Uprisings:
Rebellions and Revolutions
The
Haitian Revolution
At
the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, the colony of St.
Domingue, now Haiti, furnished two-thirds of France’s overseas
trade, employed one thousand ships and fifteen thousand French
sailors. The colony became France’s richest, the envy of every
other European nation. This plantation system, which provided such a
pivotal role in the French economy, was also the greatest individual
market for the African slave trade. Yet, conflict and resentment
permeated the society of San Domingo, and slave resistance began to
take an organized form in the late 18th century. The French
Revolution did inspire many in 1789, but black resistance had existed
for years. In August of 1791 an organized slave rebellion broke out,
marking the start of a twelve-year resistance to obtain human rights.
The Haitian Revolution is the only successful slave revolt in
history, and resulted in the establishment of Haiti, the first
independent black state in the New World.
One must emphasize the struggles that had been occurring for decades prior to the 1791 outbreak of full-scale rebellion. Yet the French Revolution was also crucially important, for the conflicts between whites about what exactly its ideals meant triggered an opportunity for blacks. A historically significant step was the issuance of the Declaration of Rights of Man passed in France on August 26, 1789. It stated, "In the eyes of the law all citizens are equal." While the French government did not want to release this to their colonies, word got out. News of the Declaration of Rights of Man brought new hopes to the black masses. Meanwhile, plantation owners and the French government continued to exploit the slaves for profit.
A series of revolts occurred in 1790, by mulattoes led by Vincent Ogé. Descendents of mixed blood were trying to establish suffrage from a recent National Assembly ruling. However the white Colonial Assembly ignored French efforts. These mulatto-led revolts were the first challenges against French rule and the slaveholding system. In August of 1791, the first organized black rebellion ignited the twelve-year San Domingo Revolution. The northern settlements were hit first, and the flood that overwhelmed them revealed the military strength and organization of the black masses. Plantations were destroyed, and white owners killed to escape the oppression. Some of the rebellion’s leaders include Boukman, Biassou, Toussaint, Jeannot, Francois, Dessalines, and Cristophe. These men would help to guide the Revolution down its torturous, bloody road to complete success, although it would cost over twelve years and hundreds of thousands of lives. Many of those leaders themselves would fall along the way, but the force of unity against slavery, a unity deeply embedded in the creole culture that bound the blacks together, would sustain the revolution.
After the revolutionaries’ initial successes in overwhelming the institution of plantation slavery on the Plaine du Nord, Le Cap fell into the hands of French republican forces. Toussaint and thousands of blacks joined them in April 1793. The agreement was if the blacks fought against the royalists, the French would promise freedom. Thus, on August 29, 1793, Commissioner Légér-Felicité Sonthonax abolished slavery in the colony. Then with self-interest in mind, revolutionary France’s British enemies tried to seize an opportunity to grab the colony, so recently the greatest single source of colonial wealth in the whole world. Furthermore, the British wanted to put down the slave rebellion in order to protect their own slave colonies.
In June of 1794 British forces landed on the island and worked with Spain to attack the French. Yet, the British forces soon fell victim to yellow fever. With more uncertainties presenting themselves, Toussaint decided to pledge his support to the French, on May 6, 1794. Toussaint was appointed governor in 1796 and he continued to follow his ideas for an autonomous black- led San Domingo. By January 1802, Toussaint was the head of a semi-independent San Domingo. Napoleon saw this as a threat and sent his brother-in-law Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc from France with 20,000 troops to capture Toussaint, and re-establish slavery in the colony. Toussaint was deceived in 1802, captured and shipped to France, where he eventually died in prison.
But the struggle for independence continued and by late 1803 the north and south arenas of the island united and defeated the French under Rochambeau. Dessalines, Toussaint’s former lieutenant proclaimed the independence of the country of Haiti and declared himself Emperor. He was assassinated in 1806, and the country divided between rival successors. Yet, the rebels had shattered the enslaved colony and forged from the ruins the free nation of Haiti.
One must emphasize the struggles that had been occurring for decades prior to the 1791 outbreak of full-scale rebellion. Yet the French Revolution was also crucially important, for the conflicts between whites about what exactly its ideals meant triggered an opportunity for blacks. A historically significant step was the issuance of the Declaration of Rights of Man passed in France on August 26, 1789. It stated, "In the eyes of the law all citizens are equal." While the French government did not want to release this to their colonies, word got out. News of the Declaration of Rights of Man brought new hopes to the black masses. Meanwhile, plantation owners and the French government continued to exploit the slaves for profit.
A series of revolts occurred in 1790, by mulattoes led by Vincent Ogé. Descendents of mixed blood were trying to establish suffrage from a recent National Assembly ruling. However the white Colonial Assembly ignored French efforts. These mulatto-led revolts were the first challenges against French rule and the slaveholding system. In August of 1791, the first organized black rebellion ignited the twelve-year San Domingo Revolution. The northern settlements were hit first, and the flood that overwhelmed them revealed the military strength and organization of the black masses. Plantations were destroyed, and white owners killed to escape the oppression. Some of the rebellion’s leaders include Boukman, Biassou, Toussaint, Jeannot, Francois, Dessalines, and Cristophe. These men would help to guide the Revolution down its torturous, bloody road to complete success, although it would cost over twelve years and hundreds of thousands of lives. Many of those leaders themselves would fall along the way, but the force of unity against slavery, a unity deeply embedded in the creole culture that bound the blacks together, would sustain the revolution.
After the revolutionaries’ initial successes in overwhelming the institution of plantation slavery on the Plaine du Nord, Le Cap fell into the hands of French republican forces. Toussaint and thousands of blacks joined them in April 1793. The agreement was if the blacks fought against the royalists, the French would promise freedom. Thus, on August 29, 1793, Commissioner Légér-Felicité Sonthonax abolished slavery in the colony. Then with self-interest in mind, revolutionary France’s British enemies tried to seize an opportunity to grab the colony, so recently the greatest single source of colonial wealth in the whole world. Furthermore, the British wanted to put down the slave rebellion in order to protect their own slave colonies.
In June of 1794 British forces landed on the island and worked with Spain to attack the French. Yet, the British forces soon fell victim to yellow fever. With more uncertainties presenting themselves, Toussaint decided to pledge his support to the French, on May 6, 1794. Toussaint was appointed governor in 1796 and he continued to follow his ideas for an autonomous black- led San Domingo. By January 1802, Toussaint was the head of a semi-independent San Domingo. Napoleon saw this as a threat and sent his brother-in-law Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc from France with 20,000 troops to capture Toussaint, and re-establish slavery in the colony. Toussaint was deceived in 1802, captured and shipped to France, where he eventually died in prison.
But the struggle for independence continued and by late 1803 the north and south arenas of the island united and defeated the French under Rochambeau. Dessalines, Toussaint’s former lieutenant proclaimed the independence of the country of Haiti and declared himself Emperor. He was assassinated in 1806, and the country divided between rival successors. Yet, the rebels had shattered the enslaved colony and forged from the ruins the free nation of Haiti.
The
insurrection on the island of San Domingo came from the mass of
enslaved blacks in the French sugar plantation colony there, who
risked everything to pursue freedom. In 1791, the outbreak of the
Haitian Revolution, at first localized in one district of the
colony’s northern plain, soon spawned waves of slave insurgencies
that assembled and fought the horrors of oppression. Historical
accounts written by white contemporaries downplayed the organization
of the blacks, and proposed chaotic, random events by groups of
revolting slaves as the cause of revolution. However, the resistance
had leadership, organization, and a unifying objective. Their
struggle lasted for twelve years, and became the only successful
slave revolt in human history.
Resistance acquired momentum as every slave undermined elements of planter authority. However, revolution and resistance became possible in San Domingo when slavery itself was challenged. The first French document to support this challenge was the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Passed in France on August 26, 1789, it states: "In the eyes of the law all citizens are equal." Article II states, " The aim of all political associations is the preservation of the natural rights of liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression." St. Domingue was under French law, yet these rights had not been implemented at the outbreak of the Revolution on August 23, 1791. The Constituent Assembly of France and the colonists were too frightened of change to grant these rights to men and women of color. For one thing, the exploitation of the slaves for profit was a rewarding business. "On a sudden this society demands an Abolition of the Slave Trade; that is to say, that the profits, which may result from it to the French commerce, should be transferred to foreigners." On November 3,1791, the Deputies representing the National Assembly on the island of San Domingo stated, "The Society, say the Deputies, take hold of the Declaration of the Rights of Man: this immortal work, beneficial to enlightened men, but inapplicable, and therefore dangerous to our regulations, they send with profusion into our Colonies." According to Revolutionary French legislation, slaves should have been free. Nevertheless, fear and profit momentarily bound them to a lucrative business. Revolution was the only alternative.
Some French Revolutionaries believed in the equality of all. This helped spread more anti slave messages around the island of San Domingo. The anti slavery sentiment was supported by the Amis des Noirs. In a speech made to the National Assembly they were accused of helping spread the message of abolition to the blacks on San Domingo. "The journals in their pay or under the influence, give the declaration vent in the midst of our gangs. The writings of the Amis des Noirs, openly announce, that the freedom of the Negroes is proclaimed by the Declaration of Rights." They were also mentioned in a speech in 1792, "After this recital of authentic and indisputable facts, is it difficult to trace the causes of the Insurrection? Is it to the Amis des Noirs- to the society for abolishing the Slave Trade, that they are to be imputed?" These revolutionary ideas and documents spread through black gangs at plantations and helped unify themes of resistance in San Domingo. Pro-slavery sugar plantation owners were discussing different ideas of liberty and equality derived from new French Revolutionary thoughts. Blacks overheard these perpetual discussions, and formulated their own opinions. Soon plantation owners were being directly challenged by slaves who believed that they too deserved liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Jamaican planter Bryan Edwards, a first-hand observer of the events of 1791, states the slaves that resisted were unorganized, and new from Africa. " It is indeed true, that negro-rebellions have heretofore arisen in this and other islands of the West Indies, to which no such exciting causes contributed:-but it is equally certain, that those rebellions always originated among the newly-imported negroes only: many of whom had probably lived in a state of freedom in Africa, and had been fraudulently, or forcibly, sold into slavery by their chiefs. That cases of this kind do sometimes occur in the slave trade, I dare not dispute, and I admit that revolt and insurrection are their natural consequences." This account, written by a white planter, argues that resistance came from newly arrived slaves, not from the overwhelming injustices resented by all blacks. Newly arrived slaves did participate in the insurrection, but resistance and revolutionary ideas had been hidden in the souls of civilizations that perished. A Creole language and the religion of Vodun were built on Caribbean religions and gatherings in the Caribbean. These brought divided ethnic groups together in new unity. These were the tools of organization. Boukman, a maroon and voodoo priest conducted a meeting, in Creole, of the leaders to seal their ideas in August of 1791. "There Boukman gave the last instructions and, after Voodoo incantations and the sucking of the blood of a stuck pig, he stimulated his followers by a prayer spoken in Creole, which, like so much spoken on such occasions, has remained." About a week later the first uprising of black masses occurred.
Slaves had heard of the French Revolution and organized meetings to discuss their rights. James wrote, "As early as October 1789, in Fort Dauphin, one of the future centers of the San Domingo insurrection, the slaves were stirring and holding mass meetings in the forests at night. In isolated plantations there were movements. All were bloodily repressed. Revolutionary literature was circulating among them." Furthermore, some French soldiers arriving on San Domingo carried revolution sentiment to the blacks. " In March 1791,… the French soldiers, on landing at Port-au-Prince, had given the fraternal embrace to all Mulattoes and all Negroes, telling them that the Assembly in France had declared all men free and equal. At many places near Port-au-Prince the Negroes were seizing arms and rebelling."
Organization of black rebels appeared around the island of San Domingo after the outbreak of August 1791. Gangs of rebels working in sugar plantations organized themselves into camps of revolutionaries. Oppressed workers now joined forces and organized as soldiers. "The slaves worked on the land, and, like revolutionary peasants everywhere, they aimed at the extermination of their oppressors. But working and living together in gangs of hundreds on the huge sugar-factories which covered the North Plain, they were closer to a modern proletariat than any group of workers in existence at the time." As forward progress was made camps were set up. "The revolters followed the same plan; they stationed camps in all the districts they had ravaged."
Resistance permeated the hearts of blacks, and was recapitulated and represented by a few slave leaders. The interests of the slaves became strategic goals in the hands of leaders. Men such as Toussaint, Francois, Biassou, Macaya, Dessalines, and Christophe had abolition in mind, and played roles of diplomats as well as military leaders. Toussaint was too careful to trust French politics, "…Because the French Revolution, being still in the hands of Liberals and moderates, was clearly bent on driving the blacks back to the old slavery." Toussaint’s distrust of politics may have been a political tool to gain support from the blacks. " In politics all abstract terms conceal treachery." Toussaint’s constant goal in any allegiance was the complete abolishment of slavery. As leaders such as Jean-Francois and Biassou disbanded, many rebels joined Toussaint in 1794. By 1800, Toussaint was commander in chief of all French forces on the island, and worked to secure the port of Santo Domingo. He set up an export oriented economy, and imposed a military dictatorship over the island. Before the betrayal, Toussaint had established his autonomy, led all the French forces, stricken Napoleon with grief, and helped organize a slave revolution.
The brutality of white plantation owners towards their slaves culminated in a deep- rooted sense of anguish and resistance among the oppressed. Slave organization began prior to any French Revolutionary ideas, through religion, language, and mass gatherings in woods. After the French Revolutionary legislation was passed it created an opportunity to abolish slavery in San Domingo. Leaders of the Haitian Revolution understood that the whites were now divided and confused, and assembled a revolution. There was one objective - complete abolition of slavery, and to achieve that goal these men and women were willing to challenge the most powerful nation at the time and won.
Resistance acquired momentum as every slave undermined elements of planter authority. However, revolution and resistance became possible in San Domingo when slavery itself was challenged. The first French document to support this challenge was the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Passed in France on August 26, 1789, it states: "In the eyes of the law all citizens are equal." Article II states, " The aim of all political associations is the preservation of the natural rights of liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression." St. Domingue was under French law, yet these rights had not been implemented at the outbreak of the Revolution on August 23, 1791. The Constituent Assembly of France and the colonists were too frightened of change to grant these rights to men and women of color. For one thing, the exploitation of the slaves for profit was a rewarding business. "On a sudden this society demands an Abolition of the Slave Trade; that is to say, that the profits, which may result from it to the French commerce, should be transferred to foreigners." On November 3,1791, the Deputies representing the National Assembly on the island of San Domingo stated, "The Society, say the Deputies, take hold of the Declaration of the Rights of Man: this immortal work, beneficial to enlightened men, but inapplicable, and therefore dangerous to our regulations, they send with profusion into our Colonies." According to Revolutionary French legislation, slaves should have been free. Nevertheless, fear and profit momentarily bound them to a lucrative business. Revolution was the only alternative.
Some French Revolutionaries believed in the equality of all. This helped spread more anti slave messages around the island of San Domingo. The anti slavery sentiment was supported by the Amis des Noirs. In a speech made to the National Assembly they were accused of helping spread the message of abolition to the blacks on San Domingo. "The journals in their pay or under the influence, give the declaration vent in the midst of our gangs. The writings of the Amis des Noirs, openly announce, that the freedom of the Negroes is proclaimed by the Declaration of Rights." They were also mentioned in a speech in 1792, "After this recital of authentic and indisputable facts, is it difficult to trace the causes of the Insurrection? Is it to the Amis des Noirs- to the society for abolishing the Slave Trade, that they are to be imputed?" These revolutionary ideas and documents spread through black gangs at plantations and helped unify themes of resistance in San Domingo. Pro-slavery sugar plantation owners were discussing different ideas of liberty and equality derived from new French Revolutionary thoughts. Blacks overheard these perpetual discussions, and formulated their own opinions. Soon plantation owners were being directly challenged by slaves who believed that they too deserved liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Jamaican planter Bryan Edwards, a first-hand observer of the events of 1791, states the slaves that resisted were unorganized, and new from Africa. " It is indeed true, that negro-rebellions have heretofore arisen in this and other islands of the West Indies, to which no such exciting causes contributed:-but it is equally certain, that those rebellions always originated among the newly-imported negroes only: many of whom had probably lived in a state of freedom in Africa, and had been fraudulently, or forcibly, sold into slavery by their chiefs. That cases of this kind do sometimes occur in the slave trade, I dare not dispute, and I admit that revolt and insurrection are their natural consequences." This account, written by a white planter, argues that resistance came from newly arrived slaves, not from the overwhelming injustices resented by all blacks. Newly arrived slaves did participate in the insurrection, but resistance and revolutionary ideas had been hidden in the souls of civilizations that perished. A Creole language and the religion of Vodun were built on Caribbean religions and gatherings in the Caribbean. These brought divided ethnic groups together in new unity. These were the tools of organization. Boukman, a maroon and voodoo priest conducted a meeting, in Creole, of the leaders to seal their ideas in August of 1791. "There Boukman gave the last instructions and, after Voodoo incantations and the sucking of the blood of a stuck pig, he stimulated his followers by a prayer spoken in Creole, which, like so much spoken on such occasions, has remained." About a week later the first uprising of black masses occurred.
Slaves had heard of the French Revolution and organized meetings to discuss their rights. James wrote, "As early as October 1789, in Fort Dauphin, one of the future centers of the San Domingo insurrection, the slaves were stirring and holding mass meetings in the forests at night. In isolated plantations there were movements. All were bloodily repressed. Revolutionary literature was circulating among them." Furthermore, some French soldiers arriving on San Domingo carried revolution sentiment to the blacks. " In March 1791,… the French soldiers, on landing at Port-au-Prince, had given the fraternal embrace to all Mulattoes and all Negroes, telling them that the Assembly in France had declared all men free and equal. At many places near Port-au-Prince the Negroes were seizing arms and rebelling."
Organization of black rebels appeared around the island of San Domingo after the outbreak of August 1791. Gangs of rebels working in sugar plantations organized themselves into camps of revolutionaries. Oppressed workers now joined forces and organized as soldiers. "The slaves worked on the land, and, like revolutionary peasants everywhere, they aimed at the extermination of their oppressors. But working and living together in gangs of hundreds on the huge sugar-factories which covered the North Plain, they were closer to a modern proletariat than any group of workers in existence at the time." As forward progress was made camps were set up. "The revolters followed the same plan; they stationed camps in all the districts they had ravaged."
Resistance permeated the hearts of blacks, and was recapitulated and represented by a few slave leaders. The interests of the slaves became strategic goals in the hands of leaders. Men such as Toussaint, Francois, Biassou, Macaya, Dessalines, and Christophe had abolition in mind, and played roles of diplomats as well as military leaders. Toussaint was too careful to trust French politics, "…Because the French Revolution, being still in the hands of Liberals and moderates, was clearly bent on driving the blacks back to the old slavery." Toussaint’s distrust of politics may have been a political tool to gain support from the blacks. " In politics all abstract terms conceal treachery." Toussaint’s constant goal in any allegiance was the complete abolishment of slavery. As leaders such as Jean-Francois and Biassou disbanded, many rebels joined Toussaint in 1794. By 1800, Toussaint was commander in chief of all French forces on the island, and worked to secure the port of Santo Domingo. He set up an export oriented economy, and imposed a military dictatorship over the island. Before the betrayal, Toussaint had established his autonomy, led all the French forces, stricken Napoleon with grief, and helped organize a slave revolution.
The brutality of white plantation owners towards their slaves culminated in a deep- rooted sense of anguish and resistance among the oppressed. Slave organization began prior to any French Revolutionary ideas, through religion, language, and mass gatherings in woods. After the French Revolutionary legislation was passed it created an opportunity to abolish slavery in San Domingo. Leaders of the Haitian Revolution understood that the whites were now divided and confused, and assembled a revolution. There was one objective - complete abolition of slavery, and to achieve that goal these men and women were willing to challenge the most powerful nation at the time and won.
The
Haitian Revolution was the result of a long struggle on the part of
the slaves in the French colony of St. Domingue, but was also
propelled by the free Mulattoes who had long faced the trials of
being denoted as semi-citizens. This revolt was not unique, as there
were several rebellions of its kind against the institution of
plantation slavery in the Caribbean, but the Haitian Revolution the
most successful. This had a great deal to do with the influence of
the French Revolution, as it helped to inspire events in Haiti. The
Haitian Revolution would go on to serve as a model for those affected
by slavery throughout the world.
There were three distinct classes in St. Domingue. First, there were the Whites, who were in control. Then there were the free Mulattoes, who straddled a very tenuous position in Haitian society. While they enjoyed a degree of freedom, they were repressed by the conservative White power structure that recognized them only as being people of color. Next came the slaves who, in Haiti suffered under some of the harshest treatment found in the Caribbean. Slaves in Haiti were legally considered to be property of the public and with little choice, yielded obedience. The master provided for the barest necessities of life for his slave "while he secures himself from injury or insult by an appeal to the laws." (Source 1, p. 406) The conditions in Haiti at this time were ripe for a Revolution and the only thing lacking was the proper action, which would soon come in the form of the French Revolution and a man named Toussaint, who after a brief delay, sprang to action and led one of the most successful insurgencies in history.
The Mulattoes in Haiti faced a precarious situation in Haiti, even though they did possess their freedom, in a limited sense. Upon reaching manhood, Mulattoes were required to enlist for a mandatory three-year term in the military establishment known as the marechaussée. Its purpose was to arrest fugitive Negroes, protect travelers and even to collect taxes, all in an effort to have the marechaussée "rendered instrumental in the hands of the magistracy in carrying into execution the decisions of the law…In short, it was a three year’s guard on the public tranquility." (Source 1 – p. 406) Upon completion of this term, Mulattoes were then forced to serve in their local militia without compensation. They were also required to provide their own supplies for as long as it was deemed necessary and could only be released from this service if it was deemed that their presence was no longer necessary.
Free Mulattoes were further disgraced by being outlawed from holding office and were totally excluded from Haitian society. While a scant few of these laws were not enforced, there was enough latitude that "others, who thought proper to gratify private revenge, had only to wait an opportunity after they had given provocations." (Source 1 – p. 407) This meant that the free Mulattoes had been provoked to such a degree that some of them sought revenge on those that had disgraced them. Mulattoes were allowed to own land, but as Coke notes, this was done with the realization that society’s restraints on Mulattoes made it highly unlikely that they could do anything with that land.
The French Revolution furnished the Mulattoes and slaves with an opportunity and an inspiration after having witnessed the successful insurrection in France against the government’s long-standing denial of equal representation of the Commons to that of the Nobility and Clergy. This was such a revolution in the structure of French society that its news spread like wildfire and was exactly the stimulus the slaves and Mulattoes in Haiti needed to inspire their revolt. The Governor of Haiti, Mon. Duchilleau, sought to slow down the process of insurgency in an effort to give the French government more time to formulate a policy on slavery in the Caribbean, as well as for the political representation of the colonies in the National Assembly. However, his efforts to stall were not successful as the Haitian Revolution grew in scope and participation, eventually bringing slavery in Haiti to an effective end.
The radical slave revolt in St. Domingue occurred before the most turbulent years of the French Revolution. This reflects just how bad things in St. Domingue were, and also shows that though some inspiration was needed to spark the slave revolt in St. Domingue, it was not necessary for those there to see how the French Revolution played out, as they were not concerned with the consequences of the revolution, they were simply interested in the ideas put forth by it. Now that the inspiration for the revolt in St. Domingue was found, a leader was needed to take charge of the insurgency, and that leader was Toussaint.
Toussaint was the son of an educated slave who would go on to lead the most significant and successful slave rebellion and history, partly inspired by the developments that occurred simultaneously in France. Although at first he was uncommitted to the revolutionary goal, events in France would soon inspire him to take action. As a leader, Toussaint was nothing less than inspirational, taking of the hundreds of slaves and free Mulattoes who were revolting. Having found local leaders of the rebellion to be inept, he formed his own army, inspiring hundreds to join him and displayed an impressive talent for designing and leading militaristic strategies and tactics that would enable him to make the slave insurgency in St. Domingue one of the most successful in history.
In conclusion, the circumstances in Haiti just before the French Revolution were prime for an insurrection to occur. Lacking a clear and defined political authority, the White colonists were unable to contain adequately the rebellion that they had been forcing upon themselves for years. Their contemptible treatment of Negroes and Mulattoes in Haiti sped up the progress of the cause of the abolition of slavery in Haiti. The excesses of that contemptible treatment is the very reason why the Haitian Revolution was so successful: the treatment of slaves and Mulattoes in Haiti was so bad that it forced the most violent and ultimately, the most successful slave insurrection in history. The French Revolution provided the necessary spark for the revolution in Haiti to occur: it was the inspiration the cause of the abolition of slavery in Haiti needed to actualize its goals.
There were three distinct classes in St. Domingue. First, there were the Whites, who were in control. Then there were the free Mulattoes, who straddled a very tenuous position in Haitian society. While they enjoyed a degree of freedom, they were repressed by the conservative White power structure that recognized them only as being people of color. Next came the slaves who, in Haiti suffered under some of the harshest treatment found in the Caribbean. Slaves in Haiti were legally considered to be property of the public and with little choice, yielded obedience. The master provided for the barest necessities of life for his slave "while he secures himself from injury or insult by an appeal to the laws." (Source 1, p. 406) The conditions in Haiti at this time were ripe for a Revolution and the only thing lacking was the proper action, which would soon come in the form of the French Revolution and a man named Toussaint, who after a brief delay, sprang to action and led one of the most successful insurgencies in history.
The Mulattoes in Haiti faced a precarious situation in Haiti, even though they did possess their freedom, in a limited sense. Upon reaching manhood, Mulattoes were required to enlist for a mandatory three-year term in the military establishment known as the marechaussée. Its purpose was to arrest fugitive Negroes, protect travelers and even to collect taxes, all in an effort to have the marechaussée "rendered instrumental in the hands of the magistracy in carrying into execution the decisions of the law…In short, it was a three year’s guard on the public tranquility." (Source 1 – p. 406) Upon completion of this term, Mulattoes were then forced to serve in their local militia without compensation. They were also required to provide their own supplies for as long as it was deemed necessary and could only be released from this service if it was deemed that their presence was no longer necessary.
Free Mulattoes were further disgraced by being outlawed from holding office and were totally excluded from Haitian society. While a scant few of these laws were not enforced, there was enough latitude that "others, who thought proper to gratify private revenge, had only to wait an opportunity after they had given provocations." (Source 1 – p. 407) This meant that the free Mulattoes had been provoked to such a degree that some of them sought revenge on those that had disgraced them. Mulattoes were allowed to own land, but as Coke notes, this was done with the realization that society’s restraints on Mulattoes made it highly unlikely that they could do anything with that land.
The French Revolution furnished the Mulattoes and slaves with an opportunity and an inspiration after having witnessed the successful insurrection in France against the government’s long-standing denial of equal representation of the Commons to that of the Nobility and Clergy. This was such a revolution in the structure of French society that its news spread like wildfire and was exactly the stimulus the slaves and Mulattoes in Haiti needed to inspire their revolt. The Governor of Haiti, Mon. Duchilleau, sought to slow down the process of insurgency in an effort to give the French government more time to formulate a policy on slavery in the Caribbean, as well as for the political representation of the colonies in the National Assembly. However, his efforts to stall were not successful as the Haitian Revolution grew in scope and participation, eventually bringing slavery in Haiti to an effective end.
The radical slave revolt in St. Domingue occurred before the most turbulent years of the French Revolution. This reflects just how bad things in St. Domingue were, and also shows that though some inspiration was needed to spark the slave revolt in St. Domingue, it was not necessary for those there to see how the French Revolution played out, as they were not concerned with the consequences of the revolution, they were simply interested in the ideas put forth by it. Now that the inspiration for the revolt in St. Domingue was found, a leader was needed to take charge of the insurgency, and that leader was Toussaint.
Toussaint was the son of an educated slave who would go on to lead the most significant and successful slave rebellion and history, partly inspired by the developments that occurred simultaneously in France. Although at first he was uncommitted to the revolutionary goal, events in France would soon inspire him to take action. As a leader, Toussaint was nothing less than inspirational, taking of the hundreds of slaves and free Mulattoes who were revolting. Having found local leaders of the rebellion to be inept, he formed his own army, inspiring hundreds to join him and displayed an impressive talent for designing and leading militaristic strategies and tactics that would enable him to make the slave insurgency in St. Domingue one of the most successful in history.
In conclusion, the circumstances in Haiti just before the French Revolution were prime for an insurrection to occur. Lacking a clear and defined political authority, the White colonists were unable to contain adequately the rebellion that they had been forcing upon themselves for years. Their contemptible treatment of Negroes and Mulattoes in Haiti sped up the progress of the cause of the abolition of slavery in Haiti. The excesses of that contemptible treatment is the very reason why the Haitian Revolution was so successful: the treatment of slaves and Mulattoes in Haiti was so bad that it forced the most violent and ultimately, the most successful slave insurrection in history. The French Revolution provided the necessary spark for the revolution in Haiti to occur: it was the inspiration the cause of the abolition of slavery in Haiti needed to actualize its goals.
The
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian
Revolution is
the collective term for a pair of revolutions in Russia in
1917, which dismantled the Tsarist
autocracy and
led to the creation of the Russian
SFSR.
The Emperor was forced to abdicate and the old regime was replaced by
a provisional
government during
the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian
calendar;
the older Julian
calendar was
in use in Russia at the time). In the second revolution, during
October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with
a Bolshevik (Communist)
government.
