Throughout my journey as a Georgetown student, I have not taken many courses that address the themes of resistance, rebellion, and revolution. However, these themes are critical for my understanding of international affairs and are central in understanding what formed societies, overthrew regimes, and created new ideologies. Learning about these movements is not just a study in itself, for it also opens doors to learning about human motivations to resist, the pursuit of justice, and the mechanics of power and agency. Hence, a course that is dedicated to these themes can only natutarally cause a learning trajectory that boosts my knowledge in the historical, political, and cultural manner while furthering critical and analytical skills as we observe various different types of movements, their impacts, and motivations.

At the beginning of the course, I did not know that there was a difference between resistance, rebellion, and revolution. A part of me felt like these terms were just used interchangeably. However, I soon came to find out that that was not the case, for they differ in size, motivation, structure, procedure, and impact. I now know that resistance and rebellion can be similar in motivation, but their procedure is completely different. Both are done in opposition to a certain regime or government, however, resistance is often not violent which is in contrast to rebellions' violent nature.  Resistance has a procedure that is peaceful and is often exhibited in internal forms of daily resistance, peaceful protests, or civil disobedience. Rebellions are more organized and violent such as armed conflict or destruction of infrastructure to convey a message. Resistances occur in smaller groups while rebellions are larger. Revolutions are the largest in scale and aim since they aim to overthrow the regime and transform society. They want to make the biggest change out of all the movements. Revolutions also have larger procedures, and I mean that in the sense that they conduct mass protests along with armed conflicts, but at an even more intense level where they are more violent and destructive than rebellions. Hence, their impact is maximized since whoever has the guns, has the power, and utilizing the most forms of violent opposition would have an everlasting impact on society regarding its transformation of norms, economic status, and political regime or stability while resistances and rebellions are more limited in their impact. Overall, these three types can become develop into each other as what may start as a resistance can become a rebellion, and a rebellion can escalate into a revolution, Hence, their similarities come from their initial stages and their differences emerge as things develop further. However, they are very much far from being the same.

Another interesting development is that of my understanding of ethics and morality throughout this course. We discussed the distinction between the two and how morals are more personal and come from upbringing, culture, religion, or any other form of personal belief while ethics are derived from societal norms and rely on logic and reason. Morals differ from person to person, but ethics apply to an entire society, for they are applied publicly or in a professional space, while morals affect personal and individual acts. These differences are essential to know when trying to measure the morality and ethics of even conducting resistances, rebellions, or revolutions. This also aids in predicting and measuring the moral implications that may result from acts of resistance. This relates to what we discussed in class about Anonymous and how they falsely accused a certain police officer of shooting Michael Brown and causing his death. This makes us question the morality of some acts or resistance at times. It is the issue of whether revealing or exposing people's crimes so publicly is ethical to do, especially when the information is not credible. This makes us think of the unintended consequences of our actions where there may be a good intention, but that does not always guaranteed a good outcome.

Another new addition to my knowledge are specific case studies and class activities that exhibit resistances, rebellions, and revolutions which only further aid in the comprehensions of their processes and real life applications.  A case study I presented on during this course is the Salvadoran Revolution. What intrigued me the most is how the occurrence of events in a movement that happened in 1980 is extremely similar to what occurs today. It depicts how even though we may think we have come a long way as a society and in our understanding of human rights, the truth is we have failed massively in applying that understanding so that violations like what happened in the Salvadoran revolution never occur again. I compared what happened in the Salvadoran Revolution to what is currently happening in Palestine, and the events are more similar than believed. First of all, the massacre that occurred in El-Salvador greatly eroded indigenous culture as the threat of renewed state violence led to the abandonment of traditional dress, language, and many other indigenous practices, and this resonates deeply with Palestinians who have been silenced in their forms of clothing, practicing embroidery, depicting the colors of their flag, and other form of representing their culture since it was deemed as a threat. Also, both movements faced missiles that lit up their skies then dropped bombings on civilian areas and soldiers targeting women and children which are all war crimes that violate international laws, yet between then and now, the violation of these laws are still easily done by powerful nations or with the support of them. This all proves that the themes of resistance and revolution are as relevant today as ever, and simulating them in class whether it be through role-playing exercise, analysis of provided scenarios, or debates only furthers the purpose of understanding what goes into these movements and placing oneself at the core of these issues.

In conclusion, a course on Resistance, Rebellion, and Revolution offers more than just a study of the past or the definitions of these movements. It is a journey that exhibits the human struggle in attaining their rights in society and the complexities of political or social systems that responds to these movements. As students go through this journey, they not only advance their knowledge of international affairs, but it also makes them live it. It is an application of our discussions that brings them to life and provides a vision of what encompasses these movements. I can definitely say I know so much more now politically, historically, morally, and socially than I did before which only portrays my own personal learning trajectory with this course.