Use legitimate media sources to identify two specific incidents where government
ID: 1159826 • Letter: U
Question
Use legitimate media sources to identify two specific incidents where government impinged upon citizen rights. Find one incident that happened in the USA. Find a second incident that occurred outside the USA. Based upon the course materials, how do you know someone’s rights were denied? (Differentiate between the acts of an individual who is employed, elected, or appointed to government and actions or policies that are endorsed by the government.)
The incident:
Discuss the pertinent details of the incident:
Source in which you investigated the incident:
Use the course materials to make your argument
Argument 1:
Source 1:
Argument 2:
Source 2:
Argument 3:
Source 3:
Prescription: Citizens should (not) have dissented against this act of government? (Yes/No)
Discuss your conclusion:
Make a reasonable counter-argument to YOUR argument:
Discuss your conclusion:
The incident:
Discuss the pertinent details of the incident:
Source in which you investigated the incident:
Use the course materials to make your argument
Argument 1:
Source 1:
Argument 2:
Source 2:
Argument 3:
Source 3:
Prescription: Citizens should (not) have dissented against this act of government? (Yes/No)
Discuss your conclusion:
Make a reasonable counter-argument to YOUR argument: the law is vague on purpose to allow police to seize any property that is allowing crime to take place.
Discuss your conclusion:
The incident:
Discuss the pertinent details of the incident:
Source in which you investigated the incident:
Use the course materials to make your argument
Argument 1:
Source 1:
Argument 2:
Source 2:
Argument 3:
Source 3:
Prescription: Citizens should (not) have dissented against this act of government? (Yes/No)
Discuss your conclusion:
Make a reasonable counter-argument to YOUR argument:
Discuss your conclusion:
The incident:
Discuss the pertinent details of the incident:
Source in which you investigated the incident:
Use the course materials to make your argument
Argument 1:
Source 1:
Argument 2:
Source 2:
Argument 3:
Source 3:
Prescription: Citizens should (not) have dissented against this act of government? (Yes/No)
Discuss your conclusion:
Make a reasonable counter-argument to YOUR argument: the law is vague on purpose to allow police to seize any property that is allowing crime to take place.
Discuss your conclusion:
Explanation / Answer
Incident-1:Montgomery Bus Incident in 1955
The Montgomery Bus Boycott is evidently a massive incident in the history of civil rights in America which subsequently propelled a national level civil rights movement across the country and marked the asecndancy of one of the greatest social leader of all times,Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.During 1955,based on the Jim Crowe law,there was an explicit segregation between black and white passengers regarding seating arrangements in local public busesin Montogomery,Alabama.African Americans were still majorly required to sit in a separate section alloted for black passengers are were not permitted sit besides any white passenger.On December 1,1955,an African American lady named Ms.Rosa Parks had been travelling to her job at a local departmental store and boarded the bus.She sat on the front section of the "black row" for a while when she was asked to vacate along with 3 other African American passengers by the driver upon arrival of a white male passenger to make seating room for him.Despite uncontested compliance from the other 3 fellow passengers,Ms.Parks refused to give away her seat and her conduct,seen as a legal contravention,she had been arrested by the local police authority,fined $10 and an additional $4 for the court and other administrative fee.Now,Ms.Parks has never been known for any active social dissents or protests, but she did have some direct/indirect affiliation with the movement for racial equality as exemplified by her esteemed position as the secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People(NAACP).
Based on a documentary news feature presented by History Channel and a New York Times contemporary analysis of the erstwhile event,the Montgomery bus boycott incident has been revisited through vivid examination of the particular details of the incident that evidently galvanized a national level mass civil rights movement.These journalistic portrayals along with a prolonged and queit inhuman history of racial persecution and intolerance in America incidentally unravels some serious considerations and attributes that endengered civil and social rights issues multiple times ranging from anti-slavery movement to a more relatively more contemporary civil rights movement which literally shook the nation as to how such racially discriminatory practices still exist in modern society amidst immense progres of rationality,science and education.
