CIVIL DISOBIENCE

1. CIVIL DISOBIENCE Presented by Etinosa Ebagua and olivia almstrom

2. TRANSCENDENTALIST BELIEF • Everything is a reflection of God • Contemplating nature can allow you to transcend the real world and go to a higher, spiritual level • A person’s INSTINCT (intuition) can lead them to understand God’s spirit • - Everyone can do this! Wealth, status, prior knowledge not needed.- Stressed that people were basically good – their gut instincts could lead them to GodIndividualism and self-reliance are better than following others or depending on tradition. • - People will make the right choices if given the chance- Believed that government was not necessary • A person’s true feelings and intuition are more valuable than book knowledge.

3. THOREAU’S BELIEFS • Thoreau views government as a fundamental hindrance to the creative enterprise of the people it purports to represent. He cites as a prime example the regulation of trade and commerce, and its negative effect on the forces of the free market. • He always believed that Democracy is not the last step in the evolution of government, as there is still greater room for the State to recognize the freedom and rights of the individual. Thoreau concludes on an utopic note, saying such a State is one he has imagined "but not yet anywhere seen."

4. INFLUENCE ON GANDHI • I’m sure that people have protested unjust laws ever since the first laws were promulgated. Some scholars claim that Gandhi was influenced by an ancient tradition of civil disobedience in his own country, and we now know that Gandhi protested South African pass laws a year before he read Henry David Thoreau’s famous work On Civil Disobedience in 1907. But it cannot be doubted that Thoreau’s work did give an intellectual framework for Gandhi’s program of active non-violence as well as new ideas for specific forms of non-cooperation. Thoreau proclaimed that “under a government that imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison.” Gandhi and King would go to jail for much longer terms and willingly accept the punishment for breaking the law. • Non-violent activists do not seek to undermine the rule of law, but only the repeal of unjust laws. Gandhi and King’s demands were clear and simple: laws that discriminated and disenfranchised must be abolished. Indian outcastes, African-Americans, and gays do not want “special rights”; they simply want the rights that all others enjoy. All legislators should realize that keeping discriminatory laws that many reasonable people protest erodes respect for the law. Gandhi quotes "to defeat or humiliate your opponents, but to win their friendship and understanding.”

5. INFLUENCE ON MLK Dr. Martin Luther King's main political teaching is that "Non-violent civil disobedience is the primary and necessary means of effecting social and political change It appears that there were a myriad of thinkers, philosophers, and people whom King knew personally, who were responsible for shaping his approach. What is most interesting about King's defense is that he places all laws below a "higher law" of morality. He then defines that higher law based on his theology of separation, and concludes that segregation is a manifestation of separation, and therefore must be unjust. Notably, he does not say what we would typically say today: "That all laws are unjust if they violate constitutional rights." We would subject laws to a constitutional order. He subjects it to a higher moral order. Indeed, King refers to the Constitution only three times in this letter, all in passing. Personal Influences "In an age when whites viewed black neighborhoods as hellholes of vice and social disorganization, Daddy King's church stood like an anchor in a stable and respectable community. And in a dominant culture that stereotyped blacks as childish, sycophantic clowns, King's father prided himself on being the equal of any white person."

6. CURRENT EVENTS New York City; Aug. 31, 2004 – Thousands participated in organized civil disobedience and spontaneous protests in still another day of demonstrations surrounding the Republican National Convention in New York City.Loosely coordinated and spread throughout Manhattan, were met by a massive and intolerant police force. Police arrested hundreds of nonviolent protesters in what one civil rights lawyer dubbed a clear policy of "pre-emption." Kenya's opposition threatens mass protests From CNN's David McKenzie | February 22, 2008 Kenya's opposition party says it will embark on a "mass civil disobedience campaign next week" if its demands aren't met in the intensive negotiations aimed at defusing the political crisis in the tense East African nation. The lawmakers are calling for the prime minister's job and proportional sharing of powers in any new government. If the demands aren't met, the movement pledges to start its civil disobedience by Wednesday and will employ such tactics as work slowdowns to apply pressure in the talks.

7. Work cited • Gregg Blakely, The Formative Influences on Dr. Martin Luther King, Peace Magazine , http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v17n2p21.htm,2001.web.23 • Hendrick George,’’The Influence of thoreau’s Civil Disobedience on gandhi’s satyagraha’’.The new England Quatering,www.Jstor.org,1956.Web.24 november 2012. • Lawrence Rosenwald, The Theory, Practice & Influenceof Thoreau's Civil Disobedience,The Oxford Historical Companion to Thoreau, http://thoreau.eserver.org/theory.html,1982.web .25 November,2012. • Michael J. Frederick, Transcendental Ethos , 1998, http://thoreau.eserver.org/mjf/MJF1.html,web.24 november, 2012