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<font face="Times New Roman, Times">Greetings:<br><br>
I'm getting my King Holiday column out early this year, so that I can
improve my chances of placing it. I'm now a weekly commentator on
KRFP. Tune in at 92.5 FM on Wednesday mornings at about 7:45
(repeated later in the AM). I'll read this column on Jan.
11.<br><br>
By the way, Phil, I really enjoyed your piece on Wendt. My former
wife was a potter and was really inspired by him. We also bought
lots of clay from him. My garage is still wired for super high
wattage 240 volts.<br><br>
Also a note to Mr. Crabtree: I assume that the retired philosophy
professor you referred to was yours truly. The only agenda I have,
sir, is that people be honest in their intellectual discourse and their
civil dealings. Period.<br><br>
<div align="center"><b>GANDHI, KING, AND THOREAU:<br>
FOUR PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE<br><br>
</b>By Nick Gier<br>
<dl>
<dd>True peace is not merely the absence of tension;
<dd>it is the presence of justice.Martin Luther King, Jr.<br><br>
</div>
</dl>I’m sure that people have protested unjust laws ever since the first
laws were promulgated. Some scholars claim that Gandhi was
influenced by an ancient tradition of civil disobedience in his own
country, and we now know that Gandhi protested South African pass laws a
year before he read Henry David Thoreau’s famous work <i>On Civil
Disobedience</i> in 1907. But it cannot be doubted that Thoreau’s work
did in fact give an intellectual framework for Gandhi’s program of active
non-violence as well as new ideas for specific forms of
non-cooperation.<br><br>
Thoreau proposed that people, when faced with unjust laws, could “obey
them, amend them, . . . or transgress them.” With respect to
the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Thoreau chose to transgress. In
eventually supporting the violent acts of John Brown, Thoreau broke with
the non-violence resistance to which Gandhi and King consistently
adhered.<br><br>
In July, 1846, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax and spent one night in
jail for his crime. Thoreau proclaimed that “under a government
that imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in
prison.” Gandhi and King would go to jail for much longer terms and
willingly accept the punishment for breaking the law.<br><br>
We can now begin to discern several principles of civil
disobedience. The first principle is that you maintain respect for
the rule of law even while disobeying the specific law that you perceive
as unjust. Gandhi very much admired Socrates’ respect for Athenian
law and his decision not to flee when his prison guards were bribed. King
was always confident that American democracy would eventually treat his
people as equal under the rule of law that he always respected.<br><br>
The second principle of civil disobedience is that non-violent activists
do not seek to undermine the rule of law, but only the repeal of unjust
laws. Gandhi and King’s demands were clear and simple: laws that
discriminated and disenfranchised must abolished. Indian outcastes,
African-Americans, and gays do not want “special rights”; they simply
want the rights that all others enjoy.<br><br>
The third principle of civil disobedience is that one should plead guilty
to any violation of the law. As Gandhi explains: “I am here to . .
. submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me
for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the
highest duty of a citizen.” <br><br>
Gandhi instructed his disciples to take the penance of their oppressors
upon themselves. Gandhi’s tactics were a form of moral and
political <i>ju jitzu</i>. Some of Gandhi’s judges felt as if they were
the ones charged and convicted. Thoreau said that his one night in jail
made the state look foolish. <br><br>
We have now arrived at the fourth principle of civil disobedience: you
should attempt to convert your opponent by demonstrating the justice of
your cause. Active nonviolence does not seek, as Gandhi says, “to
defeat or humiliate your opponents, but to win their friendship and
understanding.” <br><br>
Gandhi would have agreed with King’s axiom that “there is within human
nature something that can respond to goodness.” This is what gave King
hope that “the aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved
community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.”
<br><br>
There was a strong spiritual dimension to Gandhi’s and King’s political
activism that was absent in Thoreau’s. One could criticize them for
violating the hallowed separation of politics from religion. The
establishment clause certainly does not ban the expression of religious
views; rather, it proscribes the favoring of one religion over
another. Gandhi’s and King’s vision was inclusive and
nonjudgmental, rather than declarations, such as a recent one by an army
officer in uniform that “our God is greater than Allah.”<br><br>
Non-violent resistance to oppressive regimes had a good track record in
the late
20</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=1><sup>th</sup></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">
Century. From the Baltic States, to the Ukraine, and east to the
Philippines, ordinary people in dozens of countries have proved Thoreau
correct: “When all subjects have refused allegiance, and all officers
have resigned from office, then the revolution is
accomplished.”<br><br>
Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for
31 years. Excerpts from his book <i>The Virtue of Non-Violence:
from Gautama to Gandhi</i> can be read at
<a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/vnv.htm" eudora="autourl">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/vnv.htm</a>.<br><br>
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<font size=2>"The god you worship is the god you
deserve."<br>
~~ Joseph Campbell<br>
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