Here’s an excerpt:

The executive board of the SF State chapter of CFA adopted the following statement on February 25th:

California Faculty Association (CFA), San Francisco State University Chapter shares in the anger and frustration of students, faculty and staff regarding budget cuts that are destroying public education. We believe that peaceful protest and civil disobedience are powerful forces for change in a democratic society, and we defend the rights of individuals and organizations to practice them. However, CFA does not support or condone violence in any form. We oppose any vandalism or destruction of property. We also oppose the excessive use of force by law enforcement. This is our university – students, faculty, staff, and the community – and such acts undermine efforts to protect San Francisco State from those who would dismantle it. We seek a university founded upon mutual respect, social justice and accountability.
The governor’s chief of staff acknowledged that last fall’s campus demonstrations pushed him to raise the amount of money he proposed for next year’s CSU budget.  That pretty well tells us one of the things CSU needs: more large peaceful demonstrations for public education and services. Ultimately, it is the integrity of our position and actions rather than violence that promotes the establishment of a community which supports a long-term commitment to education and social justice.

http://takeastand4publiced.org/

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Having been immersed this semester in discussions of civil disobedience, it’s impossible for me, at least, to not keep Socrates and King in mind when I learn of social unrest and injustice in the world.

Would an Iranian Socrates willingly allow himself to be taken to Evin prison? I admit this hypothetical is a difficult one to take on. Socrates, I’m sure, had great confidence in the laws of Athens. I’m not so sure he would undertake the same action in Tehran.

I’ve often wondered where the Muslim “Martin Luther King” is in the Islamic world. Where’s the Gandhi? This direction of thought has been made all the more a matter of concern since I finished reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Spoke in the Wheel. I highly recommend it.

The middle class Bonhoeffer moved from a concerned bystander, to passive resistor, to active resistor, even to the degree of sanctioning violence. Bonhoeffer was in contact with Gandhi and had hoped to visit Gandhi in India. Would Gandhi have tried to convince Bonhoeffer to avoid the violent resistance to Hitler?

Many “go along to get along” Blacks in the South became active participants in the nonviolent resistance movement. Thousands of people eventually followed Gandhi’s lead in India. His methods worked against the British and King’s methods worked against the American segregationists. Would it have worked against Hitler or Stalin?

Most people think not.

But what about Iran? We witnessed some nonviolent action last summer immediately following the elections in Iran. We saw Neda’s lifeless body. Today there are reports of more deaths. The demands are known, the body count is rising. What’s next?

From the NY Times:

In a statement posted on his Web site, the Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who took part in the revolt against the Shah in the 1970s and is now a supporter of the opposition, denounced Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, for today’s violence. Mr. Makhmalbaf’s statement sarcastically praises Ayatollah Khamenei for outdoing the caliph Yazid, whose forces killed the Shiite martyr Imam Hossein on Ashura, the holiday being celebrated today in Iran:

Khamenei! You are more scrupulous than Yazdi. You won! Yazid is no longer the top winner of killing people on Ashura. You beat him.

I am so sorry that I fought against the Shah when I was 17. He left the country when he realized that people no longer wanted him. but you are resisting until everyone else leaves the country.

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