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REFRAMING THE ETHICS OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Every time I turn on the T.V these days I’m hearing about civil disobedience. The Tar Sands, the Keystone and Enbridge Pipelines, omnibus bills C35 and C48, the Idle No More movement—they all mention civil disobedience—usually as a last, but looming resort.

Here in the beautiful Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, large multinational corporations, with the full support of government, are promoting coal projects. They want us to become Appalachia North. We are training people in civil disobedience.

But getting our minds around the justification for civil disobedience is not easy. It takes some serious reframing.

As a child my mother told us kids, “If you get lost or someone is bothering you go and find a policeman and tell him what’s wrong.” That was my first awareness of something that I eventually recognized as respect for authority and the rule of law. If we didn’t have it our society would sink into chaos and lawlessness. And that viewpoint stayed with me for most of my life, even when the people in power did not share my political views. So for me, respect for duly elected authority was almost part of my DNA. Committing acts of civil disobedience went against the grain.

But, as I grew older I began to reframe and rethink the whole nature of civil disobedience. It occurred to me that my family and I have a right to clean water, clear air, good food, a suitable home, and a safe place to live. We didn’t get these rights from the Canadian Constitution nor the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We didn’t get them from the Prime Minster of Canada or the premier of a province. My rights, my neighbour’s rights, and the rights of all living things come from our very existence. They are gifts of nature or, as many First Nations often put it, gifts of The Creator.

Thus there is a rule of law based not on human laws but upon the laws of nature. The prime directive of all human laws should be to protect natural laws. If we don’t protect the laws of nature and its ecosystems which ensure our survival, we are doomed.

So, when we engage in peaceful direct action as a last resort, we are not the ones breaking the law. We are trying to protect natural laws that ensure our survival as a species. It is those who have introduced laws that violate our natural rights that are breaking the law.

Reframing civil disobedience this way removes the guilt feelings and motivates action. It works for me. It might work for others.
Mike Bell
Comox, B.C.

Inspired by Vivienne Simon’s essay, “Fostering Light in Dark Times.”

It is surely a leap of faith that mobilizes paralysis induced by the intellectual awareness of destruction and its inevitability. We might perhaps meander the paths of life without taking such a leap, but is the stark nature of pain and loss not such that we are incapable of fully investing our energy elsewhere without first confronting the immediate reality? Beyond embracing ignorance or yielding to despair, we yearn to be satisfied by some deconstruction of undeniable truths.

This thirst is borne of the soul’s unrest at the mind’s conclusions. The identification of this relationship is critical in evading a frustration that might otherwise consume and incapacitate.

Destruction as reality is not irrational, rather, it is spiritually challenging. The key recognition is that of the spiritual nature of a struggle. Intellect is incapable as a primary instrument in a search for meaning. So long as we demand a rational explanation capable of dissolving spiritual unrest, we will remain unsatisfied.

Specifically, the required leap of faith is one that pushes argument to its limits, but no further, and engages spiritual struggle where rational conclusions or limitations cause unrest.

Into what, then, does one leap when rational thought is exhausted and the soul, unsatisfied? Curious indeed, that we should jump knowing only what we seek but not where we might find it.

But the soul tastes refuge, just as the feet leave the ground. It is here that life is worth living, even as destruction continues.

– Hans

My small group and I met today and read this week’s reading. As usual, we all found the author’s words to be thought-provoking and resonating. Vivienne Simon’s words, we found, permeated our lives. We were able to connect her words to Facebook, to meaningful food, to the purpose of everyday life, and to what makes us work every day. Kerstyn, Tiff, Alyssa, and Leslie, you are all so awesome and I am so honoured to ahve you guys shre your great insights with me every week.

I loved that Simon put a great focus on individual efforts. I cannot change the world, I can only affect my actions. That is a constantly much-needed reminder. Although it may be frustrating or even devastating to have conversations where people are clearly not seeing things the way I believe they should be seeing it, their mindsets are out of my hands. I simply need to work towards making sure that my beliefs, my spirit, and my positivity is still there, motivating me to put my thoughts into actions.

So what am I mindful of?

I am mindful of the land, of course, now more so than ever. I am mindful of the things it produces, things that nurture me. I am mindful of the things I get from the land: energy, food, guidance. I am mindful of the incredible ability for the land to produce, I am mindful of its ability to graciously forgive, lest forget.

I am also mindful of the possibly irreversible damages we are doing to the land, as Simon mentioned. I am mindful of the depletion of resources, the forced, impossible productivity, the fact that we are slowly destroying the land to be independently be all the things it can be. I am mindful of the poisoning we do to the land. I am mindful of the horrendous things we pump into the land without considering the consequences.

