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Uncivil DisobedienceElián González's Miami relatives have more in common with Orval Faubus than they do with Martin Luther King Jr.

By David GreenbergPosted Tuesday, April 11, 2000, at 3:00 AM ET

With a showdown looming, Miami's "Eliánistas" have vowed a "civil disobedience" campaign to prevent the return of 6-year-old Elián González to Cuba. By invoking the sacralized language of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement to describe their impending face-off with the government, the Eliánistas imply they're acting from a sense of conscience and in a noble tradition. To their critics, though, the civil disobedience call is just a cynical ploy.

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When is "civil disobedience" honorable, and when is it a cover for self-serving lawlessness?

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If you missed the link to John Rawls' principles of civil disobedience, click here. David Greenberg reviewed Taylor Branch's Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-64 and found it a "portrait gallery of inspiring individuals." Timothy Noah explained why Bill Clinton's decision to lie under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky was not an act of civil disobedience.

Related on the Web

Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," the essay that inspired King and Gandhi, can be read here. King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" can be read here. ACT UP/New York offers a "Civil Disobedience Manual" with a history of mass nonviolent action as well as legal advice for practitioners.

Arguments for civil disobedience date at least to Socrates, who disobeyed an unjust Athenian decree against teaching his ideas and was condemned to death. More recently, the doctrine was articulated (and acted upon) by Henry David Thoreau, who in the 1850s urged Massachusetts residents to withhold taxes so as not to support slavery or the Mexican war. In the 1920s and '30s, Mohandas Gandhi began his nonviolent protests of British rule in India. But it was King who put the phrase into the American vernacular and the practice into American history books.

Besides being a practitioner, King was also a philosopher of civil disobedience. Having studied Thoreau, Gandhi, and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, King knew you can't break laws—even patently unjust laws—lightly. You need philosophical justification. In his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," written when he was imprisoned in 1963 for trying to desegregate the city's public facilities, King offered his best-known encapsulation of his philosophy.

To justify disobedience to the law, King wrote, the law itself has to be unjust. Unjust laws include those that degrade people's humanity and those inflicted on a minority that had no say in enacting them. Alabama's Jim Crow statutes clearly fit both categories.

Equally Martin Luther King Jr. leads marchers in 1965 important is the manner of disobedience, King wrote. "One who breaks an unjust law," he insisted, "must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty." This approach and spirit demonstrate, King noted, that the disobedient "is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." (This idea also goes back to Socrates, who cooperated in his own punishment by stoically quaffing the fatal hemlock he was given.)

Taking his cues from King, John Rawls, the pre-eminent postwar liberal philosopher, distilled the principles of civil disobedience in his famous work A Theory of Justice. (This summary is a little unfair to Rawls. Click here for an explanation.) An act of civil disobedience, he noted, is motivated by conscience. Yet it is also political in character. The protester appeals to political—as opposed to, say, religious—principles in order to redress a basic and thoroughgoing injustice in the political system.

Further, a civilly disobedient act is nonviolent. This shows that the violator, despite his disobedience, is operating, as Rawls put it, "within the limits of fidelity to law." For similar reasons, a civilly disobedient protester accepts the penalty for his action, as did Socrates and King. Finally, the act occurs publicly. It is a good-faith effort to submit to one's fellow citizens a considered opinion that the law is unjust. While philosophers have quibbled with Rawls' definition, it can serve as a sensible, moderate way to judge whether a violation of law—such as the Miamians have promised—amounts to civil disobedience.

So how do Elián's Miami boosters stack up? Let's assume they genuinely believe that returning the boy to Cuba would be morally wrong. This meets one requirement of civil disobedience—its conscientiousness. They also meet the requirement of acting publicly. They aren't spiriting the boy away in the night.

On two other counts—nonviolence and willingness to accept punishment—the Eliánistas don't seem to be honoring the tradition of King, although to be fair they haven't been put to the test. Certainly some of their rhetoric—such as Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas' suggestion (since retracted) that his police won't enforce the law—has been menacing, apparently meant to scare the federal government into backing off (a game of chicken) rather than to win sympathy by passive surrender in the face of injustice (à la King). It's hard to imagine that if faced with G-men, the Miamians would crumple to the pavement in the fetal position, let alone be willing to endure the savage beatings visited on the civil rights protesters.

On the final consideration—the purpose of their disobedience—the Miamians come up woefully short. Unlike the soldiers of the civil rights movement, they aren't trying to redress a systemic problem. They aren't arguing that the country's immigration policies are fundamentally unfair. They just object that the laws must apply to Elián as they do to everyone else. They're arguing for an exemption from the law, not an improvement of it in accordance with principles of justice. And this makes their appropriation of the term civil disobedience seem cynical.

