Is it normal to stand up for what is right? What is Love in action? There is a word that is used extensively in German and French, a word that turns out to be useful in our times, all over the world. The word I am introducing is Zivilcourage. The word means literally the courage of the citizen. The first part comes from latin, civilis, meaning the citizen, not the member of the military, also meaning civilized and decent. The second part of the word is French: Courage. The English has adapted the word into its own language, though pronounced differently. Zivilcourage.
Zivilcourage is the ability to be courageous in mundane situations, which turn towards danger or injustice, and it involves your willingness to put yourself out there, most often in defense of somebody else.
Traditionally it is the civic version of the courage that is expected of a soldier in war, in a situation of battle. The German chancellor Otto von Bismarck used this term in 1864 in which he noted that often courage on the battlefield seemed to be common whereas people lacked the same courage in daily life.
The French Revolution established a set of “civic virtues”, to which “courage civil” belongs. In contrast to military courage the Zivilcourage means an attitude that embraces grace and justice, that is ready to enforce fairness and social norms even if this makes this individual feel uncomfortable or threaten his/her safety. Zivilcourage is built on values and merits that are especially visible when the human dignity of another person is threatened. It is easy to see the Christian backdrop of this virtue.
Examples for Zivilcourage range from Biblical times to our era. The midwives Schifra and Pua were asked to kill all newborn Hebrew boys and resisted, saving the children (see Exodus 1: 15-21), Moses stood before the Pharao and demanded to set the enslaved Israelites free, several prophets of the Hebrew Bible stood publicly with threatened individuals, taking a stand for the greater good. Jesus Christ, standing by the weak and uncovering publicly the cruelty of the Sanhedrin, the council of priests in Jewish culture, is being regarded as a stellar model for this virtue. In the 20th century the siblings Scholl and their organization Weisse Rose expressed Zivilcourage by distributing flyers against national socialism in Germany. They paid their Zivilcourage with their lives. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who openly challenged the Nazi regime and its inherent Anti-semitism, is a prime example of Zivilcourage that continues to inspire today.
My sister Beate and my grandparents hid a Jewish man in their Berlin apartment during part of the Nazi era (1942-1945), knowing that this act of Zivilcourage could lead to arrest and being sent to a concentration camp, but also knowing that not standing up for someone else would be impossible. Our grandmother resisted the Nazis publicly several times, endangering her own safety. But she was a practicing Christian Scientist and felt a deep connection to her fellow man. She felt that expressing Zivilcourage was mandatory once you understood the universality of the higher law of good. Our grandmother would teach my sister and me that the only thing that mattered would be who we are if nobody is watching. Zivilcourage and conscience are two sides of the same coin.
What these examples have in common is an understanding of a higher law, something that binds us all together and makes the artificial distinction between family and foreigner disappear. It is the expression of courage in spite of danger and following one’s conscience rather than being intimidated by power.
- Evil needs the silence of the majority. (Kofi A. Annan, Ghana, seventh General Secretary of the United Nations)
- We should look with pitying eye on the momentary success of all villainies, on mad ambition and low revenge. This will bring us also to look on a kind, true, and just person, faithful to conscience and honest beyond reproach, as the only suitable fabric out of which to weave an existence fit for earth and heaven. (Mary Baker Eddy, USA, religious leader and teacher)
- You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both. (Brené Brown, USA, author and professor for social work)
It is not about better or worse human beings. We all are made out of the same cloth, the spiritual, cooperative, responsive fabric of being; we all are family, real family, although it feels and looks often like a crazy cluster. The order of being is revealed moment by moment in man. Will we ever make progress within humanity? We will, one step at a time. Zivilcourage is not a personal property but the expression of the profound truth of being, that there is only one Mind, one consciousness, setting the standard of ethics and defining right. Zivilcourage is an expression of Divinity.
