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us only half of Gandhi, and that is not enough.
This blindness is evident in the Movement's international con–
cerns. The Movement's map of the world reminds me of the old
cartoon: "A New Yorker's Map of America." Instead of New York
looming so large, Berkeley takes first place, and as for the rest of the
world, there is Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, and perhaps
the Congo, but virtually nothing else. The overseas map might have
been drawn by the Pentagon, for it focuses almost entirely on the
parts of the world where violence has taken over. One can find very
few references in the literature of the New Left to Brazil, Nigeria or
India.
This is a strange lapse, when one considers that so much of what
the New Left says about Vietnam and the Dominican Republic implies
that the present situation in those countries is at least partially attribut–
able to our failure to support the democratic participation and eco–
nomic and social development of those peoples before the military
crisis came.
Despite the apparent preoccupation of the New Radicals with
Vietnam, what is by far most important and most promising today is
that peaceful changes are taking place in two-thirds of the world. In
Vietnam, given present Chinese policies, there may he no satisfactory
solution.
If
anyone thinks he sees one, he should certainly be advanc–
ing it, and protesting policies he opposes. But that
is
not where one's
participation in world affairs should end, or even, for most people,
begin. The more decisive test of peace and the possibilities of partici–
patory democracy will not come in the few areas where armies are at
war; it will come in those countries where war might be prevented.
In 46 countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, over 10,000
Peace Corps Volunteers are at work, teaching formally in classrooms
and by example in the community. They are teaching, and learning,
among other things, a sense of community that goes beyond one's
family, religion, race, class or nation. Like those engaged in the
politics of direct action at home, Peace Corps Volunteers abroad are
demonstrating that people do not need to be hung up by elaborate
theories or political dogma or general apathy; that people can cross
the cultural frontiers of white and black, East and West, rich and
poor,
now-not
in some projected future, but now, in immediate
human encounters serving human needs.
Do the New Radicals count these Volunteers out? After seeing