The February
Revolution (March
1917) was a revolution focused around Petrograd (now Saint
Petersburg).
In the chaos, members of the Imperial parliament or Duma assumed
control of the country, forming the Russian
Provisional Government.
The army leadership felt they did not have the means to suppress the
revolution and Nicholas
II,
the last Emperor
of Russia,
abdicated. The Soviets (workers'
councils), which were led by more radical socialist factions,
initially permitted the Provisional Government to rule, but insisted
on a prerogative to influence the government and control various
militias. The February Revolution took place in the context of heavy
military setbacks during the First
World War (1914–18),
which left much of the Russian army in a state of mutiny.
A
period of dual
power ensued,
during which the Provisional Government held state power while the
national network of Soviets, led by socialists, had the allegiance of
the lower classes and the political
left.
During this chaotic period there were frequent mutinies, protests and
many strikes. When the Provisional Government chose to continue
fighting the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks and other socialist
factions campaigned for stopping the conflict. The Bolsheviks turned
workers militias under their control into the Red
Guards (later
the Red
Army)
over which they exerted substantial control.[1]
In
the October
Revolution (November
in the Gregorian calendar), the Bolshevik party,
led by Vladimir
Lenin,
and the workers' Soviets, overthrew the Provisional Government in
Petrograd. The Bolsheviks appointed themselves as leaders of various
government ministries and seized control of the countryside,
establishing the Cheka to
quash dissent. To end Russia’s participation in the First World
War, the Bolshevik leaders signed the Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk with
Germany in March 1918.
Civil
war erupted
among the "Reds" (Bolsheviks), the "Whites"
(anti-socialist factions), and non-Bolshevik
socialists.
It continued for several years, during which the Bolsheviks defeated
both the Whites and all rival socialists. In this way, the Revolution
paved the way for the
creation of
the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
in 1922. While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and
Petrograd, there was also a visible movement in cities throughout the
state, among national minorities throughout the empire and in the
rural areas, where peasants took
over and redistributed land.
The Russian
Revolution of 1905 was
said to be a major factor to the February Revolutions of 1917. The
events of Bloody
Sundaytriggered
a line of protests. A council of workers called the St.
Petersburg Soviet was
created in all this chaos, and the beginning of a communist political
protest had begun.[2]
World
War I prompted
a Russian outcry directed at Tsar
Nicholas II.
It was another major factor contributing to the retaliation of the
Russian Communists against their royal opponents. After the entry of
the Ottoman
Empire on
the side of the Central Powers in October 1914, Russia was deprived
of a major trade route through Ottoman Empire, which followed with a
minor economic crisis, in which Russia became incapable of
providing munitions to
their army in the years leading to 1917. However, the problems were
merely administrative, and not industrial as Germany was producing
great amounts of munitions whilst constantly fighting on two major
battlefronts.[3]
The
war also developed a weariness in the city, owing to a lack of food
in response to the disruption of agriculture. Food scarcity had
become a considerable problem in Russia, but the cause of this did
not lie in any failure of the harvests,
which had not been significantly altered during war-time. The
indirect reason was that the government, in order to finance the war,
had been printing off millions of ruble notes, and by 1917 inflation
had made prices increase up to four times what they had been in 1914.
The peasantry were
consequently faced with the higher cost of purchases, but made no
corresponding gain in the sale of their own produce, since this was
largely taken by the middlemen on whom they depended. As a result
they tended to hoard their grain and to revert to subsistence
farming. Thus the cities were constantly short of food. At the same
time rising prices led to demands for higher wages in the factories,
and in January and February 1916 revolutionary propaganda,
aided by German funds, led to widespread strikes. The outcome of all
this, however, was a growing criticism of the government rather than
any war-weariness.
The original fever of patriotic excitement, which had caused the name
of St.
Petersburg to
be changed to the less German sounding "Petrograd," may
have subsided a little in the subsequent years, but it had not turned
to defeatism and during the initial risings in Petrograd in February
1917, the crowds in the streets clearly objected to the banners
proclaiming "down with the war." Heavy losses during the
war also strengthened thoughts that Tsar Nicholas II was unfit to
rule.[3]
The Liberals were
now better placed to voice their complaints, since they were
participating more fully through a variety of voluntary
organizations. Local industrial committees proliferated. In July
1915, a Central War Industries Committee was established under the
chairmanship of a prominent Octobrist,
Guchkov, and including ten workers' representatives. The
Petrograd Mensheviks agreed
to join despite the objections of their leaders abroad. All this
activity gave renewed encouragement to political ambitions, and, in
September 1915, a combination of Octobrists and Kadets in
the Duma demanded
the forming of a responsible government. The Tsar rejected
these proposals. He had now taken over the position of
commander-in-chief of the armed forces and, during his absence from
Petrograd while at his military headquarters at Mogilev,
he left most of the day-to-day government in the hands of
the Empress.She
was intensely unpopular, owing, in part, to her German origin and to
the influence that Rasputin,
an unsavoury "monk", exercised over her.[4]
All
these factors had given rise to a sharp loss of confidence in the
regime by 1916. Early in that year, Guchkov had been taking soundings
among senior army officers and members of the Central War Industries
Committee about a possible coup to force the abdication of the Tsar.
In November, Pavel
Milyukov in
the Duma openly accused the government of contemplating peace
negotiations with Germany. In December, a small group of nobles
assassinated Rasputin,
and in January 1917 the Tsar's uncle, Grand
Duke Nicholas,
was asked indirectly by Prince
Lvov whether
he would be prepared to take over the throne from his nephew, Tsar
Nicholas II. None of these incidents were in themselves the immediate
cause of the February Revolution, but they do help to explain why the
monarchy survived only a few days after it had broken out.[4]
Russian
soldiers marching in Petrograd in February 1917
Meanwhile,
the Social
Democrat leaders
in exile, now mostly in Switzerland,
had been the glum spectators of the collapse of international
socialist solidarity. French and German Social Democrats had voted in
favour of their respective governments.Georgi
Plekhanov in Paris had
adopted a violently anti-German stand, while Parvus supported
the German war effort as the best means of ensuring a revolution in
Russia. The Mensheviks largely maintained that Russia had the right
to defend herself against Germany, although Martov (a
prominent Menshevik), now on the left of his group, demanded an end
to the war and a settlement on the basis of national
self-determination, with no annexations or indemnities.[4]
It
was these views of Martov that predominated in a manifesto drawn up
by Leon Trotsky (a major Bolshevik revolutionary) at a conference
in Zimmerwald,
attended by thirty-five Socialist leaders in September 1915.
Inevitably Vladimir
Lenin,
supported byZinoviev and Radek,
strongly contested them. Their attitudes became known as the
Zimmerwald Left. Lenin rejected both the defence of Russia and the
cry for peace. Since the autumn of 1914, he had insisted that "from
the standpoint of the working class and of the labouring masses from
the lesser evil would be the defeat of the Tsarist Monarchy";
the war must be turned into a civil war of the proletarian soldiers
against their own governments, and if a proletarian victory should
emerge from this in Russia, then their duty would be to wage a
revolutionary war for the liberation of the masses throughout Europe.
Thus, Lenin remained the enfant
terrible of
the Russian
Social Democratic Labour Party,
although at this point in the war his following in Russia was as few
as 10,000 and he must have seemed no more than the leader of an
extremist wing of a bankrupt organization. Lenin, however, then
executed the protests of Petrograd which set off the 1917 Russian
Revolution.[5]
Economic and social changes
An
elementary theory of property, believed by many peasants, was that
land should belong to those who work on it. At the same time, peasant
life and culture was changing constantly. Change was facilitated by
the physical movement of growing numbers of peasant villagers who
migrated to and from industrial and urban environments, but also by
the introduction of city culture into the village through material
goods, the press, and word of mouth.[nb
1]
Workers
also had good reasons for discontent: overcrowded housing with often
deplorable sanitary conditions, long hours at work (on the eve of the
war a 10-hour workday six days a week was the average and many were
working 11–12 hours a day by 1916), constant risk of injury and
death from very poor safety and sanitary conditions, harsh discipline
(not only rules and fines, but foremen’s fists), and inadequate
wages (made worse after 1914 by steep war-time increases in the cost
of living). At the same time, urban industrial life was full of
benefits, though these could be just as dangerous, from the point of
view of social and political stability, as the hardships. There were
many encouragements to expect more from life. Acquiring new skills
gave many workers a sense of self-respect and confidence, heightening
expectations and desires. Living in cities, workers encountered
material goods such as they had never seen while in the village. Most
important, living in cities, they were exposed to new ideas about the
social and political order.[nb
2]
The
social causes of the Russian Revolution mainly came from centuries of
oppression of the lower classes by the Tsarist regime, and Nicholas's
failures in World War I. While rural agrarian peasants had
been emancipated from serfdom in
1861, they still resented paying redemption payments to the state,
and demanded communal tender of the land they worked. The problem was
further compounded by the failure of Sergei
Witte's
land reforms of the early 20th century. Increasing peasant
disturbances and sometimes actual revolts occurred, with the goal of
securing ownership of the land they worked. Russia consisted mainly
of poor farming peasants, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of
the land.[citation
needed]
The
rapid industrialization of Russia also resulted in urban overcrowding
and poor conditions for urban industrial workers (as mentioned
above). Between 1890 and 1910, the population of the capital, Saint
Petersburg, swelled from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600, with Moscow
experiencing similar growth. This created a new 'proletariat' which,
due to being crowded together in the cities, was much more likely to
protest and go on strike than the peasantry had been in previous
times. In one 1904 survey, it was found that an average of sixteen
people shared each apartment in Saint Petersburg, with six people per
room. There was also no running water, and piles of human waste were
a threat to the health of the workers. The poor conditions only
aggravated the situation, with the number of strikes and incidents of
public disorder rapidly increasing in the years shortly before World
War I. Because of late industrialization, Russia's workers were
highly concentrated. By 1914 40% of Russian workers were employed in
factories of +1,000 workers (32% in 1901). 42% worked in 100–1,000
worker enterprises, 18% in 1–100 worker businesses (in the USA,
1914, the figures were 18, 47 and 35 respectively).
Anarchists
participated alongside the Bolsheviks in
both February and October
revolutions,
and were initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik
revolution.[111] However,
following a political falling out with the Bolsheviks by the
anarchists and other left-wing opposition, the conflict culminated in
the 1921 Kronstadt
rebellion,
which the new government repressed. Anarchists in central Russia were
either imprisoned, driven underground or joined the victorious
Bolsheviks; the anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to
the Ukraine.[112]There,
in the Free
Territory,
they fought in the civil
war against
the Whites (a
grouping of monarchists and other opponents of the October
Revolution) and then the Bolsheviks as part of the Revolutionary
Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine led
by Nestor
Makhno,
who established an anarchist society in the region for a number of
months.
Expelled
American anarchists Emma
Goldman and Alexander
Berkman were
amongst those agitating in response to Bolshevik policy and the
suppression of the Kronstadt
uprising,
before they left Russia. Both wrote accounts of their experiences in
Russia, criticising the amount of control the Bolsheviks exercised.
For them, Bakunin's
predictions about the consequences of Marxist rule that the rulers of
the new "socialist" Marxist state would become a new elite
had proved all too true.[89][113]
The
victory of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting
Russian Civil War did serious damage to anarchist movements
internationally. Many workers and activists saw Bolshevik success as
setting an example; Communist
parties grew
at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France
and the United States, for example, members of the major syndicalist
movements of the CGT and IWW left
the organisations and joined the Communist
International.[114]
The revolutionary
wave of 1917–23 saw
the active participation of anarchists in varying degrees of
protagonism. In the German uprising known as the German
Revolution of 1918–1919 which
established the Bavarian
Soviet Republic the
anarchists Gustav
Landauer, Silvio
Gesell and Erich
Mühsam had
important leadership positions within the
revolutionary councilist structures.[115][116] In
the Italian events known as the biennio
rosso[117] the
anarcho-syndicalist trade union Unione
Sindacale Italiana "grew
to 800,000 members and the influence of the Italian Anarchist Union
(20,000 members plus Umanita
Nova,
its daily paper) grew accordingly ... Anarchists were the first
to suggest occupying workplaces.[118] In
the Mexican
Revolution the Mexican
Liberal Party was
established and during the early 1910s it led a series of military
offensives leading to the conquest and occupation of certain towns
and districts in Baja
California with
the leadership of anarcho-communist Ricardo
Flores Magón.[119]
In
Paris, the Dielo
Truda group
of Russian anarchist exiles, which included Nestor
Makhno,
concluded that anarchists needed to develop new forms of organisation
in response to the structures of Bolshevism. Their 1926 manifesto,
called the Organisational
Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft),[120] was
supported. Platformist groups
active today include the Workers
Solidarity Movement in
Ireland and the North
Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists of
North America. Synthesis
anarchism emerged
as an organisational alternative to platformism that tries to join
anarchists of different tendencies under the principles of anarchism
without adjectives.[121] In
the 1920s this form found as its main proponents Volin and Sebastien
Faure.[121] It
is the main principle behind the anarchist federations grouped around
the contemporary global International
of Anarchist Federations.[121]
The
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
It
lasted less than three weeks, from Oct. 23 until Nov. 10, but
the Hungarian
Revolution that convulsed Budapest and the rest of Hungary
in late 1956 sent shock waves through eastern and central Europe that
reverberated for decades. More than a few historians, in fact,
cite the popular revolt as the first rip in the Cold War’s
Iron Curtain.
The
general lineaments of the 1956 conflict are well-known: In
the autumn of that year, hundreds of thousands of Hungarians, in
cities and the countryside, rose up against occupying Soviet forces
and, critically, against the country’s brutal, homegrown secret
police, the State Protection Authority. For a few heady weeks, it
seemed like the insurgents might actually push the Russians out
altogether. By mid-November, though, the Soviet army had regrouped
and launched an all-out assault on a nation that was, nominally, both
an ally and a protectorate.
Roughly
3,000 Hungarian civilians—men,
women, children—were
killed during those three weeks. The uprising was crushed. But the
ripples of the revolt—the
Prague Spring in ’68, Poland’s Solidarity trade union movement in
the 1980s and other rebellions, large and small—were
wide-ranging, and long-lasting.
Here,
LIFE.com recalls the events through photos made by the great Michael
Rougier, a photojournalist whose pictures routinely conveyed
both an unmistakable authority and a seductive intimacy—often
in the very same frame.
In
its Nov. 12, 1956, issue, meanwhile, in an article titled, “Patriots
Strike Ferocious Blows at a Tyranny,” LIFE magazine commemorated
the short-lived uprising like this:
For
three incredible days in Hungary last week the flames of
liberty and revenge against tyranny rose high. It almost seemed as if
they could go on burning. The pictures on this and the following
pages document this terrifying and exhilarating event.
Rebel
patriots stormed recklessly toward freedom, Communist henchmen reaped
the frightful wrath they had sowed. The most hotly hated of the
rebels’ targets were the Soviet-controlled Hungarian secret
police. These were cut down as ruthlessly as they themselves
had murdered countless anti-communists. Soviet occupation
troops felt the national fury. Daredevil teenagers burned
up their tanks with “Molotov cocktails” until Soviet columns
evacuated Budapest, leaving their dead behind them. Most of the
Hungarian army, siding with the rebels, stood off Soviet troops
throughout the country. Workers not engaged in the fighting went out
on a general strike against Communism.
The
Soviets struck back with old-time Stalinist savagery. They
poured reinforcements in, ringing Budapest. They encircled
the Hungarian army in the provinces. At the end of the week, the
Budapest radio burst out brokenly: “Russian MiG fighters are over
Budapest. . . . The Russian infantry division is going toward the
parliament. . . . Gyor is completely surrounded. . . . Pecs was
attacked. . . . The Russians are using phosphorous bullets. . . . We
shall die for Hungary and Europe. . . . Any news about help? Quickly,
quickly, quickly . . .” Then Budapest fell.
A
month after Soviet troops had retaken the capital and the rest of the
country, LIFE published another major article on the
insurrection—this
time singling out the fearlessness of Hungary’s women for praise:
In
Budapest last week . . . the Russian masters and their
desperate Hungarian puppets faced a new and formidable foe. The
city’s women, some of whom had fought earlier at the side of their
men and then had bitterly buried the men who had fallen, suddenly
banded together in a series of fresh demonstrations of defiance.
“Only
women are wanted this time,” they shouted as they joined up in the
streets. Then, ignoring the ominous presence of security police and
Russian tanks, they marched with flowers and flags to a service
commemorating their dead. The men doffed their hats in tribute as the
women paraded past and joined with them in the stirring words of a
forbidden song—“We shall never be slaves.”
Thirty-three
years to the day after the start of the uprising, on Oct. 23,
1989, president Mátyás Szűrös officially declared the
establishment of the Hungarian Republic, replacing in an instant the
Hungarian People’s Republic. A few weeks later, on Nov. 9, 1989,
thousands of people attacked a brute, concrete symbol of the Cold
War—and of the Warsaw Pact’s illegitimacy—not with rifles
and Molotov cocktails, but with sledgehammers and pickaxes.
Four decades after the Hungarian Revolution had ended in
defeat, the Berlin Wall—which had not yet been built when
Budapest first rose up against the USSR—peacefully fell.
The
Cold War was over.
The
Prague Spring of 1968
The Prague
Spring (Czech: Pražské
jaro, Slovak: Pražská
jar)
was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during
the era of its domination by the Soviet
Union after World
War II.
It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander
Dubček was
elected First Secretary of the Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ),
and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and other members
of the Warsaw
Pact invaded
the country to
halt the reforms.
The Prague Spring
reforms were a strong attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights
to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial
decentralization of the economy and democratization. The freedoms
granted included a loosening of restrictions on
themedia, speech and travel.
After national discussion of dividing the country into a federation
of three republics, Bohemia, Moravia-Silesia and Slovakia,
Dubček oversaw the decision to split into two, the Czech Republic
and Slovak Republic.[1] This
was the only formal change that survived the end of Prague Spring,
though the relative success of the nonviolent resistance undoubtedly
prefigured and facilitated the peaceful transition to liberal
democracy with the collapse of Soviet hegemony in 1989.
The
reforms, especially the decentralization of administrative authority,
were not received well by the Soviets, who, after failed
negotiations, sent half a million Warsaw Pact troops and tanks to
occupy the country. A large wave of emigration swept the nation. A
spirited non-violent resistance was mounted throughout the country,
involving attempted fraternization, painting over and turning street
signs (on one occasion an entire invasion force from Poland was
routed back out of the country after a day's wandering), defiance of
various curfews, etc. While the Soviet military had predicted that it
would take four days to subdue the country the resistance held out
for eight months, and was only circumvented by diplomatic stratagems
(see below). There were sporadic acts of violence and several
suicides by self-immolation (such as that of Jan
Palach),
but there was no military resistance. Czechoslovakia remained
controlled until 1989, when the velvet
revolutionended
pro-Soviet rule peacefully, undoubtedly drawing upon the successes of
the non-violent resistance twenty years earlier. The resistance also
became an iconic example ofcivilian-based
defense,
which, along with unarmed
civilian peacekeeping constitute
the two ways that nonviolence can be and occasionally has been
applied directly to military or paramilitary threats.
After
the invasion, Czechoslovakia entered a period of normalization:
subsequent leaders attempted to restore the political and economic
values that had prevailed before Dubček gained control of the
KSČ. Gustáv
Husák,
who replaced Dubček and also became president,
reversed almost all of Dubček's reforms. The Prague Spring inspired
music and literature such as the work of Václav
Havel, Karel
Husa, Karel
Kryl,
and Milan
Kundera's
novel The
Unbearable Lightness of Being.
The
process of de-Stalinization in Czechoslovakia had
begun under Antonín
Novotný in
the late 1950s and early 1960s, but had progressed slower than in
most other states of the Eastern
Bloc.[2] Following
the lead of Nikita
Khrushchev,
Novotný proclaimed the completion of socialism, and the new
constitution,[3] accordingly,
adopted the name Czechoslovak
Socialist Republic.
The pace of change, however, was sluggish; the rehabilitation of
Stalinist-era victims, such as those convicted in the Slánský
trials,
may have been considered as early as 1963, but did not take place
until 1967.[4]
In
the early 1960s,
Czechoslovakia underwent an economic downturn.[5] The Soviet model
of industrialization applied poorly to Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia
was already quite industrialized before World War II and the Soviet
model mainly took into account less developed economies. Novotný's
attempt at restructuring the economy, the 1965 New
Economic Model,
spurred increased demand for political reform as well.[6]
1967 Writers' Congress[edit]
As
the strict regime eased its rules, the Union
of Czechoslovak Writers cautiously
began to air discontent, and in the union's gazette,Literární
noviny,
members suggested that literature should be independent of Party
doctrine.[7]
In
June 1967, a small fraction of the Czech writer's union sympathized
with radical socialists, specifically Ludvík
Vaculík, Milan
Kundera,Jan
Procházka, Antonín
Jaroslav Liehm, Pavel
Kohout and Ivan
Klíma.[7]
A
few months later, at a party meeting, it was decided that
administrative actions against the writers who openly expressed
support of reformation would be taken. Since only a small part of the
union held these beliefs, the remaining members were relied upon to
discipline their colleagues.[7] Control
over Literární
noviny and
several other publishing houses was transferred to the Ministry of
Culture,[7] and
even members of the party who later became major reformers —
including Dubček — endorsed these moves.[7]
The
People Power Revolution
The People
Power Revolution (also
known as the EDSA
Revolution,
the Philippine
Revolution of 1986,
and the Yellow
Revolution)
was a series of popular demonstrations in
the Philippines that
began in 1983 and culminated on February 22–25, 1986. The methods
used amounted to a sustained campaign of civil
resistance against
regime violence and electoral fraud. This case of nonviolent
revolution led
to the departure of President Ferdinand
Marcos and
the restoration of the country's democracy.
It is also referred to as the Yellow
Revolution due
to the presence of yellow ribbons during the demonstrations following
the assassination of Filipino senator Benigno
Aquino, Jr..[4][5] It
was widely seen as a victory of the people against the 20-year
running authoritarian,
repressive[6] regime
of then president Ferdinand
Marcos and
made news headlines as "the revolution that surprised the
world".[7]
The
majority of the demonstrations took place on a long stretch
of Epifanio
de los Santos Avenue,
more commonly known by its acronym EDSA,
in Metro
Manila from
February 22–25, 1986, and involved over two million Filipino
civilians, as well as several political, military, and including
religious groups led by Cardinal Jaime
Sin,
the Archbishop
of Manila and
the CBCPPresident Cardinal Ricardo
Vidal,
the Archbishop
of Cebu.
The protests, fueled by the resistance and opposition from years of
corrupt governance by Marcos, culminated with the departure of
the dictator from Malacañang
Palace to
the state of Hawaii.Corazon
Aquino was
proclaimed as the legitimate President
of the Philippines after
the revolution.
Ferdinand
E. Marcos was elected
president in 1965,
defeating incumbent Diosdado
Macapagal by
a very slim margin. During this time, Marcos was very active in the
initiation of public works projects and the intensification of tax
collections. Marcos and his government claimed that they "built
more roads than all his predecessors combined, and more schools than
any previous administration."[9] Amidst
charges of vote buying and a fraudulent election, Marcos was
reelected in 1969, this time defeating Sergio Osmeña, Jr.[citation
needed]
Marcos'
second term for the presidency, however, was marred by allegations of
widespread graft and corruption. The increasing disparity of wealth
between the very wealthy and the very poor which made up the majority
of the country's population led to the rise of crime and civil unrest
around the country. These factors, including the formation of the New
People's Army,
an armed revolt that called for the redistribution of wealth and land
reform in the Philippines, and a bloody Muslim separatist movement in
the southern island of Mindanao led by the Moro
National Liberation Front or
MNLF, contributed to the rapid rise of civil discontent and unrest in
the Philippines.[citation
needed]
Marcos
was barred from running for a third term as president in 1973, so on
September 23, 1972, by virtue of a presidential proclamation (No.
1081), he declared martial
law,
citing rising civil disobedience as justification. Through this
decree, Marcos seized emergency powers giving him full control of the
Philippine military and the authority to suppress the freedom of
speech, the freedom of the press, and many other civil liberties.
Marcos also dissolved the Philippine
Congress and
shut down media establishments critical of the Marcos government.
Marcos also ordered the immediate arrest of his political opponents
and critics. Among those arrested were Senate President Jovito
Salonga,
Senator Jose
Diokno,
and Senator Benigno
Aquino Jr.,
the staunchest of his critics and the man who was groomed by the
opposition to succeed Marcos after the 1973 elections. Marcos would
also abolish the Philippines' 1935
constitution and
replace it with a parliamentary-style government (theBatasang
Pambansa)
along with a new constitution written by him. With practically all of
his political opponents arrested and in exile, Marcos' pre-emptive
declaration of martial law in 1972, and the ratification of his new
constitution through political coercion, enabled him to effectively
legitimize his government and hold on to power for another 14 years
beyond his first two terms as president. At a period when the Cold
War was
still a political reality, Marcos's dictatorship ensured the
political support of the United States by Marcos' promise to stamp
out communism in the Philippines and by assuring the United States of
its continued use of military and naval bases in the Philippines.[10]
Throughout
his presidency, Ferdinand
Marcos had
set up a regime in the Philippines that would give him ultimate power
over the military and the national treasury, as well as set up
a personality
cult.
Following his declaration of martial law on September 21,
1972,[11] Marcos
immediately began to embezzle money
from the government and order the military to kill any political
competition against him. As a result, the Philippine
economy began
to tumble greatly, and the nation lost its competitive edge in
Southeast Asia. He also ordered many stores, hotels, schools,
universities, and other public places to place his Presidential
picture prominently or otherwise their facilities were shut down. The
media frequently "eulogized" Marcos through public service
announcements and news reports. Even billboard advertisements across
the country were replaced with his propaganda messages
on justifying his regime's actions. Marcos also ordered the shutdown
and takeovers of businesses in the country, then put these businesses
either under the government control, or under the control of
Marcos cronies.[10]
Several
groups of people, however, even within the government, conspired
throughout the term of the Marcos regime to overthrow him. They were
led by the popular public figure, incarcerated opposition senator
Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr., who Marcos accused of leaning
to a left-wing solution.
While gaining popularity amongst the Filipino people for his stance
against Marcos, Aquino was eventually forced to seek exile in
the United
States for
health and safety reasons. However, in 1983, Ninoy Aquino announced
his plans to return to the Philippines to challenge the Marcos
government.[10]
Within
the military, disillusioned junior officers silently conveyed their
grievances. This led to the formation of the Reform
the Armed Forces Movement (RAM),
Soldier of the Filipino People (SFP), and Young Officers Union (YOU).
RAM, which was led by graduates of thePhilippine
Military Academy Class
of '71, Lt. Col. Gringo
Honasan,
Lt. Col. Victor
Batac,
and Lt. Col. Eduardo Kapunan, found an ally and mentor in the Defense
Minister Juan
Ponce Enrile.
Aftermath[edit]
In
her speech before the United
States Congress which
she delivered on September 18, 1986, seven months after assuming the
presidency, President Aquino observed that "ours must have been
the cheapest revolution ever."[35][36]
While
the Marcoses fled, and the former president died in exile in Hawaii,
his wife Imelda later
won a seat in the House
of Representatives and
his son Ferdinand
Jr. was elected
senator in 2010.
The
revolution had an effect on democratization movements in such
countries as Taiwan and South
Korea;
other effects include the restoration of the freedom of the press,
adoption of a new constitution, and the subordination of the military
to civilian rule, despite several coup attempts during the Aquino
administration.[37]
The
revolution provided for the restoration of democratic institutions
after thirteen years of authoritarian rule and these institutions
have been used by various groups to challenge the
entrenched political
families and
to strengthen Philippine democracy.[38]
Legacy[edit]
The
EDSA Revolution Anniversary is a special public
holiday in the Philippines.
Since 2010, the holiday has been a special non-working holiday only
for schools, and not a regular yearly holiday.[39][40]
Rampant
corruption continued to plague the country and that led to the 2001
EDSA Revolution,
which deposed President Joseph
Estrada.
Despite
recent efforts at historical revisionism by his cronies,[41] the
Marcos name has remained synonymous with corruption in the
Philippines, with his son and namesake, Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong"
Marcos, Jr., accused of involvement in a multi-million peso pork
barrel fund scam.[42]
Criticism[edit]
There
are political writers, especially those living outside of Metro
Manila,
who associate the People Power Revolution with what they term as
"Imperial
Manila"
because it was believed that Marcos was toppled from his position
without the participation of Filipinos living in areas outside of the
capital region. In an article published in Philippine
Daily Inquirer,
Amando Doronila wrote that:
People
power movements have been an Imperial Manila phenomenon. Their
playing field is EDSA.
They have excluded theprovincianos from
their movement with their insufferable arrogance and snobbery ...
ignoring the existence of the toiling masses and peasants in agrarian
Philippines.[43]
This
criticism fails to take into consideration the existence and
mobilization of anti-Marcos groups outside of Metro Manila before and
during the revolution in EDSA. Protest action against Marcos held in
Antique,[44] Cebu,
and other provinces [45] show
that the will of those outside "Imperial Manila" was in
consonance with those protesting in EDSA, and that People Power was
not merely an isolated revolt, but a countrywide revolution.
The
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet
Revolution (Czech: sametová
revoluce)
or Gentle
Revolution (Slovak: nežná
revolúcia)
was a non-violent transition of power in what was
then Czechoslovakia.
