I'm a chess player. I've been watching the Wijk ann Zee Chess Tournament sponsored this year by Tata Steel currently being held in the Netherlands and what do I read in The Essential Writings of Gandhi this morning? A speech Gandhi gave at the Indian Association on 8 August 1925 about his visit to the Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur, India.
Gandhi describes himself as a "labourer." "There is a great Latin saying of which the meaning is 'to labour is to pray', and on of the finest writers of Europe has said that a man is not entitled to eat unless he labours, and by labour, he does not mean labour with the intellect, he means labour with the hands."
I have been a laborer (a jet mechanic, a lawn mower, a bicycle repairer, a roofer, a cook, a housekeeper) and have sometimes described myself that way, but I have never taken pride in it as Gandhi did. I've always felt that it was somehow demeaning. That truly intelligent people sat on the rears and thought for a living. Intelligent people manipulated data and information to make their daily bread. That somehow, at the end of the day, if my hands and clothes were dirty, I had failed as a breadwinner.
My parents dreamed of me having a college education and working with my mind and not struggling with my brawn. This is not to blame them. I did not want to be a laborer. I did not want to work with my hands.
How many Americans felt like my parents did, feel like I do? And we wonder why immigrants clean our bathrooms. We wonder why jobs in Detroit are now in Mexico. We wonder why China and India are now overtaking our economy.
I live in a community with many immigrants. I often see the small business owners out in front of their shops sweeping and washing the public sidewalk. They have pride.
Am I entitled to eat today?
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