Value it before you lose it.

I’ll never forget that hot summer day at my grandmother’s house when we had discords and couldn’t stop arguing all day long about my studies. It was the week before summer vacation, I refused to revise or even study a word because like any other fifth grader all I wanted to do is play around and watch T.V. My grandmother whom was the most intelligent person I have ever met used to help in my studies, she was a genius and she was the reason I got high grades since the day I became a student. Sitting in the balcony back then with hot sizzling sun tanning my face I couldn’t concentrate on anything and my grandmother insisted on revising once again the conjugation of the irregular verbs. Suddenly I stopped her and told her I can’t take it anymore and started crying, here we go again another prodigious fight for nothing and it was at that moment when she told me a proverb that I hated since the day I heard it “You Don't Know What You've Got, Until You Lose It”. Honestly I nullified the true meaning of what she said and didn’t even know what she talking about. This eccentric sentence didn’t cross my mind until next year when I was all alone sitting in my room trying to study for the first time all by myself. I was appalled when I remembered what she told me year ago, that proverb was now running in my mind and impossible to get out because it was true and it will always be true no one can ever know the value of what they have until its gone or they can’t have.   

It runs in human blood and passed out through generation, moaning about what we haven’t got is like a daily routine. We are all guilty of just accepting things and not truly appreciating them, because we assume that they will always be there. The thing is that there are always things in our lives that we usually just take for granted. It’s because they have always been there, we just accept their presence, but do not really place any value on them. But what we neglect is that in a blink of eye everything can change and all these big things that we think are forever ours can disappear in seconds.  

Every day, every single one of us finds something that opens his eyes to realize what they’ve been waiting for or wanting has been here the whole time. It can be presented through innumerable stuff starting with kids who sleep in streets, suffering families, solders who risk their lives and leave their beloved one behind, orphans, famine and more. The point is that we will never stop our ongoing process of demanding and wanting everything or what others have. But what we should all do once a while is stop and reflect about the simples thing we have others don’t. Like for example HEALTH, ever thought that there are people who are born and raised up with diseases? So remember, you don't know what you've got, until you lose it.

Is Disobedience and Violence the true foundation of liberty?

Civil disobedience is the public act of willfully disobeying the law and the commands of an authority figure, to make a political statement. Participants are in risk of getting arrested, and are frequently charged with crimes such failure to disperse, or failure to obey an officer. Civil disobedience is generally nonviolent.
The purpose of civil disobedience is to convey a political message; their goal is to bring changes in the law. Nowadays, civil disobedience has been used in such events as street demonstrations, marches, and strikes... Also, sometimes the law gets broken and they start protesting, it sends the message to authority figures that people consider the law so unjust, they are willing to openly disobey it. Martin Luther King, M.Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau are famous advocates of civil disobedience.

The Civil Disobedience Movement was first led by Gandhi; in the year 1930. He started it because he wanted public opinions to be heard but in a nonviolent civil way. It is considered as a very important milestone in the history of Indian Nationalism. There are three distinct phases that mark the development of Indian Nationalism.  One of those phases was the rise of as M.Gandhi, to power as the leader of Indian National Movements. He was amiable by all the citizens because of his spirited guidance and wise decisions. 

Martin Luther King just like Gandhi was a leader in his community and believed that civil disobedience was the way to change the laws and feeling that where against the colored people in southern states of America. He had a dream and believed that the only way to get his point across is by taking action but the actions had to be in a non-violent way and without any violent juncture or physical force. He said that the movement must prove the wrong that has been done to the black citizens and why are opposing something or someone. King justified his act of civil disobedience by show that there was a lot of hatred towards the Negroes by the country police and court systems.

Both Martin Luther King and Gandhi started the civil disobedience movement because they saw people suffering, dying and living in misery because of the unjust prosecution of their country. They wanted to spread justice and put an end to the laws that where against their people as unjust because it affected them in all sorts of ways.  Both leaders felt that not everything that was legal was based on justice and that’s why they believed that civil disobedience is the way to make justice with an unjust legal law.

In my opinion I think that thanks to them now the world knows a non-violent way to oppose what they think is wrong. Civil disobedience in 2012 is the most common movement to oppose something in Arab countries…

The past few weeks I’ve been hearing a lot about this movement called civil disobedience that was going to be held on the 11^th of February 2012. I had to clue what was it was and to me it was totally insignificant maybe because I’m not interested in my countries politics and I belittle everything that has to do with the Egyptian revolution. But after doing some researches and reading amazing stories of leaders that were willing to sacrifice their souls to what they believed in made me want to participate myself in The Egyptian Civil Disobedience. I think that Civil disobedience is a very powerful tool but it must be used with thought, care and bravery to be effective. Of course every single Egyptian want the best for its beloved country that’s why for the past year we have been witnessing an ongoing process of protesting and strikes.  Of course Egypt is in need of the civil disobedience movement, but since I began writing my essay I couldn’t stop questioning myself: are the Egyptians capable of starting a none-violent movement? I don’t think so, Egyptians have tried peaceful ways to express their opinions but sadly it always ends up with blood of innocent ones scattered all around the streets… Why? Well because half of the Egyptians are uneducated, they don’t understand what the True meaning of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IS. To conclude my essay I would like to point out two main points, first of all Egypt is not in need of more strikes, protests and revolutions it is certainly in need of AN EVOLUTION so I think that Egyptian Civil disobedience will only make any difference cut it will make us drowned deeper and deeper. Second of all the term civil disobedience starts with a very important adjective “Civil”, Do you think that in 2012 Egyptian citizens are acting in a civil way? I don’t think so, how can uncivil people starts a movement they don’t even understand and proclaim it for the best of their country?

  

Ghandi Quote:

“Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness...Every citizen is responsible for every act of his government...There is only one sovereign remedy, namely, non-violent non-cooperation.  Whether we advertise the fact or not, the moment we cease to support the government it dies a nature death....My method is conversion, not coercion, it is self-suffering, not the suffering of the tyrant....I hope the real Swaraj (self-rule) will come not by the acquisition of authority by the few but by the acquisition by all of the courage to resist authority when abused.  In other words, Swaraj is to be attained by education the masses to a sense of their capacity to regulate ad control authority.... Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies...Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be cruel joke....Civil disobedience means capacity for unlimited suffering without the intoxicating excitement of killing....Disobedience to be civil has to be open and nonviolent....Disobedience to be civil implies discipline, thought, care, attention...Disobedience that is wholly civil should never provoke retaliation....Non-cooperation and civil disobedience are different but [are] branches of the same tree call Satyagraha (truth-force).... Coercion cannot but result in chaos in the end....One who uses coercion is guilty of deliberate violence. Coercion is inhuman....Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good... Nonviolent action without the cooperation of the heart and the head cannot produce the intended result....All through history the way of truth and love has always won.  There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall, always.”