The same can be said of India when Mahatma Gandhi launched his freedom struggle after the end of the First World War. Vast majority of Indians lived in abject poverty beside a tiny English-educated elite and India was ripe for anyone to call for armed struggle to overthrow the existing order. Yet, Gandhi rejected out of hand any call for violence in the name of anti-colonial struggle and social justice. Here are his own words: "If India makes violence her creed, I will not care to live in India. She will fail to evoke any pride in me."

Gandhi rejected the idea that the end justifies the means. He believed that the means must be noble if the end is noble.

Although Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist who though he was too soft on the enemy, the Muslims, he achieved India's independence without taking a single British life. Today India is a vibrant democracy despite growing gaps between impoverished masses and prosperous urban elites. The poverty of the Indian masses vis-a-vis the prosperity of the Indian elites should be enough to turn India into a region of violence similar to the Middle East. Although India is rocked by occasional violence, it remains a largely stable and peaceful country. This is because Mahatma Gandhi had left behind a legacy of tolerance and non-violence which keeps India from falling apart.

Similarly, the Middle East needs its own Gandhi who can reach out to the sectarian and economic divides and peacefully transform the region.

Today, the Arab world is torn by Shia-Sunni mayhem in Iraq, by Hamas-Fatah bloodletting in Gaza and West Bank and by extremists trying to destroy the moderate secular government in Lebanon. Only a broad-based movement which will renounce violence in the name of politics and religion can save the Arabs from self-slaughter.