In my humble opinion, noncooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
Statement at his sedition trial (1922-03-18)
(Source)
Following the riots in Chauri Chaura, India, on 5 February 1922, which killed 22 police officers, Gandhi was arrested for sedition for articles he'd written against the British government in India, in what is called the "Great Trial of 1922." After this statement he was sentenced to six years (serving two).
Gandhi had previously used the same phrase in "The Poet's Anxiety," Young India (1921-06-01), reprinted in Gandhi's Satyagraha, ch. 69 (1961).
(Note: searching out this quotation is complicated by the varied and evolving spellings of non-co-operation, non-cooperation, and noncooperation.)
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moral obligation
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There is fascism, leading only into the blackness which it has chosen as its symbol, into smartness and yapping out of orders, and self-righteous brutality, into social as well as international war. It means change without hope. Our immediate duty — in that tinkering which is the only useful form of action in our leaky old tub — our immediate duty is to stop it ….
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“Notes on the Way,” Time and Tide (10 June 1934)
(Source)
Reprinted in The Prince's Tale and Other Uncollected Writings (1998)
There are three possible ways in which the church can act toward the state: in the first place, as has been said, it can ask the state whether its actions are legitimate and in accordance with its character as state, i.e., it can throw the state back on its responsibilities. Secondly, it can aid the victims of state action. The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community. “Do good to all men.” In both these course of action, the church serves the free state in its free way, and at times when laws are changed the church may in no way withdraw itself from these two tasks.
The third possibility is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself. Such action would be direct political action, and is only possible and required when the church sees the state fail in its function of creating law and order, i.e., when it sees the state unrestrainedly bring about too much or too little law and order.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, martyr
“The Church and the Jewish Question” (1933)
(Source)
On the need for Christian clergy to actively oppose the Nazi regime's persecution of Jews.
