October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, is traditionally celebrated as International Day of Nonviolence.

In light of world events today, January 30—the sad anniversary of his assassination—also seems a good time to revisit his work on nonviolence, resistance, and courage. Norman G. Finkelstein’s observations, recorded at the time of Occupy Wall Street, ring true today:

Bringing to bear a keen mind on a rich life experience of public service, Gandhi extracted valuable practical insights into the nature of politics, which it would be imprudent to ignore.

I first began to read Gandhi a few years ago in order to think through a nonviolent strategy for ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

But the field for the application of Gandhi’s ideas has now been vastly expanded by the emergence of the Arab Spring and nonviolence resistance movements around the world.

Gandhi’s name is everywhere on the lips of those challenging a political system that shuts out the overwhelming majority of people and an economic system that leaves them futureless.

In my own city of New York, the idea of nonviolent civil disobedience has seized the imagination of young people and energized them with the hope that they can bring even the ramparts of Wall Street tumbling down.

Gandhi devoted the whole of his adult life to organizing the powerless 99 percent against the greedy 1 percent. He aspired in the first place to end the British occupation of India, but he also recoiled at the prospect of a corrupt clique of native Indians replacing the foreign occupiers. Gandhi sought to lay the foundations for a political system in which not just nominal but also actual power was transferred to the Indian masses, and in which heath was equitably distributed but the chase after wealth ceased to be life’s purpose.

He was convinced not only that the old world could be extirpated and a new world be brought into being nonviolently, but also that unless it was done nonviolently, the new world would hardly differ from the old world it superseded.

A new generation is now experimenting with and envisioning novel ways of living, and pondering how to redistribute power and eliminate privilege. The life experience and reflections of Gandhi provide a rich trove to help guide these idealistic but disciplined, courageous but cautious, youth as they venture forth to create a brighter future.

What Gandhi Says About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage Norman G. Finkelstein Norman Finkelstein, who, drawing on extensive readings of Gandhi’s copious oeuvre and intensive reflection on the way that progress might be made in the seemingly intractable impasse of the Middle East, here sets out in clear and concise language the basic principles of Gandhi’s approach. More

METHOD AND MADNESS The hidden story of Israel’s assaults on Gaza Norman G. Finkelstein In this paradigm-shifting new book, Norman G. Finkelstein examines Israel’s major assaults on Gaza since 2008 and reveals the attacks have been designed to sabotage the possibility of a compromise peace with the Palestinians, even on terms that are favorable to it. More

OLD WINE, BROKEN BOTTLE Ari Shavit’s Promised Land Norman G. Finkelstein Like his landmark debunking of Joan Peters’s From Time Immemorial, Finkelstein’s clinical dissection of My Promised Land will be welcomed by those who yearn for a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict based on justice. More

Thinking through how a nonviolent protest might free the West Bank from Israeli occupation led the author to take a close look at Gandhi’s own writings to see just what he did say about nonviolence. One of his complaints is that Gandhi scholars in fact rarely do take a close look at the Collected Works, though surely this is transparently unfair in the case of Anthony Parel and, indeed, our own editor, George Paxton. As one would expect of a close friend of Noam Chomsky a razor-sharp intelligence is brought to bear on those writings. Finkelstein has written extensively on the Israel-Palestine conflict and maybe predictably his major critique of Gandhi’s ideas lies in their ineffectiveness for dealing with Hitler and the Holocaust. But this is a highly sophisticated analysis and is far more ambivalent in the ways it looks at such questions as Gandhi’s consistency and at the psychology underlying these ideas, other historical conflicts, above all the freedom struggle, and this is a measured recommendation for a nonviolent approach at the time of the Arab spring and the Occupy movement.

Read the full review at The Gandhi Foundation.

After an exhaustive study of Mahatma Gandhi’s works, scholar and activist Norman Finkelstein has written a new book about the principles of nonviolent resistance from the Indian struggle for independence to Tahrir Square and Zuccotti Park. He says Gandhi found “nothing more despicable than cowardice,” and argued that nonviolence does not mean running away from danger. In fact, Gandhi argued that fighting a war with weapons takes less courage than nonviolent resistance in which “you’re supposed to march into the line of fire, smilingly and cheerfully, and get yourself blown to bits.” Finkelstein’s new book is titled What Gandhi Says: About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage. Click here to see part 1 and part 2 of this interview.

See the full interview on Democracy Now!