What is REACTIONARY and who is a REACTIONARY

Ahmad Reza Taheri

Radical      Liberal    Moderate     Conservative     Reactionary

Left………………………………………………………………………Right

Well, the final concept on the political spectrum illustrated above is the concept of "reactionary." Of all the political actors discussed so far in our notes (radicals, liberals, moderates, conservatives) only the Reactionaries propose retrogressive change. They prefer to return to a policy or institution that has been used by their society in the past.

Only reactionaries propose that current institutions be replaced by those of previous eras and so only reactionaries want a change from the status quo to something that existed before. Rejecting modern values, reactionaries would see society retrace its steps and adopt former political norms and policies.

For example, we witnessed a reactionary revolution with the coming of Taliban as a political system in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Without going into the details about the nature of their movement headed by Mullah Omar, we can see that his advocacy of a return to a literal application of the ancient laws in the Koran was clearly a reactionary legal posture. Today, we have a number of other similar examples of reactionary governments.

All reactionaries reject claims to human equality and favor distributing wealth and power unequally on the basis of race, religious sect, class, intelligence, or some other criterion.

Source: Professor Leon P Baradat, Political Ideologies: their origins and impact, 9th edition, Indian reprint, published by Asoke K. Gosh, pp. pp. 27-28. All Rights Reserved by www.ahmadrezataheri.org