Gandhi
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Mahatma
Gandhi’s life (1869-1948) was one of intense personal, political and
spiritual struggle. His relentless
campaign of passive resistance to British imperial rule succeeded in liberating
300 million Indians from eighty nine years of colonial subjugation. Inspired by his total faith in ahimsa
(non-violence and love), he worked tirelessly to promote peace between warring
Hindu and Muslim factions and to improve the lives of the poor and the socially
outcast. Since his death, Gandhi’s
legacy on non-violence has had a profound influence on peace and civil rights
activists all over the world.
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King
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Gandhi once remarked, “It
may be that through the American Negro the unadulterated message of
non-violence will be delivered to the world.” In the course of his tragically short life,
Baptist minister Martin
Luther King Jr. (1912-1968), from Atlanta, Georgia, used the Gandhian
principle of non-violent resistance to underpin a momentous civil rights
movement aimed at achieving social and political equality for
African-Americans...His fierce campaigns for civil rights and his powerful
oratorical style succeeded in changing the course of history. Not only did he
empower African-Americans to face their oppressors with dignity and courage, he
also demonstrated to the world that unjust laws could be changed through
persevering with non-violence.
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Ikeda
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Daisaku Ikeda (1928 -
) is the president of an international lay Buddhist organisation called Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and locally as SGI-UK. For the last fifty years he has worked
tirelessly towards his goal of building SGI into a grassroots people’s movement
based on the process of nonviolent ‘human revolution’ – empowering the
individual through inner spiritual development. His achievements, both personally and
globally, are proof that human beings do not have to be defeated by suffering. He leads through example. Across the globe, millions of people of all
ages, cultural traditions and social backgrounds have been empowered to develop
and transform their lives, contribute to a peaceful world, and find a lasting
happiness through the guidance and inspiration of Daisaku Ikeda.
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