The period of upheaval and transition took place from November 16/17
to December 29, 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party
government of the Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia combined
students and older dissidents. The final result was the end of 41
years of Communist rule
in Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent conversion to a parliamentary
republic.[1]
On
November 16, 1989, Slovak middle school and university students
organized a peaceful demonstration in the center ofBratislava.
The next day, November 17, 1989 (International
Students' Day), riot
police suppressed
a large student
demonstration in Prague.[2] That
event sparked a series of demonstrations from November 19 to late
December. By November 20, the number of protesters assembled
in Prague had grown from 200,000 the previous day to an estimated
500,000. On November 24, the entire top leadership of the Communist
Party, including General Secretary Miloš
Jakeš,
resigned. A two-hour general
strike involving
all citizens of Czechoslovakia was held on November 27.
In
response to the collapse of other Warsaw
Pact governments
and the increasing street protests, the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia announced on November 28 that it would relinquish
power and dismantle the single-party
state.
Two days later, the legislature formally deleted the sections of the
Constitution giving the Communists a monopoly of power. Barbed
wire and
other obstructions were removed from the border
with West Germany and Austria in
early December. On December 10, President Gustáv
Husák appointed
the first largely non-communist government
in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned. Alexander
Dubček was
elected speaker of the federal parliament on December 28 and Václav
Havelthe
President of Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989.
In
June 1990, Czechoslovakia held its
first democratic elections since 1946.
The
term Velvet
Revolution was
coined by Rita
Klímová,
the dissidents' English translator[3] who
later became the ambassador to the United States.[4] The
term was used internationally to describe the revolution, although
the Czechs also used the term internally. After the dissolution
of Czechoslovakia in
1993, Slovakia used
the term Gentle
Revolution,
the term that Slovaks used for the revolution from the beginning.
The Czech
Republic continues
to refer to the event as theVelvet
Revolution.
The Communist
Party seized
power on February
25, 1948.
No official opposition parties operated
thereafter. Dissidents (notablyCharter
77)
published home-made periodicals (samizdat)
in opposition to the Communist Party, but they faced persecution by
thesecret
police.
Thus, the general public did not openly support the dissidents for
fear of being fired from their jobs or expelled from school. A writer
or filmmaker could have their books or films banned for a "negative
attitude towards the socialist regime."
Thisblacklisting included
children of former entrepreneurs or non-Communist politicians, having
family members living in the West, having supported Alexander
Dubček during
the Prague
Spring,
opposing Soviet military
occupation,
promoting religion, boycotting (rigged) parliamentary elections or
signing Charter 77 or associating with those who did. These rules
were easy to enforce, as all schools, media and businesses belonged
to the state. They were under direct supervision and often were used
as accusatory weapons against rivals.
The
nature of blacklisting changed gradually after the introduction
of Mikhail
Gorbachev's
policies of Glasnost (openness)
andPerestroika (restructuring)
in 1985. The Czechoslovak Communist leadership verbally supported
Perestroika, but made few changes. Speaking about the Prague
Spring of 1968 was
taboo. The first anti-government demonstrations occurred in 1988
(theCandle
Demonstration,
for example) and 1989, but these were dispersed and participants were
repressed by the police.
By
the late 1980s, discontent with living standards and economic
inadequacy gave way to popular support for economic reform. Citizens
began to challenge the system more openly. By 1989, citizens who had
previously kept quiet were willing to openly express their discontent
with the regime. Numerous important figures as well as common workers
signed petitions in support of Václav
Havel during
his 1989 imprisonment. Reform-minded attitudes were also reflected by
the many individuals who signed a petition that circulated in the
summer of 1989 calling for the end of censorship and
the beginning of drastic political reform.[5]
The
immediate impetus for the revolution came from developments in
neighbouring countries and in the Czechoslovak capital. Since
August, East
German citizens
had occupied the West
German Embassy in
Prague and demanded exile to West
Germany.
In the days following November 3, thousands of East Germans left
Prague by train to West Germany. On November 9, the Berlin
Wall fell,
removing the need for the detour.
By
November 16, many of Czechoslovakia's neighbours were beginning to
shed authoritarian rule.
The citizens of Czechoslovakia watched these events on TV through
both foreign and domestic signals. The Soviet Union also supported a
change in the ruling elite of Czechoslovakia, although it did not
anticipate the overthrow of the Communist regime.
November 16[edit]
On
the eve of International
Students Day (the
50th anniversary death of Jan
Opletal,
a Czech student who was killed by the Nazis), Slovak high school and
university students organize a peaceful demonstration in the center
of Bratislava.[6] The Communist
Party of Slovakia had
expected trouble, and the mere fact that the demonstration was
organised was viewed as a problem by the Party. Armed forces were put
on alert before the demonstration. In the end, however, the students
move through the city peacefully and send a delegation to the Slovak
Ministry of Education to discuss their demands.
December 29[edit]
Václav
Havel is
sworn in as President.
The
victory of the revolution was topped off by the election of rebel
playwright and human
rightsactivist Václav
Havel as President
of Czechoslovakia on
December 29, 1989. Free elections held in June 1990 legitimized this
government and set the stage for addressing the remnants of the
Communist party's power and the legacy of the Communist period. The
main threat to political stability and the success of
Czechoslovakia's shift to democracy appeared
likely to come fromethnic
conflicts between
the Czechs and
the Slovaks,
which resurfaced in the post-Communist period.[12] However,
there was a general consensus to move toward a market
economy,
so in early 1990 the President and his top economic advisors decided
to liberalize prices, pushdemonopolization,
and privatize the economy. The outcome of the transition to democracy
and a market economy would depend on the extent to which developments
outside the country facilitated or hindered the process of change.[5]
Movements
in the new Millennium: The Saffron Revolution, The color revolutions
and the Arab Spring
Saffron
Revolution is
a term used to describe a series of economic and political protests
and demonstrations that took place during August, September and
October of 2007 in Burma (also
known as Myanmar).
The protests were triggered by the decision of the national military
government to remove subsidies on the sales prices of fuel. The
national government is the only supplier of fuels and the removal of
the price subsidy immediately caused diesel and petrol prices to
increase by 66%--100% and the price of compressed
natural gas for
buses to increase 500% in less than a week.[1] [2]
The
various protests were led by students, political activists, including
women, and Buddhist monks and took the form of a campaign
of nonviolent
resistance,
sometimes also called civil
resistance.[3]
In
response to the protests dozens of protesters were arrested or
detained. Starting in September 2007 the protests were led by
thousands of Buddhist
monks,
and those protests were allowed to proceed until a renewed government
crackdown in late September 2007.[4] Some
news reports referred to the protests as the Saffron
Revolution,
or ရွှေဝါရောင်တော်လှန်ရေး ([sw̥èi
wà jàʊɴ tɔ̀ l̥àɴ jéi]).[5][6]
Some
of the prominent or symbolic individuals who figured in these events
included (i) Senior General Than
Shwe,
Commander in Chief of the Myanmar Armed forces
(ii) Aung
San Suu Kyi,
Burmese opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1991,
(iii) Kenji
Nagai,
Japanese photojournalist who was killed during the protests,
(iv) Zarganar,
Burmese comedian and protester and
(v) U
Gambira,
a leader of the Buddhist monks in opposition.
The
exact number of casualties is not known, but estimates range from
13-31 deaths resulting from the protests and reprisals by the
government. Several hundred people were arrested or detained, many,
but not all, of whom were released.
Senior
General Than Shwe remained in power until he retired in 2011 at age
78.
The
phrase "Saffron Revolution" connects the protests against
Myanmar's military dictatorship to the saffron-colored robes widely
associated with Buddhist monks,
who were at the forefront of the demonstrations.[7] However,
this nomenclature is misleading as the majority of monks in Burma
wear maroon (reddish-brown) robes, not saffron (golden-yellow) robes
(see saffron).
While similar terms for protests (see color
revolution)
had been used elsewhere to describe the process of gradual or
peaceful revolution in other nations, this seems to be the first time
it has been associated with a particular protest as it is unfolding,
and the international press seized upon the term in reporting on the
Burmese protests.[8] However,
the idea that the monkhood is connected to specifically Burmese ideas
about revolution has been argued by British academic Gustaaf Houtman,
partly in critique of an alternative view held by a political
scientist, that Gen. Ne
Win's
1962 revolution was the only successful revolution in Burma. Burmese
concepts of "revolution," however, have a much longer
history and are also employed in many but not all monastic
ordinations.
The
military government of Burma was called the State
Peace and Development Council or
"SPDC" from 1988 to 2011.
The
number of casualties is not yet clear.[158] According
to ABC,
the military crackdown claimed hundreds of lives. The official toll
remains at 13 killed.[159]Kenji
Nagai,
the Japanese photo journalist, is believed to currently be the only
foreign casualty of the unrest. However, it is possible that the
death toll may be many times greater than officially reported.[160]
Speaking
before the UN General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council's Special
Rapporteur Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro said that independent sources
reported 30 to 40 monks and 50 to 70 civilians killed as well as 200
beaten.[161]
Democratic
Voice of Burma puts
the number of deaths at 138, basing their figure on a list compiled
by the 88 Student Generation group in Myanmar. The Executive Director
of the DVB, Aye Chan Naing, told the Associated Press that "[t]his
138 figure is quite credible because it is based on names of victims,
I also think the figure is accurate because of the pictures coming
from inside Burma. The way they were shooting into the crowds with
machine guns means dozens of people could have died."
Colour
revolution (sometimes
called the coloured
revolution)
or color
revolution is
a term that was widely used by worldwide media[1]to
describe various related movements that developed in several
societies in the former
Soviet Union and
the Balkans during
the early 2000s. The term has also been applied to a number of
revolutions elsewhere, including in the Middle East. Some
observers[who?] have
called the events a revolutionary
wave,
the origins of which can be traced back to the 1986 People
Power Revolution (also
known as the "Yellow Revolution") in the Philippines.
Participants
in the colour revolutions have mostly used nonviolent
resistance,
also called civil
resistance.
Such methods as demonstrations, strikes and
interventions have been intended protest against governments seen
as corrupt and/or authoritarian, and to advocate democracy;
and they have also created strong pressure for change. These
movements generally adopted a specific colour or flower as their
symbol. The colour revolutions are notable for the important role
of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs)
and particularly student
activists in
organising creative non-violent resistance.
Such
movements have had a measure of success, as for example in the
former Yugoslavia's Bulldozer
Revolution (2000);
in Georgia's Rose
Revolution (2003);
and in Ukraine'sOrange
Revolution (2004).
In most but not all cases, massive street protests followed disputed
elections, or requests for fair elections, and led to the resignation
or overthrow of leaders considered by their opponents to
be authoritarian.
Some events have been called "colour revolutions" but are
different from the above cases in certain basic characteristics.
Examples include Lebanon's Cedar
Revolution (2005);
and Kuwait's
Blue Revolution (2005).
Government
figures in Russia,
such as Defense Minister Sergei
Shoigu and
Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov,
have charged that colour revolutions are a new form of
warfare.[2][3]President
Putin said Russia must prevent colour revolutions, "We see what
tragic consequences the wave of so-called color revolutions led to.
For us this is a lesson and a warning. We should do everything
necessary so that nothing similar ever happens in Russia."
Student movements[edit]
The
first of these was Otpor! ("Resistance!")
in Serbia, which was founded at Belgrade
University in
October 1998 and began protesting against Miloševic' during
the Kosovo
War.
Most of them were already veterans of anti-Milošević demonstrations
such as the 1996-97
protests and
the 9
March 1991 protest.
Many of its members were arrested or beaten by the police. Despite
this, during the presidential campaign in September 2000, Otpor
launched its "Gotov
je"
(He's finished) campaign that galvanised Serbian discontent with
Miloševic' and resulted in his defeat.
Members
of Otpor have inspired and trained members of related student
movements including Kmara in
Georgia, Pora in Ukraine, Zubr in
Belarus and MJAFT! in
Albania. These groups have been explicit and scrupulous in their
practice of non-violent
resistance as
advocated and explained in Gene
Sharp's
writings.[17] The
massive protests that they have organised, which were essential to
the successes in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine, have been notable for
their colourfulness and use of ridiculing humor in opposing
authoritarian leaders.
Russian assessment
According
to Anthony
Cordesman of
the Center
for Strategic and International Studies,
Russian military leaders view the color revolutions as a "new US
and European approach to warfare that focuses on creating
destabilizing revolutions in other states as a means of serving their
security interests at low cost and with minimal casualties.
The Arab
Spring (Arabic: الربيع
العربي, ar-rabīˁ
al-ˁarabī)
was a revolutionary
wave of demonstrations and protests (both
non-violent and violent), riots,
and civil
wars in
the Arab
world that
began on 18 December 2010 in Tunisia with
the Tunisian
Revolution,
and spread throughout the countries of the Arab League and its
surroundings. While the wave of initial revolutions and protests
faded by mid-2012, some started to refer to the succeeding and still
ongoing large-scale discourse conflicts in the Middle East and North
Africa as the Arab
Winter.
The most radical discourse from Arab Spring into the still ongoing
civil wars took place in Syria and Iraq as early as the second half
of 2011. The term "Arab Spring" fell into a complete disuse
by late 2013.
By
the end of February 2012, rulers had been forced from power in
Tunisia,[2] Egypt,[3] Libya,[4] and Yemen;[5] civil
uprisings had erupted in
Bahrain[6] and Syria;[7] major
protests had broken out in
Algeria,[8] Iraq,[9] Jordan,[10] Kuwait,[11] Morocco,[12]and Sudan;[13] and
minor protests had occurred in
Mauritania,[14] Oman,[15] Saudi
Arabia,[16] Djibouti,[17] Western
Sahara,[18]and Palestine.
Weapons and Tuareg fighters
returning from the Libyan Civil War stoked a simmering conflict
in Mali which
has been described as "fallout" from the Arab Spring
in North
Africa.[19]
The
protests shared some techniques of civil
resistance in
sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches, and
rallies, as well as the effective use of social
media[20][21] to
organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state
attempts at repression and Internet
censorship,
most notably used by the youth members
of the Arab population.[22][23]
Many
Arab Spring demonstrations were met with violent responses from
authorities,[24][25][26] as
well as from pro-government militias and counter-demonstrators. These
attacks were answered with violence from protestors in some
cases.[27][28][29] A
major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is Ash-sha`b
yurid isqat an-nizam ("the
people want to bring down the regime").[30]
Some
observers have drawn comparisons between the Arab Spring movements
and the Revolutions
of 1989 (also
known as the "Autumn of Nations") that swept
through Eastern
Europe and
the Second
World,
in terms of their scale and significance.[31][32][33] Others,
however, have pointed out that there are several key differences
between the movements, such as the desired outcomes and the
organizational role of Internet-based
technologies in the Arab revolutions.
The
term "Arab Spring" is an allusion to the Revolutions
of 1848,
which is sometimes referred to as the "Springtime of Nations",
and the Prague
Spring in
1968. In the aftermath of the Iraq
War it
was used by various commentators and bloggers who anticipated a major
Arab movement towards democratization.[37] The
first specific use of the term Arab
Spring as
used to denote these events may have started with the American
political journal Foreign
Policy.[38] Marc
Lynch,
referring to his article in Foreign
Policy,[39] writes
"Arab Spring—a term I may have unintentionally coined in a
January 6, 2011 article".[40] Joseph
Massad on Al
Jazeera said
the term was "part of a US strategy of controlling [the
movement's] aims and goals" and directing it towards
American-style liberal
democracy.[38] Due
to the electoral success of Islamist parties
following the protests in many Arab countries, the events have also
come to be known as "Islamist Spring" or "Islamist
Winter".[41][42]
Background[edit]
Causes[edit]
The
Arab Spring is widely believed to have been instigated by
dissatisfaction with the rule of local governments, particularly by
youth and unions, though some have speculated that wide gaps in
income levels may have had a hand as well.[43] Numerous
factors have led to the protests, including issues such
as dictatorship or absolute
monarchy, human
rights violations, political
corruption (demonstrated
by Wikileaks
diplomatic cables),[44] economic
decline, unemployment, extreme poverty, and a number of demographic
structural factors,[45] such
as a large percentage of educated but dissatisfied youth within the
entire population.[46][47] Catalysts
for the revolts in all Northern
African and Persian
Gulf countries have
included the concentration of wealth in the hands of autocrats in
power for decades, insufficient transparency of its redistribution,
corruption, and especially the refusal of the youth to accept the
status quo.[48] Some
protesters looked to the Turkish
model as
an ideal (contested but peaceful elections, fast-growing but liberal
economy, secular constitution but Islamist government).[49] More
broadly, increasing food prices and famine rates
associated with climate
change may
have acted as "stressors" that contributed to unrest in the
region.[50][51][52]
Tunisia
experienced a series of conflicts during the three years leading up
to the Arab Spring, the most notable occurring in the mining area
of Gafsa in
2008, where protests continued for many months. These protests
included rallies, sit-ins, and strikes, during which there were two
fatalities, an unspecified number of wounded, and dozens of
arrests.[53][54] In
Egypt, the labor movement had been strong for years, with more than
3,000 labor actions since 2004, and provided an important venue for
organizing protests and collective action.[55] One
important demonstration was an attempted workers' strike on 6 April
2008 at the state-run textile factories of al-Mahalla
al-Kubra,
just outside Cairo.
The idea for this type of demonstration spread throughout the
country, promoted by computer-literate working class youths and their
supporters among middle-class college students.[55] A
Facebook page, set up to promote the strike, attracted tens of
thousands of followers and provided the platform for sustained
political action in pursuit of the "long revolution."[47] The
government mobilized to break the strike through infiltration and
riot police, and while the regime was somewhat successful in
forestalling a strike, dissidents formed the "6 April Committee"
of youths and labor activists, which became one of the major forces
calling for the anti-Mubarak demonstration
on 25 January in Tahrir
Square.[55]
In
Algeria, discontent had been building for years over a number of
issues. In February 2008, United States Ambassador Robert Ford wrote
in a leaked diplomatic cable that Algeria is 'unhappy' with
long-standing political alienation; that social discontent persisted
throughout the country, with food strikes occurring almost every
week; that there were demonstrations every day somewhere in the
country; and that the Algerian government was corrupt and
fragile.[56] Some
have claimed that during 2010 there were as many as '9,700 riots and
unrests' throughout the country.[57] Many
protests focused on issues such as education and health care, while
others cited rampant corruption.[58]
In
Western Sahara, the Gdeim
Izik protest camp was
erected 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south-east of El
Aaiún by
a group of young Sahrawis on
9 October 2010. Their intention was to demonstrate against labor
discrimination, unemployment, looting of resources, and human rights
abuses.[59] The
camp contained between 12,000 and 20,000 inhabitants, but on 8
November 2010 it was destroyed and its inhabitants evicted by
Moroccan security forces. The security forces faced strong opposition
from some young Sahrawi civilians, and rioting soon spread to El
Aaiún and other towns within the territory, resulting in an unknown
number of injuries and deaths. Violence against Sahrawis in the
aftermath of the protests was cited as a reason for renewed
protests months
later, after the start of the Arab Spring.[60]
The
catalyst for the current escalation of protests was the
self-immolation of Tunisian Mohamed
Bouazizi.
Unable to find work and selling fruit at a roadside stand, on 17
December 2010, a municipal inspector confiscated his wares. An hour
later he doused himself with gasoline and set himself afire. His
death on 4 January 2011[61] brought
together various groups dissatisfied with the existing system,
including many unemployed, political and human rights activists,
labor, trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, and others to
begin the Tunisian
Revolution.[53]
Unshacklings:
The Pursuit Of Equality
Slavery
and Emancipation
Emancipation
Proclamation summary: The
Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on
January 1, 1863, as the country entered the third year of the Civil
War. It declared that "all persons held as slaves … shall be
then, thenceforward, and forever free"—but it applied only to
states designated as being in rebellion, not to the slave-holding
border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri or to
areas of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control.
The careful planning of this document, with Lincoln releasing it at
just the right moment in the war, ensured that it had a great
positive impact on the Union efforts and redefined the purpose of the
war. The Emancipation Proclamation continues to be a symbol of
equality and social justice.The
First Confiscation ActIn
August 1861, Congress passed the First Confiscation Act, authorizing
the confiscation of any property—including slaves—used in the
rebellion against the U.S. government. Later that month, Union major
general John C. Fremont, commander of the Department of the West,
issued an order declaring martial law in Missouri and freeing all
slaves held by Missouri secessionists. In a letter dated September 11
that was published in Union newspapers, Lincoln ordered Fremont to
change his order to conform to the First Confiscation Act, afraid
that linking abolition with the war would cause the slave-holding
border states to rebel. When it became clear that Fremont would not
revoke or amend the order, Lincoln removed him from command and
revoked the order himself. Under political pressure, he later
appointed Fremont to the newly formed Mountain Department in West
Virginia.A second unauthorized emancipation proclamation was issued
on May 9, 1862, by Maj. Gen. David Hunter. This proclamation not only
declared to be free all slaves in areas of South Carolina, Georgia,
and Florida, it authorized the arming of able-bodied blacks. Lincoln
again issued a public statement revoking the order but urged the
slave-holding border states to "adopt a gradual abolishment of
slavery."On July 17, 1862, Congress passed the Second
Confiscation Act, which declared that slaves held by supporters of
the Confederacy who crossed over Union lines were "forever
free." Less than a week later, on July 22, 1862, Lincoln
surprised his Cabinet by reading a draft Emancipation Proclamation,
asking for revisions and refinements to the document. Though Lincoln
was still wary of linking abolition to the war and driving the
slave-holding border states to support the Confederacy, it became
clear to him that popular sentiment in the North had begun to support
abolition as one of the purposes of the war.Lincoln
In Search Of A Union VictoryLincoln
needed a decisive Union victory to lend credence to the proclamation
and got one at the Battle
of Antietam on September 17, which had ended Confederate
general Robert E. Lee’s first Northern invasion. On September 22,
1862, Lincoln signed the preliminary
Emancipation Proclamation, which informed both the Confederacy
and the Union of his intention to free all persons held as slaves in
the rebellious states.As promised in the preliminary proclamation,
100 days later, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation. The five-page document declared that slaves in the
rebel states were free, provided them with the support of the U.S.
government—including the Army and Navy, declared that freed slaves
should be paid a wage, urged freed slaves to abstain from violence
except in self-defense, and publically declared that all suitable
freed men would be accepted into the armed services to fight in the
war.What
Effect Did The Emancipation Proclamation Have?However,
many argued that the proclamation didn’t actually free any slaves
or destroy the institution of slavery itself—it still only applied
to states in active rebellion, not to the slave-holding border states
or to rebel areas already under Union control. In reality, it simply
freed Union army officers from returning runaway slaves to their
owners under the national Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Any escaped
slaves who managed to get behind the lines of the advancing Union
armies and any who lived in areas subsequently captured by those
armies no longer had to be returned because, in the words of the
proclamation, they were "thenceforeward, and forever
free."Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation primarily as
a war measure. Perhaps its most significant immediate effect was that
it, for the first time, it officially placed the U.S. government
against the "peculiar institution" of slavery, thereby
placing a barrier between the South and its recognition by European
nations that had outlawed slavery. The South had long counted on aid
from England and France. Several articles within the Confederate
States’ Constitution specifically protected slavery within the
Confederacy, but some articles of the U.S. Constitution also
protected slavery—the Emancipation Proclamation drew a clearer
distinction between the two.Forty-eight copies of the document were
signed in June 1864 by Lincoln and donated to the Sanitary
Commission, an American Red Cross precursor, which sold the documents
to improve conditions in military camps and provide medical care to
Union soldiers. One of these original signed copies was sold in June
2012 for just over $2 million dollars, while another copy, originally
owned by Robert Kennedy, was sold in 2010 for $3.7 million. The
original document is held in the National
Archives in Washington, D.C., although it is rarely
displayed.Slavery
in the United States was
the legal institution of chattel
slavery that
existed in the United
States of America in
the 18th and 19th centuries after it gained independence and before
the end of the American
Civil War. Slavery had been practiced in British
North America from
early colonial days, and was recognized in the Thirteen Colonies at
the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. When the United
States Constitution was ratified, free
persons of color were
among its voting citizens in five of thirteen states.
Women’s
Suffrage (and Equality) around the world
Women's
suffrage (also
known as woman
suffrage or woman's
right to vote) [1] is
the right
of women to
vote and to stand for electoral office. Limited voting rights were
gained by women in Sweden, Finland and
some western
U.S. states
in the late 19th century.[2] National
and international organizations formed to coordinate efforts to gain
voting rights, especially theInternational
Woman Suffrage Alliance (1904),
and also worked for equal civil rights for women.[3]
In
1893, New
Zealand,
then a self-governing British colony, granted adult women the right
to vote, and the self-governing colony ofSouth
Australia,
now an Australian
state,
did the same in 1894, the latter also permitting women to stand for
office. In 1901 several British colonies became the
federal Commonwealth
of Australia,
and women acquired the right to vote and stand in federal elections
from 1902, but discriminatory restrictions against Aboriginal women
(and men) voting in national elections were not completely removed
until 1962.[4][5][6]
The
first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand
Duchy of Finland,
then part of the Russian
Empire,
which elected the world's first female members of parliament in
the 1907
parliamentary elections. Norway followed,
granting full women's suffrage in 1913. Most European, Asian and
African countries did not pass women's suffrage until after World
War I.
Late
adopters in Europe were France in
1944, Italy in
1946, Greece in
1952,[7] San
Marino in
1959,[8] Monaco in
1962,[8] Andorra in
1970,[8][9] Switzerland in
1971,[10] and Liechtenstein in
1984.[11] In
addition, although women in Portugal obtained
suffrage in 1931, this was with stronger restrictions than those of
men; full gender equality in voting was only granted in 1976.[8][12]
The
nations of North America and most nations in Central and South
America passed women's suffrage before World
War II (see
table in Summary below). The last Latin American country to give
women the right to vote was Paraguay in
1961.[13][14]
Extended
political campaigns by women and their supporters have generally been
necessary to gain legislation or constitutional amendments for
women's suffrage. In many countries, limited suffrage for women was
granted before universal
suffrage for
men; for instance, literate women were granted suffrage before all
men received it. The United
Nations encouraged
women's suffrage in the years following World War II, and
the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (1979)
identifies it as a basic right with 188 countries currently being
parties to this Convention.
Women's suffrage in religions[edit]
Catholicism[edit]
The Pope is
only elected by the College
of Cardinals.[135] Women
are not appointed as cardinals, so women cannot vote for the
Pope.[136] The
female offices of Abbess or
Mother Superior are elective, the choice being made by the secret
votes of the nuns belonging to the community.[137]
Islam[edit]
Although
women were included in the process of electing the Caliph during
the Rashidun Caliphate
(632–661), women's rights vary in Islamic countries in the modern
era. The question of women's
right to become imams (religious
leaders) is disputed by many (see Women
in Islam).
Hinduism[edit]
In
both ancient and contemporary history of Hinduism women
occupying positions of ecclesiastical and spiritual authority were
relatively rare due to social (laukik)
and scriptural (shastrik)
perception of asceticism and spiritual leadership as incompatible
with female nature.[138]However, textual
sources within
HIndu tradition that specifically forbid asceticism for women are
few, and there are sufficient examples of women occupying these roles
in Hinduism, both in the past and in present.[138]
In
the late 1980s in ISKCON,
a modern Vaishnava denomination
of Hinduism,
a women's movement began to take shape in the form of printed
articles and conventions, advocating appointment of women to the
institution's key administrative and ministerial roles.[139] This
led to the creation of ISKCON Women's Ministry in 1997, headed by
Sudharma Dasi,[139] and
the "fiercely debated but historic" appointment of Malati
Dasi as
the first female member of ISKCON's highest managerial and
ecclesiastical body, the Governing
Body Commission (GBC),
in 1998.[140][141][142][143] Her
and Sudharma's presence on the GBC raised the issue of women in the
organization for serious discussion at the GBC's annual meeting
in Mayapur (West
Bengal,
India) in 2000, and called for "an apology for the mistakes of
the past, recognition of the importance of women for the health of
the movement, and the reinstatement of women's participatory
rights."[143] The
resultant resolution of the GBC acknowledged the importance of the
issue and asserted the priority of providing "equal facilities,
full encouragement, and genuine care and protection for the women
members of ISKCON."[142][143]
JudaismWhereas the non-Orthodox branches of Judaism – the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist movements – have been egalitarian from their very beginnings,[citation needed]women are denied the vote and the ability to be elected to positions of authority in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, and only since the 1970s have more and more Modern Orthodox synagogues and religious organizations been granting women the rights to vote and to be elected to their governing bodies.
United States[edit]
Lydia
Taft was
an early forerunner in Colonial
America who
was allowed to vote in three New
England town
meetings, beginning in 1756, at Uxbridge,
Massachusetts.[122] Following
the American
Revolution,
women were allowed to vote in New
Jersey,
but no other state, from 1790 until 1807, provided they met property
requirements then in place. In 1807 all women were taken off the
voters' roll as universally male suffrage was instated.[citation
needed] The
women's suffrage movement was closely tied to abolitionism,
with many suffrage activists gaining their first experience as
anti-slavery activists.[123]
In
June 1848, Gerrit
Smith made
women's suffrage a plank in
the Liberty
Party platform.
In July, at the Seneca
Falls Convention in upstate
New York,
activists including Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony began
a seventy-year struggle by women to secure the right to vote.
