Dr. Gita Dharampal-Frick is professor for history at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University. She studied Romanism, Cultural Ethnology, Indology and South Asia's history at Manchester, Leipzig, SOAS London
and Cambridge; promotion 1980 at Paris (Sorbonne), habilitation in newer and latest history 1992 at Freiburg/Br.; visiting professor at Stanford University, USA (1993-94);
1994-2000 Heisenberg stipend of DFG. Publications on European Asian cultural transfer and modern history of South Asia with special focus on Mahatma Gandhi
and India's independence movement.
Dr. Wolfgang Sternstein (67) is a peace and conflict researcher with a focus on theory and practice of nonviolent action (satyagraha).
Since 30 years he works in the ecology and peace movement. He participated in numerous nonviolent campaigns, stood repeatedly for trial for civil disobedience and was imprisoned nine times.
Sternstein lives in Stuttgart, Germany, and is married. He has one daughter and two sons.
It is on September 11, 2006 (9/11) that South Africa in particular and the world in general will
be observing the centenary of the birth of Satyagraha. It all started at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg
when at a meeting convened by Mahatma Gandhi who lived in South Africa for 21 years and during this period
transformed from a young lawyer to a Great Soul - the Mahatma - that Satyagraha or non-violent action was born.
In opposition to a proposed new legislation in 1906 imposing pass laws on the Indian community in South Africa,
(some of who had already been in the country since 1860) Mahatma Gandhi and his colleagues in the Congress
movement mobilised the community to oppose this Bill. Accordingly a mass meeting was convened at the Empire
Theatre in Johannesburg on September 11, 1906. This was the beginning of a movement that inspired human rights actvists
all over the world until today.
This is a trailer for a documentary short to air in the USA on September 11th. This 9/11 will not only mark the 5th anniversary of the New York terrorist attack, it is also the 100th anniversary that Mahatma Gandhi first used nonviolence against oppression in South Africa.
The film chronicles the 100 years following the 1906 protest. We get to see many, many nonviolent movements that changed history.
(Flash Player required)
>> Monday, October 2, 2006, 10:30 hrs:
Gandhi Jayanti - Celebration of Mahatma Gandhi's 137th Birth Anniversary
