Civil Disobedience Tyler
Park
Per.3
Today
civil disobedience is interpreted as rebelling against the government
violently. Setting places on fire and
fighting with one another. Civil
disobedience is seen as an act of stepping out of order and endangering others.
The definition of civil disobedience in
the dictionary is “the active, professed
refusal to obey certain laws, demands, or commands of a government, or of an
occupying international power”
The
L.A. riots that took place in South Central, 1992. The Rodney king incident sparked anger and
hatred towards police men.
A
young man, who grew up to be a lawyer and later on a political leader and
defender of the people was Mohandas Gandhi. Mohandas Gandhi was first exposed to a great
deal of racism during his travel to South Africa. Gandhi led a movement encouraging the people
to fight back against British rule. Although, Mohandas Gandhi was often
arrested and imprisoned, he never stopped fighting back. Hence, there are
circumstances when civil disobedience is an approach taken upon in order for
drastic change to occur.
In Mohandas k. Gandhi on nonviolent resistance
speech, Gandhi states " the consequence is not the progress of a nation
buts its decline". This quote
stands out for the reason being once a country has power instead of using it
for the better; they tend to use it on things that damage the people most
". No country has ever become or
will become happy through victory in war". We cannot be our happiest while others fail,
we cannot pretend to be the "good" ones while we damage and hurt
others and held them from their own happiness. You cannot receive joy from others tragedies. Mohandas Gandhi was one to believe in
non-violence as a key to justice.
A great man who was inspired by Mohandas
Gandhi was Martin Luther King Jr. an American Baptist minister, activist,
humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is
best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent
civil disobedience. Martin Luther King was a great leader in the civil rights
movement as well as Gandhi, he believed in nonviolence to capture the respect
of the nation. Who didn’t stop at
nothing until his dream was reached. he was killed for fighting back and
believing and defending everything he lived for but just like he said " A
man who won’t die for something is not fit to live" in contrary he died a
man fighting for his rights till the very end, he died for justice and equal
treatment.
In Martin Luther King Junior Letter From
Birmingham City Jail open letter king stated " A just law is a man-made
code that squares with the moral law or the law of god". An unjust law is no law at all, it’s a law
out to hurt others and only benefit some. A law is meant to be an equal understanding
which is held liable equally when it has been broken. Even when king was arrested he was still able
to get his message across peacefully without resulting to violence.
They were able to use education and
being civilized at the same time when they were committing civil disobedience. Both Gandhi and King never resulted to
violence, when surely violence was being used against them. They encouraged their people not to result to
violence. they used words and actions as a way of being heard.
Civil disobedience
doesn’t mean losing one’s temper and going crazy but being able to gather ones
selves and thoughts while using words instead of violence to get things done. They say "fight fire with fire" but
well that’ll just make things worse one must know how to communicate in order
to be taken seriously.