Attendees signed a document known as the Declaration
of Rights and Sentiments,
of which Stanton was the primary author. Equal rights became the
rallying cry of the early movement for women's rights, and equal
rights meant claiming access to all the prevailing definitions of
freedom. In 1850 Lucy
Stone organized
a larger assembly with a wider focus, the National
Women's Rights Convention inWorcester,
Massachusetts. Susan B.
Anthony,
a resident of Rochester,
New York,
joined the cause in 1852 after reading Stone's 1850 speech.
Stanton, Stone and Anthony were the three leading figures of this
movement in the U.S. during the 19th century: the "triumvirate"
of the drive to gain voting rights for women.[124] Women's
suffrage activists pointed out that black people had been granted the
franchise and had not been included in the language of the United
States Constitution's Fourteenth
and Fifteenth amendments (which gave people equal protection under
the law and the right to vote regardless of their race,
respectively). This, they contended, had been unjust. Early victories
were won in the territories of Wyoming (1869)[125] and Utah (1870).
John
Allen Campbell,
the first Governor of the Wyoming Territory, approved the first law
in United States history explicitly granting women the right to vote.
The law was approved on December 10, 1869. This day was later
commemorated as Wyoming Day.[126]
Utah
women were disenfranchised by provisions of the
federal Edmunds–Tucker
Act enacted
by the U.S. Congress in
1887.
"Kaiser
Wilson" banner held by a woman who picketed the White House
The
push to grant Utah women's suffrage was at least partially fueled by
the belief that, given the right to vote, Utah women
would dispose of polygamy.
It was only after Utah women exercised their suffrage rights in favor
of polygamy that the U.S. Congress disenfranchised Utah
women.[127]
By
the end of the 19th century, Idaho, Utah,
and Wyoming had
enfranchised women after effort by the suffrage associations at the
state level; Colorado notably enfranchised
women by an 1893 referendum.
During
the beginning of the 20th century, as women's suffrage faced
several important federal votes, a portion of the suffrage movement
known as the National
Woman's Party led
by suffragist Alice
Paul became
the first "cause" to picket outside the White House. Paul
andLucy
Burns led
a series of protests against the Wilson
Administration in
Washington. Wilson ignored the protests for six months, but on
June 20, 1917, as a Russian delegation drove up to the
White House, suffragists unfurled a banner which stated: "We
women of America tell you that America is not a democracy.
Twenty million women are denied the right to vote. President
Wilson is the chief opponent of their national
enfranchisement".[128] Another
banner on August 14, 1917, referred to "Kaiser Wilson"
and compared the plight of the German people with that of American
women. With this manner of protest, the women were subject to arrests
and many were jailed.[129] On
October 17, Alice Paul was sentenced to seven months and on
October 30 began a hunger
strike,
but after a few days prison authorities began to force feed
her.[128] After
years of opposition, Wilson changed his position in 1918 to advocate
women's suffrage as a war measure.[130]
The
key vote came on June 4, 1919,[131] when
the Senate approved the amendment by 56 to 25 after four hours of
debate, during which Democratic Senators opposed to the
amendment filibustered to
prevent a roll call until their absent Senators could be protected by
pairs. The Ayes included 36 (82%) Republicans and 20 (54%) Democrats.
The Nays comprised 8 (18%) Republicans and 17 (46%) Democrats.
The Nineteenth Amendment,
which prohibited state or federal sex-based restrictions on voting,
was ratified by sufficient states in 1920.
The U.S. Civil Rights Movement
The African-American
Civil Rights Movement or 1960s
Civil Rights Movement encompasses social
movements in
the United States whose goals were to end racial
segregation and discrimination against black
Americans and
to secure legal recognition and federal protection of the citizenship
rights enumerated in the Constitution and federal law. This article
covers the phase of the movement between 1954 and 1968, particularly
in the South.
The leadership was African-American, much of the political and
financial support came from labor unions (led by Walter
Reuther),
major religious denominations, and prominent white politicians such
as Hubert
Humphrey and Lyndon
B. Johnson.
The
movement was characterized by major campaigns of civil
resistance.
Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest
and civil
disobedience produced
crisis situations and productive dialogues between activists and
government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments,
businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these
situations that highlighted the inequities faced by African
Americans. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience
included boycotts such
as the successful Montgomery
Bus Boycott (1955–56)
in Alabama; "sit-ins"
such as the influential Greensboro
sit-ins (1960)
in North Carolina; marches,
such as the Selma
to Montgomery marches (1965)
in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities.
Noted
legislative achievements during this phase of the civil rights
movement were passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964,[1]that
banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or
national origin" in employment practices and public
accommodations; the Voting
Rights Act of 1965,
that restored and protected voting rights; the Immigration
and Nationality Services Act of 1965,
that dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than
traditional Northern European and Germanic groups; and the Fair
Housing Act of 1968,
that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. African
Americans re-entered politics in the South, and across the country
young people were inspired to take action.
A
wave of inner
city riots in
black communities from 1964 through 1970 undercut support from the
white community. The emergence of the Black
Power movement,
which lasted from about 1966 to 1975, challenged the established
black leadership for its cooperative attitude and its nonviolence,
and instead demanded political and economic self-sufficiency.
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955–1956[edit]
Civil
rights leaders focused on Montgomery Alabama, highlight extreme forms
of segregation there. Local black leader Rosa
Parks on
December 1, 1955, refused to give up her seat on a public bus to make
room for a white passenger; she was arrested And received national
publicity, hailed as the "mother of the civil rights movement."
Parks was secretary of the Montgomery NAACP chapter and had recently
returned from a meeting at the Highlander
Center in
Tennessee where nonviolent civil disobedience as a strategy was
taught. African-Americans gathered and organized the Montgomery Bus
Boycott to demand a bus system in which passengers would be treated
equally.[25] After
the city rejected many of their suggested reforms, the NAACP, led
by E.D.
Nixon,
pushed for full desegregation of public buses. With the support of
most of Montgomery's 50,000 African Americans, the boycott lasted for
381 days, until the local ordinance segregating African Americans and
whites on public buses was repealed. Ninety percent of African
Americans in Montgomery partook in the boycotts, which reduced bus
revenue significantly, as they comprised the majority of the riders.
In November 1956, a federal court ordered Montgomery's buses
desegregated and the boycott ended.[25]
Local
leaders established the Montgomery Improvement Association to focus
their efforts. Martin
Luther King, Jr.,
was elected President of this organization. The lengthy protest
attracted national attention for him and the city. His eloquent
appeals to Christian brotherhood and American idealism created a
positive impression on people both inside and outside the South.[15]
In
March 1964, Malcolm X (Malik El-Shabazz), national representative of
the Nation
of Islam,
formally broke with that organization, and made a public offer to
collaborate with any civil rights organization that accepted the
right to self-defense and the philosophy of Black nationalism (which
Malcolm said no longer required Black
separatism). Gloria
Richardson –
head of the Cambridge, Maryland chapter ofSNCC,
leader of the Cambridge rebellion[102] and
an honored guest at The March on Washington – immediately embraced
Malcolm's offer. Mrs. Richardson, "the nation's most prominent
woman [civil rights] leader," told The
Baltimore Afro-American that
"Malcolm is being very practical…The federal government has
moved into conflict situations only when matters approach the level
of insurrection. Self-defense may force Washington to intervene
sooner."[103] Earlier,
in May 1963, James
Baldwin had
stated publicly that "the Black Muslim movement is the only one
in the country we can call grassroots,
I hate to say it…Malcolm articulates for Negroes, their
suffering…he corroborates their reality..."[104] On
the local level, Malcolm and the NOI had been allied with the Harlem
chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) since at least
1962.[105]
On
March 26, 1964, as the Civil Rights Act was facing stiff opposition
in Congress, Malcolm had a public meeting with Martin Luther King Jr.
at the Capitol building. Malcolm had attempted to begin a dialog with
Dr. King as early as 1957, but King had rebuffed him. Malcolm had
responded by calling King an "Uncle
Tom"
who turned his back on black militancy in order to appease the white
power structure. However, the two men were on good terms at their
face-to-face meeting.[106] There
is evidence that King was preparing to support Malcolm's plan to
formally bring the US government before the United Nations on charges
of human rights violations against African-Americans.[107] Malcolm
now encouraged Black nationalists to get involved in voter
registration drives and other forms of community organizing to
redefine and expand the movement.[108]
Civil
rights activists became increasingly combative in the 1963 to 1964
period, owing to events such as the thwarting of the Albany campaign,
police repression and Ku Klux Klan terrorism in Birmingham,
and the assassination of Medgar Evers. Mississippi NAACP Field
Director Charles Evers–Medgar Evers' brother–told a public NAACP
conference on February 15, 1964 that "non-violence won't work in
Mississippi…we made up our minds…that if a white man shoots at a
Negro in Mississippi, we will shoot back."[109] The
repression of sit-ins in Jacksonville, Florida provoked a riot that
saw black youth throwing Molotov cocktails at police on March 24,
1964.[110] Malcolm
X gave extensive speeches in this period warning that such militant
activity would escalate further if African-Americans' rights were not
fully recognized. In his landmark April 1964 speech "The
Ballot or the Bullet",
Malcolm presented an ultimatum to white America: "There's new
strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand
grenades next month, and something else next month. It'll be ballots,
or it'll be bullets."[111]
As
noted in Eyes
on the Prize,
"Malcolm X had a far reaching effect on the civil rights
movement. In the South, there had been a long tradition of self
reliance. Malcolm X's ideas now touched that
tradition".[112] Self-reliance
was becoming paramount in light of the 1964
Democratic National Convention's
decision to refuse seating to the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)
and to seat the state delegation elected in violation of the party's
rules through Jim
Crow law instead.[113] SNCC
moved in an increasingly militant direction and worked with Malcolm X
on two Harlem MFDP fundraisers in December 1964. When Fannie
Lou Hamer spoke
to Harlemites about the Jim Crow violence that she'd suffered in
Mississippi, she linked it directly to the Northern police brutality
against blacks that Malcolm protested against;[114] When
Malcolm asserted that African-Americans should emulate the Mau
Mau army
of Kenya in efforts to gain their independence, many in SNCC
applauded.[115] During
the Selma
campaign for
voting rights in 1965, Malcolm made it known that he'd heard reports
of increased threats of lynching around Selma, and responded in late
January with an open telegram to George Lincoln Rockwell, the head of
the American Nazi Party, stating: "if your present racist
agitation against our people there in Alabama causes physical harm to
Reverend King or any other black Americans…you and your KKK friends
will be met with maximum physical retaliation from those of us who
are not handcuffed by the disarming philosophy of
nonviolence."[116]The
following month, the Selma chapter of SNCC invited Malcolm to speak
to a mass meeting there. On the day of Malcolm's appearance,
President Johnson made his first public statement in support of the
Selma campaign.[117] Paul
Ryan Haygood, a co-director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, credits
Malcolm with a role in stimulating the responsiveness of the federal
government. Haygood noted that "shortly after Malcolm's visit to
Selma, a federal judge, responding to a suit brought by the
Department of Justice, required Dallas County registrars to process
at least 100 Black applications each day their offices were open."
Civil Rights Act of 1964[edit]
Although
President Kennedy had proposed
civil rights legislation and
it had support from Northern Congressmen and Senators of both
parties, Southern Senators blocked the bill by
threatening filibusters.
After considerable parliamentary maneuvering and 54 days of
filibuster on the floor of the United States Senate, President
Johnson got a bill through the Congress.[126]
On
July 2, 1964, Johnson signed the Civil
Rights Act of 1964,[1] that
banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex or
national origin" in employment practices and public
accommodations. The bill authorized the Attorney General to file
lawsuits to enforce the new law. The law also nullified state and
local laws that required such discrimination.
Civil Rights Act of 1968[edit]
As
1968 began, the fair housing bill was being filibustered once
again, but two developments revived it.[136] The Kerner
Commission report
on the 1967
ghetto riots was
delivered to Congress on March 1, and it strongly recommended "a
comprehensive and enforceable federal open housing law" as a
remedy to the civil disturbances. The Senate was moved to end their
filibuster that week.[139]
As
the House
of Representatives deliberated
the bill in April, Dr. King was assassinated, and the largest wave
of unrest since
the Civil War swept the country.[140] Senator Charles
Mathias wrote
that
some
Senators and Representatives publicly stated they would not be
intimidated or rushed into legislating because of the disturbances.
Nevertheless, the news coverage of the riots and the underlying
disparities in income, jobs, housing, and education, between White
and Black Americans helped educate citizens and Congress about the
stark reality of an enormous social problem. Members of Congress knew
they had to act to redress these imbalances in American life to
fulfill the dream that King had so eloquently preached.[139]
The
House passed the legislation on April 10, and President Johnson
signed it the next day. The Civil
Rights Act of 1968 prohibited
discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing
based on race, religion, national origin. It also made it a federal
crime to "by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or
interfere with anyone … by reason of their race, color, religion,
or national origin."
The
End of Apartheid
South
Africa's successful struggle for freedom and democracy is one of the
most dramatic stories of our time. The racial tyranny of apartheid
ended with a negotiated transition to a non-racial democracy, but not
without considerable personal cost to thousands of men, women, and
young people who were involved.
South
Africa: Overcoming Apartheid, Building Democracy presents
first-hand accounts of this important political movement. Interviews
with South African activists, raw video footage documenting mass
resistance and police repression, historical documents, rare
photographs, and original narratives tell this remarkable story.
Apartheid (Afrikaans
pronunciation: [ɐˈpartɦɛit];
an Afrikaans[1] word
meaning "the state of being apart", literally
"apart-hood")[2][3] was
a system of racial
segregation in South
Africa enforced
through legislation by the National
Party (NP),
the governing party from 1948 to 1994. Under apartheid, the rights,
associations, and movements of the majority black inhabitants and
other ethnic groups were curtailed and Afrikaner minority
rule was
maintained. Apartheid was developed after World
War II by
the Afrikaner-dominated National
Party andBroederbond organizations.
The ideology was
also enforced in South
West Africa,
which was administered by South Africa under aLeague
of Nations mandate
(revoked in 1966 via United Nations Resolution 2145),[4] until
it gained independence as Namibia in
1990.[5]By
extension, the term is nowadays currently used for forms of
systematic segregation, established by the state authority in a
country, against the social and civil rights of a certain group of
citizens, due to ethnic prejudices.[6]
Racial
segregation in South Africa began in colonial times under the Dutch
Empire,
until 1795 when the British took over the Cape
of Good Hope.[7] Apartheid
as an officially structured policy was introduced after the general
election of 1948.
Legislation classified inhabitants into four racial
groups—"black",
"white", "coloured",
and "Indian", the last two of which were divided into
several sub-classifications[8]—and
residential areas were segregated. From 1960 to 1983, 3.5 million
non-white South Africans were removed from their homes, and forced
into segregated neighbourhoods, in one of the largest mass removals
in modern history.[9] Non-white
political representation was abolished
in 1970,
and starting in that year black
people were
deprived of their citizenship,
legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally
based self-governing homelands
called bantustans,
four of which became nominally independent states. The government
segregated education,
medical care, beaches, and other public services, and provided black
people with services that were often inferior to those of white
people.[better source needed]
Apartheid
sparked significant internal
resistance and
violence, and a long arms and trade
embargo against
South Africa.[10] Since
the 1950s, a series of popular uprisings and protests was met with
the banning of opposition and imprisoning of anti-apartheid leaders.
As unrest spread and became more effective and militarised, state
organisations responded with repression and violence. Along with the
sanctions placed on South Africa by the international community, this
made it increasingly difficult for the government to maintain the
regime. Apartheid reforms in the 1980s failed to quell the mounting
opposition, and in 1990 President Frederik
Willem de Klerk began negotiations
to end apartheid,[11] culminating
in multi-racial
democratic elections in 1994,
won by the African
National Congress under Nelson
Mandela.
The vestiges of apartheid still shape South African politics and
society. De Klerk began the process of dismantling apartheid with the
release of Mandela's mentor and several other political prisoners in
October 1989.[12] Although
the official abolition of apartheid occurred in 1991 with repeal of
the last of the remaining apartheid laws, nonwhites were not allowed
to vote until 1993 and the end of apartheid is widely regarded as
arising from the 1994 democratic general elections.
The apartheid system
in South
Africa was
ended through a series of negotiations between
1990 and 1993 and through unilateral steps by the de
Klerk government.
These negotiations took
place between the governing National
Party,
the African
National Congress,
and a wide variety of other political organisations. Negotiations
took place against a backdrop of political violence in the country,
including allegations of a state-sponsored third force destabilising
the country. The negotiations resulted in South Africa's first
multi-racial election,
which was won by the African
National Congress.
Unbanning
of opposition organisations and the release of Mandela[edit]
When F.W.
de Klerk became President in 1989, he was able to build on
the previous secret negotiations with the imprisoned Mandela. The
first significant steps towards formal negotiations took place in
February 1990 when, in his speech
at the opening of Parliament, de Klerk announced the unbanning of
the African
National Congress (ANC) and other banned organisations, and
the release of ANC leader Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison.
The
Civil Rights Movement into the 21st
Century
Into
the 21st century
As was
the case for formerly colonized people in countries that achieved
independence during the period after World War II, the acquisition of
citizenship rights by African Americans brought fewer gains for those
who were poor than for those who possessed educational and class
advantages. American civil rights legislation of the 1960s became the
basis for affirmative action—programs that increased
opportunities for many black students and workers as well as for
women, disabled people, and other victims of discrimination.
Increased participation in the American electoral system lessened
black reliance on extralegal tactics. Some former civil rights
activists, such as John Lewis, Andrew Young, and Jesse
Jackson, launched careers in electoral politics. Black elected
officials, including mayors, began to exert greater influence than
either black power proponents or advocates of nonviolent civil rights
protests. In 1969, believing that by speaking with a single voice
they would have greater influence, 13 African American members of the
U.S. House of Representatives formed the Congressional
Black Caucus “to promote the public welfare through
legislation designed to meet the needs of millions of neglected
citizens.” By the early 21st century that caucus numbered more than
40 members and could count among its achievements legislative
initiatives involving minority business development, expansion of
educational opportunities, and opposition to South Africa’s
former apartheid system.
However,
civil rights issues continued to stimulate protests, particularly
when previous gains appeared to be threatened. Overall, the
20th-century struggle for civil rights produced an enduring
transformation of the legal status of African Americans and other
victims of discrimination. It also increased the responsibility of
the government to enforce civil rights laws and the provisions of the
Civil War-era constitutional amendments. Civil rights reforms did
not, however, alter other determinants of the subordinate status of
African Americans who remain in racially segregated communities where
housing, public schools, and health care services are inferior. Like
freedom struggles in Africa, the African American freedom struggle
eliminated slavery and legally mandated forms of racial oppression,
but the descendants of former slaves and colonized people generally
remained in subordinate positions within the global capitalist
economic order.
Still,
in the early 21st century the ascent to the U.S. presidency of an
African American, Barack Obama, seemed to reflect a
transformation of American society with ramifications for the civil
rights movement (see United
States presidential election of 2008). Jesse Jackson in his
own landmark campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination
in 1984 and 1988 had reached beyond the effort to
mobilize African American voters and attempted to fashion a “Rainbow
Coalition” of “red, yellow, brown, black, and white” Americans.
Obama—whose father was a black Kenyan and mother a white
American—presented a life story grounded in a search for a
satisfactory racial identity. Ultimately, Obama’s approach to the
world and, arguably, his appeal to many voters were transracial,
grounded in a sophisticated understanding of the complex nature of
racial identity that was no longer merely dichotomous (simply a
matter of black or white). Given the deeply rooted racial conflicts
of the American past, however, it is unlikely that Obama’s election
signaled the start of a postracial era without divisive racial issues
and controversies.
Questions
that were to be answered
Are
revolutions more alike, Then they are different? Can they be
predicted?
If
one lesson can be drawn from the spate of street revolts rippling
around the globe from south-east Asia to Europe to
Latin America, it is that every revolution is different.
At
the same time, it is plain that in the modern, interconnected world,
grassroots uprisings cross-fertilise and often have similarities.
Turkey, Ukraine, Thailand, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina are
all middle-income democracies with elected leaders besieged by people
angry at misgovernment, corruption and economic sclerosis. These days
it is no longer just dictators who have something to fear from the
crowd.
The
belief that violently propelled revolutionary change is
transnational, even universal in nature, and uniform in origin and
aspiration, is seductive, persistent and historically absurd. Its
antecedents include the lost era of Marx and Lenin when the "workers
of the world" espoused the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Wordsworth's joyful
reaction to the French revolution –
"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very
Heaven!" – , which he fondly believed threatened the ancien
regime across
all Europe, shows how lasting, powerful – and illusory – is the
idea of ubiquitous, socially-levelling, personally liberating
rebellion.
Following
this deceptive formula, the revolts that roiled the Arab world,
starting in Tunisia in 2010, were initially lumped together under the
optimistic tag of the Arab spring. This phrase is not often heard
nowadays. The supposed pan-Arab battle for freedom and democracy, as
it was wishfully interpreted in the west, mutated into a string of
separately defined conflicts involving violent coup and counter-coup
in Egypt, national fracturing in Libya, harsh repression in Bahrain
and catastrophic civil war in Syria.
In
democracies in revolt, the differences are similarly instructive.
Ukraine's uprising is increasingly taking on an ethnic tinge. The
nationalist west against the ethnically Russian east. In Thailand,
the principal animus is old-fashioned class warfare, pitting
relatively well-to-do middle-class city dwellers against the
subsidised rural masses. In Turkey, the primary focus of the
protesters' rage has been one man, the prime minister, Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan.
"While
mayor of Istanbul, Erdoğan quipped that democracy was like a street
car: 'You ride it as far as you need and then you get off.' He has
proven himself a man of his word, as he has moved to consolidate
power, eviscerate the judiciary, crush free speech, curb the media
and imprison political opponents," said
commentator Michael Rubin.
Seen
this way, Erdoğan appeared not so much a lesser version of Ukraine's
Viktor Yanukovych - he has not, so far, resorted to shooting
demonstrators - and more the Euro-Asian equivalent of Venezuela's
Nicolás Maduro, who also stands accused of trampling civic freedoms.
As in Thailand, Maduro's most vehement critics hail from the middle
class who revile the
so-called Bolivarian socialist revolution of
his mentor, the late Hugo Chávez.
As
in Cambodia
and Bangladesh, two other restless nations,
a rapidly deteriorating economy, food prices and high crime rates are
also key elements in unrest in Venezuela, said analyst Juan Carlos
Hidalgo. "Despite receiving over $1tn in oil revenues since
1999, the government has run out of cash and now relies heavily on
printing money to finance itself. The result is the highest inflation
rate in the world." Venezuela
is, however, no Ukraine,
other analysts say.
Another
common denominator may be the peculiar position these countries
occupy in the list of nations by wealth. Venezuela had
a per capita GDP of $13,480 (£8,080) in 2012, placing it 73rd on the
IMF's list. Turkey was 68th, with $14,812. Thailand was 92nd, Ukraine
106th. Although not exactly wealthy, groups who might be termed
upwardly-mobile revolutionaries can afford the luxury of protest in a
way previous generations in these countries could not.
A
mismanaged economy, corrupt privatisations, high youth unemployment
and croneyism among the ruling elites also lay behind the
recent, sudden
eruption of violent protest in
Bosnia. In this case, there was evident crossover with Turkey, and as
in Bangkok, many Sarajevo residents have clearly lost confidence in
their complex postwar political system. Despite its recent history,
however, Bosnia's current grievances are economic, not ethnic.
"When
Bosnia abandoned communism about two decades ago, officials devised a
plan to privatise state-owned companies in a way they hoped would
avoid mass layoffs for state workers," wrote
Aida Cerkez.
"More
than 80% of privatisations have failed. Many well-connected tycoons
have swept into these companies, stripping them of their assets,
declaring bankruptcy and leaving thousands without jobs or with
minimal pay." Hence the anger on the streets.
Ineffective,
undeveloped or non-existent institutions, misgovernance,
deteriorating economic performance, failing social cohesion, the
alienation of younger generations, ethnic and nationalist tensions
and a lack of faith in democratic processes – these are among the
common factors sparking the rebellions of 2014.
No
one country or revolution is typical, but given these criteria, it is
not hard to predict where unrest may next break out. Argentina
is a prime candidate for trouble under
the divisive, leftist leadership of President Cristina Fernández de
Kirchner. Her increasingly anti-democratic stance, her government's
corruption scandals and her efforts to deflect attention by picking
fights with Britain over the Falkland s are ominous. Experience
elsewhere suggests an economy in freefall and overseen by a
nationalist demagogue is a recipe for revolt.
Are
Rising food prices a driving force behind political uprisings?Or is
this a matter of Correalation, not causation?
Just
over a year ago,
complex systems theorists at the
New England Complex Systems Institute warned
us that if food prices continued to climb, so too would
the likelihood that there would be riots
across the globe.
Sure enough, we're seeing them now. The paper's author, Yaneer
Bar-Yam, charted the rise in the FAO food price index—a measure the
UN uses to map the cost of food over time—and found that whenever
it rose above 210, riots broke out worldwide. It
happened in 2008 after the economic collapse, and again in 2011, when
a Tunisian street vendor who could no longer feed his family set
himself on fire in protest.
Bar-Yam
built a model with the data, which then predicted that something
like the Arab Spring would ensue just weeks before it did. Four days
before Mohammed Bouazizi's self-immolation helped ignite the
revolution that would spread across the region, NECSI submitted a
government report that highlighted the risk that rising food prices
posed to global stability. Now, the model has once again proven
prescient—2013 saw the third-highest
food prices on record,
and that's when the seeds for the conflicts across the world were
sown.
"I
have a long list of the countries that have had major social unrest
in the past 18 months consistent with our projections," Bar-Yam
tells me. "The food prices are surely a major contributor---our
analysis says that 210 on the FAO index is the boiling point and we
have been hovering there for the past 18 months."
There
are certainly many other factors fueling mass protests, but hunger—or
the desperation caused by its looming specter—is often the tipping
point. Sometimes, it's clearly implicated: In Venezuela—where
students have taken to the streets and protests have left citizens
dead—food prices are at a staggering 18-year
high.
"In
some of the cases the link is more explicit, in others, given that we
are at the boiling point, anything will trigger unrest. At the
boiling point, the impact depends on local conditions," Bar-Yam
says. But a high price of food worldwide can effect countries
that aren't feeling the pinch as much. "In addition, there
is a contagion effect: given widespread social unrest that is
promoted by high food prices, examples from one country drive unrest
in others."
In
Thailand, where clashes between mass demonstrators and authorities in
Bangkok have claimed multiple lives, food prices have been steadily
rising.
In 2012, a trend towards rising food prices prompted the UN to issue
a warning:
the poor will be hit hard, and unrest may follow. The nation's
rampant inflation caused prices to continue
to rise further still in 2013.
Today, there are fatal
riots.
In
Bosnia, which erupted into violent conflict last week, high
unemployment and hunger are prime drivers of a discontent that's been
simmering for months. On February 9, Chiara
Milan wrote "Today,
after more than one year of protests and hunger, eventually the world
got to know about [the protesters'] grievances."
Food
shortages caused by drought helped
spur Syria's civil war.
High food prices helped precipitate the fare
hike protests in Brazil.
The list goes on.
The
food riots in places like wealthy, socialist Sweden and the booming
economies of Brazil and Chile highlight the fact that the cost of
eating can fuel unrest anywhere; even in nations with robust
democracies and high standards of living. With the inequality
worsening across the globe, this is worth paying special attention
to—lest we forget there are millions of Americans going hungry
every year too.
So.
The cost of food is high; discontent is raging. Thankfully, Bar-Yam's
model sees at least temporary relief on the horizon.
"As
to the trend for the next few months: Grain prices have gone down,
starting with corn last summer," he says. "This has
yet to propagate through the food system to lower prices, but they
should drop soon. This may help reduce the unrest that is
happening."
However,
he emphasizes the structural threats to the global food system
haven't been addressed. Bar-Yam has written at length about what he
believes to be the root cause of food price swings: financial
speculation and food-for-fuel policies like ethanol subsidies. Both,
he argues, artificially drive up prices on the global market and, in
turn, cause hunger and unrest.
Whether
or not the prices will drop, he says, hinges largely on US and
European policy decisions.
"Everything
now is very sensitive to what will happen with the ethanol mandate,"
Bar-Yam tells me. "The EPA has proposed not following the
mandated increase this year, keeping it about the same as last year.
There is a Senate bill to repeal the mandate sponsored by Feinstein
and Coburn. The European Union has stated that it will implement a
regulation of commodity markets (because of the impact on poor
populations), and the CFTC is still fighting the market traders in
trying to regulate the US markets."
The
way the global food system works right now, with wheat, corn, and
rice traded globally as commodities, domestic food production doesn't
necessarily guarantee a population will get enough to eat. Ukraine,
for instance, produced record amounts of wheat last
year—but exported most
of its gains.
This web of imports and exports creates a global marketplace
that is vulnerable to price shocks. That's why Bar-Yam believes that
speculators and bad ethanol policy are essentially feeding global
unrest.
"The
main thing is that matters are very much in flux," he says. "We
may still have higher food prices if the policies are not implemented
but if they are, we may have a significant reduction in prices and
lower unrest globally."
If
not, in other words, the riots will burn on.
Does
the United states needs a civil rights movement?
