I read about the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, when the French Protestants began producing political resistance literature. I did a search on modern political resistance literature just to see what I would find. What I found at first was fine and made sense right away.
"Resistance literature and the development of it in the Shane Gunderson discusses how resistance movements may gain momentum, as “popular intellectuals” facilitate and combine ideological work with political initiative. Gunderson shows, through a case-study, that structuring resistance in a more strategic fashion, through sequential actions, will increase the possibility of social change."
Sounds good right? Social change is good. One of the paragraphs below it though sort of freaked me out. I think the mention of Al Qaeda in the U.S. makes the hair on the back of our necks stand on end a bit. On this site a person was pleading for help and support for some friends in the U.K. who apparently downloaded an Al Qaeda training manual off of a public web site. They were detained for a week by the government and threatened to be deported.
You may think, "Well that was a stupid thing to do, why did they do that?" At first, that was my thought, but get this...they were encouraging others to download the manual as well. That seems like an even dumber idea…or is it just that the idea of political resistance and resistance literature is alive and well. It is one thing to read about something that happened in the 1570s and another to read about what people are actually doing now.
If the idea that the "people themselves are the ultimate source of political authority" is still alive, then their curiosity is valid. I don't believe that this site is condoning the overthrow of a government. They seem to be saying that they reserve the right to question and to resist in an acceptable manner. I agree with that.
I personally have no curiosity about what is in the Al Qaeda training manual and I’m for sure not going to download it. Should a person be detained if they do though? Should you be thrown in jail if you burn the American flag? Should your phone be tapped and all your e-mails be scanned if you are known to speak out against the government? When is resistance valid and when is it not?
I think we tend to see resistance as wrong or stupid, but those who avoid conflict, never ask questions and never resist for the sake of comfort rarely ever change their world.
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2 comments:
WOW....Great Post Tarl. Really got me thinking about things. Yes I think there is Resistance Literature now but with today's technology it is different than back then. Your example of the Al Qaeda manual downloading really brought it home though. Yes it is scary to think about that and I agree with you, where should the line be drawn? No one wants their privacy taken away or their freedoms but everyone wants to know they are safe from terrorism too. We see examples of resistance literature as well with our recent presidential election, and I'm sure we will see A LOT more of it in the future.
Your post really got me thinking too... I couldn't help but think of what "government" means when I read what you wrote about how far the government should go in punishing those who speak out against it. Really, government is "to govern", that is to exercise authority over somebody or a body of people. With an exercising of authority come some things that we may not agree with or even like (ex: punishment when we burn the flag and our phones being tapped). I'm not saying this is an excuse for the government exercise their authority too much, I'm saying that some things are a small price to pay. The alternative would be almost no government. I would live in fear everyday. I'm willing to let the government maybe listen in on a few of my conversations, be pissed if I burn the flag, and make some rules that I might not wholeheartedly agree with. At least we have someone setting boundaries and drawing the line. Besides, MOST of the time people are upset about government interference or eavesdropping is when they're doing something they really shouldn't be. For the most part you can live a normal life here and not run into government snares. This thinking should not squash free thinking though and we shouldn't be robots. I'm happy (for the most part) to live under the U.S. government. But if things were to change or if the price became too high to pay, you bet I'd be putting my foot down and writing all kinds of rebellious political literature. :)
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