Civil disobedience

From Le Hub/The Climate Justice Organizing HUB
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Civil disobedience is an active and often public nonviolent violation of particular laws, decrees, regulations, ordinances, military or police commands and other orders. This is usually done in protest of laws or orders which are regarded as immoral, unjust, or tyrannical and with the expectation and acceptance by the perpetrator(s) of the legal consequences of this disobedience. Sometimes an individual or group may disobey a particular law as a symbol of opposition to wider policies of the government, or the government’s rule itself. -Gene Sharp [1]


Examples of Civil Disobedience in so-called Canada

Blockades

  • The Fairy Creek blockades to protect the old growth trees in so-called British Columbia, on Pacheedaht Nation territory (also employed 'tree-sits' in their direct action)
  • Human or structural blockades between police and houseless people in encampments, to protest the encampment eviction, lack of shelter space and housing for all.

Sit-ins

  • University student sit-ins, whether in university centres, board member's offices, meeting spaces etc., to pressure their universities to divest from fossil fuels.
Strikes/Marches
  • Student strikes which often target municipal, provincial and/or the federal government, are raising the alarm for climate action.
  • Occupy marches were held across so-called Canada to protest corporate greed and financial inequality
  • 2012 Quebec student strikes to protest increasing tuition fees


If you have any suggested revisions or additional resources to share related to the above content, please email them to kenzie@lehub.ca.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.


Back to Homepage