On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

In 1849, Henry David Thoreau disgusted by slavery and the injustices of the Mexican-American War wrote “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, where he states that civil disobedience is the deliberate defiance of a law to in order to change government policy or enact social reform. Civil disobedience was a major proponent in the women’s suffrage movement, Mohandas Gandhi’s campaign for independence in India, the civil rights movement in the USA, and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa. However there is a school of thought that sees civil disobedience as a major problem due to it seemingly advocating disorder. In most cases peaceful resistance to certain laws can have a positive impact. Civil disobedience has been the platform in which
The cruel treatment and salt monopoly inspired Gandhi to unify the people in “campaign of satyagraha, or mass civil disobedience.” Salt is a vital part of Indian diet recognized when the Salt Acts were enacted which put a “monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt”. [1] Gandhi led nonviolent demonstrations as the people defied British policy by making salt from seawater. The British would soon respond by brutally beating the peaceful demonstrators bringing international outrage. By August 1947, Britain caved in to the pressure granting India its independence. Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement influenced India by putting it on the path to become the country we know today.[2] Detractors will say that the ends doesn’t justify the means. They claim that civil disobedience will set a standard for illegality and contempt for the law that others will follow. An example used occurred in 1999 in London where the ‘Carnival against Capitalism’ took place. What started as peaceful protest against economic policy devolved into “self-indulgent violence and destruction of property in the city, achieving nothing but notoriety for its cause.”[3] On the other hand if the law itself is unjust then the people should disobey in order to bring about the greater good not just for themselves but for future
History will reveal the major part civil disobedience has played on overcoming governmental injustices. Today, people know Gandhi’s Salt March to Martin Luther King’s demonstrations. Gandhi’s actions helped gain India’s its independence and King’s tactics were instrumental in winning rights for black people in the United States. Others situations include the successful protest of 1998 rioters in Indonesia against the despotic system of government under the Suharto regime.[3] In the US during the early 1900s strikes organized by mistreated workers led to the introduction of labor unions, end of child labor and improved job benefits.[4] Those in the opposite mindset believe that civil disobedience is counter-productive and that the court system should combat unjust laws. However what all these causes listed above has in common was that, “there was no other avenue open to redress grievances” making civil obedience the only way to protest