On resistance: As evinced in Iranian political affairs

Abstract

Along with fundamental rights such as liberty and property, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 also envisions a right to resist oppression. Irrespective of one's place on the political spectrum, resistance has been employed as an alternative both to submission and to revolt. After briefly sketching a historical and theoretical account of resistance I propose two parallel sets of criteria to further characterize good resistance. I submit that the first set is normative (I call it emancipatory) and the second set is critical (meaning it can be empirically assessed). I further break this typology down as follows: (1) Resistance is emancipatory when it is (a) nonviolent, (b) progressive, and (c) civil; and (2) it is critical when it seeks to (a) change policies and practices that are unjust, and (b) empower citizens to enjoy their full rights. I show the usefulness of this scheme by applying it to the political situation in Iran and by evincing these criteria in three instances of resistance there. Thus, in this context, I argue, resistance is a preferable alternative to both revolution and reform.