The Political and Educational Ideas of Two Great Thinkers From the Geographical South: Freire and Gandhi

• In Event: Paulo Freire as a Global Public Intellectual: Dialectics of the Global and the Local

Abstract

Gandhi from India and Freire from Brazil (two BRIC countries) were two of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. Although known globally for his non-violent resistance to colonial rule in India, Gandhi is not known for his educational experiments and theories. Nor have his political ideas of non-violence (ahimsa), satyagraha (truth) and sarvodaya (welfare of all) been applied to education. Freire’s educational theories and ideas on social liberation of the people (conscientização and praxis) have political implications and he was exiled from his country by a military dictatorship. He is known in the West perhaps because his exile from Brazil brought him to the USA. Both conveyed a message of hope for oppressed people. Both developed educational models which would liberate the minds of people.
This presentation briefly compares their political and educational philosophies, and discusses their application to education that aimed to end injustice and oppression. Gandhi and Freire were more complex than is immediately apparent. Both struggled with contradictions: Gandhi with the contradictions between the theoretical and the spiritual, as well as the practical and the real. Freire’s contradiction was between the intersections of power and inequality within a democratic society. Nonetheless, both had ideas that were transformational, and they were undoubtedly paradigm shifters. If peace and sustainable development are to be achieved, their ideas have particular relevance for global citizenship education in today’s world.

Author

• Ratna Ghosh, McGill University