Now,pertaining to the particular incident,Ms.Parks arrest aroused widespread protests and condemnetaion especially among the black population as the news spread all over the country.Following her victory in the court,there have been several alleged incidents of racial brutality commited by white fundamentalists which included rape of black girls,murdering and lynching of black individuals by Klansmen (McAdam,1983).Now as McAdam(1983) points out,firstly,depriving any individual of his/her public accessibility or convenience based on color is a simple and blatant violation of civil and personal rights in the first place.Moreover,such discriminatory attitude has not been evidently shown by the authorities on white counterparts and hence,the discriminatory attitude is only directed or targeted towards one racial group,which in this case is the black.In this regard,it can be reasonably argued that there has not been any publicly disseminated report of public discrimination directed towards any white individual at least prior to the Montigomery bus incident.Thus,as argued by McAdam(1983) this might be a justifiable indication that either the public administration including the political governance and the legislative body is either actively promoting such acts of social and racial inequality or completely ignorant about it.Furthermore,the arrest and legal trial of Ms.Parks further strentgthens this argument.
Secondly,furthermore,it must be noted that Ms.Parks had been particularly sitting on the front row of the balck section,which itself is not a legal violation or contravention.According to Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History,it was expected under Jim Crowe law that any black passenger sitting at the initial rows of the black section to leave their seats for any white passengers and were required to stand if appropriate seating arrangement was not there.Hence,apart from the fact any social deprevation based on racial identity can be logically regarded as violation of individual rights,it is also very much pertinent that the arrest and legal prosecution of Ms.Parks was not actually due to violation of any legal stipulations but based on some social expectations impelled by some pre-conceived and historically entrenched discriminatory beliefs.This again proves the veracity of social beliefs and historically followed public norms which had evidently influenced the political governance as well.
Thirdly,Ms.Parks had been personally victimized by other discriminatory conducts as well multiple times based on the documentary coverage made by History Channel.It has been reported that on many occassions,the bus driver had intentionally drove past the bus while she was about to enter and she had to enter from the back door.Hence,there are sporadic incidents of personal harrassment faced by Ms.Parks as well which also ammounts to individual distress and discriminatory parctices.
Now,it is seen that the Motgomery bus incident impelled a massive and widespread civil rights movement across the country which are based on the incremental impact of a prolonged history of racial discrimination in America.Hence,the initiation of the civil rights movement cannot be solely attributed to the bus incident but is practically an aggregation of the seemingly unending viscous cycle of social persecution,economic inequality and political repression over African American population with little or no ethical considerations.Thus,civil rights in America is a justifiable reflection of a brutal and inhuman saga of racial repression in American history which could have been non-existent if circumstances have been altered.
It can be said that on the other hand,that the civil rights movement cannot be justified based on only a single incident as any such movement could possibly lead to a widepsread violent outburst and besides,many can argue that Ms.Parks subsequently was freed and the court recognized her perspectives.However,it must be noted that the Montgomery bus incident has a much profound and pervasive implications that highlights some important considerations pertaining to human rights restoration.From this perspective both Ms.Park's denial and the civil rights movement can be logically supported as both the events unravels some of the darkest moments of truth in American history that suppossedly no one can deny.Furthermore,both Ms.Park's conduct in the bus and the civil rights movement were not inherently violent in nature and both had intended to convey a social and political message to the entire world in a logical and rational manner.
Event-2:Land Movement in Nandigram,India
In March,2007,the state government of West Bengal,a federal state in India,under collaboration with an Indonesian Industrial group,intended to relocate thousand of farmers by acquiring their agricultural land in a loca village named Nandigram for industrial purposes.As reported by Times of India,a national level news paper in India,the state government initially offered monetary compensation to local farmers to sell their agricultural lands to the government which were still productive and fertile.Majority of farmers expectedly refused as those lands where their ancestral lands and for some the only means of economic sustainance and survival.Now,in many of these families the male members are the only bread earners who would go out and work in their private agrocultural lands for economic livelihood and self-consumption.The female members of the families would be predominantly home makers taking care of household chores and activities.Now,upon the refusal of the farmers,the state government employed state police and even military force to forcible acquire all the agricultural lands at the expense of huge property damage and monetary loss.This ideally impelled a quiet large local mass movement by the farmers and their families to ward off police and administrative forces to resist unjust acquisition of land for economic purposes.
