In a democracy, there is a general obligation to obey the law, even laws that may be unjust. If people could simply exempt themselves from laws they considered unjust, it would seriously damage public institutions and the benefits of life in a democratic society would be lost.

Commitment to democracy usually requires accepting the determination of the majority, even when the majority makes mistakes. For this reason, we should normally express opposition to unjust but democratically enacted laws only by legal means.

But commitment to democracy also requires opposing serious wrongs in society, and sometimes this cannot be accomplished without deliberately breaking the law. This is because majority rule, though necessary, is not the most fundamental feature of democracy. More fundamental is the understanding that society is a cooperative undertaking of free and equal persons.

Majority rule is a procedural device. Its sole value lies in promoting the ends for which free and equal citizens associate with one another. When majority rule prevents the achievement of those ends, there is no longer justification for employing the procedure.

Thus when any law - even one enjoying overwhelming popular support -undermines the very democracy it is supposed to serve, those who recognise this may be obligated to disobey it.

There is always a possibility of serious conflict between our obligations to respect democratically enacted law, on the one hand, and to oppose serious wrongs, on the other. Civil disobedience offers a way to harmonise these competing obligations.

Civil disobedience provides democratic society with a mechanism for dealing with serious social wrongs without ripping itself apart in the process. Though civil disobedience involves deliberately breaking the law, it is not ordinary lawlessness.

Instead, it is a special kind of lawbreaking that operates within the bounds of fidelity to law. It reinforces public commitment to the values for which the law stands - values like freedom, equality, and justice.

Even if the need to engage in civil disobedience does not arise, the willingness of most citizens to do so if necessary assures that serious wrongs are not tolerated. This bolsters general confidence in ordinary means of seeking redress of grievances, further stabilising democratic commitments.

Many people think that every act of breaking the law for reasons of conscience is an act of civil disobedience. Supporters of the reformasi movement, for example, describe their illegal demonstrations this way.

But civil disobedience is just one type of conscientious non-compliance with law. It is more appropriate to describe most of the reformasi protests as civil resistance rather than civil disobedience.

This does not necessarily mean that the reformasi actions are unjustified. But the more conscientious non-compliance departs from civil disobedience, the more difficult it generally becomes to show that the wrong opposed is worse than the means used to oppose it.

It is not surprising if reformasi supporters find it difficult to grasp the conceptual distinction between civil resistance and civil disobedience. Because the two forms of conscientious non-compliance are historically associated and sometimes use similar tactics, it is easy to get them confused.

But civil resistance is more concerned with obstruction, while the aim of civil disobedience is persuasion. The civil disobedient invites fellow citizens to reflect upon the implications of their mutual commitments as free and equal participants in a cooperative social venture.

She attempts to persuade them that they have mistakenly tolerated a wrong to which free and equal persons should not reasonably be expected to submit. Once they appreciate this, they will see that the magnitude of the violation of their shared principles justifies the illegal means used to bring it to their attention.

Civil resistance is much more adversarial than civil disobedience and is only secondarily, if at all, about addressing fellow citizens as free and equal participants in a cooperative social venture. The civil resister has less confidence in the strength of fellow citizens' democratic commitments and is principally concerned with impeding what he considers intolerable wrong.

Civil disobedience reconciles the obligation to respect democratically enacted law with the obligation to resist substantial wrong. Civil resistance tends to set aside the former obligation in favour of the latter when the two conflict.

Civil disobedience presupposes and affirms membership in a democratic community. The civil disobedient encourages others to view themselves as fellow citizens with shared commitments, partners in a cooperative endeavor, and to act accordingly.

Civil resistance, however, strains and might even sever the bonds of community because its justification frequently invokes moral conceptions that are not shared with the rest of society.

Even when civil resistance involves some appeal to shared principles, it retains a confrontational - sometimes coercive - aspect that easily allows large segments of the public to misconstrue civil resistance as ordinary lawlessness.

