Page:Report on the Memorial Meeting for Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/22



ALI SASTROAMIDJOJO, Minister of Education of the Republic of Indonesia and Delegate to the United Nations:

“Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Today we of the Republic of Indonesia join the citizens of India and residents of New York in mourning the death of Mahatma Gandhi. The tragedy has cast a shadow over the whole world. Humanity has lost one of its greatest men. Indonesia has lost a guide, a mentor whose courage and example have long been of strength to us. We are proud to know that Gandhi supported our struggle for independence. We are proud to know that he recognized independence as a prerequisite for Justice.

“Gandhi, the teacher of non-violence, lost his life by violence. We pray that the lesson he taught and the example he gave will not be forgotten in a world where strife and misery are common currency.

“He devoted his life to unity. We pray that that unity will be achieved. He devoted his life to alleviating misery and oppression and un¬ happiness. We pray that his death will provide spirit for those people who also battle against evil things.

“We are proud to have known Gandhi, and we are proud that we know our course in the interest of the whole world.”

NORMAN THOMAS, Socialist Leader, President of the Post War World Council:

“We honor Gandhi because he towered in spirit above us, because he was the incarnation of a good which we had not reached, and yet there is a sense in which Gandhi met his death which is once more a sense of history, a kind of incarnation of the struggle that goe3 on within ourselves and in mankind.

“Someone earlier this afternoon spoke of Gandhi’s assassin as a mad man. I am not so sure that he was mad. If he was mad, most of the world is mad. The man who assassinated him believed in principles the opposite of Gandhi’s. The struggle was between hate and love and temporarily hate and violence won.