- ... Promise was that I
- Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
- Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
- Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves ...
But still: the title called to me. It has sat on the shelf, unread,
until this year's resolution to tackle all of the unread books, or
give them away. Gaza was Huxley's first novel after the more famous
Brave New World. In those four years the world had changed:
Hitler became chancellor of the Weimar Republic in 1933 and quickly
transformed it into the Third Reich and the British Union of Fascists
began it's rocky rise in Great Britain.
Huxley
was a pacifist, a supporter of the Peace Pledge Union and a follower
of the visionary Gerald Heard.
The central figure of this novel, Anthony Beavis, is Huxley's
alter-ego; Miller is based on Heard.
Gaza
has passages that I would call Gandhian, yet in a letter to his
brother Julian Huxley
ridiculed Gandhi as one “who plays the ascetic in his loin cloth.”
By the time of Gandhi's funeral in 1948 Huxley's view was more
charitable and considered. He wrote: “Gandhi’s social and
economic ideas are based upon a realistic appraisal of man’s nature
and the nature of his position in the universe.” The opening of his
“Note on Gandhi,”
published in the May-June edition of the magazine Vendanta and the
West, is fascinating:
“Gandhi’s body
was borne to the pyre on a weapons carrier. There were tanks and
armored cars in the funeral procession, and detachments of soldiers
and police. Circling overhead were fighter planes of the Indian Air
Force. All these instruments of violent coercion were paraded in
honor of the apostle of non-violence and soulforce. It is an
inevitable irony; for, by definition, a nation is a sovereign
community possessing the means to make war other sovereign
communities. Consequently, a national tribute to any individual—even
if that individual be a Gandhi—must always and necessarily take the
form of a play of military and coercive might.”
Here
is an excerpt from Eyeless in Gaza, one
of many that speak directly to nonviolence. This would be an
appropriate additional reading in Lesson six of The
Class of Nonviolence, where
we discuss techniques of nonviolent action. At the time Huxley was
writing this novel, Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts were quite
famously treating hecklers with violence; contemporary readers of
this chapter would have been reminded of Mosley's rally at Olympia in
June, 1934, when the forced ejection of hecklers resulted in mob
violence.
Eyeless in Gaza
Aldous Huxley
Chapter Thirty-three
January 29, 1934
With Helen today to hear Miller
speaking at Tower Hill, during the dinner hour. A big crowd. He spoke
well – the right mixture of argument, jokes, emotional appeal. The
theme, peace. Peace everywhere or no peace at all. International
peace not achievable unless a translation into policy of
inter-individual relations. Militarists at home, in factory, in
office, towards inferiors and rivals, cannot logically expect
governments which represent them to behave as pacifists. Hypocrisy
and stupidity of those who advocate peace between states, while
conducting private wars in business or the family. Meanwhile, there
was much heckling by communists in the crowd. How can anything be
achieved without revolution? Without liquidating the the individuals
and classes standing in the way of social progress? And so on. Answer
(always with extraordinary good humor and wit): means determine ends.
Violence and coercion produce a post-revolutionary society, not
communistic but (like the Russians) hierarchical, ruled by an
oligarchy using secret police methods. And all the rest.
After about a quarter of an hour, and
angry young heckler climbed on to the little wall where Miller was
standing, and threatened to knock him off if he didn't stop. “Come
on then, Archibald.” The crowd laughed: the young man grew still
angrier, advanced, clenched, squared up. “Get down, you old
bastard, or else . . “ Miller stood quite still, smiling, hands by
his side, saying, All right; he had no objections to being knocked
off. The attacker made sparring movements, brought a fist to within a
inch of Miller's nose. The old man didn't budge, showed no sign of
fear or anger. The other drew back the hand, but instead of bringing
it into Miller's face, hit him on the chest. Pretty hard. Miller
staggered, lost his balance and fell off the wall into the crowd.
Apologized to the people he'd fallen on, got up again on the wall.
Repetition of the performance. Again the young man threatened the
face, but again, when Miller didn't lift his hands, or show either
fear or anger, hit him on the chest. Miller went down and again
climbed up. Got another blow. Came up once more. This time the man
screwed himself up to hitting the face, but only with the flat of his
hand. Miller straightened his head and went on smiling. “Three
shots a penny, Archibald.” The man let out at the body and knocked
him off the wall. Up again. Miller looked at his watch. “Another
ten minutes before you need to go back to work, Archibald. Come on.”
But this time the man could only bring himself to shake his fist and
call Miller a bloodsucking old reactionary. Then turned and walked
off along the wall, pursued by derisive laughter, jokes and
whistlings from the crowd. Miller went on with his speech.
Helen's reaction was curious. Distress
at the young man's brutality towards the old. But at the same time
anger with Miller for allowing himself to be knocked about without
resistance. The reason for this anger? Obscure; but I think she
resented Miller's success. Resented the fact that the young man had
been reduced, psychologically, to impotence. Resented the
demonstration that there was an alternative to terrorism and a
nonviolent means of combating it. “It's only a trick,” she said.
Not a very easy trick, I insisted; and that I certainly couldn't
perform it. “Anyone could learn it, if he tried.” Possibly;
wouldn't it be a good thing if we all tried? “No, I think it's
stupid.” Why? She found it hard to answer. “Because it's
unnatural,” was the reason she managed to formulate at last – and
proceeded to develop it in terms of a kind of egalitarian philosophy.
“I want to be like other people. To have the same feelings and
interests. I don't want to make myself different. Just an ordinary
person; not somebody who's proud of having learnt a difficult trick.
Like that old Miller of yours.” I pointed out that we'd all learn
such difficult tricks as driving cars, working in offices, reading
and writing, crossing the street. Why shouldn't we all learn this
other difficult trick? A trick, potentially, so much more useful. If
all were to learn it, then one could afford to be like other people,
one could share all their feelings in safety, with the certainty that
one would be sharing something good, not bad. But Helen wasn't to be
persuaded. And when I suggested that we should join the old man for a
late lunch, she refused. She said she didn't want to know him. That
the young man had been quite right; Miller was a reactionary.
Disguising himself in a shroud of talk about economic justice; but
underneath just a Tory agent. His insistence on changes in social
organizations weren't enough, but that they must be accompanied by,
must spring from a change in personal relations – what was that but
a plea for conservatism? “I think he's pernicious,” she said.
“And I think you're pernicious.” But she consented to have lunch
with me. Which showed how little stock she set on my powers to shake
her convictions! Arguments – I might have lots of good arguments;
to those she was impervious. But Miller's action had gotten between
the joints of her armor. He acted his doctrine, didn't rest content
with talking it. Her confidence that I couldn't get between the
joints, as he had done, was extremely insulting. The more so as I
knew it was justified.
Perseverance, courage, endurance. All
fruits of love. Love goodness enough, and indifference and slackness
are inconceivable. Courage comes as to the mother defending her
child; and at the same time there is no fear of the opponent, who is
loved, whatever he may do, because of the potentialities of goodness
in him. As for pain, fatigue, disapproval – they are borne
cheerfully, because they seem of no consequence by comparison with
the goodness loved and pursued. Enormous gulf separating me from this
state! The fact that Helen was not afraid of my perniciousness (as
being only theoretical), while dreading Miller's (because his life
was the same as his argument) was a painful reminder of the existence
of this gulf.
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