The
shattering events of 2014, beginning with Michael Brown’s death in
Ferguson, Missouri, in August, did more than touch off a national
debate about police behavior, criminal justice and widening
inequality in America. They also gave a new birth of passion and
energy to a civil rights movement that had almost faded into history,
and which had been in the throes of a slow comeback since the killing
of Trayvon Martin in 2012. That the nation became riveted to the
meta-story of Ferguson—and later the videotaped killing of Eric
Garner in New York—was due in large part to the work of a loose but
increasingly coordinated network of millennial activists who had been
beating the drum for the past few years. In 2014, the new social
justice movement became a force that the political mainstream had to
reckon with.
This
re-energized millennial movement, which will make itself felt all the
more in 2015, differs from its half-century-old civil rights-era
forebear in a number of important ways. One, it is driven far
more by social media and hashtags than marches and open-air rallies.
Indeed, if you wanted a megaphone for a movement spearheaded by young
people of color, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one than
Twitter, whose users skew younger and browner than the general
public, which often has the effect of magnifying that group’s broad
priorities and fascinations. It’s not a coincidence that the
Twitterverse helped surface and magnify the stories of Trayvon Martin
and Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
Two,
the new social-justice grass roots reflects a broader agenda that
includes LGBTQ (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-questioning) issues
and immigration reform. The young grass-roots activists I’ve spoken
to have a broad suite of concerns: the
school-to-prison pipeline,
educational inequality, the over-policing of black and Latino
communities. In essence, they’re trying to take on deeply
entrenched discrimination that is fueled less by showy bigotry
than systemic, implicit
biases.
Three,
the movement’s renewal has exposed a serious generational rift. It
is largely a bottom-up movement being led by young unknowns who have
rejected, in some cases angrily, the presumption of leadership thrust
on them by veteran celebrities like Al Sharpton. While both the
younger and older activists both trace their lineage to the civil
rights movement, they seem to align themselves with different parts
of that family tree. And in several ways, these contemporary tensions
are updates of the disagreements that marked the earlier movement.
Sarah
Jackson, a professor at Northeastern University whose research
focuses on social movements, said the civil rights establishment
embraces the “Martin Luther King-Al Sharpton model”—which
emphasizes mobilizing people for rallies and speeches and tends to be
centered around a charismatic male leader. But the younger activists
are instead inclined to what Jackson called the “Fannie Lou
Hamer-Ella Baker model”—an approach that embraces a grass roots
and in which agency is widely diffused. Indeed, many of the activists
name-checked Baker, a lesser-known but enormously influential
strategist of the civil rights era. She helped found Martin Luther
King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference but became deeply
skeptical of the cult of personality that she felt had formed around
him. And she vocally disagreed with the notion that power in the
movement should be concentrated among a few leaders, who tended to be
men with bases of power that lay in the church. “My theory is,
strong people don’t need strong leaders,” she
said.
Baker’s
theories on participatory democracy were adopted by later social
movements, like Occupy Wall Street, which notably resisted naming
leaders or spokespeople. But James Hayes, an organizer with the
Ohio Student Association,
said that he didn’t think of this new social justice movement as
“leaderless” in the Occupy style. “I think of it as
leader-ful,” he said.
By
December, some of these same uncelebrated community organizers who
spent the year leading “die-ins,” voting drives and the
thousands-deep rallies around the country would meet privately with
President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. (“We got a chance to
really lay it out—we kept it real,” Hayes told me about the
meeting. “We were respectful, but we didn’t pull any punches.”)
A few days after that White House meeting, Hillary Clinton, widely
assumed to be eyeing another bid for the presidency in 2016, nodded
to them when she dropped one of the mantras of the
demonstrators—“black lives matter”—into
a speech at a posh awards ceremony in New York City.
***
All
this new energy comes, ironically, as the country’s appetite for
fighting racial inequality—never all that robust in the best of
times—appears to be ebbing. The tent-pole policy victories of the
civil rights movement are even now in retrenchment: 60 years
after Brown
v. Board of Education,
American schools—especially in the South—are
rapidly resegregating;
the Voting Rights Act, which turns 50 in 2015, has been
effectively gutted;
and, despite the passage of the Fair Housing Act, our
neighborhoods are
as segregated as ever. Once-narrowing
racial gaps in life outcomes have again become gaping chasms.
At
the same time, the new movement’s emergence has caused friction
with the traditional civil rights establishment that identifies with
those earlier, historic victories. At a recent march put together by
Sharpton’s National Action Network in Washington, D.C.—meant to
protest the recent decisions not to indict the officers in several
high-profile police-involved killings and push for changes in the
protocol from prosecutors—younger activists from St. Louis County
were upset at what they saw as a lineup of older speakers on the
podium who were not on the ground marching in Ferguson. So they
climbed onto the stage and took the mic. “It should be nothing but
young people up here!” a woman named Johnetta Elzie yelled into the
microphone. “We started this!” Some people cheered them. Others
called for them to get off the stage. After a few minutes, the
organizers cut off their mics. (In the crowd, someone held up a
neon-green sign making their discontent with the march’s organizers
plain: “WE, THE YOUTH, DID NOT ELECT AL SHARPTON OUR SPOKESPERSON.
HAVE A SEAT.”)
A
few days later, Elzie downplayed the incident and told me that the
disagreement was simply about “someone who doesn’t want to give
up the reins and who has a huge platform.”
Has
television been the greatest force in promoting Civil
Rights(including around the issue of marriage equality) or has it
simply reflected already changing views in the society?
In
1997, Ellen DeGeneres made history when she declared “I’m gay”
on her primetime sitcom Ellen. Ratings for the series declined in the
months thereafter, making some believe that television wasn’t ready
to feature LGBT characters. But just a year later in 1998, Will &
Grace premiered on US network NBC. The show featured gay characters
prominently for eight seasons, leading US Vice President Joe Biden to
remark in 2012: “I think Will
& Grace probably
did more to educate the American public than almost anybody’s ever
done so far. People fear that which is different. Now they’re
beginning to understand.”
Many
other series to feature positive depictions of gay characters have
followed, including Six Feet Under, Glee, The Good Wife, Orange Is
the New Black and Modern Family, which begins its sixth season on US
television on 24 September.
Tom
Brook reports on how television has been at the vanguard of changing
perceptions of gay people – especially in the US where the
proliferation of gay and lesbian TV characters has arguably created a
climate more receptive to the idea of gay marriage.
Was
Former US Secretary state Hillary Clinton correct to call equality
for women “the greatest unfinished business of the 21st
century”..?
Saturday
is International Women’s Day, and former secretary of state
Hillary Clinton and other world leaders attended a panel at the
United Nations headquarters in New York to commemorate the event on
Friday. She said that equality for women "remains the great
unfinished business of the 21stcentury"
in brief remarks bookended by the loudest applause of the
hour-long event. Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the Fourth
World Conference on Women, which was held in Beijing. Many of
Friday's speakers repeated the remarks that then-first lady Hillary
Clinton made
in 1995,
"If there is one message that echoes from this conference, let
it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are
human rights, once and for all." Last year, magazine editor
Tina Brown called
it "the
speech that launched a movement," a speech that "remains
the defining battle cry for women." The New York
Times said Clinton
was "speaking more forcefully on human rights than any
American dignitary has on Chinese soil.":
It
is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food,
or
drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are
born girls. 'It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the
slavery of prostitution.It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline,
set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are
deemed too small.It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in
their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape
as a tactic or prize of war.It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death
worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected
to in their own homes.It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the
painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have
abortions or being sterilized against their will.
drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are
born girls. 'It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the
slavery of prostitution.It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline,
set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are
deemed too small.It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in
their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape
as a tactic or prize of war.It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death
worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected
to in their own homes.It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the
painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have
abortions or being sterilized against their will.
Clinton
said now was an opportunity to "mark the gains we’ve made
together, as well as acknowledge the gaps." She also commended
the United Nations for all the data
they had collected on
women across the world. We know that women hold approximately 25
percent of the world's government positions. Rural low-income women
still get married far younger than their richer counterparts in
cities. In 2012, there was a 25 percentage point difference in the
employment-to-population ratio between men and women. "The more
data we have," she said, "the more we know that what we
felt in our hearts was right all along." Clinton also mentioned
the Clinton Foundation's "No
Ceilings"
project, launched in November, also seeks to collect data on how the
place of women in the world has changed since the Beijing conference.
The
theme of this year's International Women's Day is “Equality
for Women is Progress for All” and the United Nations seems focused
on calling on men to work as hard at advancing women's rights as
women have since the first International Women's Day in 1908. They
have started the "He
for She"
campaign, which is launching with a video of men -- no women in sight
-- saying how important women's rights are for progress.
Antonio
Banderas, Matt Damon, Patrick Stewart, Desmond Tutu and secretary
general of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon, all make an appearance in
the video. As Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, director of U.N. Women,
said Friday, "Women hold half of the sky." They want to
call on men to "hold up their half of the sky,
too." Mlambo-Ngcuka gave perhaps the most forceful remarks
of the day's event, saying the "face of poverty is that of
a woman," that we can't take baby steps (We’ve done baby
steps) and that inequality "has to cause outrage. If not,
what will?"
From
March 10-21, the United Nations will convene the 58th Commission
on the Status of Women, which will begin to unpack what the
international organization's next steps should be on women's rights
after the Millennial Development Goals expire next year.
Regardless
of what the new benchmarks will be, Clinton said that given the
progress of the past 20 years, the world knows it's on the right
track. "Not only is it the right thing to do, she said,
"evidence proves it’s the smart thing to do."
Important
points and answers to questions
History
Movements
Toward Freedom
- “How do institutions endure so long?“
- “We need institutions that create the capability to meet the world’s needs. Most obviously, without doctors, engineers and scientists we don’t have the ability to
bring
emergency aid or long-term assistance to the planet’s places of
pain.
Institutions
have proven a highly efficient way to develop this capability because
they avoid the need to reinvent the techniques and culture required
to form students.
The
second part of the case for institutions is that they help to form
the social
connections
and common dialogue that enable progressive reforms.
- “Are there lessons other pro-democracy movements around the world might learn from the relatively successful “People Power” revolution in the Philippines?“
- “Ours was the first nonviolent, bloodless revolution that ever took place. Despite the presence of tank-riding soldiers from opposing sides, not a single shot was fired. Other Asian nations like Taiwan and South Korea were also under dictatorships then. But when Marcos was successfully ousted by a civilian show of force, the two countries’ leaders decided to speed up and implement the reforms they promised their opponents, lest the same thing happen to them.”
- Do civil rights movements require heroic leaders? Do revolutions?
- Movements for civil rights were a worldwide series of political movements forequality before the law that peaked in the 1960s. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change through nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was accompanied, or followed, by civil unrestand armed rebellion. The process was long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not fully achieve their goals, although the efforts of these movements did lead to improvements in the legal rights of previously oppressed groups of people.The main aim of the movements for civil rights included ensuring that the rights of all people are equally protected by the law, including therights of minorities, women’s rights, and LGBT rights. (wikipedia – Civil Rights Movements)
- Heroes often arise from revolution as their words or deeds are championed as the catalyst for change. It takes more than 1 person, however, to bring about change. Heroes are not always moral in their behaviour (Che Guevara comes to mind, as does Mao Tse Dong) but they are put on a pedestal nonetheless.
Is
participatory democracy a grass-roots solution to civil rights
abuses, or a prescription mob rule and the oppression of minorities?
- The right to vote is a privilege that many citizens in the Western Developed world are lucky to enjoy. In theory it allows citizens to keep in check abuses by Government via elections. However minorities can suffer as they do not have a strong enough representation to have their voice heard. Popular votes can be garnered at times of economic downturn by politicians with extreme views (the National Front in France with 15% of the vote in 2014, and the rise of the UK Independent Party)
- Is non-violent resistance overrated as a strategy against oppression?
- The successful overthrow of Communism in the late 1980s, The Yellow revolution of the Philippines and the recent Arab Spring of the early 21st Century in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen would suggest not. However, there are examples of countries where this has not lead to regime change: Bahrain, Syria, China.
- American “founding father” Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” Agree or disagree?
- Personally I agree. Why? The rulers of a country always need to be challenged otherwise they become lazy thinkers, mired in corruption and happy to settle for the status quo with all its imperfections.
- Are certain cultures more likely to foment revolution?
- History shows that in terms of numbers of deaths Asia has had 6 of the 9 wars with the biggest number of deaths. In terms of revolutions these are likey to take place where there are “oppressed” people. In Europe this took place long ago in History (France 1789) and the USA (1863). More recent revolutions have taken place where there is minority oppression – Northern Ireland and Iraq (Sunnies and Shia). The British Empire which consisted of up to 35% of the world’s territories was gradually dismantled by revolution from 1947 in India to 1960’s in Africa. Religious differences can also lead to revolution, such as the formation of Pakistan from Indian territories in the late 1940s onwards to split the muslims from the mainly Sikh/Hindu population.
\
- For each of the uprisings below, be sure to consider its causes, consequences, and legacies. Would you judge it to have been a success?
- For each of the original documents below, consider whether and how it has influenced other people and movements around the world. Would any of their authors have disagreed with one another?
- Has the Internet made it easier or harder for rebellions and civil rights movements to take shape?
Uprisings:
Rebellions & Revolutions
- Long Before Astapor: The Haitian Revolution– (1791–1804) was a slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Republic of Haiti. The Haitian Revolution was the only slave revolt which led to the founding of astate. Furthermore, it is generally considered the most successful slave rebellion ever to have occurred and as a defining moment in the histories of both Europe and the Americas.
- Triumph from Sort-Of-Below: The Russian Revolution of 1917 (and contrasts to 1905 and 1989) Following the Revolution of 1905, the Tsar made last effort attempts to keep his regime from being toppled, and offered reforms similar to most rulers when pressured by a revolutionary movement. The military remained loyal throughout the Revolution of 1905, shown through their shooting of revolutionaries ordered by the Tsar, signifying a would-be difficult overthrow. These reforms were outlined under a precursor to the Constitution of 1906 known as the October Manifesto which created the Imperial Duma. TheRussian Constitution of 1906, also known as the Fundamental Laws, set up a multiparty system and a limited constitutional monarchy. The revolutionaries were quelled and satisfied with the reforms, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the 1917 revolution that would later topple the Tsar’s regime.
- Uprisings and Downfalls: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 – was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the Hungarian People’s Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. Though leaderless when it first began, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the USSR’s forces drove out the Nazis at the end of World War II and occupied Eastern Europe. Despite the failure of the uprising, it was highly influential, and came to play a role in the downfall of the Soviet Union decades later.
- and the Prague Spring of 1968 –was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of theCommunist Party of Czechoslovakia, and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms.
- Victory of the Mostly Non-Violent: The People Power Revolution (also known as theEDSA Revolution, the Philippine Revolution of 1986, and the Yellow Revolution) was a series of popular demonstrations in the Philippines that began in 1983 and culminated in 1986. The methods used amounted to a sustained campaign of civil resistance against regime violence and electoral fraud. This case of nonviolent revolution led to the departure of PresidentFerdinand Marcos and the restoration of the country’s democracy. It is also referred to as the Yellow Revolution due to the presence of yellow ribbons during the demonstrations following the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr.
- & the Velvet Revolution – or Gentle Revolution (Slovak: nežná revolúcia) was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia. The period of upheaval and transition took place from November 16/17 to December 29, 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia combined students and older dissidents. The final result was the end of 41 years of Communistrule in Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent conversion to a parliamentary republic
- Movements in the New Millennium: The Saffron Revolution– is a term used to describe a series of economic and political protests and demonstrations that took place during August, September and October of 2007 in Burma (also known asMyanmar). The protests were triggered by the decision of the national military government to remove subsidies on the sales prices of fuel.
Original
Documents
I’m
Prepared to Die- Nelson Mandela
'An
ideal I am prepared to die for'
Mandela's
best known speech, delivered in 1964 from the dock of the Pretoria
courtroom, having been in jail two years already by then. The speech
was made famous by its closing lines in which he speaks of democracy
and free society, an ideal for which he said he was prepared to die.
I
have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African
patriot. After all, I was born in Umtata, forty-six years ago. My
guardian was my cousin, who was the acting paramount chief of
Thembuland, and I am related both to Sabata Dalindyebo, the present
paramount chief, and to Kaiser Matanzima, the Chief Minister for the
Transkei.
Today
I am attracted by the idea of a classless society, an attraction
which springs in part from Marxist reading and, in part, from my
admiration of the structure and organisation of early African
societies in this country. The land, then the main means of
production, belonged to the tribe. There was no rich or poor and
there was no exploitation.
AP
It
is true, as I have already stated that I have been influenced by
Marxist thought. But this is also true of many of the leaders of the
new independent states. Such widely different persons as Gandhi,
Nehru, Nkrumah, and Nasser all acknowledge this fact. We all accept
the need for some form of socialism to enable our people to catch up
with the advanced countries of the world and to overcome their legacy
of extreme poverty. But this does not mean we are Marxists....
...
I have been influenced in my thinking by both West and East. All this
has led me to feel that in my search for a political formula, I
should be absolutely impartial and objective. I should tie myself to
no particular system of society other than that of socialism. I must
leave myself free to borrow the best from West and from the East.
...The
complaint of Africans, however, is not only that they are poor and
whites are rich, but that the laws which are made by the whites are
designed to preserve this situation.
...
There is compulsory education for all white children at virtually no
cost to their parents, be they rich or poor. Similar facilities are
not provided for the African children... The quality of education is
also different... The Government often answers its critics by saying
that Africans in South Africa are economically better off than the
inhabitants of the other countries in Africa. I do not know whether
this statement is true and doubt whether any comparison can be made
without having regard to the cost-of-living index in such countries.
But even if it is true, as far as African people are concerned, it is
irrelevant. Our complaint is not that we are poor by comparison with
people in other countries, but that we are poor by comparison with
white people in our own country, and that we are prevented by
legislation from altering this imbalance.
...
Above all, My Lord, we want equal political rights, because without
them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds
revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of
voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy.
But
this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the only solution
which will guarantee racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not
true that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial
domination. Political division, based on colour, is entirely
artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one
colour group by another. The ANC has spent half a century fighting
against racialism. When it triumphs as it certainly must, it will not
change that policy.
This
then is what the ANC is fighting. Our struggle is a truly national
one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by our own
suffering and our own experience. It is a struggle for the right to
live. [someone coughs]
During
my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African
people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought
against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic
and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony
and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live
for and to see realised. But, My Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal
for which I am prepared to die.
Letter
From Birmingham Jail By Martin Luther King Jr,
Letter
From Birmingham City Jail (Excerpts)
Martin
Luther King, Jr.
April
16, 1963
My
Dear Fellow Clergymen,
While
confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent
statement calling our present activities “unwise and untimely.”
Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas
… But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your
criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your
statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
I
think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you
have been influenced by the argument of “outsiders coming in.” I
have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern
state with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some 85
affiliate organizations all across the South … Several months ago
our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to
engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed
necessary. We readily consented.
In
any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) collection of
the facts to determine whether injustices are alive; 2) negotiation;
3) self-purification; and 4) direct action. We have gone through all
of these steps in Birmingham … Birmingham is probably the most
thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of
police brutality is known in every section of the country. Its unjust
treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have
been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham
than in any city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and
unbelievable facts. On the basis of these conditions Negro leaders
sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders
consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.
Then
came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders
of the economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain
promises were made by the merchants—such as the promise to remove
the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On the basis of these
promises Reverend Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on
any type of demonstrations. As the weeks and months unfolded we
realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs
remained. As in so many experiences in the past, we were confronted
with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment
settled upon us. So we had no alternative except that of preparing
for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a
means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and
national community. We were not unmindful of the difficulties
involved. So we decided to go through the process of
self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and
repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, “are you able to accept
the blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the
ordeals of jail?”
You
may well ask, “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn’t
negotiation a better path?” You are exactly right in your call for
negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent
direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such
creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to
negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
My
friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in
civil rights without legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the
long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give
up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light
and give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has
reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.
We
know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily
given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly
I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was “well
timed,” according to the timetable of those who have not suffered
unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard
the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with a
piercing familiarity. This “wait” has almost always meant
“never.” It has been a tranquilizing Thalidomide, relieving the
emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed
infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished
jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice
denied.” We have waited for more than 340 years for our
constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa
are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political
independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the
gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
I
guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of
segregation to say wait. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch
your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers
at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick,
brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with
impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro
brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an
affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your
speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old
daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has
just been advertised on television, and see the tears welling up in
her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored
children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form
in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little
personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white
people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son
who is asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy, why do white people
treat colored people so mean?” when you take a cross country drive
and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable
corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you
are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white”
men and “colored” when your first name becomes “nigger” and
your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your
last name becomes “John,” and when your wife and mother are never
given the respected title of “Mrs.” when you are harried by day
and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living
constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect
next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you
are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then
you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a
time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer
willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they
experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can
understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
I
must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish
brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have
been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost
reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling
block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’
“Councilor” or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is
more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative
peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is
the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in
the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direst
action” who paternistically feels that he can set the timetable for
another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who
constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient
season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more
frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
You
spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather
disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as
those of an extremist. I started thinking about the fact that I stand
in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a
force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long
years of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect
and a sense of “somebodiness” that they have adjusted to
segregation, and a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a
degree of academic and economic security, and at points they profit
from segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the
problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and
hatred and comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is
expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing
up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah
Muhammad’s Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the
contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial
discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith in
America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have
concluded that the white man in an incurable “devil.”
The
Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to
get them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer
pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have sit-ins and
freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these
nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of
violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have
not said to my people, “Get rid of your discontent.” But I have
tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled
through the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action.
In
spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with
the hope that the white religious leadership in the community would
see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, serve as
the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power
structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I
have been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of
the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation
decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white
ministers say follow this decree because integration is morally right
and the Negro is your brother. In the midst of blatant injustices
inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the
sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious
trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of
racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say,
“Those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real
concern,” and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to
a completely other-worldly religion which made a strange distinction
between body and soul, the sacred and the secular.
I
hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that
circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you,
not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader, but as a fellow
clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark
clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of
misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities
and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and
brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their
scintillating beauty.
Yours
for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
M.
L. King, Jr.
Malala
Yousafzai Nobel Speech
Bismillah
hir rahman ir rahim.
In the name of God, the most merciful, the most beneficent.
In the name of God, the most merciful, the most beneficent.
Your
Majesties, Your royal highnesses, distinguished members of the
Norweigan Nobel Committee,
Dear
sisters and brothers, today is a day of great happiness for me. I am
humbled that the Nobel Committee has selected me for this precious
award.
Thank
you to everyone for your continued support and love. Thank you for
the letters and cards that I still receive from all around the world.
Your kind and encouraging words strengthens and inspires me.
I would
like to thank my parents for their unconditional love. Thank you to
my father for not clipping my wings and for letting me fly. Thank you
to my mother for inspiring me to be patient and to always speak the
truth- which we strongly believe is the true message of Islam. And
also thank you to all my wonderful teachers, who inspired me to
believe in myself and be brave.
I am
proud, well in fact, I am very proud to be the first Pashtun, the
first Pakistani, and the youngest person to receive this award.
Along with that, along with that, I am pretty certain that I am also
the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with
her younger brothers. I want there to be peace everywhere, but my
brothers and I are still working on that.
I am
also honoured to receive this award together with Kailash Satyarthi,
who has been a champion for children's rights for a long time. Twice
as long, in fact, than I have been alive. I am proud that we can work
together, we can work together and show the world that an Indian and
a Pakistani, they can work together and achieve their goals of
children's rights.
Dear
brothers and sisters, I was named after the inspirational Malalai of
Maiwand who is the Pashtun Joan of Arc. The word Malala means grief
stricken", sad", but in order to lend some happiness to it,
my grandfather would always call me Malala – The happiest girl in
the world" and today I am very happy that we are together
fighting for an important cause.
This
award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want
education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is
for those voiceless children who want change.
I am
here to stand up for their rights, to raise their voice… it is not
time to pity them. It is not time to pity them. It is time to take
action so it becomes the last time, the last time, so it becomes the
last time that we see a child deprived of education.
I have
found that people describe me in many different ways.
Some
people call me the girl who was shot by the Taliban.
And
some, the girl who fought for her rights.
Some
people, call me a "Nobel Laureate" now.
However,
my brothers still call me that annoying bossy sister. As far as I
know, I am just a committed and even stubborn person who wants to see
every child getting quality education, who wants to see women having
equal rights and who wants peace in every corner of the world.
Education
is one of the blessings of life—and one of its necessities. That
has been my experience during the 17 years of my life. In my paradise
home, Swat, I always loved learning and discovering new things. I
remember when my friends and I would decorate our hands with henna on
special occasions. And instead of drawing flowers and patterns we
would paint our hands with mathematical formulas and equations.
We had
a thirst for education, we had a thirst for education because our
future was right there in that classroom. We would sit and learn and
read together. We loved to wear neat and tidy school uniforms and we
would sit there with big dreams in our eyes. We wanted to make our
parents proud and prove that we could also excel in our studies and
achieve those goals, which some people think only boys can.
But
things did not remain the same. When I was in Swat, which was a place
of tourism and beauty, suddenly changed into a place of terrorism. I
was just ten that more than 400 schools were destroyed. Women were
flogged. People were killed. And our beautiful dreams turned into
nightmares.
Education
went from being a right to being a crime.
Girls
were stopped from going to school.
When my
world suddenly changed, my priorities changed too.
I had
two options. One was to remain silent and wait to be killed. And the
second was to speak up and then be killed.
I chose
the second one. I decided to speak up.
We
could not just stand by and see those injustices of the terrorists
denying our rights, ruthlessly killing people and misusing the name
of Islam. We decided to raise our voice and tell them: Have you not
learnt, have you not learnt that in the Holy Quran Allah says: if you
kill one person it is as if you kill the whole humanity?
Do you
not know that Mohammad, peace be upon him, the prophet of mercy, he
says, do not harm yourself or others".
And do
you not know that the very first word of the Holy Quran is the
word Iqra", which means read"?
The
terrorists tried to stop us and attacked me and my friends who are
here today, on our school bus in 2012, but neither their ideas nor
their bullets could win.
We
survived. And since that day, our voices have grown louder and
louder.
I tell
my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not.
It is
the story of many girls.
Today,
I tell their stories too. I have brought with me some of my sisters
from Pakistan, from Nigeria and from Syria, who share this story. My
brave sisters Shazia and Kainat who were also shot that day on our
school bus. But they have not stopped learning. And my brave sister
Kainat Soomro who went through severe abuse and extreme violence,
even her brother was killed, but she did not succumb.
Also my
sisters here, whom I have met during my Malala Fund campaign. My
16-year-old courageous sister, Mezon from Syria, who now lives in
Jordan as refugee and goes from tent to tent encouraging girls and
boys to learn. And my sister Amina, from the North of Nigeria, where
Boko Haram threatens, and stops girls and even kidnaps girls, just
for wanting to go to school.
Though
I appear as one girl, though I appear as one girl, one person, who is
5 foot 2 inches tall, if you include my high heels. (It means I am 5
foot only) I am not a lone voice, I am not a lone voice, I am many.
I am
Malala. But I am also Shazia.
I am
Kainat.
I am
Kainat Soomro.
I am
Mezon.
I am
Amina. I am those 66 million girls who are deprived of education. And
today I am not raising my voice, it is the voice of those 66 million
girls.
Sometimes
people like to ask me why should girls go to school, why is it
important for them. But I think the more important question is why
shouldn't they, why shouldn't they have this right to go to school.
Dear
sisters and brothers, today, in half of the world, we see rapid
progress and development. However, there are many countries where
millions still suffer from the very old problems of war, poverty, and
injustice.
We
still see conflicts in which innocent people lose their lives and
children become orphans. We see many people becoming refugees in
Syria, Gaza and Iraq. In Afghanistan, we see families being killed in
suicide attacks and bomb blasts.
Many
children in Africa do not have access to education because of
poverty. And as I said, we still see, we still see girls who
have no freedom to go to school in the north of Nigeria.
Many
children in countries like Pakistan and India, as Kailash Satyarthi
mentioned, many children, especially in India and Pakistan are
deprived of their right to education because of social taboos, or
they have been forced into child marriage or into child labour.
One of
my very good school friends, the same age as me, who had always been
a bold and confident girl, dreamed of becoming a doctor. But her
dream remained a dream. At the age of 12, she was forced to get
married. And then soon she had a son, she had a child when she
herself was still a child – only 14. I know that she could have
been a very good doctor.
But she
couldn't ... because she was a girl.
Her
story is why I dedicate the Nobel Peace Prize money to the Malala
Fund, to help give girls quality education, everywhere, anywhere in
the world and to raise their voices. The first place this funding
will go to is where my heart is, to build schools in
Pakistan—especially in my home of Swat and Shangla.
In my
own village, there is still no secondary school for girls. And it is
my wish and my commitment, and now my challenge to build one so that
my friends and my sisters can go there to school and get quality
education and to get this opportunity to fulfil their dreams.
This is
where I will begin, but it is not where I will stop. I will continue
this fight until I see every child, every child in school.
Dear
brothers and sisters, great people, who brought change, like Martin
Luther King and Nelson
Mandela, Mother
Teresa and Aung
San Suu Kyi,
once stood here on this stage. I hope the steps that Kailash
Satyarthi and I have taken so far and will take on this journey will
also bring change – lasting change.
