Feeling very impotent in the face of the gradual transformation of the country I joined precisely because of its struggle for democracy and socialism, I returned to my childhood companion, Thoreau. He’s the one who knows about civil disobedience…
Even though his ideas didn’t work for me at my college graduation. That was in 1966 when Nixon was invited to the University of Rochester to give what was clearly his ‘comeback’ speech. My classmates planned a quiet protest. We agreed that we would not attend the ceremony.
Our grand gesture was discovered and countered by the university with a decree that those who did not attend would not be granted degrees. A sly plan emerged. We would attend the ceremony but turn our chairs around when the speaker began. To our surprise, upon our arrival, we found the seats wired together and there was no time to devise an alternative protest.
That was the moment I decided that only living in a small country would allow for individual expression. I determined to move to Israel with its tiny population where my voice would be heard.
And indeed in Israel I felt I’d became an active citizen. I could contribute to an ideal there – to a polity where eventually the populations would become equal, and living together would be mutually beneficial.
My new friends in Israel mocked my American innocence, warning me that my views were naïve and my influence much less than I imagined.
And now that I’ve been protesting for over six months I see how I have once again helped bring Nixon to the throne. Henry David, help me!
“Don’t pay taxes…”
Hah, they are taken off at the source. Salaries are paid with taxes already subtracted. So – what – stop working? Hmm – impossible given today’s prices. Buy less? The government will get less VAT but businesses will go broke.
So much for his practical solution of civil disobedience. Then there’s Thoreau’s theory:
After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?
So the question arises, what is conscience? We seem to have at least three definitions of the term. My Muslim friend whose concrete business is falling apart because of contradictory building laws for Jews and Arabs says by trying to appease both his neighbors and the government he’ll just get a heart attack and won’t have to deal with anything. Another (former) friend says his conscience tells him he can’t be a good Jew until we make sacrifices in the Temple. Unfortunately, the ruins of the temple are beneath the Dome of the Rock, and we’ve agreed not to practice religion there. So he’s really into making new laws that will make Judaism preeminent. But my conscience says that the claims of human beings right here, right now are far more important than any tradition.
I’m writing this on Tisha B’Av – the fast day in memory of the destruction of the first temple. And we are celebrating our wedding anniversary in an isolated vegetarian spa high above Rosh Pina where there is almost no news, and the heat keeps us indoors. It’s all about pools, massages, dining hall, gorgeous views. Nothing seems real except the cows.
And Thoreau here seems irreal – a fantasy-writer who’s a pleasure to read after we’ve gone through the traditional reading of the Book of Lamentations that describes the destruction of Jerusalem. I go to sleep dreaming of Henry lugging his laundry from his hermit shack to his mother’s house every week and wishing I could bring my laundry to her.