Civil Disobedience?

(Published 18.6.2009)

 http://www.dailynationalcourier.com/national_courier/jun2009_daily/18-06-09/artical/artical1.htm

Should the over-worked, underpaid, jobless, taxed to death, hungry, roofless, tattered, powerless and unarmed subjects of this land of pure keep enduring their miserable existence as fate or should they revolt against the inhumane system that guarantee luxury of few at the expense of many? No, I am not advocating armed revolt but I strongly feel that Civil Disobedience seems to be the only option left for the ruthlessly exploited masses of this country to instill "˜fear of men', "˜fear of God' has lost all its meaning long ago, to bring the ruling elites to their senses?
History proves that during the last hundred years Civil Disobedience has been used as an effectively powerful tool by the dispossessed and the exploited in many parts of the world. This is so because civil disobedience means active refusal to obey unjust, repressive and suppressive laws, demands and commands of a government, or an occupier, with passive resistance without resorting to physical violence.
Egyptians used civil obedience successfully against the British occupation in the nonviolent 1919 Revolution. Civil disobedience is one of the many ways people have rebelled against unfair laws. And since then it has been used successfully in many parts of the world including against the British colonists in India by Gandhi, in Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution and in East Germany to oust their communist dictatorships, against apartheid in South Africa, American Civil Rights Movement, in the Singing Revolution to bring independence to the Baltic countries from the Soviet Union, Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 and 2005's Rose Revolution in Georgia. Lawyers' Movement here in our own country for the restoration of Chief Justice Pakistan and other judges of apex courts is the most recent example of triumphant civil obedience.
The modern theory behind the passive, but effective, practice of civil disobedience was penned down by US author Henry David Thoreau in an essay originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government" first published in 1849. The essay is better known globally as Civil Disobedience. The essay argues that people should not permit governments to overrule them or make attempts to suppress their collective as well as individual conscience. It also said and that the people have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence- an act of knowingly standing by without raising any objection to infringement of one's rights when someone else is unknowingly and honestly putting in his resources under the impression that the said rights actually belong to him- to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. It was Thoreau who first wrote in his article, "That government is best which governs least".
Thoreau was a not only a master writer but also philosopher, poet and most of all a thoroughly practical man who only preached what he practiced. Thoreau, one of the greatest and the noblest soul that America ever produced, preferred to go to jail happily instead of paying taxes to support a war aimed at spreading slavery's territory into Mexico at a time was slavery was legal in America . He immensely influenced Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi, American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thoreau argues that because governments are inherently more harmful than good they cannot be justified and democracy is also not a cure because it is not necessary that majorities by just being majorities have to have the virtues of wisdom and justice.
That an individual's conscience in no way is inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority thus making it undesirable to cultivate a respect for the law, particularly unjust; unfair and inhuman law, instead of inculcate a yearning for the right. He argues that suppressing your conscience in favour of the law only helps you serve your country poorly because a country needs conscientious people not conscienceless robots. He called it disgraceful to be associated with the United States government of his in particular, "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave's government also".
Thoreau exhorts people stop merely waiting to "˜vote' for justice, because voting for justice is as ineffective as "˜wishing' for justice adding that one may not have an obligation to fight for justice but one certainly has an obligation not to commit injustice himself but also ensure that you do not lend any practical support to injustice. He said that paying taxes intended to finance unjust causes, for instance the pro-slavery war in his times, is akin to collaborating with injustice. He was immensely critical of the argument for respecting and obeying the unjust laws until they are changed through the political process saying that clearly unjust laws deserve no respect and should be broken.
"Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."¦ Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence"¦ If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible."
Thoreau was not unwilling to pay certain taxes but he vehemently opposed to taxes that went to support the government itself [or luxury of the elite classes in our case]. "The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual."¦ Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."