Letters to the Editor: When civil disobedience becomes plain old criminality

A reader spells out the type of civil disobedience employed by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr

'I Have A Dream': Martin Luther King Jr addressing the March On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC in March, 1963. File picture: Central Press/Getty

To those people today who are breaking the law, whether they are from the left or the right of the political spectrum, and then call their action “an act of civil disobedience”, they are mistaken.

They are not acts of civil disobedience, they are acts of criminality and they should be punished to the full extent of the law for doing so.

The term “civil disobedience”, as used by the mass media and political activists today, is not the civil disobedience that Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi advocated and died for.

An act of “civil disobedience”, as outlined by King and Gandhi, may only take place when the following five criteria are present.

1. It must be self-evident that the issue being protested against is clearly against the moral code; for example, having to sit in the back of the bus because of the colour of ones skin;

2. Every avenue for redress must have been pursued without any redress gained;

3. Not only did those in positions of power and influence refuse to address the issue, as presented by the protesters, but in the process belittled the petitioner(s) and left no possibility of redress being eventually gained;

4. By committing the act of civil disobedience one must not “seriously disrupt the livelihood of innocent bystanders”;

5. After arrest, the petitioner(s) must be prepared to accept the punishment handed down by a court of law without complaint.

If any one of these principles is absent, acts of so-called civil disobedience should be considered as a breach of the law and such acts viewed as “criminal behaviour”.

Vincent J Lavery, Dalkey, Co Dublin

Customer pleas falling on deaf ears

Uisce Éireann’s radio advert states: ‘Call us 24 hours a day, seven days a week.’ Calling is rarely an issue for the beleaguered customer. Getting an answer from an actual human being is where the problem lies these days.

Brendan Corrigan, Bogotá, Colombia

Rinse and repeat

As the Leaving Cert looms on the horizon, I am reminded of my long-ago school days. I did so well in the Leaving that I was invited back to do it again the following year.

Tom Gilsenan, Dublin 9

Rich paying their way to immortality

I see that the rich, having successfully evaded paying taxes all their lives, are now trying to avoid their date with fate with their search for immortality.

May I wish them all the luck in the world with their endeavours, since an eternity of living with hell on earth is no substitute for the real thing.

Liam Power, Dundalk, Co Louth

Get into character

Disneyland Paris recently announced new characters and light shows for this summer but they didn’t mention new characters called ‘Simon Harris’ and ‘Irish Gardaí’. I’m sure that the French will ask if there are any guards left in Ireland! Ce n’est pas drole du tout, monsieur le Ministre!

Dr Florence Craven, Bracknagh, Co Offaly

Lacking characters

So, Succession — like King Lear but with fewer roles for leading female characters?

Eve Parnell, James Street, Dublin 8

Future-proofed?

The way the construction of the National Children’s Hospital is going, by the time the children’s hospital is completed, it will be outdated.

Kevin Devitte, Mill Street, Westport, Co Mayo

High body count of the Civil War

The Irish Army Civil War dead, who numbered about 800 from an April 1923 peak of about 55,000 troops in 68 battalions came over a period of only 301 days (from Wednesday June 28, 1922, to Thursday, April 24, 1923) and came to 1.45% of the final army strength, or four dead in every 275 soldiers.

In the Second World War, which lasted 7.23 times longer than the Irish Civil War (2,176 days — from September 1, 1939, to August 15, 1945), the British army lost 144,079 from a peak 1945 strength of 2.92m. 

The Irish Civil War death toll per 100 per day was 2.13 times worse than this. 

A horror — inflicted on Irishmen by fellow Irishmen — never to be forgotten, much less excused, and a horror due to the anti-democratic refusal of an armed minority to recognise the clear will of the great majority of the people in the Friday, June 16, 1922, general election where only 21.26 % had voted for Anti-Treaty candidates.

Tom Carew, Ranelagh, Dublin 6

Selective denial to elect Sinn Féin

We notice according to Noel Harrington, with amusement and not a little trepidation, that much of what is being said and written about Mary Lou McDonald, is indeed a lot less critical of her and Sinn Fein ,than it used to be — ‘Sinn Féin now in the driving seat’ (Irish Examiner, Letters, May 29).

Perhaps it’s because the fear is the Shinners might be in government soon, and best to trust Mary Lou to be a steady pair of hands for the future.

The trouble with this, of course, is that while she is not the real issue of worry, the problem to be wary of is the company she’s been keeping for so long over the years.

Short memory syndrome is very much at play in our new era of selective denial.

Robert Sullivan, Bantry, Co Cork