By Saswat Pattanayak

"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience…therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."

- Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

Time for folks to organize and act according to the call of conscience, not out of fear or fervor.

As we emerge more and more as police states, with police actually solving all the crimes in the country as shown on the Law and Order, the reliance has just grown stronger, and in a frightening way, justifiable.

Apart from ceremonious protests of a dozen of students holding placards showing never changing figure of 900 American troop deaths, there is not much of an organized action.

Of course the larger events (and girl, they really are many) are often not reported in the press and hence if I write as a blogger about them it will sound incredible. At the same time, if the realization is that the media cause near absence of awareness, why do we take the media for granted anyway?

Resisting war needs to be peaceful of course, but very pressing as well. And when one presses well for a cause, the domestic laws which proclaim serenity may get shaken up. The governmental forces may get alarmed, the people for a worthy cause may end up in unworthy cells.

But one wonders if we act on the contrary, are we not by spirit merely repeating the stoic silences of the erstwhile Germans?

Tags: Saswat, War, Capitalism, Activism