Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Illustrations
- Archive sources
- Abbreviations
- 1 The making of an internationalist
- 2 The humanising of an intellectual
- 3 The discovery of Gandhi
- 4 Quaker interventions
- 5 The 1930s
- 6 The Second World War
- 7 To India with the Friends' Ambulance Unit
- 8 Campaigning in Britain and the USA
- 9 Indian independence and its aftermath
- 10 India and the quest for a sustainable world order
- Appendix: Fritz Berber in the Second World War
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - The Second World War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Illustrations
- Archive sources
- Abbreviations
- 1 The making of an internationalist
- 2 The humanising of an intellectual
- 3 The discovery of Gandhi
- 4 Quaker interventions
- 5 The 1930s
- 6 The Second World War
- 7 To India with the Friends' Ambulance Unit
- 8 Campaigning in Britain and the USA
- 9 Indian independence and its aftermath
- 10 India and the quest for a sustainable world order
- Appendix: Fritz Berber in the Second World War
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
War comes again
On 20 May 1937 Alexander opened the Peace Committee session of London Yearly Meeting. He reminded his hearers of the Gospel story of Jesus and the rich young man who could not bring himself to give up his possessions and enter a life of voluntary poverty. He applied this to Britain's position as an imperial power, protecting itself by maintaining tariffs against competitors, and holding on to outposts like Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus and Hong Kong. Such clinging to possessions inevitably incited rival powers to make their own claims, and there was a need to break out of the whole predicament.
It must not be a surrender to threats, or a surrender due to fear. It must be a surrender of Empire for something more glorious than any empire – that man may live at one with God in bonds of firm necessity.… Like Peter of old, we must pay heed first of all to what Jesus says to us: ‘Follow thou Me.’
Alexander was speaking ten days after the coronation of George VI, an event marked by profuse affirmations of loyalty from all parts of the worldwide British Empire, and followed by a month-long Imperial Conference in which the beneficent role of the Empire was reviewed and illustrated. It may well be that Friends felt they had had a surfeit of patriotism, and found Alexander's audacity refreshing.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Gandhi's InterpreterA Life of Horace Alexander, pp. 126 - 150Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2010