Clamo Ergo Sum: Establishing a Fundamental Right to Protest from Christian Theologies of Liberation

Marc V Rugani

doi:10.3390/h10030102

Abstract

The prevailing particular historical narratives that established the modern rights system greatly affect the participation, tenor, and limits of rights discourse today, too often ignoring or suppressing voices of those suffering or silenced. This essay is a contribution to the subversion of those histories, adverting to inconsistencies, in particular histories of modern rights, the need to amplify the voices of those suffering on the margins of that history, and the dangerous consequences if we fail to do so. By applying Enrique Dussel’s political philosophy and Gustavo Gutiérrez’s theology of liberation significant contributions can be made toward affirming a fundamental right to protest. The right to protest articulates a right co-foundational with the rights to life, liberty, and property, and this right is well grounded in a Christian account of the dignity of the human person.

Highlights

Inspired by Gutiérrez’s call, I intend this essay to be a contribution to the subversion of the history of the modern rights system, which adverts to its inconsistencies, the need to amplify the voices of those suffering on the margins of that history, and a warning of consequences should we fail to do so
Arising out of a context of silencing, exile, and protest himself, the Argentine/Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel presents a critical perspective on Western modernity and suggests alternatives to its prevailing histories and theories that can be of great help to those wanting to subvert history and establish a fundamental right to protest
Any transfer of potencies to authority is incumbent upon the authority’s maintenance that the subjective right of a subject to transfer those potencies subsequently always remains potential, i.e., not active until consent is freely given. Dussel identifies this in the argument of Las Casas when he wrote: The responsibility and obligation of ‘preaching the Gospels’ which the Roman pontiff has given to the Spanish kings grants them the ‘right over the thing,’ but this right in potential comes into effect only via the consent of the Indians, by the free acceptance of such preaching

Summary

Introduction

To focus my argument’s scope, I intend a narrow definition of the verb “to protest”: a speech act objecting to or opposing others’ words and deeds This present limitation does not want to deny the defensibility of other forms of protest, widely defined, which often accompany speech acts, such as physical performance, demonstration, and resistance, but these forms require greater detail and attention than possible in the scope of this essay. I will turn to a Christian theological source in the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez He speaks to the need to include and account for the experience of those who suffer in theological reflections on rights and Christian praxis.

Enrique Dussel

Liberating One’s Voice

The Erosion of the First Amendment and the Urgency of a Right to Protest

Findings

Conclusions