POLITICS | PROTESTS
Even When Protesting Is Illegal, It Is Never Immoral
If something is unlawful, does that equate to unethical or immoral?
Adolf Hitler, Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, and Donald Trump are all the same. Confused? I’m not referring to their positions on the political compass. The only common aspect between all of them is that they’re all leaders.
Irrespective of whether we live in a third-world banana republic or a supposedly developed first-world haven, we’re all ruled by someone at the top. In that way, we are no different from our predecessors who were ruled by monarchs. The monarchy system had a king whose word was the most powerful. And now instead of king, we call that person many names: President, Prime Minister, Supreme Leader, “Democratically Elected Representative.”
There is always someone leading you unless you’re at the absolute top. This system is called the Pyramid Class System. Irrespective of whether you live in a communist ‘heaven’ or a capitalist ‘heaven,’ this pyramid exists.
The law that preserves the pyramid
How has this Class Pyramid System lasted the test of time? It’s simple, every country/kingdom has a law. The law is designed to uphold the stability in the society and that stability denotes that the system runs smoothly.
Again, laws might be different based on the country, culture, and demographic. There is the sharia or religious law in a few Middle Eastern countries, and then there is the constitutional law in most democratic countries. Although these systems vary in their functioning, they are all designed to protect the stability of the society.
The oppressed
The law exists to provide a just and fair society for everyone to live in. But have you observed any country where every guilty person is convicted?
People in the upper strata of the social hierarchy generally have more power and influence than the ones who are in the lower level of the social class pyramid.
The president might commit a crime and get away with it. But a homeless man might serve an undeserving and extended sentence for the same crime.
This misuse of power has been prevalent in many countries. Corruption is present in every pyramid-based society due to the amount of power that the upper classes get.
The people who are treated unfairly by the law system, the people who are in the lowest section of the pyramid might all be oppressed by the upper levels of the society.
The oppressed may include ethnic minorities, below the poverty line population, religious minorities, migrants or immigrants, and other similar groups.
“Unlawful” protests in history
Throughout history, the oppressed have on many occasions waged war on the oppressors. The oppressed have participated in protests, indulged in violence, fought against the supposedly fair law in an effort to get equal rights, just like the people oppressing them.
Here are some instances of when such protests that have taken place throughout history:
Holocaust: The word holocaust means mass destruction on a large scale. But as of today, that word pertains to an era of genocide under Hitler’s rule. Anti-Jewish legislation was rampant during the era of Nazi Germany. There were many laws devised by the Schutzstaffel that blatantly denigrated the Jewish population. Yet, at the time, it was all legal.
Slavery: Slavery has been present throughout history and in every colony. The French colonies in Africa, the African-American slaves used in America, the Spanish inquisitions on South American countries, and more such colonies. In all these colonies, slavery was legal.
Apartheid: This one is a more recent example from South Africa. The Dutch settlers in South Africa thought that they were superior when compared to the locals. Everything was segregated based on the color of their skin. The settlers lived a comfortable life in a rich neighborhood, while the local natives whose land had been conquered, lived in poverty. Again, this was legal under the law until apartheid was ended.
Repression leads to rebellion
All the above protests mentioned were unlawful at those times. But does that indicate that the protests are immoral as the oppressors had called them?
A law that supports degrading the social status of a human being to an object and calling them a slave, a country where innocent people are sent to gas chambers just for being born into a certain race, and a country where racial segregation took place. All these laws were legal in their respective countries, but can they be called morally right?
Anyone who calls them morally correct may be part of the group that’s doing the oppressing.
So many protests have been taking place in the world — the recent Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, the long-standing Palestine-Israel conflicts, and other such movements throughout the world.
Just because someone is breaking the law doesn’t mean they are morally incorrect. In fact, rebellion is the only road to progress. A quote by Irish writer Oscar Wilde perfectly sums this up.
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” -Oscar Wilde
If there is a protest that is taking place, it’s important to understand why it’s taking place. Pushing back against protesters will only worsen the problem. A problem that can be resolved by lawfully protecting the oppressed classes.
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