Tying in last week’s talk given by Don with this week’s reading, I am mindful of the fear I feel for our land. I fear my inability to survive off the land. I fear the land’s ability to survive off of itself. I fear peak oil, I fear our tampering with the things the land produced, I fear the finite source of water, I fear the demise of “true” agriculture.

But at the end of the day, I remind myself that I can control my actions. And in this mystery of the stars, suns, and universe, I can choose to be more mindful of my actions and make sure they are as honest and positive to the land as I can make it. I am mindful that there are people, like those in the Spirit of the Land course, who have their own minds full of incredible, striking thoughts. I am mindful that, as cheesy as it is, the sun will rise above the land every day, the waters will still flow, the flowers will still blossom, and I will still be able to breathe, love, and be inspired every day.

I am mindful, I am fearful, and I am thankful.

The idea of returning to the farm, the place where I grew up, had been roaming around in my brain for the last couple years. I pictured it frequently, often romanticized to be ‘the great return’. It had replayed many times; sometimes I was alone, sometimes with my mom or sister, but most often it would be with a faceless person I had decided to marry. I would both share my greatest joys, as well as the birth place of my deepest demons and childhood struggles.

 

My dad sold the farm in 2006, following my parents’ separation in 2002, a few years of drought, and BSE. I hadn’t spent much time out there since my mom and I moved into town in 2002, when I was 12. I didn’t feel much of a sense of loss of the farm until I did my last walk through in 2006, right before the home quarter officially changed possession. To be honest, I had nearly hated farming and the farm for years. I associated it with conflict: the wars between my parents, between our work and the weather, and between my family’s economic situation and the markets, all of which rarely if ever seemed to work compatibly.

Last week, I was chatting with my dad and I mentioned how him and I should make a mini-roadtrip out to the farm to see it. He didn’t know that after years of internal work on myself I finally felt ready to make peace with it. I was ready to love the land I grew up on, certain I was finally strong enough to fight off any emotional triggers that still linger in my brain. Before I knew it, the trip became a family expedition including myself, dad, sister, brother, my brother’s girlfriend, and one of her friends.

To my surprise, my dad told me that we still own 130 acres of the once 400 that was our farm.

We first took a look at the home quarter, now owned by a young family; a couple with four kids under the age of six. It’s now a small hobby farm with horses, pigs, turkeys, and chickens. A far cry from the 200 head of Black Angus we once had. As I chatted with the wife about the country, farming, why her and her husband decided to leave the city and get into this lifestyle, I couldn’t help but imagine the children running around the yard as little ghosts of myself and my siblings. It made me feel nostalgic and comforted that another generation of children would grow up learning how to garden, that kittens, chicks, and puppies are far better toys than anything at Toys ‘R’ Us, that dirt is meant to be played in and not sterilized, and that meat comes from animals and not just from the grocery store.

After seeing the home quarter, we went up the hill onto the land that’s still ours and made a fire. I wandered around the trees and field, looking at all the old spots we used to play in. One particular spot was the old combine that we used to use as a jungle gym. By the time my family owned the farm, the combine already had a tree growing through it, which somehow added to its charm and attraction in my imaginative little brain. I also walked around picking up leaves that had fallen on the ground, crunching them between my fingers and bringing them to my face to really inhale the smell of fall.

Sitting around the fire, target practicing with a .22, playing on bales, laughing as a family, I realized new memories were being made. A new history was being written in my head with my family and the land. It was no longer just the site of conflict, but now also the picture perfect autumn day I had with my family and the ground beneath us. We later drove away toward town and my dad mentioned trying to sell the last 130 acres once again, and in my brain I heard a little voice scream “please don’t.”

On October 3rd, we welcomed local farmer, Don Ruzika.  Don’s deep affection for the land and the plants and animals he shares it with is overwhelmingly apparent as he shares his story.  Don farms near Viking, Alberta.

Don Ruzika Oct 3 part 1

Don Ruzika Oct 3 Part 2

Don Ruzika Oct 3 Part 3

Don Ruzika Oct 3 Part 4

Don Ruzika Oct 3 Part 5

In the second half of the class, Dittmar led us in a meditative reflection on approaching our own fears.

