Norman Dale's passionate defense of mob action to achieve social change has at least three flaws. First, two can play that game: if mob action by one side in a dispute is justified, so is mob action by the other. Both sides can riot, start road and rail blockades or occupy ground. In short, Mr. Dale's views are a prescription for complete social anarchy or even violent civil conflict with unpredictable consequences. Democracy and freedom require the rule of law because otherwise issues will be decided by force - which benefits no one.
Second, Mr. Dale confuses mob rule with civil disobedience. Thoreau, Gandhi and Martin Luther King used civil disobedience which is based on the supremacy of law: demonstrators break the law - but then accept the consequences by not resisting arrest and going to jail if necessary. That's how King wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Thoreau, Gandhi and King knew the importance of keeping order not only to prevent anarchy but also to prevent people's worst aspects from getting out of control. What Mr. Dale and others suggest about Native land claims has nothing to do with Thoreau, Gandhi, King and civil disobedience: it has a lot to do with the Black Panthers and armed resistance, which did not achieve any of King's positive results. While true civil disobedience is acceptable in a democracy, mob violence is not.
Third, Mr. Dale confuses tactics that are justifiable in repressive dictatorships and tactics that are justifiable in democracies like Canada. He refers to apartheid in South Africa - but Canada is a far cry from South Africa with all of its race-based laws and a brutal secret police system. In Canada, there are proper channels for getting changes but one of the rules of living in a democratic society is that we have to accept the results given by the courts and/or Parliament. That is the 'democratic self-discipline' needed for freedom to survive. Those who refuse to accept these results and decide to act outside legal, democratic processes are simply setting up a situation in which "two can play that game." No one benefits from that in the long run.
Ian Kluge
Prince George
