Civil Disobedience

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CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

     Meaning: According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics, civil disobedience is “a political act involving disobeying governmental authority on grounds of moral objection with the aim of promoting a just society.” According to Heywood (2007) civil disobedience is law-breaking that is justified by reference to “higher” religious, moral or political principles. It is an overt and public act; it aims to break a law in order to make a point; not to get away with it. This assertion by Heywood vividly shows that civil-disobedience is a deliberate act.

     Moreover civil disobedience has also been defined as intentional or voluntary violation of order or disrespecting a constituted authority. According to John Rawls (quoted in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2007), “civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws and government policies.” He asserts that people who engage in act of civil disobedience are willing to accept the legal consequences of their action. Many activists, analysts and philosophers like Plato have argued that what causes civil disobedience is unjust law and lack of civic education in a state.

*Note that civil disobedience is different from radical protest, terrorism, revolution, etc.

Origin: the term civil disobedience was coined by Henry David Thoreau in his 1848 essay to describe his refusal to pay the state tax implemented by the American government to prosecute a war in Mexico and to enforce the fugitive slave law. In his essay, Thoreau observes that only a very few people… serve their society with their conscience, and are commonly treated by it as enemies. Thoreau, for his part, spent time in jail for his protest. Many after him have proudly identified their protests as acts of civil disobedience…(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/).

Attributes of Civil Disobedience

1.Conscientiousness: This shows that civil disobedience is a carefully planned exercise which has clear stated objectives and aims. It is devoid of mobocratic tendency.

2.Publicity: The act of civil disobedience is always made public for people and government to know what caused the act. Publicity is what dichotomizes it from other secret organizations.

3.Willingness: It is a voluntarily and consciously planned action. Therefore before one engages in the act of civil disarray, one must be willingly and determined to face both intended and unintended consequences.

Written by Andrew O. Eze

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