by Yin Ee Kiong
“You are saying our problem is civil disobedience, but that is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. . . . Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country.” Howard Zinn
Do governments expect their citizens to obey them or the laws promulgated by them even if the laws are unjust or immoral?
If the answer to the above is “Yes, Always!” then Hitler’s laws and the actions of the Nazis against the Jews would be in order. The laws passed by the Apartheid regime of the old South Africa would be acceptable. And Martin Luther King Jr and thousands of Americans should not have marched in protest against segregation and racial discrimination. Nearer home, should the Burmese then not have protested against a regime not of the people or by the people?
In other words no one should go against those establishments simply because they were ‘legal’.
But legal is not the same as moral; laws which have no moral basis are untenable and ultimately unsustainable. If a piece of legislation is immoral to begin with or if it is against the interests of the citizens, if they are there merely to ensure the regime stays in power then should not citizens disobey them?
Governments which are propped up by unjust laws have to be challenged. Continue reading “To Obey or Disobey?”