Chapter Five: Justifiability of Right to Revolution: Its Legality from A Fichtean Perspective Versus International Law Perspective

5.1. Introduction

This chapter will take a step further to justify the right to revolt against an unjust government. The discussion will particularly be inclined towards determining the legality of a revolution from a Fichtean perspective versus an international law perspective. Considering that Fichte philosophized in the late 18^th century and early 19^th century, whereas most international laws related to the right to revolt were formulated in the twentieth century, this chapter will also attempt to point Fichtean perspectives that are featured in the International Law Framework. Also, it is worth remarking that, in accumulation to the justification provided within the presentation of the main case study of this project, this chapter will also draw close reference to the Nigerian-Biafran Revolution to determine differences between the Fichtean perspective and the International Law perspective. In this way, the Revolution will be justified further hence shedding significant light on the topic of whether it is legally right to revolt against an oppressive government. Also, this approach will provide new insights into the dilemma on which people should revolt against an unjust government and whether the Revolution should involve seceding from an already independent and sovereign state in pursuit for self-determination, liberty, and freedom.

5.2. Fichte’s Contribution to the Right of Revolution

Fichte is among the renowned philosophers who supported the French Revolution, meaning he is of the idea that it is right to revolt against an unjust government. He argued that the French Revolution was cogent voluntarism and logical worldwide legislation[1]. First and foremost, Fichte argued that the French Revolution was idealistic and not dogmatist, referring to the need to apply philosophical and political thinking into action[2]. Also, it is worth noting that Fichte firmly supported individual freedom and the public good[3]. Therefore, it is essential to determine how he perceived the two: what is the nature of their relationship? Does the public good influence individual freedom in any way? Answers to this question will provide significant insights into the right to revolt – this is because a repressive government is the one that undermines public good. Hypothetically, the public good directly influences individual freedom. Since every human is entitled to individual liberty, then it is right to revolt against a government that indirectly undermines personal freedom by taking public good for granted.

Fichte maintained the right of revolution in his reference to a legitimate state authority. Thus, his ideas of legitimate state authority will help in expounding the relationship between public good and individual freedom, and how an illegitimate state authority undermines these variables, thus prompting the citizenry to go for insurgency as the last resort. Fichte’s justification of the Revolution contains two main arguments. The first claim is that a country can modify its constitution. The second argument is that a country has the right to uphold its new constitution through dynamism. Beiser^[4] argues that the first claim is the social convention theory of Rousseau. Fichte argues that civilians should be established upon an agreement because that aspect corresponds with the code of autonomy, which attaches people only to those regulations to which are presented with consent. Fichte expounds, however, that people lack a moral commitment to become involved in and preserve the social contract. The obligation to build and retain a contract is centred upon sovereign will and personal decision to restrain choice and to take part in a particular agreement with others.

One of the widely renowned publications of Fichte that contain in-depth insights into his contribution to right of revolution is Reclamation of the Freedom of Thought from the Princes of Europe, who have hitherto Suppressed it, which he anonymously published while acting as a private tutor near Danzig[5]. According to an excerpt from the publication that was published in Stephen Smith’s Freedom of Expression, Fichte put a huge emphasis on the right to freedom of expression as a primary determinant of individual freedom and free will. He said as follows:

Shout it! Shout it in every tone in the ears of your princes until they hear that you will not allow the freedom of thought to be taken away, and show them through your conduct that what you say is to be believed. Be undeterred by the fear of being reproached for immodesty. Towards what could you be immodest? Toward the gold and diamonds of the crown? Toward the purple robes of your prince? Not toward them. It requires little self-confidence to believe that one can tell the princes things they do not know…[6]

From the above excerpt, Fichte points out the right to freedom of expression that originates from freedom of thought. People have a right to freedom of expression, and that, even the state lacks the power to undermine it whatsoever. When Fichte wrote that, “Shout it in every tone in the ears of your princes until they hear…”[7] hints that people should try all means possible or available to seek freedom from state oppression. Again, this philosophical thinking implies that a good king or leader is the one that listens to every voice because “It requires little self-confidence to believe that one can tell the princes things they do not know…”[8] Therefore, in the contemporary world like in the case of Nigeria, the Igbo people and other indigenous people of Biafra have an equal right to their freedom of thought. They have a natural right to shout to the ear of the President of the Federal Government using “every tone” available to accommodate their views on how the Federalism of Nigeria should be led. In this case, if the Government plays a deaf ear, then their last resort should be the revolution. Thus, the Fichtean contribution to right of revolution aligns with the principle of Jus ad Bellum called last resort. In this case, people should go for a revolution to reclaim their right to free thought.

