Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYHuber refers expressly to Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which Ihave quoted as well during my statements here. And I think that therecan be no doubt that this case of a duty to resist is given here and now,because article 130 of the German Penal Code is not a general law, butunequivocally a special law designed to suppress only certain viewsabout merely one single topic.Below I have compiled a table containing some criteria which permitus to assess, whether an act of civil disobedience or resistance can invokethe so-called “grand right to resist” as defined in article 20, paragraph4, of the German Basic Law, or whether it is merely a case of theso-called “small right to resist,” which is directed against decisions ormeasures of parliament or of the executive branch which do not consistof direct violations of constitutionally protected civil and human rights.Experts almost unanimously reject this small right to resist as illegitimate.This table compares the case of protests or acts of resistance bythe peace and environmental movement of the 1980s (column “Peace”)with my case as a representative of dissident historical views.Criterion Peace 231 G. RudolfGovernment violation of valid constitutional principlesProtesters set private views as absoluteRight to articulate dissentViolation of general laws while protestingGeneral acceptance of laws violated in protestAcceptation of these laws by protestersNoYesYesYesYesYesYesNoNoNoNoNoNeedless to say that the first and most important criterion is that avalid constitutional principle must have been violated by the authorities,against which the protest is directed. Since neither the question of militaryarmament nor of energy production or the construction of majorprojects have constitutional scale, this criterion is not given for thepeace and environmental movement. It is entirely different with revisionism,for which the fundamental human right of freedom of speechand freedom of science and research, as laid down in article 5, paragraphs1 and 3, of the German Basic Law, have been abolished by aspecial law, which moreover, due to its special nature, violates the constitutionalprinciple of general laws.231 See apart from P. Glotz, op. cit. (note 220), also Jürgen Tatz (ed.), Gewaltfreier Widerstandgegen Massenvernichtungsmittel, Dreisam, Freiburg 1984.189