Can we defy power in a non-violent way?

POWER

During the year we studied the notion of power through several documents. We can define   the power like a force conscious or unconscious which leads people to act and do things. It is exercised in different places such as at school, work and even at home and by different people, the government, the parents, the boss ... Power can be associated to counterpower, that is to say people disagreeing with this power. This was the case of many activists who used the civil disobedience, it consist to refuse to obey some laws with the aim to influence legislation, often because they find it unfair.

The question then arises, Can we defy power in a non-violent way?

To answer  at this open question I chose to present 3 documents. The first is the recording on Rosa Parks then I will talk about the pictur of Gandhi during the Salt March,  and finally the movie " the suffragettes"

Power can be exercised in many ways, focusing on those non-violent we will see the story of Rosa Parks, a famous activist. In the listening a man tells us about the episode of 1995 which took place in Montgomery in Alabama when she's 42 years old. We are in the United States and segregation is at its peak, blacks people are considered  inferior to the whites. On day, she refused to give her seat on a bus to a white man. She was the first to have defied the American laws but was arrested by the police but it was not the end of the struggle for equal rights . After, She launched with Martin Luther King a bus boycott who lasted 381 days. Thanks to this woman and her disobedience , in 1964 it was the end of the segregation laws in public places.

The second document represents Gandhi during the March of Salt in march 1930. We can see him in the middle of the white and black picture, surronded by full of activist. By demonstrating civil disobedience they want to get economic independence of India beaucoup it was a british colony. Gandhi wants to change thing, like Rosa Parks and then uses peaceful means like march. There were undreads of thousan of participants, this shows the power of the union but many have finished in jail. Gandhi is an important figure, he inspired Nelson Mandela in South Africa or Martin Luther King

Now, I'm going to talk about the movie Suffragettes by Sarah Gavron release in 2015.The film takes place during the 19th century in England, a group of women decide to fight for the right to vote. They consider it unacceptable that men can vote but that women do not. This is the beginning of a long struggle for equality. With in first, demonstrations but has come up with nothing,the government does not listen to them. So his women are forced to be violent, break windows, burn houses of political leaders ... But they will  be tracked, separated from their families, fired from their work, jailed.  In this country, non-violent means was not enough for the moment.

Thus, civil disobedience can change the legislation, but not all the time because the authority of the government is hard to challenge. I chose to these documents because they illustrate the idea of fighting for justice, gender equality, blacks and whites peoples. Finally, I want to say a sentence that the Suffragette heroine , Maud said "If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable."

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