Dittmar Mundel Oct 3 Reflection

A Fish Out of Water
Marshal McLuhan, the great Canadian communications guru once said, “I don’t know who it was that first discovered water but I’m sure it wasn’t a fish.” His point of course: we don’t notice the environment that surrounds us. We simply take it for granted. The fish will only notice the water when it is flopping around on the dock and saying to itself, “Hey, isn’t there supposed to be water or something around here?”
Since the first Earth Day in 1970, many more of us have started noticing our environment and stopped taking it or granted. We have seen ourselves as stewards with an ethical obligation to care for our environment because it is our home. And this is all to the good. Unfortunately, despite the many benefits from this perspective, over the last 43 years things have gotten much worse, not better.
This suggests we must redefine our relationship with our environment. Perhaps we must step outside the traditional concept of stewardship. The major drawback with stewardship is that we see it—earth, the land, our environment—as something outside of us. But there is another perspective coming from science and making a come-back from indigenous peoples.
Modern science has pointed out that our earth came into existence some 4 billion years ago when a giant star went supernova and gave birth to our sun and eight planets including our earth. The minerals on the crust of earth came from the stars. And, through the process of evolution they are the same minerals in our bodies. In a real sense we are earthlings and the stars are our ancestors.
From time immemorial indigenous peoples have grasped this concept. They see earth, the land, as living and the source of their own life, often as a gift of the Creator. The Tlicho (Dogrib) people in the NWT say: “We have come from the land and we will return to the land.”
I discovered the simplest and most eloquent statement of this relationship in a film I saw a few years go. It was about the work of the Coastal Guardian Watchmen, a group of First Nation men and women protecting the Great Bear Rain Forest. In the film an interviewer asks one of the young watchmen why he is doing this kind of work. The man doesn’t talk about protecting “the environment,” or about their land claim, or about liking the work. He said quite simply, as if the answer were self-evident: “We are doing this work because we have made a promise to the Bears and the land to protect them.”
Mike Bell
Comox B.C.

“We cannot, of course, save the world, because we do not have authority over its parts. We can serve the world though. That is everyone’s calling, to lead a life that helps.”
-Barry Lopez

What an overwhelming thought: the idea that the world needs saving. How many people stop dead in their tracks because they cannot wrap their heads around this notion? We face an almost endless list of problems: global economic collapse, terrorism, climate change, overpopulation, water scarcity, poverty, species extinction…etc. How do we prioritize? Where do we even begin?

I will begin by admitting that I do not have a clue. When I begin to consider all of the issues that our generation is already facing, I cannot even fathom the struggles that the next is going to be confronted with. Time and time again I have contemplated these ideas, and I am always left with an overwhelming feeling of helplessness and hopelessness; I am just one person, trying to save the world.

But we cannot save the world. Of course we can’t. How many people have tried and failed? Should we just give up and adopt the mindset that we are all in serious trouble anyways? What is the point in even trying? The endless list of problems exists because we are not capable of solving any of them, right?

But as Barry Lopez describes, conversation is the essential foundation of progress. Action comes later, but in order to address and act upon the issues that we are currently facing, we must re-establish communication that has been lost. Not only human-to-human, but also human-to-Earth and to all things that have a voice but whom we ignore. By restoring open conversation, our understanding of our role on Earth and beyond will grow and we will find clarity on how to “lead a life that helps”.

We cannot save the world, but we can serve it, we can grow to understand and appreciate the gifts that we have been blessed with and safeguard them, the gifts of life, prosperity, love, happiness, health, diversity, nature…etc. By cherishing the good, we can conquer the bad. All of our lives depend on it.

“We need to prefer being in love to being in power”
Eve, who ate the fruit in the Garden of Eden, wanted power over love. What if Eve had a conversation with the divine first, with God, before she ate the fruit?
So many people in our society are focused on power over love. This is reflected in our relationship to the land as we inflict our dominion over creation. We need to step back from our position of power from over the land to a position of love, as stewards of the land. Since the fall of creation many societies throughout the ages have asserted their dominance over the land, through anthropocentric viewpoints over forests as lumber, animals as livestock and vegetation as food stocks. Once we start a discussion and have dialogue with people over the land we can come back to a position of love.

In Wendell Berry’s Conservationist and the Agrarian, Berry explores the different levels of commercial farming and its effects upon the environment. He presents the smaller farm as a more appropriate choice in promotion of sustainable food systems. Berry also puts forth control systems that are “commercialising with unprecedented haste and aggression in order to grow the world’s food supply” (68).

Over the last few years I have learned a great deal about the food system that the vast majority of the population benefits from. I had to, as I have a now six year old son who was experiencing major behavioral issues. Through a variety of different types of assessments through the traditional medical system I was advised to put him on medication. Which I chose not to do. Eventually through a holistic health practitioner it was determined that he had food sensitivities. Within 24 hours of cleaning out the cupboards and starting to eat only food that had no colorings or preservatives there was an enormous difference in his behavior. This got me really thinking about the impact that food available to us in grocery stores is having on our population and how it may be affecting our mental capacity and overall general health.

One of the questions that I have thought of and asked often in relation to some of the environmental destruction that continues and despite the mountains of evidence that these projects are having upon our planet. A population controlled in a variety of ways including nutritional deficiency is one of these controls and could be an answer to the unbalances in our population today. It is definitely something to consider and also supports Berry’s call for a return to a smaller more sustainable food production measures.