What Is Resistance? Essay

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Resistance in a political sense is put into play when people are offended or on a deeper level, oppressed or repressed by the actions of their government. In this context, when citizens are being harassed, or made to pay unreasonable taxes, or kept from participation in the activities of their government, they resist in various ways. This paper delves into resistance -- the how and why of resistance -- in the Middle East over the past several years.

Resistance to Unreasonable Government Actions

The Library of Congress (LOC) provides in-depth materials on the events leading up to the American Revolution. In their document titled "British Reforms and Colonial Resistance, 1767-1772," the LOC points out that even after the Stamp Act -- which was an unreasonable policy of taxation imposed on the colonists by the British Parliament -- was repealed, there were other "grievances" that called for colonial resistance. The Stamp Act had caused colonists to resist because they had local legislations and democratic assemblies which represented their interests, but the colonists had no representatives in the British Parliament, so it was a matter of being taxed without representation.

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For example, after the Stamp Act was repealed in England, the British "Mutiny / Quartering Act of 1765" (by the Parliament) required colonial "assemblies to house and supply British soldiers" (LOC, p. 1). Not only did colonists object to a "standing army" in their midst, they were very unhappy with the idea of having to provide housing and supplies for the British soldiers. To the colonists, this appeared to be a hidden tax, and "…many colonists began to assert that only an elected legislative body held legitimate powers of taxation" (LOC, p. 1).

The resistance to taxation without representation grew even stronger in the colonies when the British enacted the Townshend Duties, which taxed paper, paints, glass, and tea, all imports to the colonies from England (LOC, p. 2). Once the British established a "board of customs commissioners" (designed to make sure England collected the taxes it felt it was owed), Boston merchants were incensed and a boycott was organized in resistance to the Townshend Duties. Soon Philadelphia and New York joined the boycott. It was the early resistance that led to the Revolutionary War and.....

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