The Telegraph,another national newspaper in the country states that the farmers peacefully refused to gove away their lands but the local authorities and the state police launched several aggressive assualts on the local population even killing few.Many social reformers and journalists termed this incident as painful,shameful and deserving utmost social and legal abhorrance as it was widely conceived as a politically motivated agenda to promote industrialization for the personal benefit of the local government.The violence and bloodshed further fuelled more aggressive conducts both by the dissenters and the local police force which created even more headlines and political controversies.As increasingly more farmers and local including women and children joined the land movement in Nandigram,the state governmet became even more repressed and deployed an additional 3000 local policemen to launch a comprehensive attack to completely suppress the movement.
Now,with respect to violation of civil and political rights of the common citizens,it is blatantly obvious that state government exhibited a complete disregard for the citizen's rights as enumerated in the constitution.Firstly,as extracted from Times of India,it is absolutely unconstitutional and unethical for any political governance both at the federal and state level to enforce any violence means(especially local judicial force or military power) over the common civilians or citizens of the nation.Hence,in the first place,the act of the central government has been condemned as unjustified,unethical and degrading the constitutional authority.Infact,many local and even national level human rights organizations argued that any political administration does not have the constitutional right to suppress the voice and rights of common people for the sake of any economic purpose even it is potentially beneficial for the regional development.
Secondly,according to Roy(2016),like any properly functioning democratic society,the Supereme Court and the constitution of India grants the right to all its citizen to formulate "peaceful and reasonable" protest/demonstration to express public grievances safeguard their own demands and needs.It is evident from many public reports that there has not been any claim of violent and incisent dissent from the local farmers in Nandigram but the intolerance of the state government resulted in full-fledged bloody movement characterized by a complete anarchy and mess.Hence,it is certainly a case of civil and political rights violation of common people which is orchestrated by the government itself and cannot be justified under any possible perspective.If the citizens cannot put forward their demands and inconveniences then it is defeat of democratic values and principles.
Thirdly,unauthorized acquisition of private property is also a act of public/civil rights violation based on the providence of Indian constitution and Supereme Court mandates.As observed by Roy(2016) majority of agricultural land in Nandigram are private lands owned by local agricultural families and forcible acquisition of private property even by any political authority is an infringement of civil rights of the citizens.It has been stated that government officials even refused to look at the legal registration papers of the farmers to confirm the private ownership of those lands and asked for monetary compensation for selling the lands.As per the Supereme Court mandates there is a proper legal procedure for the transfer of property ownership based on the mutual consent of both the buyer and the seller/acquirer which has been violated in this instance.
Therefore,the Nandigram incident presents a pertinent case study which essentially shows how an organized social dissent can be initiated through unjust civil actions undertaken by the political incumbent.As the popular national media reports such as The Telegraph and The Times of India point out,the land movement in Nandigram could have been avoided through a completely different action by the state government.Many of the farmers would even had been willing to sell off their lands if the government officials would organize an administrative discussion with the local farmer's associations and arrive at a more logical and peaceful resolution as the government was willing to provide monetary compensation to landowning families.Moreover,failure to follow any legal procedure to implement transfer of property ownership also represents a violation of the Supereme Court and constitutional mandates.Therefore evidently it can be stated that the Nandigram movement was inherently impelled by the violent strageties undertaken by the state government to fulfill a particular economic objective rather than issue of land itself in the first place.However,the entire Nandigram incident do pertinently presents several evidence of civil and political rights violation of the common public.
Now,many of the leading economists and prominent government officials might argue that forcible land acquisition in Nandigram was essential to promote industrialization in the local region which could have benefitted local communities and the economy in many different ways.These included new creation for the youth in the region which would pay better salary than cultivation and farming,increasing local production level,improvement in the economic condition of the local families and so forth.But the government officials evidently did not specify any of these details to the local farmers and families and the detailed terms and conditions of the moentary compensation were also unknown or unclear to the local residents which again reveals administrative failure or incompetency.Therefore,even though the state government did have a pre-specified mission which could be justified but never conveyed properly to local farmers and families and sometimes even misconstrued.Therefore,without any kind of legal and economic assurance,the farmers understandably refused to sell off their private lands even to the government as it could potentially jeppardize their main source of economic livelihood and sustainenance.
Citations
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2397200916663010?journalCode=csda
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Nandigram-firing-Full-text-of-CBIs-Nandigram-chargesheet/articleshow/29665581.cms
https://www.telegraphindia.com/1070323/asp/opinion/story_7548646.asp
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/rosa-parks-montgomery-boycott-files.html
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095322?origin=crossref
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