Forms of civil disobedience

Different cases and forms of civil disobedience

The material forms of the claimed actions of civil disobedience are very diverse. A distinction can be made in particular between those that are essentially passive, those that are more offensive and, among these, those involving the destruction of material goods (uprooting of GMO maize plants, for example). The latter obey specific legal qualifications.

Actions at global level

(Blocking of a London bridge, by Extinction Rebellion in 2018. )

The actions of peaceful resistance of the anti-globalization movement during its “counter-summits”, or training workshops in civil disobedience are followed by activists of this movement (in order to learn illegal non-violent techniques and attitudes to hold in case of arrest) demonstrate that civil disobedience is a strategy in its own right for part of this movement.

Anarchists advocate civil disobedience as a means of escaping the state, in the form of political squats, appropriations, actions, etc.

Since 2015, thousands of activists meet every year in Germany to block a coal mine.

Since 2018, the international environmental non-violent civil disobedience movement Extinction Rebellion has been active in many countries.

Civic disobedience

One of the first uses of the term civic disobedience took place on December 19, 1996 with the publication of the “Call for civic disobedience” by several film personalities, in refusal of the Debré laws and their provisions relating to immigration. The text contains these words: “We call on our fellow citizens to disobey and not submit to inhuman laws”.

In the book For Civic Disobedience, José Bové and Gilles Luneau define six criteria to be jointly met to thus characterize an act:

1. it’s a personal and responsible act: you have to know the risks involved and not evade legal sanctions
2. it is a disinterested act: one disobeys a law contrary to the general interest, not for personal gain
3. it is an act of collective resistance: we mobilize with a view to a larger collective project
4. it is a non-violent act: the aim is to convert both public opinion and the adversary, not to provoke repression or an armed response; any attack on property can only have a symbolic dimension
5. it is a transparent act: one acts with one’s face uncovered
6. it is an ultimate act: one disobeys after having exhausted the remedies of dialogue and legal actions

Tax resistance

Tax resistance is a political act of refusing to participate in the taxation of one’s country in the name of moral values. However, apart from hardline anarchists, the “resister” chooses instead to reduce their contribution only in proportion to the actions of the government they disapprove of. For example, a pacifist will only deduct his taxes in proportion to the budget of the army (National Defense). This method is limited to direct taxes, and is more difficult to achieve with indirect taxes where it is the trader who acts as collector and would be unfairly affected.

Various groups are working to legalize a form of conscientious objection to military taxation that would allow conscientious objectors to designate their taxes to be spent only on non-military budget items.

Critique of civil disobedience

The first two criticisms addressed to civil disobedience by its detractors, in a democracy, are its lack of legitimacy, since the breach of republican law should not be rewarded, and a risk of political deviation, individual interests cannot prevail over those of the community. More generally, contesting a democratically decided measure is a refusal to comply with the common rule likely to represent a threat to democracy, since this refusal calls into question the principle that the minority undertakes to accept the decisions taken by a majority, a principle which is the very basis of the idea of ​​democracy.

A second series of criticisms relates to the weakness of this form of political action, which can easily be rendered invisible or insignificant by the authorities, for example by ignoring the refusal by not prosecuting their authors, or even when, with regard to simple directives, the refusal to apply them is attributed to the latitude granted to the agents to follow them or not.

(Includes texts from Wikipedia translated and adapted by Nicolae Sfetcu)