Conversely, Fichte’s perpetual peace, “the only rightful relation among States”, can be attained. Only few people continue to survive by hindering and obstructing the free market. This aspect is the inference of his nationalist discourse on political economy closed Business-related State. Fichte appears to have uncertainty in the sneaky nature Kant assumed to have learned. Fichte’s suggestion for a political praxis concerning permanent peace is accurately an anti-natural step which is the redirection of desire. Conversely, there is a chapter in Fichte’s Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters where Fichte seems to concur with Kant about the benefits for the evolution of Humanity, and human resentment instigates starts when it is directed through nature^[9]. In Fichte’s philosophy, he justified the need for top-secret civilizations of groups conspiring outside of the capacity of the Nation. Fichte’s consciousness of the inherence of historicity to the lucid existence has boundaries, and he cannot admit the optimistic side Kant perceived in war and social aggression.

The era between 1789 and 1945 was an attention-grabbing one using the approach of natural rights. This principle succeeded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and most people bequeathed their lives for it. The utilization of natural rights agitated established forms of government. However, this policy of human rights and modern structures of social contract theory – blossomed for a second time throughout the second half of the twentieth century. According to[10] There was an era of regression and hibernation – disproportionate, which was inevitable, and under no circumstances was it completed. However, this was a period in which invoking natural rights was continuous to request rational mockery and allegations of political recklessness. In 1951, Hannah Arendt could write critically of the numerous societies created for the fortification of the rights of individuals at the beginning of the twentieth century: She stated that.

 All attempts to arrive at a new bill of human rights were sponsored by marginal figures – by a few international jurists without political experience or professional philanthropists supported by the uncertain sentiments of professional idealists. The groups they formed, the declarations they issued, showed an uncanny similarity in language and compos ition to that of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. No statesman, no political figure of any importance could possibly take them seriously[11].

Natural right is different from natural law. Nonetheless, natural light developed from the natural law custom during the seventeenth century. Moderately, natural fate was then intertwined with the business of natural law. Researchers have stated that natural law, except the Catholic Church, was “in hibernation” in the nineteenth century. This understanding was an overstatement because natural law was condemned by leaders in England and the regions where English jurisprudence was persuasive[12].

The theory of natural rights has been able to show its unpredictable nature. Theories have utilized this theory to uphold cost-effective liberty against government efforts to restore inequality. Moreover, people could use it to denounce presented imbalances of social settings and dispute a natural right to existence for the underprivileged. In the past, natural rights correlated with private possession and property fortification against social prerogatives[13]. However, this tendency was never explicit during the nineteenth century; Locke’s labor theory was frequently mentioned by other theorists who upheld workers’ rights against the employees. In simpler words, natural right had no perched propensity one technique or another, and the actuality that inclined to argue from initial principles intended for the legitimate inclination on both margins to study and meditate how various propositions of natural right could entail.

The resistance of natural rights in concerns of the economy was believed to be predominantly perceptible in the toil of Herbert Spencer. His Collective Statics, first printed in 1851, ensued on unambiguous ideologies of natural right – doctrines of genuine freedom and an equivalent God-given prerogative to practice liberty for the sake of self-perpetuation and the search for pleasure that John Locke might have articulated. To a great extent, Social Statics trailed these ideologies’ economic and political propositions in an accustomed disposition of laissez-faire. However, Spencer also linked aspects of this Lockean stance with a distinctive sort of naturalism closer to Darwinism. This aspect has been closer to striving for life, the progression of humanity and “the survival of the fittest[14]. However, this was unclear how people could resolve the two strands of contemplation. A Lockean assumption of liberty fails to abandon struggles in which an individual could talk contentedly about survival. Spencer was obliged to have a problem of maintaining the aspect of a minimum laissez-faire state. People using the notion of evolutionism “would make the state, like society, grow into something more complex and more highly integrated”[15]. These struggles increased intensified as his career advanced. Evolutionism participated a more significant role in this theory, and it interposed to the influence – reasonably founded in any case – those allures to the natural rights that failed to settle for anything in political economy.

Fichte went on and wrote as follows:

To be able to think freely is the most notable distinction between human understanding and animal understanding…To resist actively this blind mechanism of the association of ideas in which spirit is merely passive; to give a specific direction to the sequence of one’s ideas according to one’s own free will with one’s power; this is the privilege of man; and the more he maintains this privilege, the more a man he is[16].

