Germar Rudolf, Resistance Is Obligatory (2012; PDF-Datei

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORY
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. […] I do not
hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men.
[…] If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a
man.”
This essay by Thoreau was example and inspiration for the probably
most famous personality worldwide who during his entire life has
preached and practices peaceful civil disobedience against unjust governments,
namely Mahatma Gandhi, from whose writings I subsequently
want to quote several pivotal passages: 210
“So long as the superstition that men should obey unjust laws exists,
so long will their slavery exist.”
“Democracy is not a state in which people act like sheep. Under
democracy individual liberty of opinion and action is jealously
guarded.” 211
“In other words, the true democrat is he who with purely nonviolent
means defends his liberty and therefore his country’s and ultimately
that of the whole of mankind.” 212
“I wish I could persuade everybody that civil disobedience is the
inherent right of a citizen. He dare not give it up without ceasing to
be a man. […] But to put down civil disobedience is to attempt to
imprison conscience. […] Civil disobedience, therefore, becomes a
sacred duty when the State has become lawless, or which is the same
thing, corrupt. […] It is a birthright that cannot be surrendered
without surrender of one’s self-respect.” 213
“I am convinced more than ever that an individual or a nation
has the right, even the duty to resort to [civil disobedience], if its existence
is at stake.” 214
In his PhD dissertation about Gandhi’s principle of non-violent resistance,
for which Gandhi minted the Hindu term “satyagraha,” Mi-
210
Shriman Narayan (ed.), The Selected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 4, Navajivan Publishing
House, Ahmedabad 1969, p. 174.
211
Young India, 2 March 1922; Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India
(ed.), The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), Publications Division Government
of India, New Delhi 1999, 98 volumes (www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/cwmg.html),
subsequently CWMG, here vol. 26, p. 246.
212
Harijan, 15 April 1939, CWMG, vol. 75, p. 249.
213
Young India, 5 Jan. 1922; CWMG, vol. 25, pp. 391f.
214
Young India, 14 Feb. 1922; quoted acc. to Fritz Kraus (ed.), Vom Geist des Mahatma, Holle,
Baden-Baden 1957, p. 102; I was unable to locate this quote in CWMG, though.
184