Civil Disobedience Is the Active

Civil disobedience is the active refusal to follow or obey certain laws or demands of a government or ruling power without using physical force or violence (Wikipedia 2005).

Those who protest and use civil disobedience deliberately violate those laws they oppose and sometimes violate other laws, such as trespassing or traffic laws. Most of those who opt for civil disobedience are carefully non-violent and willing to accept legal punishment or penalties. They resort to it in publicizing an unjust law or a just cause, to appeal to public conscience, to exert pressure on some negotiation with stubborn government officials, to help political prisoners, to challenge the constitutionality of a particular law, to exculpate oneself, to end one's obedience to an unjust law or a combination of these (Suber 1999). In a broad sense, civil disobedience is ancient, as old as the Hebrew midwives' defiance of Pharaoh, but most of its moral and legal theory and form were inspired and shaped by American author Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Thoreau first wrote about it in his 1849 essay, originally entitled, "Resistance to Civil Government," as a concept of self-reliance and good moral standing, which did not involve physical encounter against the government or violence, but a protester must not support it or allow it to support him. In his day, Thoreau refused to pay his taxes in protest against slavery and the Mexican War

Thoreau argued that the rule of the majority was not always based on rightness or fairest but because the majority was physically the strongest. He did not see the majority or the government as ruling on the basis of right and wrong but only on expediency. Thoreau believed and advocated that every man should live by his conscience and that people must first be individuals before they became subjects of the state or government. He did not see sense in blindly or communally following or respecting the law but as individuals and according to conscience. If people did not do so, they would develop an undue respect for the law and behave mechanically towards it or against their common sense and conscience (Thoreau).

Some are skeptical about civil disobedience and doubt its effectiveness or reasonableness (Maravillosa 2002). But the rest see it as a highly effective strategy in educating individuals and in bringing about a particular and desired change. Freedom lovers find it a flexible tool in their cause or fight. Civil disobedience can take the form of a mass demonstration or of a private, solitary and anonymous act, as in the case of Thoreau in Walden Pond. Group or mass actions or demonstrations can draw public support for a cause, writing and disseminating ideas or opinions can affect others, and living a solitary or separated life in refusing to give the government or state the right to rule over oneself is more basic and concrete. Many who practice civil disobedience uphold religious convictions, that is why the religious or clerics often participate in mass actions of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience can also be active by deliberately breaking certain laws, such as by peacefully blocking or occupying an area or facility although illegally. These non-violent acts are deliberately performed so that arrest or attack by the authorities would follow. Protesters who perform civil disobedience do so passively or limply so as not to threaten the authority (Wikipedia).

Examples of Civil Disobedience

Taking after the original example of Henry David Thoreau in secluding himself from the cloak of the law and into the woods in Walden Pond, protesters expressed the same outcry all over the world and in different times. Civil disobedience was used widely in India's nonviolent resistance movements against British colonialism, in South Africa in its fight against apartheid, in civil rights movements in the U.S.A. And in Europe and in the resistance movement in Scandinavia against the Nazi occupation (Wikipedia 2005). It was also a major strategy adopted by national movements in the former colonies in Africa and Asia before they obtained independence. Famous leader Mahatma Gandi developed civil disobedience as an anti-colonial tactic and based on rules, i.e., the protester shall not harbor anger or suffer the anger of the opponent; he shall not retaliate towards the opponents' assaults; not submit to an order given in anger; he shall voluntarily submit to arrest; he shall not resist the confiscation of his property; he will refuse to surrender anything in his possession, even at the risk of losing his life; he will not retaliate, even by swearing or cursing; he will not insult his opponent; he will not salute or insult officials but will even protect such officials from insult or attack even at the expense of his losing his own life. Gandhi distinguished his concept of satyagraha and passive resistance of the West. He singlehandedly and unrelentingly performed civil disobedience in seeking the freedom of India (Maravillosa 2002). According to his private enlightenment on Indian servitude to the British, he wrote, agitated and took principled action to secure that independence. For these acts, he was repeatedly thrown to jail but he remained defiant towards the authorities. His unrelenting advocacy of nonviolent protest drew many to his cause and his method enabled Indians to participate and gain power from it. One of his defiant actions was a walk to the sea to make salt, an illegal act at the time. The British authorities could not arrest him out of fear of protests and strikes that could result from an arrest. This example inspired many to make and sell salt themselves, eliminating British intervention and control and, hence, British tax revenues (Maravillosa).