A better parallel to George Wallace defies desegregation in 1967 the Miamians than King might be the white Southerners who engaged in "massive resistance" to federal laws in order to thwart integration. During the civil rights years, Southern defenders of Jim Crow vowed they would not comply with Supreme Court rulings or federal executive orders. Govs. Orval Faubus of Arkansas and George Wallace of Alabama won followings by threatening to defy federal law enforcement officials to protect white supremacy—a tradition in which Mayor Penelas seemed to be inadvertently placing himself before retracting his fighting words. In the end, the Dixie governors knuckled under to the feds, but their shows of resistance stoked Southern pride.

The Jim Crow defenders never claimed to be the heirs of Thoreau and Gandhi. But their lawlessness gave ammunition to those who impugned King's actions, allowing liberal fence-sitters to disparage both camps of "extremists." Their actions made it harder for King to justify his own lawbreaking to the moderates whose support he needed.

King acknowledged this. "Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us to consciously break laws," he wrote in his Birmingham letter. "One may well ask, 'How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?' " It was precisely this allegation that led King to spell out the principles distinguishing civil disobedience from massive resistance. "In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist," he insisted. "That would lead to anarchy."

But if Mayor Penelas and Miami's Cuban-Americans belong more to the tradition of King's adversaries than to that of King, they aren't going out of their way to say so. In that respect, their language, if not their actions, amounts to an ironic testament to King's stature.

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David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers and author of three books of political history, has written the "History Lesson" column since 1998.

Photographs of: Elián González supporters by Rick Wilking/Reuters; Martin Luther King Jr. and George Wallace © Bettmann/Corbis.

COMMENTS

Reader Response from The Fray:

I don't think the protestors would maintain that this should be an exception to the immigration laws. Rather, they might be using Elian as a symbol, to represent the worst of the bad scenarios those laws produce. In that sense the protestors are objecting at large to the laws that obstruct escape from a repressive totalitarian regime. Moreover, Greenberg's suspicion that the protestors only have an "Elian exception" in mind is just that--a suspicion. I have a suspicion that if the year were 1980 and Elian Gonzalez were named, say, Mark Mathabane, having just made it out of South Africa into the hands of a (hypothetical) community of black South Africa expatriates, Greenberg would not be so quick to label them as soul mates of the 1960s South. But that's just a suspicion.

--Ananda Gupta

(To reply, click here.)

The real story here has nothing to do with Elian. It is the refusal of the Cuban colonizing invasion force to recognize the authority of the Federal government or obey the laws of the United States. Florida is no longer a part of the U.S., you might as well write Here be Dragons on the map where it used to be. Cubans are not Americans and never will be.

Florida is really the Independent Cuban People's Republic, a small breakaway nation of third world refugees who have conquered the state through demographics. This is why they have refused to co-oporate with INS officials at the highest levels of government there, because those public officials no longer consider Miami part of the United States.

--Cleve Blakemore

(To reply, click here.)

While I may find their argument wanting, I would never label the protestors as southern segregationists. These people believe that the national government is acting either thoughtlessly or maliciously, without reference to Elian's legal protection. They are peacefully protesting that action. They may not be as thoughtful as the Reverend King, but it certainly doesn't make them into George Wallace.

A democracy requires us to allow that the opposition can use legitimate tactics. It is a cheap trick to argue that a tactic is illegitimate simply because we don't like the people using it. Greenberg verges perilously close to committing this thoughtless act of political bigotry. I suggest that he reconsider his position and make clear exactly what he thinks of his comparison of peaceful protesters and hooded Klan members. At the very least he could wait for the Miami Cubans to do something besides chant and wave a few flags

--Jeremy C.Pope

(To reply, click here.)

The Elian custody issue is not about high moral sentiments, although both sides would like to depict their own positions in this manner. It is about muscle, about who can flex their pecs in a more menacing fashion. The issue is not whether or not Elian will retain his freedom. The issue is not whether or not Mr Gonzalez will regain custody of his son. The issue is about whether or not the Cuban exile community's leadership or the INS will prevail. Frankly, both sides actually have some honorable qualities and both have some despicable attributes. However, the very valid issue of immigration law reform has now degenerated into a childish test of wills that is tearing an already strife-ridden community apart. The optimal result: send Elian to his father, then use this whole incident to foster greater accountability on the part of the capricious INS and to formulate new, non-discriminatory policies. Alas, the cynic in me feels that this will only stoop further into the mire and we will be left with nothing but alienation within the grand city of Miami.

--Miami Gringo

(To reply, click here.)

To Miami Gringo: It is clear you are missing the point and the just cause of Miami Cubans. I think you should make a permanent move of residence to Havana, Cuba where can surely exercise your freedom of speech.

--John Mathews

(To reply, click here.)

To John Mathews: What exactly is the just cause of the Miami Cubans? Fighting communism? OK, I might actually accept that. But keeping small children from their fathers, no sir, that is not just in any sense of the word. Your suggestion of a move, however appealing or appalling as the case may be, I must decline. What do you know of Havana? Ever been there, in clear contradiction of U.S. law? Maybe breaking the law is just a Miami thing that I wouldn't understand.

--Miami Gringo

(To reply, click here.)

(4/11)

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