Blind obedience to the law is the dictator's friend
The government of 18th century England has been described
as "aristocracy tempered by rioting." There is something
of that in any society no matter what its politics, for
all who exercise power become corrupted to a lesser or
greater degree by the identification of their interest with
the common good. Even in a place as politically placid as
modern Britain rioting has played its part in fundamental
change, the last time being in 1990 when the Thatcher
Government was finally frightened into dropping a flagship
tax - the Community Charge, popularly known as the Poll Tax
- by a serious riot in Trafalgar Square in central London.
That is the reality of politics. The theory, as ever, is at
odds with what actually happens and that which is reasonable
and practical. "The law must be obeyed" and "Violence is
always wrong" are two of the most chanted modern political
mantras, at least in the West. Not bad chants as
political dicta go, for the law is the skeleton on which
society rests and violence can all too easily become
an endemic social disease. Yet the logic of an
absolute bar on disobeying the law or engaging in
violence for political ends is that an elite may behave
as badly as they want without fear of punishment.
Suppose the House of Commons passed a law which extended
the life of a Parliament to 50 years - this the Commons could
do quite legitimately, because there is no constitutional
restraint on Parliament. Would we simply accept such
a gross political abuse because it had been achieved
legally, that it was done within the form of democratic
procedure? The sane answer has to be no. But if we do not
accept it, how do we act against those who abuse power
without provoking something approaching anarchy or replacing
one abuse of power with another?
The general answer to this can be found by answering another
question, namely what is political disobedience (in which I
include everything from passive resistance to full blooded
civil war) a substitute for? It replaces the normal
democratic political process. It becomes legitimate where
a society is so ordered that participation in the
political process is either denied overtly or
covertly or when the behaviour of the ruling elite
constitutes treason. Political disobedience is the
civil or internecine version of Clauswitz's "war being the
continuation of politics by other means."
That is all very well, but how in practice do we determine
both when political disobedience is legitimate and the extent
to which it is legitimate in any particular situation?
If political disobedience is not to be merely a means to
gain advantage by an individual or group, it must be
exercised within a moral context. It is to be a means to
an end, not an end in itself. That end must have a clear
and limited moral purpose if lawbreaking or violence is to
have any foreseeable limit. The end must be to create or
restore those structures which are necessary to a free and
democratic society.
Proportionality
Political disobedience should be proportionate to the
political circumstances and the ill to be cured and as
moderate as is compatible with effect. Faced with an
unambiguous, brutal and efficient dictator, the masses are
left with little alternative but extreme violence such as
assassination, because other and lesser forms of protest are
effectively denied.
That is not the case in societies which have at least the
form of representative democracies. In such societies other
forms of political disobedience, including non-violent
methods, can be effective and violence is inappropriate as
anything but a final resort, when all else has failed and the
damage being done by those in power is considerable.
In practice, governments in states which have both the form
of representative democracies and some of the content are
peculiarly vulnerable to even non-violent resistance provided
it is truly widespread or arises from a strike in a vital
industry. Such governments are bound by the pretence at least
that they are not dictatorships. Thus strong-arm measures
which are the common currency of the dictator cannot be used
with impunity because they are publicly observed and sooner
or later elections must be held.
Generally, the more broadly power is spread in a political
system, the wider the range of extra-political
action.
When is it reasonable to disobey the law
When the law is made by made without democratic authority,
when the law is not equally applied, when the law takes
away a man's living, when the law disadvantages one man but
not another, when the law amounts to treason. When, in
short, the law is incompatible with a free, self-governing
society.
What are the requirements for such a society? Above all
there must be free expression, for a free society must be
democratic and a democratic society cannot outlaw any aspect
of life from debate and be called either free or democratic.
The mass media must be both free of government control and
open to all. All adults must have the vote and meaningful
opportunity to engage in mainstream political activity. The
state must not use force against its people which is
disproportionate nor have a monopoly of force.
When is violence justified?
This is the most difficult of questions. In an outright
dictatorship the answer is morally unambiguous; it is simply
justified. But there are, of course, many steps between
elected representative government and outright tyranny.
Ultimately the judgement has to be personal, but made within
criteria which impose clear ends and restraints such as those
discussed above.
There is one instance where violence is unequivocally
justified in a formal democracy, namely where the political
elite as a class engages in behaviour which is objectively
treasonable. It is justified because such a matter becomes a
question of self-defence.
Treason is a slippery word, yet it clearly has an
objective meaning. In a dynastic context it is betrayal of
the sovereign. In a democratic context it is the betrayal of
the population to an external power for the general
population has become the sovereign.
Of what does treason consist? Generally it must be the
conscious decision by those in power to act in a way which
will weaken the integrity of the nation. To give up
sovereignty is by definition to weaken the integrity of a
nation.
Proportionality of violence
Violence should be minimised for moral reasons, but
selective violence is also arguably the most effective.
Elites do not care about violence perpetrated on the masses
unless the violence threatens to provoke public unrest
which the elite is not confident of controlling. What they
really care about is violence directed at the elite. A
good example of this mentality concerns the IRA and
successive British governments in the years 1969-1984.
The IRA practice of public bombing continued for 15 years
after 1969 without gaining anything from British
governments of any political colour. The IRA then
attempted to kill Margaret Thatcher and members of her
cabinet in the Brighton bombing of 1984 during the Tory
Party conference. Within 18 months the Anglo-Irish
Agreement, which granted a foreign power legal rights in
Northern Ireland, had been developed and signed by Margaret
Thatcher and the Irish Prime Minister.
The restriction of violence to those in the elite has
another great advantage, the mass of the population will
not feel threatened. This means that they are less likely
to become viscerally antagonistic to the perpetrator of the
violence. Moreover, if the ends of the perpetrator of
violence are reasonable, then the mass of the population will
probably support them tacitly or at least not violently
oppose them.
Hence for both moral and practical reasons violence should
always be kept to a minimum and directed at the elite,
especially those who wield political power.
A lesson from the past
In the twelfth century there was developed the doctrine of
rightful tyranicide. It has lessons for us. The first and
probably the most famous of its proponents was John of
Salisbury ("He who usurps the sword is worthy to die by the
sword.") John's world is seemingly far removed from ours
in custom as well as years, yet it has striking political
similarities with our own, for the power of European rulers
was very far from absolute. Mediaeval monarchs were
commonly confronted with parliaments resisting taxation,
fractious towns and ambitious nobles. In many ways the
late Middle Ages was more democratic, in the sense of power
being shared, than any subsequent time before the nineteenth
century. The consequence of this was a need to define the
relationship between ruler and ruled in a way which had not
been done since the ancient world struggled with the problem.
For John the distinction was between power legitimately and
illegitimately exercised. In his work Policraticus he puts it
thus:
"Between a tyrant and a prince there is this single
or chief difference, that the latter obeys the law
and rules the people by its dictates, accounting
himself as but their servant. It is by virtue of
the law that he makes good his claim to the
foremost and chief place in the management of the
affairs of the commonwealth." *
In our world, formal kingship with political power is a
rarity, yet we have what are, practically, elected
monarchs in our presidents and prime ministers and an
abundant and never ending supply of unelected tyrants. Even
in the best of the "liberal democracies" power is remote
from the masses. The question which John of Salisbury
addressed in the thirteenth century is an eternal question,
the central problem of politics in fact, namely how shall
those who wield power be prevented from abusing the mass of
those they govern? The only rational answer when formal
democratic methods fail is political disobedience.
*Policraticus Bk. IV. ch. i; Dickinson's trans. p. 3.
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