by Henry David Thoreau

How interesting to read this potent article at this very point of a seeming insane escalation to a possible third world war. An escalation in which each individual seems to be merely a helpless spectator to the media blizt covering the decisions of our governments in deciding how to respond to the situation. By many (?), or at least by me, it is a response experienced to be lacking thoughtfulness, wisdom and most of all love - and a spirit of service - of humanity at large. And that is a problem.

Over a hundred and fifty years ago Thoreau, in Civil Disobedience, spoke thus of the American war efforts in Mexico:

"In other words when a country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army."

I feel that these words are just as relevant today over 150 years later, as we in the West have begun bombing Afghanistan, because their government is unwilling to hand over an individual without proof of his crime. "Ours is the invading army."

In Civil Disobedience Thoreau makes a case - not unsimilar to Mahatma Gandhi - of our responsibility (and power) to not allow our governments to engage in wrong acts or poor governance. It is not enough to play our role in our democracies by simply casting our vote, and then letting the majority's voice rule. If we, and our conscience, believe the majority to be wrong, we must refuse to follow any government or legislation that goes against who we are as human beings. Rather break a law, which is wrong, than follow it, and compromise our commitment to Truth and to Life.

"Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience?"

His examples back then were of slavery. And the United States' war against Mexico. ("A common and natural result of an undue respect for 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. The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.").

At this point many of us may still feel pretty comfortable. For we are surely not targets of his criticism, are we? Us, most of whom probably feel to be examples of independent thought and action, how can we be included as serving the state as mere machines?

And yet, Thoreau continues by stating that there are many people that are in principle against war or against slavery, yet do nothing to put an end to them. Not knowing what to do, they do nothing. "They hesitate,and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect." And that, to him, simply isn't good enough.

When my neighbour has not paid back the money he owes me, I shan't simply complain about it to others. I will act. Doing something to right the wrong. In the same way, Thoreau asks that we act with our conscience, in so far as the systems we belong to are engaging in things we deem to be wrong.

"What I have to do is to see at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey."

And how many of us can say to be pure in this regard? Do we even understand fully just how entangled we are in the wrong which we would resist?

Thoreau zoomed in on the citizen's role in supporting its government, and its misdeeds, through taxes. How deep is our disagreement, he questions, if we continue fillings its treasury, enabling it to continue doing that which we say we wish to resist. "Be radical" he is saying. If you truly believe that wrong is being done.

In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau speaks of the prisons as the places where we should find the noblest and freest of men, under a government gone astray, as people choose to follow their conscience, and suffer the consequences. Even the rule of law, should not be cause to compromise the highest in ourselves, if that rule is morally inferior.

This is not a message of an eye for an eye. Instead it is a message of always living in accordance with truth and conscience, and so his method is simply non-cooperation: not to co-operate with those with whom we disagree in carrying out their misdeed. He is not suggesting we bring harm to them, but simply that we dis-engage from supporting them in this, and that we don't follow their rules, if they are rules that our conscience cannot abide by. Gandhi was to follow a very similar philosophy around 60 years later.

He believes that even if we may believe our individual acts of living in truth to be worth nothing in the big picture, they do matter greatly: To him the first slave-owner ceasing to hold slaves, and disobeying his State and subsequently being locked up in the county jail, would signify 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." And on the contrary when we succumb to something smaller, we incur a wound to ourselves and our conscience, and "through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an ever-lasting death. I see this blood flowing now."

Is the blod of our consciences flowing even now? Did it flow when we allowed the Srebrenica massacre to happen? Does it flow daily when we allow profit to rule, even when we see it's adverse effect on a community? Is it flowing even as the bombs are falling on the Afghans?

If you wish to be challenged about how we are playing our role in bringing about positive, systemic change today, I recommend it as a read. His were words and thoughts written over 150 years ago. But the challenge remains the same: What does it mean for me to not support that which I condemn? Or further still, what does it mean for me to live by, and act on, my conscience in the fullest way possible, in a society that in many cases lives by other values? Gandhi was a glowing example to the world of a man who continued to live this challenge to its fullest. I take strength in knowing that Gandhi and Thoreau were not the only ones. And that we too have this option open to us.

• Reviewed by Marianne Knuth

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