Community rights: The role of social movements in the community

Abstract

This article depicts the way of life in a community under authoritarian power where people’s rights as citizens and community rights are neglected or ignored.  These rights are naturally people’s rights as citizens or as a community.  Such negligence and the state of being ignored can cause continuous conflicts under the “right discourse” in society even though presently, the principle of people participation has increasingly been included in many processes.  Nevertheless, the state has widen the gap between individual rights and those of capitalists, from both within the country and abroad, allowing the latter to take over and hold ownership of community resources and take advantage of these resources.  In doing so, the state neglects and ignores the community and infringes upon important rights that are community rights.  The problem of resource sharing results in conflicts between various disputants, for example between the state and the community and between the community and individuals.  However, the most important of the  various disputes is between the state and communities that eventually leads to social movements by people demanding their rights.  These social movements act in many different methods to build a new definition for the community, or to demonstrate the existence of the community which is able to take care and manage its own resources.  This will eventually become community power which leverages outside authority to cause the recognition of community rights.  Thus, community rights can be deemed as discourses that lead to a widening in the sphere of a community’s social movements.