a well-worn political crutch.
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Posted By: Sinibaldi @ 04/26/2008 2:30:37 PM

The red carpet of my shoulder.

Early in the
morning, when
gloomy canticles
rejoice in the
sound of the quietness,
I hear a scrupulous
voice on the sun
of a summer, while
a sadness delights
and discovers a care.

Francesco Sinibaldi
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Posted By: Ganpat @ 04/22/2008 5:18:02 AM

Gandhi's career is proof if it was ever needed about how people prefer foolish sentiment to serious thought.

Gandhians don't care to know who Gandhi was or even what he actually stood for.

He asked the British to surrender to Hitler. I have asked his crazed admirers: Do you agree with that demand? They change the subject.

Gandhi raised a bloody rebellion against he Britishin 1942 at the desperate height of the Japanese invasion threat to India. I have asked his lunatic "believers": Do you agree with that action? They change the subject.

India got its freedom from British rule not because of this vain and largely destructive old man but because of British exhaustion after World War 2 and the fear of Communism spreading if Britain stayed.