My
great hope is that this will be the
last time,
this will be the last time we must fight for education. Let's solve
this once and for all.
We have
already taken many steps. Now it is time to take a leap.
It is
not time to tell the world leaders to realise how important education
is - they already know it - their own children are in good schools.
Now it is time to call them to take action for the rest of the
world's children.
We ask
the world leaders to unite and make education their top priority.
Fifteen
years ago, the world leaders decided on a set of global goals, the
Millennium Development Goals. In the years that have followed,
we have seen some progress. The number of children out of school has
been halved, as Kailash Satyarthi said. However, the world focused
only on primary education, and progress did not reach everyone.
In year
2015, representatives from all around the world will meet in
theUnited
Nations to
set the next set of goals, the Sustainable Development Goals. This
will set the world's ambition for the next generations.
The
world can no longer accept, the world can no longer accept that basic
education is enough. Why do leaders accept that for children in
developing countries, only basic literacy is sufficient, when their
own children do homework in Algebra, Mathematics, Science and
Physics?
Leaders
must seize this opportunity to guarantee a free, quality,
primary andsecondary education for every child.
Some
will say this is impractical, or too expensive, or too hard. Or
maybe even impossible. But it is time the world thinks bigger.
Dear
sisters and brothers, the so-called world of adults may understand
it, but we children don't. Why is it that countries which we call
strong" are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in
bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving
books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks is so easy,
but building schools is so hard?
We are
living in the modern age and we believe that nothing is impossible.
We have reached the moon 45 years ago and maybe will soon land on
Mars. Then, in this 21st century, we must be able to give every child
quality education.
Dear
sisters and brothers, dear fellow children, we must work… not wait.
Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to
contribute. Me. You. We. It is our duty.
Let us
become the first generation to decide to be the last ,
let us become the first generation that decides to be the
last that sees empty classrooms, lost childhoods, and wasted
potentials.
Let
this be the last
time that
a girl or a boy spends their childhood in a factory.
Let
this be the last time that a girl is forced into early child
marriage.
Let
this be the last time that a child loses life in war.
Let
this be the last time that we see a child out of school.
Let
this end with us.
Let's
begin this ending ... together ... today ... right here, right now.
Let's begin this ending now.
Thank
you so much.
New
Year’s Address to the Nation, 1990, Vaclav Havel
My
dear fellow citizens,
For forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us.
For forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us.
I
assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would
lie to you.
Our
country is not flourishing. The enormous creative and spiritual
potential of our nations is not being used sensibly. Entire branches
of industry are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone,
while we are lacking the things we need. A state which calls itself a
workers' state humiliates and exploits workers. Our obsolete economy
is wasting the little energy we have available. A country that once
could be proud of the educational level of its citizens spends so
little on education that it ranks today as seventy-second in the
world. We have polluted the soil, rivers and forests bequeathed to us
by our ancestors, and we have today the most contaminated environment
in Europe. Adults in our country die earlier than in most other
European countries.
Allow
me a small personal observation. When I flew recently to Bratislava,
I found some time during discussions to look out of the plane window.
I saw the industrial complex of Slovnaft chemical factory and the
giant Petr'alka housing estate right behind it. The view was enough
for me to understand that for decades our statesmen and political
leaders did not look or did not want to look out of the windows of
their planes. No study of statistics available to me would enable me
to understand faster and better the situation in which we find
ourselves.
But
all this is still not the main problem. The worst thing is that we
live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because
we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We
learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care
only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion,
humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many
of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they
resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little
ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships. Only a few of us
were able to cry out loudly that the powers that be should not be
all-powerful and that the special farms, which produced ecologically
pure and top-quality food just for them, should send their produce to
schools, children's homes and hospitals if our agriculture was unable
to offer them to all.
The
previous regime - armed with its arrogant and intolerant ideology -
reduced man to a force of production, and nature to a tool of
production. In this it attacked both their very substance and their
mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people,
skillfully working in their own country, to the nuts and bolts of
some monstrously huge, noisy and stinking machine, whose real meaning
was not clear to anyone. It could not do more than slowly but
inexorably wear out itself and all its nuts and bolts.
When
I talk about the contaminated moral atmosphere, I am not talking just
about the gentlemen who eat organic vegetables and do not look out of
the plane windows. I am talking about all of us. We had all become
used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable
fact and thus helped to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all -
though naturally to differing extents - responsible for the operation
of the totalitarian machinery. None of us is just its victim. We are
all also its co-creators.
Why
do I say this? It would be very unreasonable to understand the sad
legacy of the last forty years as something alien, which some distant
relative bequeathed to us. On the contrary, we have to accept this
legacy as a sin we committed against ourselves. If we accept it as
such, we will understand that it is up to us all, and up to us alone
to do something about it. We cannot blame the previous rulers for
everything, not only because it would be untrue, but also because it
would blunt the duty that each of us faces today: namely, the
obligation to act independently, freely, reasonably and quickly. Let
us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best
parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own.
And it would be wrong to expect a general remedy from them alone.
Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore
responsibility from us all.
If
we realize this, then all the horrors that the new Czechoslovak
democracy inherited will cease to appear so terrible. If we realize
this, hope will return to our hearts.
In
the effort to rectify matters of common concern, we have something to
lean on. The recent period - and in particular the last six weeks of
our peaceful revolution - has shown the enormous human, moral and
spiritual potential, and the civic culture that slumbered in our
society under the enforced mask of apathy. Whenever someone
categorically claimed that we were this or that, I always objected
that society is a very mysterious creature and that it is unwise to
trust only the face it presents to you. I am happy that I was not
mistaken. Everywhere in the world people wonder where those meek,
humiliated, skeptical and seemingly cynical citizens of
Czechoslovakia found the marvelous strength to shake the totalitarian
yoke from their shoulders in several weeks, and in a decent and
peaceful way. And let us ask: Where did the young people who never
knew another system get their desire for truth, their love of free
thought, their political ideas, their civic courage and civic
prudence? How did it happen that their parents -- the very generation
that had been considered lost -- joined them? How is it that so many
people immediately knew what to do and none needed any advice or
instruction?
I
think there are two main reasons for the hopeful face of our present
situation. First of all, people are never just a product of the
external world; they are also able to relate themselves to something
superior, however systematically the external world tries to kill
that ability in them. Secondly, the humanistic and democratic
traditions, about which there had been so much idle talk, did after
all slumber in the unconsciousness of our nations and ethnic
minorities, and were inconspicuously passed from one generation to
another, so that each of us could discover them at the right time and
transform them into deeds.
We
had to pay, however, for our present freedom. Many citizens perished
in jails in the 1950s, many were executed, thousands of human lives
were destroyed, hundreds of thousands of talented people were forced
to leave the country. Those who defended the honor of our nations
during the Second World War, those who rebelled against totalitarian
rule and those who simply managed to remain themselves and think
freely, were all persecuted. We should not forget any of those who
paid for our present freedom in one way or another. Independent
courts should impartially consider the possible guilt of those who
were responsible for the persecutions, so that the truth about our
recent past might be fully revealed.
We
must also bear in mind that other nations have paid even more dearly
for their present freedom, and that indirectly they have also paid
for ours. The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland,
Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as
the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be
forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every
other human being. But more than this, they must also not be
forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic
background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the
nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own
newfound freedom. Without the changes in the Soviet Union, Poland,
Hungary, and the German Democratic Republic, what has happened in our
country would have scarcely happened. And if it did, it certainly
would not have followed such a peaceful course.
The
fact that we enjoyed optimal international conditions does not mean
that anyone else has directly helped us during the recent weeks. In
fact, after hundreds of years, both our nations have raised their
heads high of their own initiative without relying on the help of
stronger nations or powers. It seems to me that this constitutes the
great moral asset of the present moment. This moment holds within
itself the hope that in the future we will no longer suffer from the
complex of those who must always express their gratitude to somebody.
It now depends only on us whether this hope will be realized and
whether our civic, national, and political self-confidence will be
awakened in a historically new way.
Self-confidence
is not pride. Just the contrary: only a person or a nation that is
self-confident, in the best sense of the word, is capable of
listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies
and regretting its own guilt. Let us try to introduce this kind of
self-confidence into the life of our community and, as nations, into
our behavior on the international stage. Only thus can we restore our
self-respect and our respect for one another as well as the respect
of other nations.
Our
state should never again be an appendage or a poor relative of anyone
else. It is true that we must accept and learn many things from
others, but we must do this in the future as their equal partners,
who also have something to offer.
Our
first president wrote: "Jesus, not Caesar." In this he
followed our philosophers Chel_ick_ and Komensk_. I dare to say that
we may even have an opportunity to spread this idea further and
introduce a new element into European and global politics. Our
country, if that is what we want, can now permanently radiate love,
understanding, the power of the spirit and of ideas. It is precisely
this glow that we can offer as our specific contribution to
international politics.
Masaryk*
based his politics on morality. Let us try, in a new time and in a
new way, to restore this concept of politics. Let us teach ourselves
and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to
contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to
cheat or rape the community. Let us teach ourselves and others that
politics can be not simply the art of the possible, especially if
this means the art of speculation, calculation, intrigue, secret
deals and pragmatic maneuvering, but that it can also be the art of
the impossible, that is, the art of improving ourselves and the
world.
We
are a small country, yet at one time we were the spiritual crossroads
of Europe. Is there a reason why we could not again become one? Would
it not be another asset with which to repay the help of others that
we are going to need?
Our
homegrown Mafia, those who do not look out of the plane windows and
who eat specially fed pigs, may still be around and at times may
muddy the waters, but they are no longer our main enemy. Even less so
is our main enemy any kind of international Mafia. Our main enemy
today is our own bad traits: indifference to the common good, vanity,
personal ambition, selfishness, and rivalry. The main struggle will
have to be fought on this field.
There
are free elections and an election campaign ahead of us. Let us not
allow this struggle to dirty the so-far clean face of our gentle
revolution. Let us not allow the sympathies of the world, which we
have won so fast, to be equally rapidly lost through our becoming
entangled in the jungle of skirmishes for power. Let us not allow the
desire to serve oneself to bloom once again under the stately garb of
the desire to serve the common good. It is not really important now
which party, club or group prevails in the elections. The important
thing is that the winners will be the best of us, in the moral,
civic, political and professional sense, regardless of their
political affiliations. The future policies and prestige of our state
will depend on the personalities we select, and later, elect to our
representative bodies.
My
dear fellow citizens!
Three
days ago I became the president of the republic as a consequence of
your will, expressed through the deputies of the Federal Assembly.
You have a right to expect me to mention the tasks I see before me as
president.
The
first of these is to use all my power and influence to ensure that we
soon step up to the ballot boxes in a free election, and that our
path toward this historic milestone will be dignified and peaceful.
My
second task is to guarantee that we approach these elections as two
self-governing nations who respect each other's interests, national
identity, religious traditions, and symbols. As a Czech who has given
his presidential oath to an important Slovak who is personally close
to him, I feel a special obligation -- after the bitter experiences
that Slovaks had in the past -- to see that all the interests of the
Slovak nation are respected and that no state office, including the
highest one, will ever be barred to it in the future.
My
third task is to support everything that will lead to better
circumstances for our children, the elderly, women, the sick, the
hardworking laborers, the national minorities and all citizens who
are for any reason worse off than others. High-quality food or
hospitals must no longer be a prerogative of the powerful; they must
be available to those who need them the most.
As
supreme commander of the armed forces I want to guarantee that the
defensive capability of our country will no longer be used as a
pretext for anyone to stand in the way of courageous peace
initiatives, the reduction of military service, the establishment of
alternative military service and the overall humanization of military
life.
In
our country there are many prisoners who, though they may have
committed serious crimes and have been punished for them, have had to
submit -- despite the goodwill of some investigators, judges and
above all defense lawyers -- to a debased judiciary process that
curtailed their rights. They now have to live in prisons that do not
strive to awaken the better qualities contained in every person, but
rather humiliate them and destroy them physically and mentally. In a
view of this fact, I have decided to declare a relatively extensive
amnesty. At the same time I call on the prisoners to understand that
forty years of unjust investigations, trials and imprisonments cannot
be put right overnight, and to understand that the changes that are
being speedily prepared still require time to implement. By
rebelling, the prisoners would help neither society nor themselves. I
also call on the public not to fear the prisoners once they are
released, not to make their lives difficult, to help them, in the
Christian spirit, after their return among us to find within
themselves that which jails could not find in them: the capacity to
repent and the desire to live a respectable life.
My
honorable task is to strengthen the authority of our country in the
world. I would be glad if other states respected us for showing
understanding, tolerance and love for peace. I would be happy if Pope
John Paul II and the Dalai Lama of Tibet could visit our country
before the elections, if only for a day. I would be happy if our
friendly relations with all nations were strengthened. I would be
happy if we succeeded before the elections in establishing diplomatic
relations with the Vatican and Israel. I would also like to
contribute to peace by briefly visiting our close neighbors, the
German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany.
Neither shall I forget our other neighbors -- fraternal Poland and
the ever-closer countries of Hungary and Austria.
In
conclusion, I would like to say that I want to be a president who
will speak less and work more. To be a president who will not only
look out of the windows of his airplane but who, first and foremost,
will always be present among his fellow citizens and listen to them
well.
You
may ask what kind of republic I dream of. Let me reply: I dream of a
republic independent, free, and democratic, of a republic
economically prosperous and yet socially just; in short, of a humane
republic that serves the individual and that therefore holds the hope
that the individual will serve it in turn. Of a republic of
well-rounded people, because without such people it is impossible to
solve any of our problems -- human, economic, ecological, social, or
political.
The
most distinguished of my predecessors opened his first speech with a
quotation from the great Czech educator Komensk_. Allow me to
conclude my first speech with my own paraphrase of the same
statement:
People,
your government has returned to you!
*
Tom _ Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), Czech statesman and
philosopher, the first president of Czechoslovakia.
On
the duty of Civil Disobedience
On the
Duty of Civil Disobedience
[1849,
original title: Resistance to Civil Government]
I
heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which
governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more
rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this,
which also I believe — "That government is best which governs
not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the
kind of government which the will have. Government is at best but an
expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are
sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought
against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve
to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing
government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing
government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the
people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be
abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness
the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals
using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the
people would not have consented to this measure.
This
American government — what is it but a tradition, though a recent
one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each
instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and
force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his
will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is
not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some
complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that
idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how
successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for
their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this
government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the
alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the
country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The
character inherent in the American people has done all that has been
accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government
had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by
which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as
has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let
alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of
india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which
legislators are continually putting in their way; and if one were to
judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly
by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished
with those mischievious persons who put obstructions on the
railroads.
But, to
speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves
no-government men, I ask for, not at one no government, but at once a
better government. Let every man make known what kind of government
would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining
it.
After
all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of
the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue,
to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor
because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are
physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule
in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men
understand it. Can there not be a government in which the majorities
do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which
majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of
expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in
the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has
every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and
subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for
the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a
right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly
enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation
on conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never
made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it,
even the well-disposed are daily made the agents on injustice. A
common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that
you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates,
powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and
dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense
and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and
produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a
damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably
inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and
magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit
the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American
government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts
— a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive
and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with
funeral accompaniment, though it may be,
"Not
a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a
soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where out hero was buried."
O'er the grave where out hero was buried."
The
mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines,
with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia,
jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no
free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but
they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and
wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as
well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of
dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet
such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others — as
most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders
— serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as the rarely make
any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil,
without intending it, as God. A very few — as heroes, patriots,
martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men — serve the state
with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the
most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man
will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay,"
and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that
office to his dust at least:
"I
am too high born to be propertied,
To be a second at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world."
To be a second at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world."
He who
gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them useless and
selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them in pronounced a
benefactor and philanthropist.
How
does it become a man to behave toward the American government today?
I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I
cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my
government which is the slave's government also.
All men
recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse
allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its
inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such
is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the
Revolution of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad
government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to
its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about
it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and
possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any
rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the
friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are
organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other
words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has
undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole
country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and
subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest
men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent
is that fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is
the invading army.
Paley,
a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter on
the "Duty of Submission to Civil Government," resolves all
civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say that "so
long as the interest of the whole society requires it, that it, so
long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed
without public inconveniencey, it is the will of God... that the
established government be obeyed — and no longer. This principle
being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is
reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance
on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it
on the other." Of this, he says, every man shall judge for
himself. But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to
which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as
well and an individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have
unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to
him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be
inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall
lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on
Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
In
their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does anyone think that
Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis?
"A
drab of stat,
a cloth-o'-silver slut,
a cloth-o'-silver slut,
To have
her train borne up,
and her soul trail in the dirt."
and her soul trail in the dirt."
Practically
speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a
hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand
merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and
agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do
justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not
with far-off foes, but with those who, neat at home, co-operate with,
and do the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter
would be harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are
unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not as
materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that
many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness
somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands
who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in
effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves
children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in
their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing;
who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free
trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest
advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over
them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot
today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition;
but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well
disposed, for other to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have
it to regret. At most, they give up only a cheap vote, and a feeble
countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are
nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.
But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with
the temporary guardian of it.
All
voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a
slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral
questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the
voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right;
but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am
willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never
exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing
nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that
it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy
of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.
There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the
majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will
be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but
little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be
the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery
who asserts his own freedom by his vote.
I hear
of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the
selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of
editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what
is it to any independent, intelligent, and respectable man what
decision they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of this
wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon some
independent votes? Are there not many individuals in the country who
do not attend conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man,
so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of
his country, when his country has more reasons to despair of him. He
forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only
available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any
purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of
any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been
bought. O for a man who is a man, and, and my neighbor says, has a
bone is his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our
statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large.
How many men are there to a square thousand miles in the country?
Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to settle
here? The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow — one who may be
known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a
manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first
and chief concern, on coming into the world, is to see that the
almshouses are in good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned
the virile garb, to collect a fund to the support of the widows and
orphans that may be; who, in short, ventures to live only by the aid
of the Mutual Insurance company, which has promised to bury him
decently.
It is
not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the
eradication of any, even to most enormous, wrong; he may still
properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at
least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought
longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to
other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I
do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get
off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what
gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen
say, "I should like to have them order me out to help put down
an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico — see if I
would go"; and yet these very men have each, directly by their
allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a
substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an
unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust
government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act
and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were
penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it
sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment.
Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made
at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the
first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it
becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life
which we have made.
The
broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested
virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of
patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur.
Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a
government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly
its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious
obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the
Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they
not dissolve it themselves — the union between themselves and the
State — and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not
they stand in same relation to the State that the State does to the
Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from
resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the
State?
How can
a man be satisfied to entertain and opinion merely, and enjoy it? Is
there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If
you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not
rest satisfied with knowing you are cheated, or with saying that you
are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but
you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see
to it that you are never cheated again. Action from principle, the
perception and the performance of right, changes things and
relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist
wholly with anything which was. It not only divided States and
churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual,
separating the diabolical in him from the divine.
Unjust
laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to
amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we
transgress them at once? Men, generally, under such a government as
this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the
majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the
remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the
government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it
worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform?
Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist
before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to put out
its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always
crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce
Washington and Franklin rebels?
One
would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its authority
was the only offense never contemplated by its government; else, why
has it not assigned its definite, its suitable and proportionate,
penalty? If a man who has no property refuses but once to earn nine
shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited
by any law that I know, and determined only by the discretion of
those who put him there; but if he should steal ninety times nine
shillings from the State, he is soon permitted to go at large again.
If the
injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of
government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth —
certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring,
or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then
perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than
the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be
the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let
your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to
do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong
which I condemn.
As for
adopting the ways of the State has provided for remedying the evil, I
know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will
be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world,
not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it,
be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and
because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should
be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is
theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my petition, what
should I do then? But in this case the State has provided no way: its
very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn
and unconcilliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and
consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So
is all change for the better, like birth and death, which convulse
the body.
I do
not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists
should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and
property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till
they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to
prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on
their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man
more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.
I meet
this American government, or its representative, the State
government, directly, and face to face, once a year — no more —
in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a
man situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says
distinctly, Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and,
in the present posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of
treating with it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction
with and love for it, is to deny it then. My civil neighbor, the
tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with — for it is,
after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel — and he
has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he
ever know well that he is and does as an officer of the government,
or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat
me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and
well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see
if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborlines without a
ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his
action. I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if
ten men whom I could name — if ten honest men only — ay, if one
honest
man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were
actually to withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked up in
the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in
America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be:
what is once well done is done forever. But we love better to talk
about it: that we say is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of
newspapers in its service, but not one man. If my esteemed neighbor,
the State's ambassador, who will devote his days to the settlement of
the question of human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being
threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the
prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist
the sin of slavery upon her sister — though at present she can
discover only an act of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel
with her — the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject of
the following winter.
Under a
government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is
also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which
Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less despondent spirits,
is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her
own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles.
It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on
parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race should
find them; on that separate but more free and honorable ground, where
the State places those who are not with her, but against her — the
only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.
If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their
voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be
as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is
stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he
can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person.
Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole
influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority;
it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs
by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in
prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which
to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this
year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be
to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed
innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable
revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any
other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall
I do?" my answer is, "If you really wish to do anything,
resign your office." When the subject has refused allegiance,
and the officer has resigned from office, then the revolution is
accomplished. But even suppose blood shed when the conscience is
wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow
out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing
now.
I have
contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, rather than the
seizure of his goods — though both will serve the same purpose —
because they who assert the purest right, and consequently are most
dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time in
accumulating property. To such the State renders comparatively small
service, and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly
if they are obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If
there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State
itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man — not
to make any invidious comparison — is always sold to the
institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more
money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his
objects, and obtains them for him; it was certainly no great virtue
to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would otherwise
be taxed to answer; while the only new question which it puts is the
hard but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral ground is
taken from under his feet. The opportunities of living are diminished
in proportion as that are called the "means" are increased.
The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to
endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was
poor. Christ answered the Herodians according to their condition.
"Show me the tribute-money," said he — and one took a
penny out of his pocket — if you use money which has the image of
Caesar on it, and which he has made current and valuable, that is, if
you are men of the State, and gladly enjoy the advantages of Caesar's
government, then pay him back some of his own when he demands it.
"Render therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God
those things which are God's" — leaving them no wiser than
before as to which was which; for they did not wish to know.
When I
converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, whatever
they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and
their regard for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of
the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of the existing
government, and they dread the consequences to their property and
families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should not like to
think that I ever rely on the protection of the State. But, if I deny
the authority of the State when it presents its tax bill, it will
soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children
without end. This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live
honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects. It
will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be
sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a
small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and
depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not
have many affairs. A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be
in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government. Confucius
said: "If a state is governed by the principles of reason,
poverty and misery are subjects of shame; if a state is not governed
by the principles of reason, riches and honors are subjects of
shame." No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be
extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is
endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at
home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to
Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me
less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State
than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that
case.
Some
years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me
to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose
preaching my father attended, but never I myself. "Pay," it
said, "or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay.
But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why
the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the
priest the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but
I supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the
lyceum should not present its tax bill, and have the State to back
its demand, as well as the Church. However, as the request of the
selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in
writing: "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau,
do not wish to be regarded as a member of any society which I have
not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The
State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a
member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since;
though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption that
time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off
in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I
did not know where to find such a complete list.
I have
paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this
account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of
solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a
foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could
not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which
treated my as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked
up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was
the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail
itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of
stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult
one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as
I was. I did nor for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a
great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my
townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me,
but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in
every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief
desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not
but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my
meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance,
and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach
me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot
come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his
dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a
lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its
friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it,
and pitied it.
Thus
the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual
or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with
superior with or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was
not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us
see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can
force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like
themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or
that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I
meet a government which says to me, "Your money our your life,"
why should I be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great
strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help
itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I
am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of
society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an
acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert
to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring
and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance,
overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according
to nature, it dies; and so a man.
The
night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in
their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the
doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, "Come, boys, it is
time to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound
of their steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was
introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate fellow and
clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me where to
hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were
whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest,
most simply furnished, and probably neatest apartment in town. He
naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought me
there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my turn how he came
there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course; and as the world
goes, I believe he was. "Why," said he, "they accuse
me of burning a barn; but I never did it." As near as I could
discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and
smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation
of being a clever man, had been there some three months waiting for
his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much longer; but he
was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for
nothing, and thought that he was well treated.
He
occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if one stayed
there long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I
had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where
former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed
off, and heard the history of the various occupants of that room; for
I found that even there there was a history and a gossip which never
circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only
house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward
printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a
long list of young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape,
who avenged themselves by singing them.
I
pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never
see him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left
me to blow out the lamp.
It was
like travelling into a far country, such as I had never expected to
behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I never had
heard the town clock strike before, not the evening sounds of the
village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the
grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the Middle
Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of
knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of old
burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator
and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the
adjacent village inn — a wholly new and rare experience to me. It
was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I
never had seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar
institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its
inhabitants were about.
In the
morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in the door, in
small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of
chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for
the vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread I had
left, but my comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up
for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work at haying in a
neighboring field, whither he went every day, and would not be back
till noon; so he bade me good day, saying that he doubted if he
should see me again.
When I
came out of prison — for some one interfered, and paid that tax —
I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common,
such as he observed who went in a youth and emerged a gray-headed
man; and yet a change had come to my eyes come over the scene — the
town, and State, and country, greater than any that mere time could
effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw
to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good
neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather
only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a
distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the
Chinamen and Malays are that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran
no risks, not even to their property; that after all they were not so
noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped,
by a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in
a particular straight through useless path from time to time, to save
their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe
that many of them are not aware that they have such an institution as
the jail in their village.
It was
formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of
jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their
fingers, which were crossed to represent the jail window, "How
do ye do?" My neighbors did not this salute me, but first looked
at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long
journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get
a shoe which was mender. When I was let out the next morning, I
proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended show,
joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves
under my conduct; and in half an hour — for the horse was soon
tackled — was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our
highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be
seen.
This is
the whole history of "My Prisons."
I have
never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of
being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for
supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow
countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax bill that I
refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to
withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace
the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man a musket to
shoot one with — the dollar is innocent — but I am concerned to
trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war
with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and
get what advantages of her I can, as is usual in such cases.
If
others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the
State, they do but what they have already done in their own case, or
rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the State
requires. If they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the
individual taxed, to save his property, or prevent his going to jail,
it is because they have not considered wisely how far they let their
private feelings interfere with the public good.
This,
then is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on his
guard in such a case, lest his actions be biased by obstinacy or an
undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only
what belongs to himself and to the hour.
I think
sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant; they
would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain
to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is
no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much
greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to myself,
When many millions of men, without heat, without ill will, without
personal feelings of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only,
without the possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or
altering their present demand, and without the possibility, on your
side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself to this
overwhelming brute force? You do not resist cold and hunger, the
winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you quietly submit to a
thousand similar necessities. You do not put your head into the fire.
But just in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a brute force,
but partly a human force, and consider that I have relations to those
millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere brute or
inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible, first and
instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, secondly, from
them to themselves. But if I put my head deliberately into the fire,
there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker for fire, and I have only
myself to blame. If I could convince myself that I have any right to
be satisfied with men as they are, and to treat them accordingly, and
not according, in some respects, to my requisitions and expectations
of what they and I ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and
fatalist, I should endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are,
and say it is the will of God. And, above all, there is this
difference between resisting this and a purely brute or natural
force, that I can resist this with some effect; but I cannot expect,
like Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts.
I do
not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split
hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my
neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to
the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed,
I have reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the
tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review the acts
and position of the general and State governments, and the spirit of
the people to discover a pretext for conformity.
"We
must affect our country as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Out love or industry from doing it honor,
We must respect effects and teach the soul
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit."
And if at any time we alienate
Out love or industry from doing it honor,
We must respect effects and teach the soul
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit."
I
believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work of this
sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better patriot than my
fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution,
with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very
respectable; even this State and this American government are, in
many respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for,
such as a great many have described them; seen from a higher still,
and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth
looking at or thinking of at all?
However,
the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the
fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live
under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free,
fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time
appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally
interrupt him.
I know
that most men think differently from myself; but those whose lives
are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred subjects
content me as little as any. Statesmen and legislators, standing so
completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly
behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place
without it. They may be men of a certain experience and
discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful
systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and
usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to
forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency.
Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with
authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who
contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for
thinkers, and those who legislate for all tim, he never once glances
at the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on
this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and
hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of most
reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom an eloquence of politicians
in general, his are almost the only sensible and valuable words, and
we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is always strong,
original, and, above all, practical. Still, his quality is not
wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but
consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony
with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that
may consist with wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as he
has been called, the Defender of the Constitution. There are really
no blows to be given him but defensive ones. He is not a leader, but
a follower. His leaders are the men of '87. "I have never made
an effort," he says, "and never propose to make an effort;
I have never countenanced an effort, and never mean to countenance an
effort, to disturb the arrangement as originally made, by which
various States came into the Union." Still thinking of the
sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, "Because
it was part of the original compact — let it stand."
