Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYstrength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my ownfashion. 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 nothear 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 aman.”This essay by Thoreau was example and inspiration for the probablymost famous personality worldwide who during his entire life haspreached and practices peaceful civil disobedience against unjust governments,namely Mahatma Gandhi, from whose writings I subsequentlywant 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. Underdemocracy individual liberty of opinion and action is jealouslyguarded.” 211“In other words, the true democrat is he who with purely nonviolentmeans defends his liberty and therefore his country’s and ultimatelythat of the whole of mankind.” 212“I wish I could persuade everybody that civil disobedience is theinherent right of a citizen. He dare not give it up without ceasing tobe a man. […] But to put down civil disobedience is to attempt toimprison conscience. […] Civil disobedience, therefore, becomes asacred duty when the State has become lawless, or which is the samething, corrupt. […] It is a birthright that cannot be surrenderedwithout surrender of one’s self-respect.” 213“I am convinced more than ever that an individual or a nationhas the right, even the duty to resort to [civil disobedience], if its existenceis at stake.” 214In 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 PublishingHouse, 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 Governmentof 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