Titans of History

Gandhi’s fragile appearance belied his iron will. Although he came from a distinguished family—his father served as prime minister in several princely states—as a youth Gandhi displayed little promise in any sphere. His politicization began in earnest when he was a young lawyer working in South Africa. Here Gandhi experienced discrimination at first hand when he was thrown off a train after a white traveler complained about the presence of an Indian in her carriage. Gandhi set about campaigning for Indian rights and in so doing developed the philosophy of protest that came to define him. Satyagraha, the “truth force,” was an all-consuming discipline that involved nonviolent resistance to an oppressive authority. It required vast inner strength that could only be achieved by extreme self-control. Gandhi pursued it in every aspect of his life. Despite being happily married he adopted celibacy—and then tested his control by sleeping naked with attractive disciples. As a law student in London he had become an ardent practitioner of vegetarianism, and fasting became a frequent practice of his, which he used for both spiritual advancement and to attain political goals. Setting up ashrams, where he lived with his wife and followers, he abandoned his worldly goods and reduced his dress to the homespun dhoti—a type of loincloth. One of the few possessions that Gandhi left at his death was a spinning wheel.

Gandhi’s campaigns against discrimination and injustice were many and varied. He fearlessly challenged social, religious and political practices in the pursuit of justice for the oppressed, be they women, peasants or nations. Visiting London in 1931 for a conference on constitutional reform, Gandhi chose to stay with the poor of the East End. A devout Hindu, he was nonetheless steadfast in his calls for a reform of the caste system and an end to the practice by which certain groups of people, by virtue of their birth, were stigmatized as untouchable. For Gandhi there was “no such thing as religion overriding morality,” and his deep religious belief never closed his mind to the merits of the beliefs of others: he considered himself not just a Hindu but “also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.” The bungled partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan on religious lines and the descent into sectarian massacres deeply distressed him, and one of his last actions was a personal fast during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1947.

Gandhi always displayed remarkable personal courage. He endured imprisonment by the British government several times, and he demonstrated more than once his willingness to risk death to secure the future of the Indian nation. As Hindu–Muslim violence threatened to consume India, Gandhi made an unarmed and unprotected pilgrimage through the heart of the unrest in Bengal in an effort to quell it. His assassination in 1948 by a Hindu extremist who resented his conciliatory stance toward Pakistan so shocked his people that it helped stop the slide into mayhem and restore order: he therefore died both a martyr and a peacemaker. “My service to my people,” he once said, “is part of the discipline to which I subject myself in order to free my soul from the bonds of the flesh … For me the path of salvation leads through the unceasing tribulation in the service of my fellow countrymen and humanity.”

TRUJILLO

1869–1961

I voluntarily, and against the wishes of my people, refuse reelection to the high office.

Rafael Trujillo

Rafael Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic for thirty-one years with savage brutality and a flamboyant personality cult, epitomizing the murderous military strongman (caudillo) and military clique (junta) that have dominated South American politics until the very recent rise of democracy in countries such as Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

Trujillo rose to commander of the Dominican army, overthrew the president and held power from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, when he handed over the presidency to his brother Hector.

As army supremo, “the Chief” (also known as the Goat) ruled in an absolute tyranny, backed by a savage secret police, the SIM (Military Intelligence Service). He covered himself in medals (hence his nickname, Bottlecaps), renamed the capital Trujillo City and the highest mountain Mount Trujillo, killed and tortured thousands of opponents and stole millions of dollars. In 1937 he ordered his troops to kill all dark-skinned “Haitians”—20,000 were slaughtered with machetes in what became known as the cutting or the Parsley Massacre (those who couldn’t pronounce the word perejil—the Spanish word for Parsley—were murdered).