Political resistance was not merely the reserve of mass instances of political protest but also included notable acts of an individual nature.  In a nation of tens of millions of people, just how effective can the actions of political protest of one individual be, however?  A great example is seen in the person of Emilie Carles and how the curriculum she taught to her students differed from that mandated by the state.  Her opposition approach is an indirect one that strikes at the ideological underpinnings of the state; the enemies to be struck down include “the jingoistic France […] that is never wrong” or “the Little General’s mythic image” (Carles, 228).  Her memoir, however, readily points out the limits of such efforts on her part, since she had to make “every effort to remain within the framework of the permissible in class” (Carles, 228).  Her efforts manage to transcend these limits, however, not only because she was a teacher who had the opportunity of many years in which to shape young minds but also because her individual acts of resistance provided a blueprint for others to follow.  In how many instances does the reader of Carles’ book find her assigned to a remote peasant community as the sole representative of education for the youth?  What power an individual so placed can exercise!

One is also drawn to the imaginative approach of Emile Zola, whose individual act of writing his incendiary J’accuse (1897) – an action he calls “ a revolutionary means to hasten the revelation of truth and justice” (Zola, 53) – contributed significantly to the bringing into the public spotlight such socio-political issues as anti-Semitism and individual human rights..  In fact, his act of political protest was two-fold in nature, not only protesting the rampant anti-Semitism of the day but doing so through the socially taboo method of outright libel and slander!  Another intriguing thing about Zola’s method was the target: the army had already been the instrument of the bloody repression of two insurrections within living memory but now found in itself impotent in the face of Zola’s moral attack.  This was one “insurrection” the army could not suppress by dint of arms and found its only recourse in the apparatus of justice and law it had supposedly been subverting.  Fascinating now many ironies abound in this little episode surrounding one author and his pen!

            After all is said and done, how should one characterize the historical manifestations of political protest in modern France?  Although doomed for a time to largely repeat the bloodshed that was a major legacy of the French Revolution, those who engaged in mass as well as individual acts of political resistance soon had a whole repertoire of methods – non-violent and passive as well as violent and insurrectionary – in which to do so.  In a last minute rumination about the motives behind a politician’s actions, Carles states that they “do nothing but repeat the same words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” and goes on to utter the reflective thought: “With people repeating those words since 1789, we should certainly find out what they really mean someday” (Carles, 253).  After an analysis of the history of political resistance in France, one certainly finds out what these words mean to many different groups of people and can find a common thread underneath their various “faces”.  With so many different perceptions of the meaning of the phrase, political resistance will continue for a long time yet, for the realization of an ideal can be a slippery thing.

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In 1993, gruesome photographs of a 16-year-old Somali boy Shidane Arone being beaten to his death shocked the Canadian public and the world in what became known as the Somalia Affair. The crime, which was committed by two Canadian soldiers participating in the United Nations peacekeeping efforts in Somalia, revealed serious problems in discipline and leadership among the ranks of the Canadian Airborne regiment that went beyond the pair involved. The government decision to cut short its inquiry and persistent allegations of cover-up to protect senior officers resulted in the dissolution of the regiment, extensively damaging the morale and international reputation of Canadian Armed Forces.

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The Holocaust

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My Lai Massacre was a mass murder incident that occurred on March 16, 1968 at the height of Vietnam War (1960 – 1975). On orders, US Army forces executed around 500 unarmed citizens of My Lai and My Khe hamlets in South Vietnam, including women and children, suspecting them to be Viet Cong members or sympathizers. Some victims were raped and tortured, while some bodies were discovered to be badly disfigured. All charges subsequently brought against 26 US soldiers for their crimes at My Lai were dropped except for Lieutenant William Calley who was initially sentenced to life imprisonment but would serve only 4 ½ months in a military prison upon the controversial intervention of President Nixon to have his sentence adjusted. The scandal did much to foment anti-war sentiments that demanded immediate withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam.

Iran-Contra Affair

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The Iran-Contra affair was an American political scandal in the 1980s that somehow threatened Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It was revealed in 1986 that the administration entered into illegal negotiations for arms sales to Iran in return for American hostages being held by Islamic groups in Beirut, with profits being channeled to fund anti-Sandinista and Anti-Marxist forces or Contras in Nicaragua. President Reagan and his vice-president George H. W. Bush denied all knowledge of the affair. As a result of the exposé, Reagan fired Oliver North, a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marines who conjured up the plan, while some members of his staff were forced to resign.

Beslan School Hostage Crisis

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On September 1, 2004, a group of about 30 armed, camouflaged and masked multinational terrorists, demanding full withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and recognition of its independence, broke into School Number One (SNO) in the Russian town of Beslan in North Ossetia and took more than 1,200 hostages, including some 800 children, gathering them in the school’s gymnasium, where they mined with wire explosives. On the third day, following the breakdown of negotiations and a series of explosions that set the building ablaze, the Russian security forces, in a contentious move, stormed the facilities with tanks, rockets and heavy weaponry, leading to a chaotic battle with the hostage takers. The siege ended with at least 370 deaths, half were children, and a couple of hundreds reported wounded or missing. The attack was met with condemnation in the strongest possible terms from the international community.

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