In one sense, it has been a tough couple of years for some of us who are nonviolent leftists. Meeting Stalinists and members of Antifa has been discouraging because many from both groups advocate violence. And if that wasn't enough, there are the online discussions where in order to advocate violence, some will resort to boldface lies. One such lie I saw online was a person who claimed that Martin Luther King Jr. supported violence. It is perhaps impossible to see such a greater misrepresentation of anyone than that.
Thus, an article by John Gehring (click here for a bio) not only caught my eye, it provided a small amount of much needed relief. For Gehring just recently wrote an article for Religion News Services calling for religious civil disobedience (click here for the article). And this involves nonviolence because of both whom Gehring appealed to as examples and the words he quoted. Gehring used King, Gandhi, and Dorothy Day as examples. And then he cited the title of a Catholic Bishops' statement from 1993: The Harvest Of Justice Is Sown In Peace. So is certain that among other things, Gehring is calling for nonviolent activism to oppose the direction that President Trump has been taking our nation. And Gehring is appealing to America's religious community to carry out this activism.
However, nonviolence is not the theme of Gehring's article, non-silience is. For Gehring states that to be silent in today's America is to be complicit with the anti-Christian direction in which Trump is taking America. For Gehring, speaking out includes civil disobedience. And he provides an example of being arrested. So the rest of this blogpost will look at the kind of activism Gehring is calling us to.
It has often been said that today's wars are often fought using yesterday's war's tactics. And here, we might ask ourselves whether the same applies to activism. While civil disobedience yielded much fruit in past protests for social justice, the issue becomes whether it will contribute to the promotion of social justice today.
Who benefits the most when civil disobedience is employed? Is it the individual in knowing that he/she took a stand or is it the cause because such disobedience sparked real change? Such is an important question because whether civil disobedience is done more for the ego of the participant than the advancement of the cause addresses the need for such disobedience.
It's not that I don't respect those who are willing to be incarcerated for their beliefs. The main issue for me is always whether given tactic used in activism advanced the cause. For if our activism does not advance the cause, then what good is that tactic? How can our tactics be personally rewarding if they do not advance the cause? So though I personally support and greatly respect those who are willing to get arrested, I wonder if sometimes, peaceful civil disobedience is counterproductive. For the goal of all activism is to raise awareness of an issue in a way that will recruit more people to the cause. So I have to wonder if we are arrested for civil disobedience in obscurity, has our time in jail contributed to the cause.
Gehring's article is a worthwhile article to read. His call to nonviolence is essential in today's world where people from all ideological sides are following Trump's example of throwing away self-restraint. And what he says about being silent in today's world is to support injustice. But we should always think about whether using yesteryear's tactics, such as civil disobedience, promote social justice today. For if it doesn't, then we would have hurt our chances at influencing more of the public as to the rightness of our causes.
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