Rebellion: causes, contexts, and historical significance

Rebellion

Discuss the problem of how people feel excluded from society and how that leads to rebellion.

Within the fabric of every society are groups of people bonded together through their similar values, culture, race etc. The groups that bond together are prone to exclude others because of their differences. At times these similarities and differences work well together to produce a productive feeling; however, at times the feeling becomes negative and affects the society adversely as one group begins to feel resentment towards the other. This resentment can lead to full fledged rebellion and usually takes place when the basic needs of the group are affected. Consider feelings of nationalism, racism, economic upheaval all of which can individually or collectively combine to create a vortex of aggressive emotions.

In the French Revolution the masses rebelled against the aristocracy as they were getting richer at the expense of the poor. The complete ignorance towards the peasant community created a social and economic stratum that was hard to ignore and as the masses needs were ignored there as created an exclusion that finally gave rise to a bloody rebellion. In the early twentieth century the United States saw a series of Civil Rights Movements as women, blacks and laborers individually rose against white patriarchal America and demanded their rights. For centuries they had been working on the fringes of society, a part of society and yet, with no civil rights. They rebelled against this unfair exclusion and created history as democracy set in.

Throughout history and in various parts of the world such rebellions can be seen and studied and we realize they all have one thing in common: frustration reaching such heights that rebellion becomes inevitable.

Analysis:

Sociologists suggest that when a group of people are excluded within the framework of society a frustration is developed that causes them to feel resentment. This may take years to build up. Many times a group is submissive to the majority and unable to rebel due to economic, physical or mental constraints. However, with the passage of time and the changing society the group may develop the necessary power to understand that they are being treated unfairly and this power leads to rebellion.

The causes may vary. Some of the greatest rebellions have been due to feelings of nationalism, hatred of racism and need for economic and social change. A small group rebelling in society can create chaos if organized in the right way.

Consider the book "Killing Rage" by Eamon Collins. Collins relates his time in the IRA where he played double agent. As a small time clerk for the British he had gained some pertinent information and decided to pass that onto the IRA, thus beginning a perilous journey. Northern Ireland had Catholics who wanted a free Irish Republic. They wanted no interference from the British in their nation and this feeling of nationalism came to the forefront through the representative group of the Irish Republican Army. The Catholics were in the majority and yet, were one of the most excluded groups in society. They were poor, lacked education and their religion set them apart. This exclusion led them to believe that they needed a separate nation and they saw the IRA as their savior. Reagrdless, of its later corruption initially the IRA symbolized nationlistics tendencies for the youth and was supported whole heartedly. As Collins wrote, "I believed that the IRA could be turned into an organization which could take on the capitalist state and the agents of that state, as the Red Brigades had done in Italy." [Collins, 1998]

Such words combined with sentiments like, "I was one of the lucky Catholics in Northern Ireland ... " and "I would become as one with the Catholic underclass, marginalized, on the periphery of society, jobless and poorly educated, powerless and voiceless -- at least until the IRA arrived to help them speak,"[Collins, 1998] suggested that the Catholics were not a part of the mainstream and the IRA projected itself as the redemption of their faith.

Here we see religion and social values of nationalism becoming the main concept of change in the society. The Catholics were economically deprived and social outcasts they were not accepted on basis of their beliefs and religions and while due to their poverty they were unable to demand their rights they managed to get through the IRA a semblance of representation. This representation saw a voicing of their demands through a national rebellion against the injustices they were facing. It is in "Nations and Nationalism" by Ernest Gellner, that we learn of the theories of nationalism that may give rise to rebellions.

According to Gellner [1983] when a society is undergoing economic change there is needed a cultural homogeneity that the state must provide and which is what would cause nationalism. This seems an acceptable theory. The European world has undergone modernization and the British imperialism is at an end. The changes would suggest that Ireland be given freedom but it hasn't. The Catholics in Northern Ireland are a group that is different from the others within the society and should have been accepted as such. That the difference became a marked one and was not protected by the state became evident when they faced prejudice and faced economic suppression. When the economic differences within society became too vast, the group became frustrated and resentment led to rebellion with the aim of a separate nation.

The disintegration of colonialism is one example of the rebellious nature of exclusion from society. In Africa we saw the European colonists, a handful compared to the natives, come together to rule the nations. They trampled on the rights of the natives, worked to civilize them by suppressing their culture and attempted to establish a rule that lasted centuries. They socially and economically demoralized the natives such that the majority sat on the fringes of society in its own nation and saw the white rulers reign supreme. This suppression began to change as industrialization took root in the world and the societies the world over began to become more democratic. Colonialization was a rule of force. There was no attempt to merge to nations peacefully rather, the natives were wrenched from their home base and forced to adapt for fear of their life. It is Frantz Fanon (1961), who writes best about colonialism in Concerning Violence In The Wretched of the Earth:

The settler-native relationship is a mass relationship. The settler pits brute force against the wight of numbers. He ist an exhibitionist. His preoccupation with security makes him remind the native out loud that there he alone is master. The settlers keeps alive in the native an anger which he deprives of outlet; the native is trapped in the tight links of the chains of colonialism. [p 53]