Ephraim Essien|18 November 2015|5:06am
RIGHT TO CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE/NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE
By Ephraim S. A. Essien
Civil disobedience is the active refusal to obey certain laws, policies, demands and commands of a government or leader, or of an occupying power, without resorting to physical violence. It is one of
the many ways people have rebelled against unfair laws. Although the word “civil" has many definitions, the one that is intended in the case of “civil” disobedience is “relating to citizens and their interrelations with one another or with the state.
Therefore, “civil disobedience” refers to “disobedience to the state”. Civil disobedience is the right citizens have to disobey an unjust law.
Proponents of civil disobedience
John Locke, in his social contract theory had suggested that the people had a right to set up a
government (body politics) of their own through periodic elections. The people entrust sovereignty to the sovereign who is also part of the common wealth. The sovereign takes up the leadership of
government as a trust. However, if the sovereign betrays this trust, turning tyrannical, Locke argues
that exercise of government reverts to the governed, and the governed are at liberty to disobey the tyrannical sovereign, remove the tyrant, and constitute a new body politic.
England revolted in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 against the “divine rights monarchy" of King James I. Following the political philosophy of John Locke (an
ideological father of America), the American Federalist Fathers walked away from the kingship of George III to set up the United States of America in 1776. With the influence of the American Declaration of Independence, the French people revolted against the tyranny of King Louis IV; consequently 'downing'
the monarchy, thus revolting and declaring the rights of the citizen, summed up in the motto: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. The 1917 October Revolution in Russia was a civil disobedience against Tzarism.
Henry David Thoreau, an American author, pioneered the modern theory behind civil disobedience in his 1849 essay: CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, originally titled Resistance to Civil
Government. Thoreau argues that people should not permit government to atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing such
acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican-American war.
Thoreau had a great influence on Gandhi and Martin Luther king, Jr. Gandhi was so impressed by Thoreau’s arguments that in 1904, in South Africa, he wrote a translated synopsis of Thoreau’s argument for Indian Opinion, and there credited Thoreau’s essay with being “the chief cause of the abolition of slavery in America”, and wrote that “both his example and writings are at present exactly applicable to the Indians in the Transvaal. Gandhi appreciated the “incisive logic” of Thoreau’s essay. He basically developed his idea of civil disobedience and named it “Civil Resistance”, since, according to him, “civil disobedience” failed
to convey the full meaning of the struggle against the authority in South Africa and against the British
colonialists in India.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was another great proponent of nonviolent resistance, and was thus the leader of American civil rights movement in the 1960s. Dr. King sustained the heart beat of the Montgomery
Bus Boycott, one of the biggest civil right movements, which made him a famous civil rights activist. He advocated for nonviolent resistance to unjust governmental laws and practices in the United States of American. The author of “I have a
Dream” was influenced by Gandhi, as Gandhi was influenced by the Thoreau. Thus, he wrote in his
autobiography: During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander’s refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance…I
became convinced that noncooperation with evil is much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good…As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative
protest. The teaching of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott
in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau’s insistence that evil must be resisted and
that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.
The central idea behind civil disobedience is that of honest resistance to injustice. Civil disobedience was a significant factor behind the fall of the Berlin
Wall in 1989 by East Germans. India and former colonies in Asia and Africa gained their independence through nationalist movements, a
form of civil disobedience. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and
Steve Biko, advocated civil disobedience. The 1989 Purple Rain protest, and the Cape Town Peace
March were outgrowths of the efforts of the men of honour.
Can civil disobedience change the Nigerian status quo? Civil disobedience stems from the idea of civil obligation. Should the citizens obey unjust laws? Nigerians need a morally courageous conscience to
say and act “No!” to corrupt laws and practices. We need a revolution !!! DO WE HAVE A RIGHT TO PROTEST AGAINST UNFAIR LAWS AND POLICIES?
Ephraim Stephen Akan Essien
Is a University Don who Holds a Ph.D in Philosophy of Science
