The history of nonviolent social change is filled with injunctions to
refuse compliance with unjust laws and policies. As Gandhi once
famously said, "non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as
is cooperation with good." Reflecting on the Montgomery bus boycott,
Martin Luther King, Jr. observed that "what we were really doing was
withdrawing our cooperation from an evil system. ... We were simply saying
to the white community: We can no longer lend our cooperation to an
evil system. From that moment on I conceived of our movement as an act
of massive non-cooperation." In Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau mapped out the terrain in ways that would later influence both Gandhi and King:
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least
degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? ... It is not desirable
to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. ... Law
never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it,
even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
These teachings were alive and well during the demonstrations in
Arizona against SB 1070, the state's anti-immigrant law that was
partially struck down by a federal judge two days before it took effect.
In recognition of the larger issues raised by the bill, as well as the
realization that open persecution of "illegals" would remain official
state policy going forward, hundreds of people took to the streets on
July 29th under the banner of the movement's mantra, "We Will Not
Comply." Almost 100 people were arrested for nonviolent civil
disobedience during these protests, and a clear message of the refusal
to cooperate with injustice was communicated to both local officials and
an international audience alike.
While many of the events of that day have been well-reported, the
opening salvo that set the tone of noncompliance and civil resistance
seemed to slip by almost without notice. It was, however, a poignant and
powerful action that reflected the best qualities of the nonviolence
paradigm. Here is my recollection of what transpired that night as SB
1070 was to take effect:
The clock nudged toward midnight on a cool Arizona summer evening.
With monsoon moisture in the air and faint stars flickering above, two
columns of people solemnly proceeded on opposite sides of the street to
the main entry point into their city. Families, children, and elders
together filed into the street, with an air of celebratory defiance
building as each individual added their body to the blockade. None would
pass into this community for the foreseeable future, and people living
in terror had openly lost their fear. The tone was now set, and the
events of the coming day would reflect it, consciously or not.
This was the beginning of Arizona's July 29th demonstrations against
SB 1070 and related anti-immigrant policies. At 12:01AM that day, the
parts of the bill that had not been struck down earlier in the week by a
federal judge - including a mandate that all state officials and
agencies enforce federal immigration laws to their fullest extent, and
also a provision that criminalizes harboring or transporting
undocumented persons - took effect. And in the tiny town of Guadalupe
(pop. 6000) on the outskirts of Phoenix, community members fired the
first nonviolent "shot" in the day's struggle against legalized
oppression.
As the tension mounted, city buses began to stack up and sheriff's
deputies slowly encroached toward the human blockade from both sides of
the street. The line of resistance stood firm, however, and soon doubled
when another line was formed mostly of local activists and allies in
the struggle for justice and human rights. Law enforcement officers now
bluntly stated their intention to make mass arrests unless the
intersection was cleared. Still no one moved. The flummoxed deputy again
made his pronouncement, and again the blockade remained. When the
warning was repeated a third time, it became clear that neither the
political will nor manpower was present to effectively deal with the
dozens of civil disobedients who had physically created a wall of
noncompliance at the edge of their town.
Following a phone call from the mayor, and with due regard to the
facts that the symbolic action had accomplished its purpose and the
people had stood up in solidarity, the blockade self-dispersed after
more than an hour of holding the street. The point had been made: people
were tired of living in fear, and they would not comply with laws like
SB 1070 that seek to institutionalize that fear. Make no mistake, the
provisions of the law were designed not so much to change the realities
of living as an undocumented person in Arizona, but more so to inculcate
a climate of permanent fear and to institutionally legitimize the worst
of the state's unjust police practices. But on this day, when the world
would be watching, people stood up.
Episodes like this need to be placed in a context to fully understand
their import. For the residents of tiny Guadalupe, a town made up of
equal parts Mexican and Yacqui, there has been a constant reign of
terror in their midst with the main perpetrators being Sheriff Joe
Arpaio and his deputies. Guadalupe has no police force of its own, and
so had made a contract with the county sheriff's department to take on
the role of policing the township. Over the years there have been
numerous incidents and allegations of police misconduct, leading to a
very public feud
between Guadalupe's former mayor and Arpaio that resulted in the
contract being suspended and the sheriff's department becoming unwelcome
there.
What specifically prompted this dust-up were a set of 2008
immigration "raids" conducted by the sheriff's office, which resulted in
about 150 arrests with nearly half having immigration implications. The
raids themselves essentially devolve upon massive sting operations
where deputies scrutinize moving vehicles for the most minute traffic violations
- for example, a cracked taillight or windshield, changing lanes
without adequately signaling, or the improper use of a horn. These stops
then result in ID checks, searches, and other escalations that can lead
straight to deportations. The raids are conducted primarily in
communities of color, leading many to suggest that the true nature of
the "crime" being targeted is simply being brown-skinned.
Guadalupe's political leadership at the time publicly averred that
Arpaio and his forces had not been invited to the town to conduct these
raids, with the former Vice Mayor bluntly stating that "Arpaio is doing it because he wants to show the Latin people that he has power." A former councilwoman concurred, noting that "this is racial profiling and it needs to stop." For her stance against Arpaio, former mayor Rebecca Jimenez was herself pulled over and ticketed
by sheriff's deputies for a broken headlight. "How do you like working
for a sheriff who racially profiles against people of color?" Jimenez
asked the deputy who pulled her over, according to a report released by
the sheriff. "I didn't think that Sheriff Joe was going to retaliate
against me, but I guess that I was wrong," she said, according to the
report.
This is the backdrop against which Guadalupe's residents took the streets in the opening hours of July 29th. The Phoenix New Times later reported
that the crowd had "faced down" Arpaio's deputies, with one resident
saying that "regardless of what the law says, we're all human beings. We
shouldn't be treated as something else." Following the action, protest
organizer Andrew Sanchez said that "it was peaceful, it was successful,
and we managed to get the cops' attention." Indeed, this action of open
noncompliance with unjust laws and practices was done in the best
tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience, and it merits our attention
as an important part of what will be an ongoing campaign of
"noncooperation with evil" in the days ahead.