Beyond the Myth of Final Liberation

Revolutions are often portrayed as moral peaks of history—moments of rupture where the oppressed rise to shatter the old world and usher in a new dawn. Resistance, too, is romanticized: the brave few who speak truth to power, who confront injustice, who burn for freedom. These narratives have shaped generations. And yet, they are dangerous when unexamined. Not because resistance and revolution are unnecessary—but because their meaning is too often hijacked by those who crave power in new forms.

At their best, resistance and revolution are about reclamation: of dignity, of autonomy, of the right to shape one’s own life in concert with others. They emerge not from theory, but from lived injustice. People do not resist abstractions; they resist hunger, humiliation, violence, and voicelessness. They revolt not for perfection, but because the status quo suffocates the possibility of breathing freely.

But the danger begins when resistance forgets its roots and revolutions believe they are ends in themselves. The struggle becomes a ladder, and those who climb it quickly forget the ground from which they rose. Here, power reappears, not as a system to be transformed but as a throne to be seized. Resistance morphs into domination with a new flag, and revolutions become regimes with new rules but old logics.

This is not simply a matter of bad actors or betrayal. It is a structural risk: when revolution is anchored in fixed ideas of “the people,” “the enemy,” or “the future,” it risks becoming what it opposed. When resistance is defined by rigid identities and sacred binaries, it opens itself to dogma, purges, and purist moralism.

The alternative is to understand resistance as a continuous and adaptive practice, not a single heroic event. It is not about replacing one ruler with another, but about redistributing the very conditions that enable voice, participation, and co-existence. Resistance is not pure; it is messy, contradictory, and local. It doesn’t demand perfect ideologies, but reflexive communities that can challenge themselves as much as they challenge power.

Revolution, then, must not be worshipped as final liberation, but engaged as a strategic rupture, an opening that enables new political forms to emerge. But those forms must remain open to scrutiny, revision, and rebalancing. The most successful revolutions are not those that impose new truths, but those that multiply the spaces where truth can be negotiated together.

This demands a deep skepticism of hierarchy, even in resistance movements. Who speaks for the revolution? Who decides what counts as betrayal? Who claims to represent the people? Often, the loudest voices in movements are those most capable of mimicking the language of legitimacy—whether through ideology, martyrdom, or charisma. But legitimacy cannot be inherited or performed; it must be earned, distributed, and constantly questioned.

Revolutionary leaders must never see themselves as saviors. They must see themselves as facilitators of a shared struggle—a struggle not just against a regime, but against the deeper logics of domination, erasure, and monopoly of voice. They must organize not just for protest, but for plural futures, where difference is not merely tolerated but structured into the very architecture of power.

In this light, resistance is not simply against a state or system, but against the conditions that prevent people from building alternative lives together. It is not just a “no” to oppression, but also acceptance to complexity, negotiation, and shared becoming. It is, at its core, a long labor of co-creation, not a sudden seizure of control.

And this is perhaps the hardest truth: that resistance and revolution, if they are to be worthy of their names, must resist the temptation to become unquestionable themselves. They must resist the seduction of certainty, of closure, of declaring the struggle over. They must remain unfinished, vigilant, and humble.

In the end, resistance is not about pure ideals or perfect blueprints. It is about a commitment to human dignity in a world where power is always being built and rebuilt. And revolutions? They are not the end of history. They are only the beginning of the work to make power bearable, sharable, and accountable for everyone.