Notwithstanding his special acuteness and ability, he is unable to
take a fact out of its merely political relations, and behold it as
it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the intellect — what, for
instance, it behooves a man to do here in American today with regard
to slavery — but ventures, or is driven, to make some such
desperate answer to the following, while professing to speak
absolutely, and as a private man — from which what new and singular
of social duties might be inferred? "The manner," says he,
"in which the governments of the States where slavery exists are
to regulate it is for their own consideration, under the
responsibility to their constituents, to the general laws of
propriety, humanity, and justice, and to God. Associations formed
elsewhere, springing from a feeling of humanity, or any other cause,
have nothing whatever to do with it. They have never received any
encouragement from me and they never will. [These extracts have been
inserted since the lecture was read — HDT]
They
who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream
no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the
Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humanity; but
they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool,
gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward
its fountainhead.
No man
with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare
in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and
eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his
mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of
the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth
which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators
have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of
freed, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius
or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance,
commerce and manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to
the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance,
uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints
of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the
nations. For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right
to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the
legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail
himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation.
The
authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to —
for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I,
and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well —
is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the
sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over
my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an
absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a
democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.
Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual
as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the
last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a
step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man?
There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the
State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent
power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and
treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at
last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the
individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it
inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it,
not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the
duties of neighbors and fellow men. A State which bore this kind of
fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would
prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I
have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
The
Communist Manifesto, Karl Manx and Friedick Engels
Chapter
IV. Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing
Opposition Parties
Section
II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the existing
working-class parties, such as the Chartists
in England and the Agrarian Reformers in America.
The
Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the
enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in
the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the
future of that movement. In France, the Communists ally with the
Social-Democrats(1)
against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however,
the right to take up a critical position in regard to phases and
illusions traditionally handed down from the great Revolution.
In
Switzerland, they support the Radicals, without losing sight of the
fact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of
Democratic Socialists, in the French sense, partly of radical
bourgeois.
In
Poland, they support the party that insists on an agrarian revolution
as the prime condition for national emancipation, that party which
fomented the insurrection of Cracow in 1846.
In
Germany, they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a
revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal
squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie.
But
they never cease, for a single instant, to instill into the working
class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism
between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers
may straightway use, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the
social and political conditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily
introduce along with its supremacy, and in order that, after the fall
of the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight against the
bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin.
The
Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that
country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be
carried out under more advanced conditions of European civilisation
and with a much more developed proletariat than that of England was
in the seventeenth, and France in the eighteenth century, and because
the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an
immediately following proletarian revolution.
In
short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement
against the existing social and political order of things.
In all
these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in
each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development
at the time.
Finally,
they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic
parties of all countries.
The
Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly
declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible
overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes
tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to
lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
Working
Men of All Countries, Unite!
(1)
The party then represented in Parliament by Ledru-Rollin, in
literature by Louis Blanc, in the daily press by the Réforme.
The name of Social-Democracy signifies, with these its inventors, a
section of the Democratic or Republican Party more or less tinged
with socialism. [Engels, English Edition 1888]
* *
*
The
famous final phrase of the Manifesto, “Working Men of All
Countries, Unite!”, in the original German is: “Proletarier
aller Länder, vereinigt euch!”
Thus, a more correct translation would be “Proletarians of all
countries, Unite!”
“Workers
of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!” is
a popularisation of the last three sentences, and is not found in any
official translation. Since this English translation was approved by
Engels, we have kept the original intact.
Time
To Thrive, Ellen Page
Thank
you Chad, for those kind words and for the even kinder work that you
and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation do every day -- especially
on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people
here and across America.
It's
such an honor to be here at the inaugural Time to THRIVE conference.
But it's a little weird, too. Here I am, in this room because of an
organization whose work I deeply admire. And I'm surrounded by people
who make it their life's work to make other people's lives better --
profoundly better. Some of you teach young people. Some of you help
young people heal and to find their voice. Some of you listen. Some
of you take action. Some of you are young people yourselves... in
which case, it's even weirder for a person like me to be speaking to
you.
It's
weird because here I am, an actress, representing -- at least in some
sense -- an industry that places crushing standards on all of us. Not
just young people, but everyone. Standards of beauty. Of a good life.
Of success. Standards that, I hate to admit, have affected me. You
have ideas planted in your head, thoughts you never had before, that
tell you how you have to act, how you have to dress and who you have
to be. I have been trying to push back, to be authentic, to follow my
heart, but it can be hard.
But
that's why I'm here. In this room, all of you, all of us, can do so
much more together than any one person can do alone. And I hope that
thought bolsters you as much as it does me. I hope the workshops
you'll go to over the next few days give you strength. Because I can
only imagine that there are days -- when you've worked longer hours
than your boss realizes or cares about, just to help a kid who you
know can make it. Days where you feel completely alone. Undermined.
Or hopeless.
I
know there are people in this room who go to school every day and get
treated like shit for no reason. Or you go home and you feel like you
can't tell your parents the whole truth about yourself. Beyond
putting yourself in one box or another, you worry about the future.
About college or work or even your physical safety. Trying to create
that mental picture of your life -- of what on earth is going to
happen to you -- can crush you a little bit every day. It is toxic
and painful and deeply unfair.
Sometimes
it's the little, insignificant stuff that can tear you down. I try
not to read gossip as a rule, but the other day a website ran an
article with a picture of me wearing sweatpants on the way to the
gym. The writer asked, "Why does [this] petite beauty insist
upon dressing like a massive man?"
Because
I like to be comfortable. There are pervasive stereotypes about
masculinity and femininity that define how we are all supposed to
act, dress and speak. They serve no one. Anyone who defies these
so-called 'norms' becomes worthy of comment and scrutiny. The LGBT
community knows this all too well.
Yet
there is courage all around us. The football hero, Michael Sam. The
actress, Laverne Cox. The musicians Tegan and Sara Quinn. The family
that supports their daughter or son who has come out. And there is
courage in this room. All of you.
I'm
inspired to be in this room because every single one of you is here
for the same reason. You're here because you've adopted as a core
motivation the simple fact that this world would be a whole lot
better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another.
If we took just 5 minutes to recognize each other's beauty, instead
of attacking each other for our differences. That's not hard. It's
really an easier and better way to live. And ultimately, it saves
lives.
Then
again, it's not easy at all. It can be the hardest thing, because
loving other people starts with loving ourselves and accepting
ourselves. I know many of you have struggled with this. I draw upon
your strength and your support, and have, in ways you will never
know.
I'm
here today because I am gay. And because... maybe I can make a
difference. To help others have an easier and more hopeful time.
Regardless, for me, I feel a personal obligation and a social
responsibility.
I
also do it selfishly, because I am tired of hiding and I am tired of
lying by omission. I suffered for years because I was scared to be
out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered and my
relationships suffered. And I'm standing here today, with all of you,
on the other side of that pain. I am young, yes, but what I have
learned is that love, the beauty of it, the joy of it and yes, even
the pain of it, is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as
a human being. And we deserve to experience love fully, equally,
without shame and without compromise.
There
are too many kids out there suffering from bullying, rejection,
or simply being mistreated because of who they are. Too many
dropouts. Too much abuse. Too many homeless. Too many suicides. You
can change that and you are changing it.
But
you never needed me to tell you that. That's why this was a little
bit weird. The only thing I can really say is what I've been building
up to for the past 5 minutes. Thank you. Thank you for inspiring me.
Thank you for giving me hope, and please keep changing the world for
people like me.Happy Valentine's Day. I love you.
Tryst
With Destiny, Jawaharlal Nehru
Long
years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when
we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very
substantially.
At
the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will
awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in
history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends,
and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.
It
is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of
dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still
larger cause of humanity.
At
the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and
trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of
her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she
has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave
her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India
discovers herself again.
The
achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of
opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us.
Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and
accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom
and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this
assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of
India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of
labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some
of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and
it is the future that beckons to us now.
That
future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so
that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we
shall take today. The service of India means the service of the
millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and
disease and inequality of opportunity.
The
ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every
tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are
tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And
so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to
our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the
world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together
today for anyone of them to imagine that it can live apart.
Peace
has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now,
and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split
into isolated fragments.
To
the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal
to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is
no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill will or
blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India
where all her children may dwell.
The
appointed day has come - the day appointed by destiny - and India
stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital,
free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure
and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often
taken. Yet the turning point is past, and history begins anew for us,
the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.
It
is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world.
A new star rises, the star of freedom in the east, a new hope comes
into being, a vision long cherished materialises. May the star never
set and that hope never be betrayed!
We
rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of
our people are sorrow-stricken and difficult problems encompass us.
But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face
them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.
On
this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the
father of our nation, who, embodying the old spirit of India, held
aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that
surrounded us.
We
have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his
message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember
this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son
of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and
humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out,
however high the wind or stormy the tempest.
Our
next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of
freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto
death.
We
think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us
by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in
the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us
whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good and ill
fortune alike.
The
future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our
endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the
peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance
and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive
nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions
which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and
woman.
We
have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we
redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what
destiny intended them to be.
We
are citizens of a great country, on the verge of bold advance, and we
have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever
religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal
rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism
or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are
narrow in thought or in action.
To
the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge
ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and
democracy.
And
to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the
ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to
her service. Jai Hind [Victory to India].
In
Quest Of Democracy, Aaung San Suu Kyi
In
Quest of Democracy
This
essay and the two which follow were written by the author for a
project she was unable to complete before she was placed under house
arrest on 20 July 1989. The project was intended to result in a
volume of essays on democracy and human rights which she had been
hoping to dedicate to her father
as Essays in
Honour of Bogyoke Aung San.
Opponents of the movement for
democracy in Burma have sought to undermine it by on the one hand
casting aspersions on the competence of the people to judge what was
best for the nation and on the other condemning the basic tenets of
democracy as un-Burmese. There is nothing new in Third World
governments seeking to justify and perpetuate authoritarian rule by
denouncing liberal democratic principles as alien. By implication
they claim for themselves the official and sole right to decide what
does or does not conform to indigenous cultural norms. Such
conventional propaganda aimed at consolidating the powers of the
establish-ment has been studied, analysed and disproved by political
scientists, jurists and sociologists. But in Burma, distanced by
several decades of isolationism from political and intellectual
developments in the outside world, the people have had to draw on
their own resources to explode the twin myths of their unfitness for
political responsibility and the unsuitability of democracy for their
society. As soon as the movement for democracy spread out across
Burma there was a surge of intense interest in the meaning
of the word 'democracy', in
its history and its practical implica-tions. More than a
quarter-century of narrow authoritarianism under which they had been
fed a pabulum of shallow, negative dogma had not blunted the
perceptiveness or political alertness of the Burmese. On the
contrary, perhaps not all that surprisingly, their appetite for
discussion and debate, for uncensored informa-tion and objective
analysis, seemed to have been sharpened. Not only was there an
eagerness to study and to absorb standard theories on modern
politics and political institutions, there was also widespread and
intelligent speculation on the nature of democracy as a social
system of which they had had little experi-ence but which appealed
to their common-sense notions of what was due to a civilized
society. There was a spontaneous interpreta-tive response to such
basic ideas as representative government, human rights and the rule
of law. The privileges and freedoms which would be guaranteed by
democratic institutions were con-templated with understandable
enthusiasm. But the duties of those who would bear responsibility
for the maintenance of a stable democracy also provoked much
thoughtful consideration. It is natural that a people who have
suffered much from the consequences of bad government should be
preoccupied with theories of good government.
Members of the Buddhist
Sangha
in their customary role as mentors have led the way in articulating
popular expectations by drawing on classical learning to illuminate
timeless values. But the conscious effort to make traditional
knowledge relevant to contemporary needs was not confined to any
particular circle - it went right through Burmese society from urban
intellectuals and small shopkeepers to doughty village grandmothers.
Why has Burma with its
abundant natural and human re-sources failed to live up to its early
promise as one of the most energetic and fastest-developing nations
in South-east Asia? Inter-national scholars have provided detailed
answers supported by careful analyses of historical, cultural,
political and economic factors. The Burmese people, who have had no
access to sophisti-cated academic material, got to the heart of the
matter by turning to the words of the Buddha on the four causes of
decline
and decay: failure to recover
that which had been lost, omission to repair that which had been
damaged, disregard of the need for reasonable economy, and the
elevation to leadership of men without morality or learning.
Translated into contemporary terms, when democratic rights had been
lost to military dictator-ship sufficient efforts had not been made
to regain them, moral and political values had been allowed to
deteriorate without concerted attempts to save the situation, the
economy had been badly managed, and the country had been ruled by
men without integrity or wisdom. A thorough study by the cleverest
scholar using the best and latest methods of research could hardly
have identified more correctly or succinctly the chief causes of
Burma's decline since 1962.
Under totalitarian socialism,
official policies with little rele-vance to actual needs had placed
Burma in an economic and administrative limbo where government
bribery and evasion of regulations were the indispensable lubricant
to keep the wheels of everyday life turning. But through the years
of moral decay and material decline there has survived a vision of a
society in which the people and the leadership could unite in
principled efforts to achieve prosperity and security. In 1988 the
movement for demo-cracy gave rise to the hope that the vision might
become reality. At its most basic and immediate level, liberal
democracy would mean in institutional terms a representative
government ap-pointed for a constitutionally limited term through
free and fair elections. By exercising responsibly their right to
choose their own leaders the Burmese hope to make an effective start
at reversing the process of decline. They have countered the
propagandist doctrine that democracy is unsuited to their cultural
norms by examining traditional theories of government.
The Buddhist view of world
history tells that when society fell from its original state of
purity into moral and social chaos a king was elected to restore
peace and justice. The ruler was known by three titles: Mahasammata,
'because he is named ruler by the unanimous consent of the people';
Khattiya;
'because he has domin-ion over agricultural land'; and Raja,
'because he wins the people to affection through observance of the
dhamma
(virtue, justice, the
law)'. The agreement by which
their first monarch undertakes to rule righteously in return for a
portion of the rice crop represents the Buddhist version of
government by social contract. The Mahasammata
follows the
general pattern of Indic kingship in
South-east
Asia. This has been criticized as antithetical to the idea of the
modern state because it promotes a personalized form of monarchy
lacking the continuity inherent in the western ab-straction of the
king as possessed of both a body politic and a body natural.
However, because the Mahasammata
was chosen by popular consent and required to govern in accordance
with just laws, the concept of government elective and sub
lege is not
alien to traditional Burmese thought.
The Buddhist view of kingship
does not invest the ruler with the divine right to govern the realm
as he pleases. He is expected to observe the Ten Duties of Kings,
the Seven Safeguards against Decline, the Four Assistances to the
People, and to be guided by numerous other codes of conduct such as
the Twelve Practices of Rulers, the Six Attributes of Leaders, the
Eight Virtues of Kings and the Four Ways to Overcome Peril. There is
logic to a tradition which includes the king among the five enemies
or perils and which subscribes to many sets of moral instructions
for the edification of those in positions of authority. The people
of Burma have had much experience of despotic rule and possess a
great awareness of the unhappy gap that can exist between the theory
and practice of government.
The Ten Duties of Kings are
widely known and generally accepted as a yardstick which could be
applied just as well to modern government as to the first monarch of
the world. The duties are: liberality, morality, self-sacrifice,
integrity, kindness, austerity, non-anger, non-violence, forbearance
and non-opposi-tion (to the will of the people).The first duty of
liberality (dana)
which demands that a ruler should contribute generously towards the
welfare of the people makes the tacit assumption that a government
should have the competence to provide adequately for its citizens.
In the context of modern politics, one of the prime duties of a
responsible administra-tion would be to ensure the economic security
of the state.
Morality (sila)
in traditional Buddhist terms is based on the observance of the five
precepts, which entails refraining from destruction of life, theft,
adultery, falsehood and indulgence in intoxicants. The ruler must
bear a high moral character to win the respect and trust of the
people, to ensure their happiness and prosperity and to provide a
proper example. When the king does not observe the dhamma,
state functionaries become corrupt, and when state functionaries are
corrupt the people are caused much suffering. It is further believed
that an unrighteous king brings down calamity on the land. The root
of a nation's misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of
the government.
The third duty, paricagga,
is sometimes translated as generosity and sometimes as
serf-sacrifice. The former would constitute a duplication of the
first duty, dana,
so self-sacrifice as the ultimate generosity which gives up all for
the sake of the people would appear the more satisfactory
interpretation. The concept of selfless public service is sometimes
illustrated by the story of the hermit Sumedha who took the vow of
Buddhahood. In so doing he who could have realized the supreme
liberation of nirvana
in a single lifetime committed himself to countless incarnations
that he might help other beings free themselves from suffering.
Equally popular is the story of the lord of the monkeys who
sacrificed his life to save his subjects, including one who had
always wished him harm and who was the eventual cause of his death.
The good ruler sublimates his needs as an individual to the service
of the nation.
Integrity (ajjava)
implies incorruptibility in the discharge of public duties as well
as honesty and sincerity in personal relations. There is a Burmese
saying: 'With rulers, truth, with (ordinary) men, vows'. While a
private individual may be bound only by the formal vows that he
makes, those who govern should be wholly bound by the truth in
thought, word and deed. Truth is the very essence of the teachings
of the Buddha, who referred to himself as the Tathagata
or 'one who has come to the truth'. The Buddhist king must therefore
live and rule by truth, which is the perfect uniformity between
nomenclature and nature. To deceive or to mislead the people in any
way would be an occupational failing as well as a moral offence. 'As
an arrow, intrinsically
straight, without warp or
distortion, when one word is spoken, it does not err into two.'
Kindness (maddava)
in a ruler is in a sense the courage to feel concern for the people.
It is undeniably easier to ignore the hardships of those who are too
weak to demand their rights than to respond sensitively to their
needs. To care is to accept responsi-bility, to dare to act in
accordance with the dictum that the ruler is the strength of the
helpless. In Wizaya,
a well-known nineteenth-century drama based on the Mahavamsa
story of Prince Vijaya, a king sends away into exile his own son,
whose wild ways had caused the people much distress: 'In the matter
of love, to make no distinction between citizen and son, to give
equally of loving kindness, that is the righteousness of kings.'
The duty of austerity (tapa)
enjoins the king to adopt simple habits, to develop self-control and
to practise spiritual discipline. The self-indulgent ruler who
enjoys an extravagant lifestyle and ignores the spiritual need for
austerity was no more acceptable at the time of the Mahasammata
then he would be in Burma today.
The seventh, eighth and ninth
duties -- non-anger (akkodha),
non-violence {avihamsa)
and forbearance (khanti)
~ could be
said to be related. Because the displeasure of the powerful could
have unhappy and far-reaching consequences, kings must not allow
personal feelings of enmity and ill will to erupt into destructive
anger and violence. It is incumbent on a ruler to develop the true
forbearance which moves him to deal wisely and generously with the
shortcomings and provocations of even those whom he could crush with
impunity. Violence is totally contrary to the teachings of Buddhism.
The good ruler vanquishes ill will with loving kindness, wickedness
with virtue, parsimony with liberality, and falsehood with truth.
The Emperor Ashoka who ruled his realm in accordance with the
principles of non-violence and compassion is always held up as an
ideal Buddhist king. A government should not attempt to enjoin
submission through harshness and immoral force but should aim at
dhamma-vijaya,
a conquest by righteousness.
The tenth duty of kings,
non-opposition to the will of the people (avirodha),
tends to be singled out as a Buddhist endorse-
ment of democracy, supported
by well-known stories from the Jatakas.
Pawridasa,
a monarch who acquired an unfortunate
taste for
human flesh, was forced to leave his kingdom because he would not
heed the people's demand that he should abandon his cannibalistic
habits. A very different kind of ruler was the Buddha's penultimate
incarnation on earth, the pious King
|
Vessantara.
But
|
he
|
too
was sent into exile when in the course
|
|
of
his strivings
|
for
|
the
perfection of liberality he gave away
|
the white elephant of the
state without the consent of the people. The royal duty of
non-opposition is a reminder that the legitimacy of government is
founded on the consent of the people, who may withdraw their mandate
at any time if they lose confidence in the ability of the ruler to
serve their best interests.
By invoking the Ten Duties of
Kings the Burmese are not so much indulging in wishful thinking as
drawing on time-honoured values to reinforce the validity of the
political reforms they consider necessary. It is a strong argument
for democracy that governments regulated by principles of
accountability, respect for public opinion and the supremacy of just
laws are more likely than an all-powerful ruler or ruling class,
uninhibited by the need to honour the will of the people, to observe
the traditional duties of Buddhist kingship. Traditional values
serve both to justify and to decipher popular expectations of
democratic government.
II
The people of Burma view
democracy not merely as a form of government but as an integrated
social and ideological system based on respect for the individual.
When asked why they feel so strong a need for democracy, the least
political will answer: 'We just want to be able to go about our own
business freely and peacefully, not doing anybody any harm, just
earning a decent living without anxiety and fear.' In other words
they want the basic human rights which would guarantee a tranquil,
dignified exist-ence free from want and fear. 'Democracy songs'
articulated such
longings: 'I am not among the
rice-eating robots . . . Everyone but everyone should be entitled to
human rights.' 'We are not savage beasts of the jungle, we are all
men with reason, it's high time to stop the rule of armed
intimidation: if every movement of dissent were settled by the gun,
Burma would only be emptied of people.'
It was predictable that as
soon as the issue of human rights became an integral part of the
movement for democracy the official media should start ridiculing
and condemning the whole concept of human rights, dubbing it a
western artefact alien to traditional values. It was also ironic -
Buddhism, the foundation of traditional Burmese culture, places the
greatest value on man, who alone of all beings can achieve the
supreme state of Buddha-hood. Each man has in him the potential to
realize the truth through his own will and endeavour and to help
others to realize it. Human life therefore is infinitely precious.
'Easier is it for a needle dropped from the abode of Brahma to meet
a needle stuck in the earth than to be born as a human being.'
But despotic governments do
not recognize the precious human component of the state, seeing its
citizens only as a faceless, mindless - and helpless - mass to be
manipulated at will. It is as though people were incidental to a
nation rather than its very life-blood. Patriotism, which should be
the vital love and care of a people for their land, is debased into
a smokescreen of hysteria to hide the injustices of authoritarian
rulers who define the interests of the state in terms of their own
limited interests. The official creed is required to be accepted
with an unquestioning faith more in keeping with orthodox tenets of
the biblical religions which have held sway in the West than with
the more liberal Buddhist attitude:
It is proper to doubt, to be
uncertain . . . Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated
hearing. Nor upon tradition, nor upon rumours . . . When you know
for your-self that certain things are unwholesome and wrong,
aban-don them . . . When you know for yourself that certain things
are wholesome and good, accept them.
It is a puzzlement to the
Burmese how concepts which recognize the inherent dignity and the
equal and inalienable rights of human beings, which accept that all
men are endowed with reason and conscience and which recommend a
universal spirit of brotherhood, can be inimical to indigenous
values. It is also difficult for them to understand how any of the
rights contained in the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights can be seen as anything but wholesome and good. That
the declaration was not drawn up in Burma by the Burmese seems an
inadequate reason, to say the least, for rejecting it, especially as
Burma was one of the nations which voted for its adoption in
December 1948. If ideas and beliefs are to be denied validity
outside the geographical and cultural bounds of their origin,
Buddhism would be confined to north India, Christianity to a narrow
tract in the Middle East and Islam to Arabia.
The proposition that the
Burmese are not fit to enjoy as many rights and privileges as the
citizens of democratic countries is insulting. It also makes
questionable the logic of a Burmese government considering itself
fit to enjoy more rights and privi-leges than the governments of
those same countries. The inconsist-ency can be explained - but not
justified - only by assuming so wide a gulf between the government
and the people that they have to be judged by different norms. Such
an assumption in turn casts doubt on the doctrine of government as a
comprehen-sive spirit and medium of national values.
Weak logic, inconsistencies
and alienation from the people are common features of
authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to
prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of
their own lightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they
project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work
in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and
distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent. And all the time
the desire grows for a system which will lift them from the position
of 'rice-eating robots' to the status of human beings who can think
and speak freely and hold their heads high in the security of their
rights.
From the beginning Burma's
struggle for democracy has been
fraught with danger. A
movement which seeks the just and equitable distribution of powers
and prerogatives that have long been held by a small elite
determined to preserve its privileges at all costs is likely to be
prolonged and difficult. Hope and optimism are irrepressible but
there is a deep underlying premonition that the opposition to change
is likely to be vicious. Often the anxious question is asked: will
such an oppressive regime really
give us democracy? And the answer has to be: democracy, like
liberty, justice and other social and political rights, is not
'given', it is earned through courage, resolution and sacrifice.
Revolutions generally reflect
the irresistible impulse for neces-sary changes which have been held
back by official policies or retarded by social apathy. The
institutions and practices of democ-racy provide ways and means by
which such changes could be effected without recourse to violence.
But change is anathema to authoritarianism, which will tolerate no
deviation from rigid policies. Democracy acknowledges the right to
differ as well as the duty to settle differences peacefully.
Authoritarian govern-ments see criticism of their actions and
doctrines as a challenge to combat. Opposition is equated with
'confrontation', which is interpreted as violent conflict.
Regimented minds cannot grasp the concept of confrontation as an
open exchange of major differences with a view to settlement through
genuine dialogue. The insecurity of power based on coercion
translates into a need to crush all dissent. Within the framework of
liberal democracy, protest and dissent can exist in healthy
counterpart with ortho-doxy and conservatism, contained by a general
recognition of the need to balance respect for individual rights
with respect for law and order.
The words 'law and order'
have so frequently been misused as an excuse for oppression that the
very phrase has become suspect in countries which have known
authoritarian rule. Some years ago a prominent Burmese author wrote
an article on the notion of law and order as expressed by the
official term nyein-wut-pi-pyar.
One by one he analysed the words, which literally mean
'silent-crouched-crushed-flattened', and concluded that the whole
made for an undesirable state of affairs, one which militated
against the
emergence of an articulate,
energetic, progressive citizenry. There is no intrinsic virtue to
law and order unless 'law' is equated with justice and 'order' with
the discipline of a people satisfied that justice has been done. Law
as an instrument of state oppression is a familiar feature of
totalitarianism. Without a popularly elected legislature and an
independent judiciary to ensure due process, the authorities can
enforce as 'law' arbitrary decrees that are in fact flagrant
negations of all acceptable norms of justice. There can be no
security for citizens in a state where new 'laws' can be made and
old ones changed to suit the convenience of the powers that be. The
iniquity of such practices is traditionally recognized by the
precept that existing laws should not be set aside at will. The
Buddhist concept of law is based on dhamma,
righteousness or virtue, not on the power to impose harsh and
inflexible rules on a defenceless people. The true measure of the
justice of a system is the amount of protection it guarantees to the
weakest.
Where there is no justice
there can be no secure peace. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights recognizes that 'if man is not to be compelled to have
recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and
oppression', human rights should be pro-tected by the rule of law.
That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary
foundation of peace and security would be denied only by closed
minds which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition and
security as the assurance of their own power. The Burmese associate
peace and security with coolness and shade:
The shade of a tree is cool
indeed The shade of parents is cooler The shade of teachers is
cooler still
The shade of the ruler is yet
more cool
But coolest of all is the
shade of the Buddha's teachings.
Thus to provide the people
with the protective coolness of peace and security, rulers must
observe the teachings of the Buddha. Central to these teachings are
the concepts of truth, righteous-ness and loving kindness. It is
government based on these very
qualities that the people of
Burma are seeking in their struggle for democracy.
In a revolutionary movement
there is always the danger that political exigencies might obscure,
or even nullify, essential spiri-tual aims. A firm insistence on the
inviolability and primacy of such aims is not mere idealism but a
necessary safeguard against an Animal Farm syndrome where the new
order after its first flush of enthusiastic reforms takes on the
murky colours of the very system it has replaced. The people of
Burma want not just a change of government but a change in political
values. The unhappy legacies of authoritarianism can be removed only
if the concept of absolute power as the basis of government is
replaced by the concept of confidence as the mainspring of political
auth-ority: the confidence of the people in their right and ability
to decide the destiny of their nation, mutual confidence between the
people and their leaders and, most important of all, confidence in
the principles of justice, liberty and human rights. Of the four
Buddhist virtues conducive to the happiness of laymen, saddha,
confidence in moral, spiritual and intellectual values, is the
first. To instil such confidence, not by an appeal to the passions
but through intellectual conviction, into a society which has long
been wracked by distrust and uncertainty is the essence of the
Burmese revolution for democracy. It is a revolution which moves for
changes endorsed by universal norms of ethics.
In their quest for democracy
the people of Burma explore not only the political theories and
practices of the world outside their country but also the spiritual
and intellectual values that have given shape to their own
environment.
There is an instinctive
understanding that the cultural, social and political development of
a nation is a dynamic process which has to be given purpose and
direction by drawing on tradition as well as by experiment,
innovation and a willingness to evaluate both old and new ideas
objectively. This is not to claim that all those who desire
democracy in Burma are guided by an awareness of the need to balance
a dispassionate, sensitive assessment of the past with an
intelligent appreciation of the present. But threading through the
movement is a rich vein of the liberal, integrated
spirit which meets
intellectual challenges with wisdom and cour-age. There is also a
capacity for the sustained mental strife and physical endurance
necessary to withstand the forces of negativ-ism, bigotry and hate.
Most encouraging of all, the main impetus for struggle is not an
appetite for power, revenge and destruction but a genuine respect for
freedom, peace and justice.
The quest for democracy in
Burma is the struggle of a people to live whole, meaningful lives as
free and equal members of the world community. It is part of the
unceasing human endeavour to prove that the spirit of man can
transcend the flaws of his own nature.