The persuasive intent of civil disobedience, on the other hand, requires that it be performed openly and in as non-violent, non-threatening a manner as possible. By non-violence and acceptance of legal consequences, the civil disobedient demonstrates commitment to democracy as well as respect for fellow citizens and trust that they share a similarly strong commitment.

Civil resistance does not share the intrinsically non-violent character of civil disobedience. Though the civil resister may adopt non-violence as a tactic, in principle he has no objection to violence if this provides more effective means of obstructing the wrong he opposes.

The civil resister treats other members of society as obstacles rather than as partners. If he addresses them at all it is as antagonists, which encourages them to respond in kind. Consequently, the destabilising effects of civil resistance are likely to undercut whatever good it might achieve. It might tear a fragile democracy like Malaysia's apart.

Acts of civil disobedience are inherently political, because their justification invokes shared democratic commitments rather than personal morality or mere private interest.

By "political" here I do not mean the nasty factionalism that masquerades as politics in much of contemporary life. Rather, I am speaking of politics in its classical sense: as care for the common good.

Politics in this sense involves mutual deliberation in search of ways to maximise opportunities for as many as possible to flourish as human beings, to live good human lives. Civil disobedience, as a special mode of public address, is a vehicle for such deliberation.

Reformasi demonstrators might intend their protests as symbolic political speech, and therefore genuine acts of civil disobedience. In execution, however, their "shopping excursions" and cat-and-mouse engagements with police obscure whatever communicative quality the actions are supposed to possess. It should come as no surprise if large numbers of Malaysians are then unable to appreciate the reformasi protests as appeals to shared principles.

I am presuming here that reformasi supporters have not realised the importance of distinguishing civil disobedience from civil resistance. It is possible, though, that they fully appreciate the distinction. Maybe they have simply concluded that Malaysia's slide into authoritarianism and kleptocracy under Dr Mahathir Mohamad has gone too far for civil disobedience to work.

It would be hard to fault reformasi supporters for concluding that Malaysia's public institutions are so debased that civil disobedience cannot be properly understood or responded to by most Malaysians.

The same conclusion might tempt just about anyone confronted with the litany of abuses documented by [#1] UN special rapporteurs[/#] , the [#2] International Bar Association[/#] , the [#3] Committee to Protect Journalists[/#] , [#4] Amnesty International[/#] , [#5] Human Rights Watch[/#] , the [#6] Asian Human Rights Commission[/#] , the [#7] Asian Network for Free Elections[/#] , the [#8] US State Department[/#] , local NGOs like [#9] Aliran[/#] , independent media like malaysiakini , and others.

I respectfully suggest, however, that such a conclusion is premature. It is not too late for civil disobedience in Malaysia. Though the government has largely abandoned even the pretense of democratic commitment, there are also signs of growing attachment to democratic ideals among ordinary Malaysians, even if many remain confused about the fuller implications of that attachment.

More Malaysians are addressing common concerns of justice, freedom, and good governance rather than focusing exclusively, as in the past, on issues that divide along ethnic or religious lines. The vibrant exchanges in the letters column of malaysiakini are just the latest indication that the obvious dysfunctionalities in Malaysian democracy are not irreversible. There is still time for the practice of civil disobedience to help revive Malaysian democracy.

It is not my place to advise any Malaysian to disobey the law. I can, however, urge proper reflection on those who agree that substantial and persistent social wrongs in Malaysia defy the constantly shrinking legal remedies.

On reflection, civil resistance poses unjustified risk of destroying Malaysians' shared sense of community. But civil disobedience, pursued with due care and discipline, offers the prospect of strengthening that sense of community and reinvigorating Malaysian democracy.

FARUQ NELSON lectured in philosophy at the International Islamic University Malaysia from 1989 to 1992. He now teaches philosophy in the US and is completing a doctoral dissertation on human rights at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This article is adapted from his longer essay, "Who's Afraid of Civil Disobedience?" forthcoming in "Insaf: Journal of the Bar Council Malaysia". He can be reached at [#10] civil_disobedient@hotmail.com[/#]