Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 102 Part 3.djvu/326

 102 STAT. 2278

PUBLIC LAW 100-468—OCT. 3, 1988

Public Law 100-468 100th Congress Joint Resolution Oct. 3, 1988 [S.J. Res. 169]

Designating October 2, 1988, as a national day of recognition for Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Whereas Mohandas K. Gandhi sought to apply the values of truth and love, which are regarded as most precious moral values in personal life, in the difficult domain of political and social action; Whereas Gandhi remained a relentless champion of human rights and human dignity for all people, including women and minorities, throughout his lifetime; Whereas Gandhi was one of the leading figures in the effort to win freedom for his people in India and thereby helped sow the seeds of freedom and liberation in Asia and Africa; Whereas Gandhi's unmovable faith in the power of nonviolent struggle was a powerful inspiration for Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in the United States; Whereas Gandhi identified himself totally with the oppressed and sought to change their lives through the moral persuasion of the oppressor; Whereas Gandhi proclaimed that all humans are equal and that life is sacred, and treated that belief with an inviolable trust, thus echoing Abraham Lincoln; Whereas Gandhi used truth and the moral force it carried to guide both his personal and public life; Whereas Gandhi drew inspiration from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, two of Americas great thinkers, in formulating his philosophy of civil disobedience, and proclaimed that the right to participate in civil disobedience was an inherent right of all citizens; Whereas Gandhi believed that the true democrat is one who by purely nonviolent means defends his liberty and therefore, the liberty of his country, and ultimately that of the whole of mankind; Whereas Gandhi believed that the arms race placed an unbearable burden on all of humanity; Whereas Gandhi staunchly supported the claim that no society can possibly be built on the denial of individual freedom; Whereas Gandhi believed that a society that allows double standards for its citizens and its leaders is self-destructive, that political and personal morality must coincide and extend to human beings in all walks of life, and that the purification of politics requires that men and women of courage and integrity remove all taint of double standards; and Whereas Gandhi was one of those truly rare individuals who combined so admirably in word and deed the highest moral aspirations of mankind: Now, therefore, be it

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