Question

QUESTION:

Generally speaking, refusing to join the army is an act of civil disobedience. Discuss this act by stating your own opinion. Give example(s) to defend your opinion. (This question is related to our topics ‘Civil disobedience’ and ‘War ethics’)  

Have to answer it in 3-4 paragraphs. You will be graded according to 3 criteria: i- How well you use our course material; ii- How well you present your own opinion; iii- The basic structure of your essay (for ex: does it have the form ‘intro-body-conclusion’ ?). Out topics ‘Civil disobedience’ and ‘War ethics’ will be sufficient for you in your answer. Y

Answer 1

First of all, civil disobedience is the breaking of law usually in a non violent way/form. It is the act of protesting against something in a non violent form. This protest can be agaisnt the infringement of human rights or a law that seems to be unfair to the protestors. Now, taking about refusing to join the army. So, in a broad way we can actually say, that civil disobedience is an act of civil disobedience, because by doing so, someone is reflecting it that he/she is not ready to serve for its nation.

By refusing to join the army, people show disrespect towards its nation. So, we can say that it is an act of civil disobedience. But, on going into the details of why someone refuses to join the army can only reveal the actual cause of the issue. There can be reasons like, only son of the parents, poor health at the time of joining the army, also, it the human right to do any job,the person may have phobia of war, the person may want to achieve something better in his life, the person may have some other plans in his life. There can be many more reasons why someone refuses to join the Army.

So, generally speaking refusing to join the army means refusing to serve for the nation, which leads to civil disobedience. But before saying these actions as act of civil disobedience, the actual cause of that should be followed and analysed, because there may be some other reason for that action.