When injustice becomes law, Rebellion becomes duty.
Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
(But then only a moron like me would assume that the worthy Members of Parliament would understand the sense of that quotation!)
OK, OK, this one's closer to home… maybe and hopefully it will ring a bell!
Where the mind is without fear…
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
This poem is very well-known in popular culture (songs, films, books, performances) all over the world but especially in the Indian subcontinent. Interestingly, the POTUS, Mr. Barack Obama, used the first line in his
address to the Indian Parliament in 2010.
This poem is mentioned all over the WWW in many contexts… I'll just mention one link that I think deserves mention: Sushil Kumar's Blog
As a mature nation, there's no call for us to get our collective knickers in a twist over some over-enthusiastic campus bombast!
We're not that craven, are we?
Or are we?
But then, "Discretion is the better part of valour!" is as good a motto as any — and practical to boot! It's helped me to keep my yardarm squeaky clean and it's helped my conscience slip easily into coma. So before I get paid a courtesy call by the long arm of the Ab Tak Chhappan I'll just clamber back under my well-slimed pebble and keep my foot firmly in my mouth while I listen to the good ol' BeeGees belting out "Stayin' Alive!"
This will give you a prophetic vision of what awaits those of us who "mind our own business".