To what extent are a people allowed to violently protest in the face of injustice? I am currently living in a poor third world country, in which political unrest has recently upheaved due to an alleged electoral fraud. — rickyk95
If it is in central america, we are probable in the same place. If you are somewhere else I cannot really say much about the situation.
You say that you are currently living there, is it a recent move? If you have not been there for long or maybe HERE for the last nine years you might not understand the history behind the troubles. Usually protest have some sort of beginning that goes back some time, unless you are a department store that uses the wrong photo in a commercial and your stores get turn to pieces the next day.
Riots come from the protestors anger or fear overflowing and snowball sometimes to tremendous sizes. Some of the participants here that I have talked to said the riots started when the police tried to stop the criminals from sacking the stores by attacking anyone nearby even if they were doing nothing so they fought back. There are videos to prove some of the cases.
Without any concrete evidence, people have went out to the streets to protest against this, and are destroying local businesses that have absolutely nothing to do with the public political debacle. — rickyk95
Unfortunately people emotions do not need evidence to the same degree as in court. If they believe that they have been wronged it is usually enough for them to protest about.
Whether or not their grievances are legitimate, I cant help but to intuit that what they are doing is morally wrong. — rickyk95
It is morally wrong, but the problem is that most of the damage done here was not directly done by the people protesting about the elections. As I said it is believed that most of it was done by criminals taking advantage of the situation. As far as I know there have been no arrests of political protestors for looting, and that is something that the government would love to be able to prove.
Although, conversely, at the same time, violence has historically been one of the most pivotal means through which political and social change has been achieved. — rickyk95
It has been boiling here for a long time now. The government has known this and planned well. They even built up a special military police force that they use against the protestors now because the civil force refused to be used against the population. But the force was put together a few years ago under the disguise of safety in the streets, which it never accomplished.
So, with this said, where do you draw the line between legitimate protesting and immoral violence? — rickyk95
I think that violence should only be used when there is no alternative, many nasty dictators could only be removed by force. But any violence should be directed at the oppressors, not at honest people and their property. One of the problems here was that some of the businesses burned belonged to people that are in favor of the way the government was going because it would have made them wealthier. As always though the little guy sometimes gets in the middle.