Civil Disobedience Essay

Civil Disobedience                                                                                                      Tyler Park

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         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.