From the above extract, it is evident that Fichte is emphasising the primacy of individual freedom as a hint of humanity. When a government exploits its people, and these people submit to this kind of oppression, then they are becoming less of “a man” they are. Human desire is a continuous improvement from previous conditions and situations, and therefore, people must continue pressing on a repressive government by all means possible. Additionally, in Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right, he argued that all individuals reserve a privilege to exist uninhibitedly close to each other in light of the fact that in this specific circle for opportunity, so much has a place with every person[17]. In this case, Fichte referred to individual freedom from a collective standpoint, thus demonstrating that there is a strong connection between public good and individual autonomy. Hence, it can hypothetically be argued that a government that does not work on improving public good is undermining people’s freedom. Thus, people have a natural right to question such a government, and when it fails to respond appropriately, then people shall consider its actions deliberate, and hence the need to go into warfare as the last resort to restore just peace. The next paragraph will expound further on the nature of an oppressive government from a practical standpoint.

Fichte argues that an individual can disband contracts as effortlessly as they can generate them. According to Yonover^[18] Fichte justifies, the country has a right to represent itself with power. This suitable trails from ordinary law itself, which claims that an individual has the right to protect themselves against anybody who performs violence against their rights. Fichte’s argument made it evident, then, that he was protecting the right of the government to guard itself against counter-rebellious power. Fichte’s primary defense of the philosophies and acts of the Revolution is his Influence, which was printed before Kant’s political publication^[19]. This work is controversial against the rising effect of the Revolution in Germany, predominantly against A. W. Rehberg’s Enquiries Regarding the French Revolt (Untersuchungen über die französische Revolution). As Fichte exhibited his case in the outline, his argument with points to the classical battle between empiricism and rationalism in politics. With this discussion, Fichte yields a firm stance in favor of rationalism. He claims that history should be judged according to morals of decency instead of deriving specific standards from the past.

What is the nature of a repressive government? To answer this question, it is imperative to point out to the French Revolution that Fichte practically defended. In which way did the French Government oppress its people? Which mechanisms of rule did the French authorities put in place to oppress its people? By understanding this paradox, it will be less challenging to resolve the Biafran-Nigerian War paradox. Did the Igbo people feel truly oppressed by the Northerners who were also the occupants of Government? If yes, did they have a right to secede and engage in war with the Nigerian army?

There are many ways the Government can oppress its people. According to Fichte[20], undermining public good is the general way governments do so. According to scholar Elena Alessiato:

Democracy is both old and young. If its birth is settled in the ancient Greek world, its political institutionalization dates back to the last two centuries when many peoples in the world gained the power to choose and to establish a form of self-government in which all citizens are considered as equal and equally entitled to take part in the government.[21]

In the words of Alessiato, Fichte supported a democratic government, whereby the voice of every citizen count[22]. Similarly, according to the presentation of the case study of the Nigerian-Biafran Revolution, it was discovered that the Igbo people largely embraced and were well acquainted with a democratic form of governance whereas the Northerners, particularly the Fulani people were traditional Islam who believed in conservatism and trusted a monarchic form of government. Therefore, there is an innate conflict between the values and customs of the Igbo people and the Fulani people. In this case, if the Igbo people are to be considered distinctively democratic in value and custom, then it can be argued that the Nigerian Federal Government is repressive to them, considering that it was mostly occupied by Northerners before and after the war ended. In this case, Fichte himself was against a monarchic form of Government. For instance, monarchism and feudalism in France were the core causes of the French Revolution. These forms of government are prone to undermining public good and ultimately infringing the individual freedom of its citizens. For instance, the French Government got involved during the American Revolution, whereby it spent from the central reserve extravagantly, leading to a near depletion of public resources. One of the reasons such an occurrence took place was because only a few individuals in the inner circle of the King were involved in decision-making. Otherwise, if the public was involved, the spending would have been reasonable to the degree that there could be no consequent suffering of the people as evidenced by poor agricultural harvest in the country during that season, coupled with a hike in commodity prices and overall economic inflation. Therefore, Fichte was of the view that people should be involved in decision-making because it is self-government[23].

According to Fichte, feudalist and monarchic forms of government are not legitimate because the social contract involved between the government or state and the citizens leans towards one end, which is unacceptable[24]. In his words, he said as follows: “Would our promise to surrender to have meant anything other than: “We promise through entry into your civil society to become irrational creatures, we promise to become animals, so it will be less work for you to subdue us”?”[25] Fichte was against feudalism and monarchism. On the same note, before Nigeria got independence, the Northern Region was semi-feudalistic because of the monarchic form of governance in the villages. Thus, Fichte would have defended the rights of the Igbo people and he would have advocated for the actions of the Biafrans in their pursuit of individual freedom and self-determination. Also, it is worth noting that when Fichte argued that the people have a right to use “every tone” to defend their freedom of thought, he meant that even a secession can be an alternative way to press on a government that seemingly plays a deaf ear to a collection or group of people. The next section will further this argument by focusing on the natural law on the human right of self-determinism. In this way, it will be less challenging to determine if the Easterners or Biafrans had a natural right to self-determination and whether secession was one of the tones they used to shout at the Federal Government to hear their collective voice.

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