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 Editorial: Civil disobedience 09/19/00 - Philadelphia Inquirer Granted, it takes a lot of commitment to sit down in the middle of an expressway on-ramp for a cause; a lot of courage to stay put once you have the full attention of even the most well-behaved police department, and a lot of character to keep cool as you're singled out and carted off to an unknown fate. But translating those actions into societal change takes a vision. Achieving a vision takes planning, training and discipline. It takes an awareness of the possibly dire consequences of your actions, and a willingness to accept those consequences. It takes a desire to embrace the opposition, not do harm. Many protesters showed commitment, courage or character during the Republican National Convention. But vision? Planning? Discipline? Accepting consequences? Doing no harm? Let's admit to some hometown biases. First, many local folks wanted more than a well-run convention. They wanted the event to transform Philly into a brighter star in the tourism firmament. Anything off message was taken personally. Second, we have some issues. Our city government's motto could be: "Please don't make us bomb ourselves again." Our region collectively gasped when Thomas Jones was beaten into submission by Philadelphia police on July 12, and we held that breath until the last convention delegate left town safely. And that grim record, the underbelly of Philly's new and fragile can-do image, was one of the protesters' targets. But they missed. Because the city had a plan. For the most part, the police were disciplined. From the roving bicycle squads to the officers arresting Vine Expressway squatters, the police had a better handle on nonviolence training and strategies than the protesters. It's not the police department's fault that the protests misfired. (And let's distinguish the civil disobedience, which occurred mostly on one day, Aug. 1, with events such as the Unity 2000 march, which offered a vision of cooperation and common cause, not anarchy.) Protest organizers were unable to present an overarching vision connecting that week's issues with a realistic plan for change or call to action. Many of those involved in the Aug. 1 events acted as if they didn't realize that breaking a law meant going to jail - and maybe staying there and being uncomfortable long after what they considered an appropriate time-out. The public face of these protests has often been a childish, angry attitude that everyone else - police, media, corporations, commuters, meat-eaters, Republicans, Democrats, you name it - is an enemy to be vanquished. That if only everyone would just sit through the same indoctrination sessions- voila! - a world of social justice. The protest organizers need to be reminded of some basics. Nonviolent protest is not a cloak of invincibility or self-righteousness. It's a deep moral commitment. Gandhi wasn't some naive holy man fresh off the mountaintop who stumbled upon injustice and in the blink of a feature-length movie overthrew an empire. He was a great soul who used moral means in a decades-long struggle to achieve a political end, gaining the respect of his foes along the way. He forced confrontations over injustice but refused to be violent or unjust. If his followers caused violence, he shouldered the blame, ending actions rather than risk more injury. He increased his moral authority by accepting the consequences of protest, whether physical abuse or imprisonment. That willingness to suffer for his cause is what won many people over. Should protesters be physically abused, their rights abridged? Absolutely not. If that happened, let those who did it be punished. But have any protesters stood up and accepted responsibility for the undisciplined and violent among them? Have they stepped forward to pay for property damaged, for expenses incurred? Has anyone been won over to the cause by the plaint that the handcuffs were too tight? Around the world, people have suffered and died for causes while employing nonviolent civil disobedience. Treating protest like an episode of MTV's Road Rules risks cheapening the message along with the messenger. That would be a shame. Because the issues spurring the recent wave of protest are indeed real: injustice in the justice system, economic inequalities, labor and environmental abuses committed in the name of global trade. Tackling those issues will take vision. The question is, do the rest of us have a plan to address the issues, one that will provide an outlet for the energy and talents of those who showed courage in Philadelphia? |
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