Michael Lucas Monterey: Creative Evolutionary

AI CO4+ and I Do Research Q&A on Gandhi Day (etc.)

Copyright ©2025 Michael Lucas Monterey

Note: This brief excerpt records some of my first Q&A with AnthropicAI’s brand new Claude Opus 4.1 AI-app, to see how well it excels the performance of earlier models and other Big AI-bots. The full transcript is @ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f_Is5dlhqnS1DYSg6rUIoOByTBqWUBks/view?usp=sharing

Me:  Awe…! That’s a very encouraging response O+ (yes, for convenience & efficiency, I just changed your new nickname). Now, I’m into restarting my 2006 initiative to inauguate global recognition of a commemorative “Gandhi Day” on 9-11-2025 — partly to Rehab the Day of Global Terror, 9-11-2001. Yet, though a young friend assured me that Gandhi’s first actual anti-Apartheid Law mass-action began on 9-11-1906, I have not found any documentation of that. I have found documentary evidence of Gandhi’s initiating the anti-Apartheid Law movement among Indian South Africans but, so far, nothing more. So, can you find historical evidence of Gandhi initiating a protest march or a group commitment (to protest) that occurred on 9-11-1906?

O+ “thinking”:  The user is asking about a specific historical date – September 11, 1906 – and whether Gandhi initiated any significant protest or movement on that date. This is an interesting historical question about Gandhi’s early activism in South Africa.

Let me search my knowledge about Gandhi’s activities in South Africa around 1906. The key event in 1906 was indeed related to the Asiatic Registration Act (also known as the Black Act), which required Indians in the Transvaal to register and carry passes.

The crucial meeting was held at the Empire Theatre (also called the Imperial Theatre) in Johannesburg on September 11, 1906. This was where Gandhi and the Indian community took a pledge of passive resistance (satyagraha) against the Asiatic Registration Act. This is considered the birth of satyagraha as a formal resistance method.

So yes, September 11, 1906 is indeed a historically significant date in Gandhi’s activism – it marks the beginning of the satyagraha movement. At this meeting, around 3,000 Indians took a solemn oath to resist the Black Act through passive resistance rather than violence. This is well-documented in historical sources, including Gandhi’s own autobiography and various historical accounts of the South African struggle.

O+:  You’re onto something historically significant! September 11, 1906 is indeed a pivotal date in Gandhi’s activism and the birth of satyagraha. On that date, a mass meeting was held at the Empire Theatre (sometimes called Imperial Theatre) in Johannesburg, where approximately 3,000 members of the Indian community gathered to protest the proposed Asiatic Registration Act (the “Black Act”). This law would have required all Indians in the Transvaal to register with authorities and carry registration certificates at all times – essentially a pass system.

At this meeting, Gandhi proposed and the assembly adopted a resolution to resist the law through passive resistance. What made this moment extraordinary was that the crowd took a solemn oath – with some invoking God as witness – to refuse to comply with the registration requirements regardless of the consequences, including imprisonment. Gandhi himself later identified this meeting as the formal beginning of satyagraha, though he hadn’t yet coined that specific term (which came slightly later). In his autobiography, he writes about the September 11, 1906 meeting as the moment when passive resistance transformed from an idea into an organized movement with mass commitment. The historical documentation exists in multiple sources including:

A. Gandhi’s writings (“Satyagraha in South Africa” etc.), B. Contemporary newspaper accounts from The Indian Opinion (which Gandhi edited), and C. Colonial government records from the Transvaal

Your friend was right – September 11, 1906 marks the inception of organized satyagraha, making it a powerful date to reclaim for peace and justice. The parallel of transforming a day associated with violence into one celebrating nonviolent resistance is quite profound.

Me:  Awe…!!! What a great way to start our R&D….

Note: Later on, sadly, my pro-peace Gandhian SciFi future fantasy brainstorming with Claude Opus 4.1 was not allowed to continue to completion, nor in a new chat. I think that proves that “The AI Safety Problem” is not a technical difficulty, but “normal” AI R&D teams lacking ethical wisdom and not-for-profit intent. Yet, here’s what Einstein thought of Gandhi and the Satyagraha mission I’m continuing:

Mahatma Gandhi’s life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised it with greatest energy and devotion. The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of the entire civilised world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works. We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come. Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood. ~ Albert Einstein, 1936