To the editor:

I encountered a cynic recently.

He sneeringly pooh-poohed John Monroe’s recent 36-hour vigil for the Constitution on the corner of Main and River Streets (reported in the June 3 edition of the Enterprise). One person standing in protest can’t make a difference, the cynic opined.

I cannot disagree more.

One person can absolutely make a difference, when the cause is just. That one person will be joined by others who see the same need for justice and truth (as opposed to ‘manufactured truth’ the product of propagandists and partisans). A tiny leak in a dam can lead to a flood; a spark can ignite a conflagration. A small protest can bring down a dictator — not overnight, of course, but justice and truth have resilience that greed, corruption, and egotism do not.

One lone protester can stop a column of tanks; can engender a movement for human rights across multiple countries; can weaken fundamentalist notions of who may speak or go to school; can change industries’ attitudes on sustainability and pollution; can free colonies from empires powers (250 years ago, on our continent, for instance). It takes inquisitiveness, hard work, courage and often self-sacrifice. But it is possible.

The cynic wasn’t convinced. You might as well, he said, do nothing at all.

Nothing-at-all was what led Martin Niemller to write, confronting the German Nazi regime, his essay/poem “First they came for the Jews…”

John Monroe’s non-violent solo act was not a lone act. People across the country stand vigil, write letters, make phone calls, post signs, confront masked enforcers — no one of them will engender immediate change, but taken together, and multiplied, change will come. It requires acts of resistance large and small in support of the true aspirations of our nation — a nation of immigrants, of freedoms, of diverse opinions held with respect for others’ opinions, of curiosity, industriousness and open-mindedness.

Our country’s motto is “Out of many, one.” It seems these days that some would change it to “Keep out the many; obey the powerful.”

Accepting a horrible situation without push-back is not an answer. It is capitulation; surrender. It is, in effect, support for those responsible for making the situation horrible.

We should all consider the objective rightness and justice of anything done on behalf of our nation — whether that’s depriving people of human or legal rights, withholding access to healthcare or nutrition, wielding power in a vindictive or arbitrary manner, or pursuing short-term profits over the welfare of our planet’s environment. If we determine an action or policy is immoral, inhumane or in conflict with our faith, how can we not push against that action or policy?

I respect anyone who — like John Monroe — is willing to publicly stand for his beliefs.

Peter C. Wilson

Lake Clear