Introduction
Resistance is the refusal to comply with the stated rules as per the laid down guidelines. It can be either active or passive resistance. Active resistance involves mass protests associated with violence and damage of property to speak against any form of injustice while passive resistance involves peaceful demonstrations or boycotts of products and refusing to obey the laws until the prevailing problem is solved. According to Erickson Nepstad and Kurtz (2012), over the years active or passive resistance has been used to air grievances or dissatisfaction of a certain group of people among them being human rights activists, minority groups, and political activists especially those in opposition. Therefore, it has become the only way to achieve justice when the people get oppressed by any authority or government right from the past until today.
Discussion
Childs and Williams (2014) asserted that there have been different forms of injustices in the historical past. The most common was slavery in the colonial era. This was met with active and passive form of resistance. A clear example of active resistance was where slaves used to run away from their masters plantations to friendly neighborhood. Slaves would also damage property of their masters in bid to express their anger from harsh treatment. Women who cooked for their masters would poison them by use of toxic plants which they added to their master’s food. The British masters incurred huge losses when the slaves would run away or damage their plantations. Active resistance was more frequent with immigrants from Africa since they had experienced freedom from their motherland. Slaves were sold like commodities of trade which was evil and unjust (Childs & Williams, 2014).
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Passive resistance was associated with faking illness, go on hunger strike, slaves would educate themselves to be able to resist, and others retained their cultural practices and refused the culture of British and their religion. There was rise of revolts and rebellion in British West Indies that resulted in massive execution of slaves while others were shipped away. Their rights were violated leading to major revolutions in the world ( Jenkins, Kennedy & Mukhopadhyay, 2014). Their resistance had a huge impact on the economic stability of British colonizers as it struggled from the huge losses incurred due to constant rebellion. It was inhumane to persecute and molest the slaves since they were human beings who were supposed to be treated with dignity and respect.
There was change of economic policies in England as the profitability from the plantations and system of slavery was in decline. The constant threats from slaves made the situation worse for planters. The resistance from the slaves resulted in revolts or violence that lead to loss of valuable property such as factories and white human lives (Jenkins et al., 2014). Slave trade was then abolished as it was no longer profitable. There was industrial revolution and the economy was heading to a capitalist system. British no longer needed goods from colonies. There were subsidies from government factories which begun producing and employing thousands of workers who had earlier been treated as slaves. Slaves were promised jobs in the factories since commodities like cotton was in high demand and profitable ( Erickson et al., 2012) . Therefore, active resistance made the British abolish slave trade and begun to respect the rights of slaves by treating them like other human beings and offering them jobs in their factories (Puggioni, 2014).
Resistance against slavery was also taken over by the church as the Church of England had rebirth of their Christian faith which had a positive thinking of every man being a brother of another. Slavery was seen as immoral and un-Christian thus resulting in joining the abolitionist movement to end slavery. The church was fully involved in emancipation process. The abolition movement aimed at ending the slavery as it had a big power of two-third majority. Jenkins et al., (2014) noted that there was also a big pressure on British government from human rights activists and association of individuals to abandon slavery and slave trade. The British masters realized that African slaves are human beings like them and they began to adopt a more human stance. The plantation owners were awarded a grant of twenty million as compensation for the losses and for ending slavery. The African slaves were given the freedom that they fought for though they were never given the land. Their resistance therefore had a big impact on the economic, political and social aspect of the British colonizers which made them to give in to the demands of the slaves (Puggioni, 2014).
In the modern world today, active and passive resistance still exist. In political environment, the minority groups who oppose the government often incite the public to resist the government laws and regulations when they feel that those laws are meant to oppress them. The opposition may hold peaceful demonstrations or violent protests until their issues are addressed. People may stop buying products from manufactures or stop using certain products to express dissatisfaction as a form resistance towards the changes implemented. The economic conditions of the country may be affected negatively due to political instability fuelled by resistance from the opposition side of the government (Jenkins et al., 2014).
The oppressed minority groups may be compensated in cash and kind. Monetary compensation is made when property gets damaged or stolen resulting from direct influence of resistance. A good example was when slave masters were paid for the loss made from their plantations (Childs & Williams, 2014). There are instances where the British government has been sued to compensate the atrocities they caused to people in their respective colonies during the colonial era. Land taken from people who were colonized was returned after the countries were given independence. The same is being done even today as the government is forced to compensate any form of injustice caused to its citizens.
References
Childs, P., & Williams, P. (2014). An introduction to post-colonial theory . Routledge.
Erickson Nepstad, S., & Kurtz, L. R. (Eds.). (2012). Nonviolent Conflict and Civil Resistance . Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Jenkins, R., Kennedy, L., & Mukhopadhyay, P. (2014). Power, Policy, and Protest: The Politics of British Special Economic Zones . Oxford University Press.
Puggioni, R. (2014). Speaking through the body: Detention and bodily resistance in America. Citizenship Studies , 18 (5), 562-577.
