Dear Editor,
The time-honored tradition of practicing civil disobedience against discrimination and persecution has proven fruitful in more than one instance.
Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were able to integrate this policy into the lives of their followers as well as their own.
The results were astounding; a change in the way entire countries viewed race relations was altered forever.
With the imminent problems still brewing in the Middle East, why has no leader risen from the ruins to promote a change in philosophy?
Gandhi’s passive resistance taught with love was able to change beliefs not only in Southern Africa, but also in his homeland.
Through demonstrations and fasting, the petite man was able to quiet riots throughout his country.
Martin Luther King Jr. was able to accomplish similar feats in the United States. Not only were the people touched by his compelling pleas for equality and racial justice, but the leaders of our country were also made to take notice.
King’s capacity to suffer made an impact on even the toughest bigot.
America was forced to take notice and start new reform programs, such as the Great Society, and pass civil rights acts in Congress.
Both men endured constant persecution and even the ultimate sacrifice of life to bitter assassins.
As Martin Luther King Jr. stated in the book he wrote from prison, “breaking unjust laws openly, lovingly with the willingness to accept the penalty,” would virtually transform the hate racists’ felt into love and brotherhood.
Few leaders have stepped into the light in the Middle East with new inventive concepts to peacefully end the conflict. There is a small circle of rabbis who have quietly ventured to say that civil disobedience could be the way.
The issue of neither land nor race can be disputed as too dutiful a cause to peacefully refuse discrimination. Gandhi battled issues of land and race while Martin Luther King Jr. faced major issues with segregation. Perhaps the right leader, with a just incentive could lead the way to a nonviolent settlement that would revolutionize conditions there.
Jennifer R. Bannister

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