Critical
Analysis for all of them
The
Communitist Manifesto Chapter 4 Summary:
Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing
Opposition Parties
In
this final chapter Marx recapitulates the immediate political aims of
Communism. He identifies allied parties in various European states,
noting that while communists support all working-class parties, they
always stay focused on the long-term interests of the proletariat as
a whole. Importantly, Marx claims that Germany is the chief focus of
Communist interest because while the bourgeoisie in Germany have not
yet achieved victory over the aristocracy, the proletariat there is
more developed than it was when either the French or English
bourgeoisie won their independence. The result of this is that the
proletariat revolution will arrive first in Germany. Despite this
focus, Communists will support any and all revolutionary movements
which advocate the abolition of private property and advance the
interests of the proletariat. As Marx powerfully concludes, "Let
the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The
proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world
to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!"
Chapter
4 Analysis: Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various
Existing Opposition Parties
The
concluding chapter of the Manifesto is very short. It says little new
and is meant primarily to forcefully restate the communist's
political purposes. Marx does, though, make an interesting
observation in predicting that Germany will be the site of the
inaugural proletariat revolt. This is interesting because it
indicates that all societies need not progress at the same rate in
approaching communist revolution. The ordering remains‹feudalism,
capitalism, communism‹but the pacing is different. This is also
apparent in Marx's insistence that communists raise the property
question always and everywhere. Marx's willingness to hurry things
here might well have influenced later Marxist revolutionaries who did
not even await the arrival of fully developed capitalism to liberate
the masses. It is these people, Trotsky and Lenin in Russia, Mao
Tse-Tung in China, and Fidel Castro and Che Guevarra in Latin
America, whom we most associate with communism as they succeeded in
bringing it to some one half of the world's population. As the cold
war has ended and the remaining communist states are slowly
atrophying, it is tempting to bury Marxism happily, offering only a
litany of human atrocities as its ironic eulogy. This, though,
ignores the debt we owe Marx for both focusing our attention on the
plight of those on whose strength the wheels of industry turn and
elaborating the multifarious ways in which we are products of our
societies. And despite the sad and bloody legacy of his followers,
perhaps the greatest debt we owe Marx is the temporary hope he gave
that there might be some radically different and better alternative
to our society.
On
the duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: Having spent
one night in jail in July of 1846 for refusal to pay his poll tax in
protest against slavery and the Mexican War, Thoreau lectured before
the Concord Lyceum in January of 1848 on the subject "On the
Relation of the Individual to the State." The lecture was
published under the title "Resistance to Civil Government"
in Elizabeth Peabody'sAesthetic
Papers,
in May 1849. It was included (as "Civil Disobedience") in
Thoreau's A
Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers,
published in Boston in 1866 by Ticknor and Fields, and reprinted many
times. The essay formed part of Anti-Slavery
and Reform Papers as
edited by British Thoreau biographer Henry S. Salt and issued in
London in 1890. "Civil Disobedience" was included in the
Riverside Edition of 1894 (in Miscellanies,
the tenth volume), in the Walden and Manuscript Editions of 1906
(in Cape
Cod and Miscellanies,
the fourth volume), and in the Princeton Edition (in Reform
Papers,
the third volume) in 1973. One of Thoreau's most influential
writings, it has been published separately many times (Walter
Harding's The
Variorum Civil Disobedience,
for example, appeared in 1967), included in volumes of selections
from Thoreau (among them the 1937 Modern Library Edition of Walden
and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau,
edited by Brooks Atkinson), and translated into European and Asian
languages.
Thoreau opens Civil
Disobedience with
the maxim "That government is best which governs least,"
and he speaks in favor of government that does not intrude upon men's
lives. Government is only an expedient — a means of attaining an
end. It exists because the people have chosen it to execute their
will, but it is susceptible to misuse. The Mexican War is an example
of a few people using the government as their tool. Thoreau asserts
that government as an institution hinders the accomplishment of the
work for which it was created. It exists for the sole purpose of
ensuring individual freedom. Denying an interest in abolishing
government, he states that he simply wants a better government.
Majority rule is based on physical strength, not right and justice.
Individual conscience should rule instead, and civil government
should confine itself to those matters suited to decision by majority
rule. He deplores the lack of judgment, moral sense, and conscience
in the way men serve the state. A man cannot bow unquestioningly to
the state's authority without disregarding himself.
Thoreau
introduces the right of revolution, which all men recognize, and
reflects on the American Revolution, the origins of which he finds
less morally compelling than the issues at hand. Having developed the
image of the government as a machine that may or may not do enough
good to counterbalance what evil it commits, he urges rebellion. The
opponents of reform, he recognizes, are not faraway politicians but
ordinary people who cooperate with the system. The expression of
opposition to slavery is meaningless. Only action — what you do
about your objection — matters. Wrong will be redressed only by the
individual, not through the mechanism of government. Although Thoreau
asserts that a man has other, higher duties than eradicating
institutional wrong, he must at least not be guilty through
compliance. The individual must not support the structure of
government, must act with principle, must break the law if necessary.
Abolition
can be achieved by withdrawing support from the government, which may
be accomplished practically through the nonpayment of taxes. If
imprisonment is the result, there is no shame in it — prison is the
best place for a just man in an unjust society. In the current state
of affairs, payment of taxes is violent and bloody. Nonpayment
constitutes a "peaceable revolution." Thoreau comments on
the corrupting influence of money and property, and urges a simple,
self-reliant lifestyle as a means of maintaining individual freedom.
He describes his experience in the Concord Jail in some detail,
commenting upon the folly of the state's treatment of a man as if he
were a physical entity only, rather than an intellectual and moral
one. A man can be compelled only by one who possesses greater
morality. In Civil
Disobedience as
throughout his other writings, Thoreau focuses on the individual's
ultimate responsibility to live deliberately and to extract meaning
from his own life; overseeing the machinery of society is secondary.
Thoreau
asserts that he does not want to quarrel or to feel superior to
others. He wants to conform to the laws of the land, but current laws
are not honourable from a higher point of view. Politics and
politicians act as though the universe were ruled by expediency. In
the progression from absolute monarchy to limited monarchy to
democracy, Thoreau observes an evolution in government toward greater
expression of the consent of the governed. He notes that democracy
may not be the final stage in the process. His emphasis at the end of
the essay is firmly on respect for the individual. There will never
be a "really free and enlightened State" until the state
recognizes the pre-eminence of the individual.
In
quest of Democracy
- The root of a nation's misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of the government.
- The good ruler sublimates his needs as an individual to the service of the nation.
- While a private individual may be bound only by the formal vows that he makes, those who govern should be wholly bound by the truth in thought, word and deed.
- It is undeniably easier to ignore the hardships of those who are too weak to demand their rights than to respond sensitively to their needs. To care is to accept responsibility, to dare to act in accordance with the dictum that the ruler is the strength of the helpless.
- The royal duty of non-opposition is a reminder that the legitimacy of government is founded on the consent of the people, who may withdraw their mandate at any time if they lose confidence in the ability of the ruler to serve their best interests.
- It is a strong argument for democracy that governments regulated by principles of accountability, respect for public opinion and the supremacy of just laws are more likely than an all-powerful ruler or ruling class, uninhibited by the need to honour the will of the people, to observe the traditional duties of Buddhist kingship. Traditional values serve both to justify and to decipher popular expectations of democratic government.
- Each man has in him the potential to realize the truth through his own will and endeavour and to help others to realize it. Human life therefore is infinitely precious.
- But despotic governments do not recognize the precious human component of the state, seeing its citizens only as a faceless, mindless - and helpless - mass to be manipulated at will. It is as though people were incidental to a nation rather than its very life-blood. Patriotism, which should be the vital love and care of a people for their land, is debased into a smokescreen of hysteria to hide the injustices of authoritarian rulers who define the interests of the state in terms of their own limited interests.
- Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own lightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent. And all the time the desire grows for a system which will lift them from the position of 'rice-eating robots' to the status of human beings who can think and speak freely and hold their heads high in the security of their rights.
- Hope and optimism are irrepressible but there is a deep underlying premonition that the opposition to change is likely to be vicious. Often the anxious question is asked: will such an oppressive regime really give us democracy? And the answer has to be: democracy, like liberty, justice and other social and political rights, is not 'given', it is earned through courage, resolution and sacrifice.
- Revolutions generally reflect the irresistible impulse for necessary changes which have been held back by official policies or retarded by social apathy. The institutions and practices of democracy provide ways and means by which such changes could be effected without recourse to violence. But change is anathema to authoritarianism, which will tolerate no deviation from rigid policies. Democracy acknowledges the right to differ as well as the duty to settle differences peacefully. Authoritarian governments see criticism of their actions and doctrines as a challenge to combat. Opposition is equated with 'confrontation', which is interpreted as violent conflict. Regimented minds cannot grasp the concept of confrontation as an open exchange of major differences with a view to settlement through genuine dialogue. The insecurity of power based on coercion translates into a need to crush all dissent. Within the framework of liberal democracy, protest and dissent can exist in healthy counterpart with orthodoxy and conservatism, contained by a general recognition of the need to balance respect for individual rights with respect for law and order.
- The words 'law and order' have so frequently been misused as an excuse for oppression that the very phrase has become suspect in countries which have known authoritarian rule. [...] There is no intrinsic virtue to law and order unless 'law' is equated with justice and 'order' with the discipline of a people satisfied that justice has been done. Law as an instrument of state oppression is a familiar feature of totalitarianism. Without a popularly elected legislature and an independent judiciary to ensure due process, the authorities can enforce as 'law' arbitrary decrees that are in fact flagrant negations of all acceptable norms of justice. There can be no security for citizens in a state where new 'laws' can be made and old ones changed to suit the convenience of the powers that be. The iniquity of such practices is traditionally recognized by the precept that existing laws should not be set aside at will.
- The true measure of the justice of a system is the amount of protection it guarantees to the weakest.
- Where there is no justice there can be no secure peace.
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that 'if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression', human rights should be protected by the rule of law. That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary foundation of peace and security would be denied only by closed minds which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition and security as the assurance of their own power.
- In a revolutionary movement there is always the danger that political exigencies might obscure, or even nullify, essential spiritual aims. A firm insistence on the inviolability and primacy of such aims is not mere idealism but a necessary safeguard against an Animal Farm syndrome where the new order after its first flush of enthusiastic reforms takes on the murky colours of the very system it has replaced.
- The unhappy legacies of authoritarianism can be removed only if the concept of absolute power as the basis of government is replaced by the concept of confidence as the mainspring of political authority: the confidence of the people in their right and ability to decide the destiny of their nation, mutual confidence between the people and their leaders and, most important of all, confidence in the principles of justice, liberty and human rights.
- There is an instinctive understanding that the cultural, social and political development of a nation is a dynamic process which has to be given purpose and direction by drawing on tradition as well as by experiment, innovation and a willingness to evaluate both old and new ideas objectively.
Letter From Birmingham Jail Summary
- “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is addressed to several clergymen who had written an open letter criticizing the actions of Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) during their protests in Birmingham. Dr. King tells the clergymen that he was upset about their criticisms, and that he wishes to address their concerns.
- First, he notes their claim that he is an “outsider” who has come to Birmingham to cause trouble (170). He defends his right to be there in a straightforward, unemotional tone, explaining that the SCLC is based in Atlanta but operates throughout the South. One of its affiliates had invited the organization to Birmingham, which is why they came.
- However, he then provides a moral reason for his presence, saying that he came to Birmingham to battle “injustice.” Because he believes that “all communities and states” are interrelated, he feels compelled to work for justice anywhere that injustice is being practiced. Dr. King believes the clergymen have erred in criticizing the protestors without equally exploring the racist causes of the injustice that is being protested (170-171).
- He then explains in detail his process of organizing nonviolent action. First, the SCLC confirmed that Birmingham had been practicing institutionalized racism, and then attempted to negotiate with white business leaders there. When those negotiations broke down because of promises the white men broke, the SCLC planned to protest through “direct action.” Before beginning protests, however, they underwent a period of “self-purification,” to determine whether they were ready to work nonviolently, and suffer indignity and arrest. When they decided they could, they then prepared to protest (171).
- However, the SCLC chose to hold out because Birmingham had impending mayoral elections. Though the notorious racist Eugene “Bull” Connor was defeated in the election, his successor, Albert Boutwell, was also a pronounced segregationist. Therefore, the protests began.
- Dr. King understands that the clergymen value negotiation over protest, but he insists that negotiations cannot happen without protest, which creates a “crisis” and “tension” that forces unwilling parties (in this case, the white business owners) to negotiate in good faith. He admits that words like “tension” frighten white moderates, but embraces the concepts as “constructive and nonviolent.” He provides examples that suggest tension is necessary for humans to grow, and repeats that the tension created by direct action is necessary in this case if segregation is to end (171-172).
- He next turns to the clergymen criticism that the SCLC action is “untimely.” After insisting that Albert Boutwell was not different enough to warrant patience, he launches into an extended claim that “privileged groups” will always oppose action that threatens the status quo. They will always consider attacks on their privilege as “untimely,” especially because groups have a tendency towards allowing immorality that individuals might oppose (173).
- In particular, the black community has waited long enough. Dr. King insists that the black man has waited “more than 340 years” for justice, and he then launches into a litany of abuses that his people have suffered both over time and in his present day. Amongst these abuses is his experience explaining to his young daughter why she cannot go to the “public amusement park” because of her skin color. Because the black man has been pushed “into the abyss of despair,” Dr. King hopes that the clergymen will excuse his and his brethren’s impatience (173-174).
- Dr. King then switches gears, noting that the clergymen are anxious over the black man’s “willingness to break laws.” He admits that his intention seems paradoxical, since he expects whites to follow laws that protect equality, while breaking others.
- However, he then distinguishes between just and unjust laws, insisting that an individual has both a right and a responsibility to break unjust laws. He defines just laws as those that uphold human dignity, and unjust laws as those that “degrade human personality.” Unjust laws, he argues, hurt not only the oppressed, but also the oppressors, since they are given a false sense of superiority (175).
- He then speaks specifically of segregation, describing it as unjust. Because it is a law that a majority forces the minority to follow while exempting itself from it, it is a law worth breaking. Further, because Alabama’s laws work to prohibit black citizens from fully participating in democracy, the laws are particularly unjust and undemocratic. Next, he adds that some just laws become unjust when they are misused. For instance, the law prohibiting “parading without a permit,” which he was arrested for breaking, is a just law that was used in this case solely to support the injustice of segregation (175-176).
- Dr. King understands that flouting the law with wanton disregard would lead to “anarchy,” but he insists that he is willing to accept the penalty for his transgression. This distinction makes his civil disobedience just. He then provides a list of allusions that support his claim. To sum up his point on just and unjust laws, he notes that the laws of Nazi Germany allowed for Jewish persecution, and that he would have gladly broken those laws to support the oppressed class had he lived there (176).
- The next topic Dr. King addresses is that of white moderates, who have greatly disappointed him. He argues that they value “order” over “justice,” and as a result have made it easier for the injustice of segregation to persist. He believes that moderates cannot distinguish between the nonviolent action and the violence of the oppressors. In particular, he is shocked that the clergymen would blame the black victims for the violence of segregation, as he believes they did in their open letter (177).
- He further attacks moderates over their demands for patience. Moderates believe that time will get better if the oppressed blacks are patient, but Dr. King insists that “time itself is neutral” and that change only happens when good men take action (178).
- He then addresses the clergymen's claim that SCLC action is “extreme.” Dr. King describes himself as standing between two opposing forces for black change. On one hand are the complacent blacks, who are either too demeaned to believe change possible or who have some modicum of success that they are unwilling to sacrifice for true equality. On the other hand are the more violent factions, exemplified by Elijah Muhammad and his Black Muslim movement. Dr. King argues that he stands between these two extremes, offering a path towards nonviolent, loving protest. He implicitly warns that blacks will turn to the more violent option if Dr. King’s path is not favored by the population at large (179).
- However, Dr. King goes further and proudly embraces the label of “extremist.” He argues that it is possible to be a “creative extremist” and provides a list of unimpeachable figures whom he considers extremists for positive causes. These include Jesus and Abraham Lincoln. Dr. King is disappointed that white moderates cannot distinguish between these types of extremism, but wonders whether whites can ever truly understand the disgrace that blacks have suffered in America (180).
- He next lists a second disappointment, in the white church. Though he once expected the Southern church to be one of his movement’s primary allies, they have time and again either opposed his cause of remained “silent”, therefore facilitating injustice. Too many of the white church leaders have seen Civil Rights as a social movement, irrelevant to their church, but Dr. King believes this cowardice will eventually make their churches irrelevant unless they change. Whereas the church should be a force for change, a challenge to the status quo, it has become too comfortably a reflection of the prevailing conditions, a de facto supporter of those in power (181-182). Though these doubts make him pessimistic, Dr. King has found some hope in the whites who have joined his mission.
- Further, Dr. King finds optimism when reflecting on the history of blacks in America. They have survived slavery and persisted towards freedom despite centuries of atrocities, and have in fact provided the center of American history.
- Before closing, Dr. King addresses the clergymen’s commendation of the Birmingham police, whom they claim were admirably nonviolent when confronting the protests. Dr. King implies that the clergymen are ignorant of the abuses the clergymen used, but also insists that their “discipline,” their restraint from violence in public, does not make their actions just. Instead, they use that restraint to perpetuate injustice, which makes them reprehensible (184).
- Dr. King is upset that the clergymen did not see fit to also commend the brave black people who have fought injustice nonviolently. Believing that history will ultimately show this latter group to be the real heroes of the age, he hopes the clergymen will eventually realize what is actually happening.
- Finally, he apologizes for the length and potential overstatement of his letter, but hopes they will understand the forces that have led him to such certainty. He signs the letter, “Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood” (185).
By
any means necessary is
a translation of a phrase used by the French intellectual Jean-Paul
Sartre in
his play Dirty
Hands.
It entered the popular civil
rights culture
through a speech given by Malcolm
X at
the Organization
of Afro-American Unity Founding
Rally on June 28, 1964. It is generally considered to leave open all
available tactics for the desired ends, including violence;
however, the “necessary” qualifier adds a caveat—if violence is
not necessary, then presumably, it should not be used.
V
for Vendetta Revolutionary Speech:
Here is what he says: Good evening, London. Allow me first to
apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate
the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the
tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in
the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the
past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful
bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could
mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered,
by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a
little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I
suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men
with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon
may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their
power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will
listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is
something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and
injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the
freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have
censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and
soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well
certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will
be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for
the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it.
I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There
were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and
rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your
panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised
you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was
your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that
silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this
country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a
great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our
memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and
freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen
nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then
I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But
if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek
as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight,
outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a
fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot
The film itself centers around Eve (Natalie Portman) and the British terrorist V (Hugo Weaving) and how the corruption of the government needs to be ended. The futuristic world had been born through the rampage of an illness and plague that had devastated the modern world. The story unfolds to tell of Chancellor Sutler who rose to power (oddly similar to the way Hitler rose) and created a government that is oppressing the peoples liberty. V searches to start a revolution - with Eve at his side - to overthrow the oppression and create a new democracy. The specific scene I've chosen is one from the start of a movie where V hacks into the television network and broadcasts about the Fifth of November and how he sees the need for change.
The scene itself displays the ideals of democracy and the necessity of people to be heard and recognized within their government. V specifically states to the people that "but if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as i seek, then I ask you to stand beside me" showing his values in that the government must change in order for progress to be made. He also recognizes the value of the fear that can cause a society to cower under their government and to allow their government to be allowed free reign. V says this: "Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent." His two main values he displays create a scene and speech that can honestly be considered unforgettable.
V uses his words to attempt to create a new community - to bring people together in order to make their voice be heard. He takes ideals and places them in the minds of people to create a sort of likeness within them in order to start the desired revolution. V seems to use this speech within the scene to create the truth that the government should serve the people - an ideal that's been around for quite a long time - and that if the government is unable to do so, a change should be instigated. V is explaining that the people in a nation should not sit idly by and let their government be in charge, but should work to be a part of their government and to have their voice be heard.
The film itself centers around Eve (Natalie Portman) and the British terrorist V (Hugo Weaving) and how the corruption of the government needs to be ended. The futuristic world had been born through the rampage of an illness and plague that had devastated the modern world. The story unfolds to tell of Chancellor Sutler who rose to power (oddly similar to the way Hitler rose) and created a government that is oppressing the peoples liberty. V searches to start a revolution - with Eve at his side - to overthrow the oppression and create a new democracy. The specific scene I've chosen is one from the start of a movie where V hacks into the television network and broadcasts about the Fifth of November and how he sees the need for change.
The scene itself displays the ideals of democracy and the necessity of people to be heard and recognized within their government. V specifically states to the people that "but if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as i seek, then I ask you to stand beside me" showing his values in that the government must change in order for progress to be made. He also recognizes the value of the fear that can cause a society to cower under their government and to allow their government to be allowed free reign. V says this: "Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent." His two main values he displays create a scene and speech that can honestly be considered unforgettable.
V uses his words to attempt to create a new community - to bring people together in order to make their voice be heard. He takes ideals and places them in the minds of people to create a sort of likeness within them in order to start the desired revolution. V seems to use this speech within the scene to create the truth that the government should serve the people - an ideal that's been around for quite a long time - and that if the government is unable to do so, a change should be instigated. V is explaining that the people in a nation should not sit idly by and let their government be in charge, but should work to be a part of their government and to have their voice be heard.
Tryst
with Destiny
:
Tryst
with Destiny was a speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), the
first Prime Minister of independent India. The speech was made to the
Indian Constituent Assembly, on the eve of India's Independence,
towards midnight on 14 August 1947.
It focuses on the aspects that transcend India's history. It is considered to be one of the greatest speeches of all time and to be a landmark oration that captures the essence of the triumphant culmination of the hundred-year non-violent Indian freedom struggle against the British Empire in India. The phrase "rendezvous with destiny" was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1936 Democratic National Convention speech, inspiring the similar phrase "tryst with destiny" by Jawaharlal Nehru.
It focuses on the aspects that transcend India's history. It is considered to be one of the greatest speeches of all time and to be a landmark oration that captures the essence of the triumphant culmination of the hundred-year non-violent Indian freedom struggle against the British Empire in India. The phrase "rendezvous with destiny" was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1936 Democratic National Convention speech, inspiring the similar phrase "tryst with destiny" by Jawaharlal Nehru.
Satyagraha
was a major root for success of the seemingly never-ending struggle
for freedom in India and this is deeply acknowledged in Nehru’s
speech. The reference made to the concept and its pioneer, coupled
with particularly effective pathetic appeal would only cause fierce
patriotism and love in the heart of any Indian who listened to it
because of the fervour with which they respected and idolised the
Father of the Nation and his ideas.
Nehru’s
speech is very devotional to his country and its people; every
sentence and every remark might have caused the audience to feel
pride and all the tyrannical British leaders to feel ashamed at their
deeds. Pandit Nehru in his speech, at one point, expresses, “A
moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out
from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a
nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.” The Indian man, who had
been facing the same immense wretchedness and woe that his ancestors
had been facing for almost 300 years, would find himself very proud
that he was one of those many people who brought about peace and
sovereignty to his nation.
Nehru
was very sensible in his approach towards the matter of independence
in his speech and at no point did he make any reference to the
freedom movement as being an intense struggle due to the injustice
meted out by the British; the words he used had positive connotations
and did not accuse anyone. In his speech, he pointed out, “This is
no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or
blaming others” and also proudly declared, “[...] India stands
forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and
independent”. These lines would make the Indians, despite having
faced the wrath of the British Empire and paramount injustice, feel
like they should learn to forgive as this was nobler thing to do, and
because it supported the idea of satyagraha; this feeling would cause
them to lift their heads in pride and know that they are on the
correct path. Meanwhile, the same lines would make a person who along
with his people was the perpetrator of vindictiveness to an innocent
nation to bow his head in guilt for causing such wrong. All in all,
Nehru’s speech, despite being supremely neutral, caused fierce
emotions to arise in the hearts of people.
In
other words, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech was not only
extremely stately, but also full of humility and paid homage to all
people and their efforts (satyagraha) in bringing about the position
of self-governance to India.
"I
Am Prepared to Die"
is the name given[2] to
the three-hour speech given by Nelson
Mandela on
20 April 1964 from the dock of the defendant at the Rivonia
Trial.
The speech is so titled because it ends with the words "it is an
ideal for which I am prepared to die". The speech is considered
one of the great speeches of the 20th century, and a key moment in
the history of South African democracy.
Time
To thrive Ellen Page: On
Valentine's Day, speaking at
a Time to THRIVE event supporting LGBTQ+ outreach, actress Ellen Page
came out to the audience, declaring that she was tired of hiding a
crucial part of her identity. "I am here today because I am
gay," she said to a hooting and sustained ovation. If only
everyone who needs to "come out" could experience that roar
of support.
Page
isn't the first celebrity humanoid to announce that their sexual
and/or gender identity varies from the hetero binary prescribed by
narrow-minded society—internet archeologists like myself can recall
dinosaurs like the historic moment Ellen Degeneres publicly
revealed her personal orientation in her show, Ellen, to
the delight and surprise of television spectators—but this is an
important speech for a few different reasons.
In
the American psyche, Page is someone who fits the mold of "petite
beauty," to quote the media. She is the actor who can hide in
plain sight, contained within one of their beloved characters, like
Juno. So what did it mean to bother asserting a piece of herself to
an indifferent media? Page understands the personal toll that keeping
a lock on her private life has taken:
Trying
to create that mental picture of your life, of what on earth is going
to happen to you, can crush you a little bit every day... It's deeply
unfair.
She
touched on the engrained desire to ascribe various human behaviors to
"masculine" and "feminine" stereotypes. And
whether you're gay, straight, asexual, lesbian, bisexual, unsure,
like wearing pants, like wearing skirts, like walking around with a
parrot on your shoulder, or like to wear chaps, feeling like you fall
outside of society's norms can be very damaging. Page spoke about the
personal cost eloquently, and universally, in terms that virtually
any teenager should be able to recognize:
I
suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit
suffered, my mental health suffered, and my relationships suffered.
And I'm standing today with all of you on the other side of that
pain. And I am young, yes, but what I have learned is that love, the
beauty of it, the joy of it, and yes, even the pain of it, is the
most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being, and we
deserve to experience it fully, equally, without shame and without
compromise. There are too many kids suffering from bullying,
rejection, or simply being mistreated because of who they are. Too
many dropouts, too many homeless, too many suicides. You can change
that, and you are changing it. But you never needed me to tell you
that. And that's why this was a little bit weird.
I
don't want to equate the trauma of identifying as "other"
in a culture that prizes heteronormative behavior with feeling like
an odd sock during your teen years, but emphasize the fact that we
can all recognize the alienation that Page is describing. And for an
LGBTQ+ kid, it's so much tougher.
If
everyone takes a moment to try generating a bit of empathy, she
argues, the world becomes a slightly better place.
We
just made an effort to be less horrible to each other.
There
has been a lot of commentary about whether "coming out" is
even necessary any more. In liberal enclaves like Berkeley, the
cliche goes, parents find out their child's strengths, weaknesses,
eye color, hair color, and gender and sexual identity like a kid
finds out the name of their Cabbage Patch doll. It's written there
somewhere, and it's a fun surprise with no downside. But norms in
Western society are deep-set enough that no one has to ever come out
as straight. Straight kids don't suffer depression and self-harm in
nearly the same numbers as kids with different orientations. Page's
speech reminded us all of that, and compelled us all to question our
assumptions as a matter of fairness.
That
she did it on Valentine's Day is such a good reminder of what this
day is really about: caring.
New
Year’s address to the Nation, 1990 Vaclav Havel
The
dissident Czech writer Vaclav Havel endured decades of political
persecution before being elected Czechoslovakia's (later divided into
the Czech Republic and Slovakia) first post-socialist president. That
Havel, who had been imprisoned multiple times for his participation
in the Prague Spring of 1968 and the signing of Charter 77 Manifesto,
became president is an important indicator of the immense changes
caused by the collapse of Eastern European socialism. His inaugural
address to the nation in 1990 was notable for its frankness. He
described the country's economy, educational system and environment
as being effectively in ruins. He also used his inaugural address to
promise transparency, the restoration of the country's important
institutions from decades of neglect, and respect for all citizens.
Malala
Yousafzai Nobel Speech
During
her Nobel speech, she commented on her attempted
assassinationat the hands of a Taliban gunman in 2012. She was
just 14 years old when the gunman boarded her bus, pointed a pistol
at her head, and pulled the trigger in an attempt to silence her.
"I
had two options - one was to remain silent and wait to be killed,"
Yousafzai said. "And the second was to speak up and then be
killed. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up."
Yousafzai
made a full recovery after the shooting.
Her
attitude toward the threat of being shot and killed is astounding
considering her young age.
"The
terrorists tried to stop us," she said. "Neither their
ideas nor their bullets could win. We survived. And since that day,
our voices have grown louder and louder."
Yousafzai
also called attention to her friends in the audience, noting that her
story is not all that uncommon.
"I
tell my story not because it is unique but because it is not,"
she said. "It is the story of many girls. Today, I tell their
stories too. I have brought with me some of my sisters from Pakistan,
from Nigeria, and from Syria who share this story."
"This
award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want
education," Yousafzai said. "It is for those frightened
children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want
change. I am here to stand up for their rights, to raise their voice.
It is not time to pity them."
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