Another prominent figure in civil disobedience is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who led the civil rights movement in the U.S. In the 60s (Maravillosa 2002). There were anti-war activists during and after the Vietnam War, pro-life or anti-abortion advocates who went up against the U.S. government on the issue of legalized abortion and protesters against the war on Iraq in the present decade. Philip Berrigan was a Roman Catholic priest who was arrested many times for committing acts of civil disobedience out of anti-war protests. In the U.S., large-scale civil disobedience acts led to the repeal of Volsted Act, which put an end to Prohibition on alcohol. One more example was a home-schooling movement by dissatisfied parents against public and private school systems' risky and very threatening "protective services." The common sentiment among these parents evolved into a spontaneous movement to protect their children (Maravillosa).

There were instances of civil disobedience right at the early settlement period of the colonies, which were fed up with Britain's tyrannical rule and which began writing to urge for liberty and taking action against unjust laws and restrictions to their actions (Maravillosa 2002). One of the best known incidents of civil disobedience among the new colonies was the Boston Tea Party

An Analysis of Civil Disobedience

Critics of civil disobedience say that it is not justified in a democracy and that a democratic legislature that makes unjust laws can also change these laws and that there are lawful channels for change, which make civil disobedience unnecessary (Suber 1999). Advocates, however, echo what Thoreau pointed out that, sometimes, the Constitution is the problem, not the solution and that going through legal or lawful channels takes too long. Meantime, Thoreau said that a person is born to live, not to lobby for results through those channels. He asserted that the individual is sovereign in a democracy where the government draws power from what free individuals delegate upon it. Hence, he concluded that an individual could choose to stand apart from the law. Martin Luther King, Jr. called attention to those lawful channels of change and check whether they were open to change only theory and not in practice. If not, the system would not be democratic in a way that made civil disobedience unnecessary. Other supporters of civil disobedience say that if judicial review is an element of American democracy, then it ironically defeats the purpose.

Opponents of civil disobedience argue that legal channels can never be exhausted and that civil resisters can always write to their congressional delegates or to the newspapers, or wait for another election (Suber 1999). But Martin Luther King, Jr. countered by saying that justice delayed is justice denied and that patience in fighting an injustice perpetuates that injustice. Some further argue that using legal channels to fight unjust laws means participating in an evil mechanism and to disguise dissent as conformity. This, in turn, corrupts the protester and discourages others by misleading them to underestimate the numbers of their sympathizers (Suber).

Both Thoreau and Gandhi assert that anyone who seriously objects to the injustices of the State should relinquish the benefits of living in that State by living a voluntary simplicity and poverty (Suber 1999). This sacrifice would revoke the tacit consent he makes to the law as the social theory explains it. Thoreau also says that an individual who consents to join a society and obeys its laws must do so expressly, not tacitly. John Locke's social theory not only permits disobedience but also a revolution if the State violates its side of the contract. Martin Luther King, Jr. says that civil disobedience derives from the natural law tradition in that an unjust law is not a law but a perversion of it. He, therefore, sees consenting to obey laws as not extending or including unjust laws.

At present, a new and different form of civil disobedience has developed with the invention of computer technology (Wray 1996). The Critical Art Ensemble's Electronic civil disobedience enables one to travel back to the historic periods of civil disobedience in the U.S. And how it developed through the years. The full potential of electronic civil disobedience has not been explored as a tool in effecting political change. The common opinion or view is that electronic civil disobedience will be go in the same direction. With more and more hackers getting politicized and protesters becoming computerized, the number of cyber-activities to engage in electronic civil disobedience will increase. Traditional acts of trespassing and blockage will be committed but, this time, electronically or digitally. The primary site will be cyberspace. In this millennium, the number of virtual sit-ins, wherein government and corporate web sites are blocked, will increase. If civil disobedience during the Vietnam War and the Gulf War sent thousands into the streets to obstruct the flow of normal business and governance by acting on physical infrastructure, civil disobedience of the future can take the form of clogging or actual interruption or destruction of fiber optic cables and ISDN lines by accessing electronic and communications infrastructure. Massive non-violent civil disobedience action has been used to shut down or suspend government or corporate operations. In the same way or reason, massive non-violent email assaults can obstruct or constrain government or corporate computer servers. At the current rate of expected and continued rapid growth and development of computer technology along with the increase of knowledge, sophistication and expertise of growing number of cyber-activists, no one can guess how far electronic civil disobedience can go in the future. What is certain is that electronic civil disobedience will be an essential element in the formation of new and radical social movements in the future. There already exist the theory and the practice of electronic civil disobedience and the government and corporations are aware of the potential threat posed by sophisticated cyber-activism.