Rebellion

A rebellion is, in the most general sense, a refusal to accept authority. It may therefore be seen as encompassing a range of behaviours from civil disobedience to a violent organized attempt to destroy established authority. It is often used in reference to armed resistance against an established government, but can also refer to mass nonviolent resistance movements. Those who participate in rebellions are known as "rebels".

Overview

Throughout history many different groups that opposed powers were called rebels. In the U.S, the term was used for the Continentals by the British in the Revolutionary War and the Confederacy by the Union in the American Civil War. It also includes members of paramilitary forces who take up arms against an established government.

Not all rebellions per se are attempts to undermine authority. For example, the Boxer Rebellion was an uprising against Western commercial and political influence in China during the final years of the 19th century, therefore being more of a Chinese cultural response to foreign influence rather than an uprising against the Imperial government at the time. Another example is the Jacobite Risings which attempted to restore the deposed Stuart kings to the thrones of England and Scotland were called the Jacobite Rebellions by the (then new) government.

During the Twentieth Century, the term rebellion carried an expectation of futility: a revolution, by definition, succeeded in establishing a viable government; while a rebellion, by definition, failed to do so. Perhaps this was due to the history of the American Civil War, which did create a new government, the Confederacy, for the southern part of the United States, but that new government failed to sustain itself after losing a long and bloody war, due both to economic weakness and to internal contradictions.(Among other conflicts, Southerners disagreed on whetherthe doctrine of states' rights should be applied to the Confederacy as it had been to the United States it had secceded from. This led to the reductio ad absurdum of allowing a state to secceed from the Confederacy at the will of the state's citizens. The arguments raged on for four years; meanwhile, the Union Army, supported by a larger population, a productive industrial economy that was largely self-sufficient, and a general, a President, a Congress and a people that were willing to pay the Butcher's Bill," brought the Confederate Army to its knees. Afterwards, the Southern states were reincorporated into the United States of America, and civil rights were extended, gradually, to the freed slaves. White Southern resistance slowed the extension of civil rights to African Americans., but African-Americans have gained these rights and have used them, and many have contributed to the society in many ways; some achieving distinction such as Ralph Bunche, Colin Powell, Robert L. Johnson, Barack Obama, and Oprah Winfrey, to name a few. Besides the musicians and athletes who excelled in the early and mid-20th century, in more recent years there are military, political, diplomatic, and business leaders, many scientists and educators, doctors and lawyers, Nobel laureates. The list goes on.

In the last half of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st, the word "rebellion" has acquired, in George Lucas's words, "a new hope." The first Star Wars film introduced the idea of a "Rebel Alliance," (formally, the Alliance to Restore the Republic), which had a chance to succeed. It took two more movies to actually bring down the Empire, and three more to explain how the first Republic devolved into the Empire, but the notion of rebellion gained a credibility it had never had. The Rebellion was not a noble, idealistic, doomed venture; it was a shrewd, pragmatic, organized movement with long-term goals and the short-term means to attain them. It had heroic leaders and innumerable capable followers, of many sentient species across a galaxy. This was a rebellion that could win.

Types of rebellion

A violent rebellion is sometimes referred to as an insurgency while a larger one may escalate into a civil war. There are a number of terms that fall under the umbrella of "rebel", though they range from those with positive connotations to those that are considered pejorative. Examples, in rough order from sympathetic to pejorative, are:

• "Nonviolent resistance" or "civil disobedience"
• "Resistance" carried out by freedom fighters, often to an occupying invader
• "Revolution" by revolutionaries, often meant to indicate a desired change in the form of government and/or economic system
• "Uprising" by militants
• "Insurgency" or "insurrection" by insurgents
• "Revolt"- A localized rebellion, whose leaders, while wanting some form of change, lack the foresight that a revolution's leaders have. While they might overpower the local forces, they more often then not fail to defeat a major army, if they do it, tends to evolve into a full scale revolution.[^{citation needed}]
• "Mutiny" by mutineers, normally of military or security forces to commanders
• "Subversion" by subversives

See also

• Anarchism
• Civil disobedience
• Intifada
• Nonviolent resistance
• Revolution
• Slave rebellions
• List of revolutions and rebellions
• List of rebels
• List of fictional rebellionscs:Rebelie

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