In my first post I briefly introduced to you my firmly held belief that direct action leads to positive change much more reliably and effectively than waiting for "someone" else to do something- especially if that someone is Government or any other authority figure.
In this post l am going to expand upon that idea and in doing so will be daring to speak words of activist heresy which will probably gain me few fans but that I nevertheless feel need to be said.
PROTEST IS POINTLESS. IT DOESN'T WORK. IT CHANGES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I can hear you losing your minds from here.
"Of course protests lead to change. Look at the 'Occupy Wall Street' protest, it had massive support and lead to similar protests around the globe" I hear you shout...
Yes, yes it did. And then what happened?
According to this fairly thorough Wikipedia summary the most common and far-reaching achievement of the Occupy movement was to introduce new terminology to the masses. We now all know what is meant by "the 1%" & "the 99%" & we can "Occupy" just about any social issue and be sure that the meme will be as well recognised as 'Grumpy Cat'. Wow! 😐
In response to these mass protests that were meant to somehow challenge 'income inequality', in 2012 "...the Executive Director of Financial Stability at the Bank of England stated that the protesters were right to criticise and had persuaded bankers and politicians "to behave in a more moral way"" 🤔
So, how's that change looking to you all now in 2018? Do you feel like your bank is more "moral" thanks to a series of protests spanning several years?...
"But what about votes for women and the suffrage movement?" I hear you cry.
"If it wasn't for years and years of vociferous protests women would surely never have secured the right to vote?"
Actually, not only was protest not the main contributor to women gaining the right to vote, some argue that it may well have delayed what were inevitable changes by at least a decade.
What is more, many of the measures used from that day to this to keep us all under surveillance and prevent us having unfettered access to public spaces were initiated precisely as a direct result of protest methods employed by the Pankhursts and their followers...
"So the civil rights movement then? Nobody can say that protest wasn't an instrumental part of bringing about social change and justice for people of colour and us all... Can they?"
Actually yes, that's exactly what I am saying.
Protest didn't change anything.
The success of the civil rights movement was not brought about through the waving of placards and expressions of verbal outrage but by a plethora of orchestrated actions which made politicians, legislators and others have no other choice than to take their own reciprocal actions.
To claim that the greatest strengths of people such as Malcolm X were in organising public protests would be to diminish the very hard work they and their supporters put in, on a daily basis, to nothing more than a series of their most memorable soundbites.
Even Martin Luther King Jr, arguably the person you'd hear most famously heralded for his advocacy of peaceful protest, was keen to see and take part in direct actions that would bring about real change.
When Rosa Parks got on the bus that day it wasn't with the intention of staging a one woman protest. Every quote of hers that you will find is from a statement she made after the day she became famous.
We do not remember Rosa for what she said that day but because, when she found herself faced with terrible injustice, what she did do wasn't speak... but ACT!
The success of any historical or modern social movement has always hinged upon the willingness of those who support it to ACT upon their complaints, not upon the voicing of the complaint itself.
The 'right to protest' is often upheld as sacrosanct, as being a natural extension of free speech and as having a pivotal role in bringing about political and social justice.
Personally I think it's importance is overstated and that we are purposefully duped by 'the powers that be' into utilising it as our main weapon against injustice, when it is in fact a fairly blunt weapon indeed.
Protest may initially draw some desired attention from the media and thus the wider public to a current issue but both the media and public are fickle & forgetful.
"Today's news is tomorrow's chip paper" no matter how big and bold the typeface.
In fact all to often once an important issue has made it into the news headlines many people have a tendency to think it is a fait accompli. The protest has been heard and the assumption is that 'somebody' will be doing something about it.
The idea that authority figures dislike protest is laughable to me.
Do people really believe that the most powerful individuals in society care when less powerful people are shouting in the streets of Westminster or Washington of the unfairness of it all?
What could be better than large numbers of people providing them with an effortless measure of what their next false promise should be about? No opinion polls required.
What worries those who rule us is our potential for action.... And what helps them sleep at night is the historically demonstrable examples of how we are so easily dissuaded from acting against by them
serving us with platitudes and crumbs.
In the face of the direst warnings about impending worldwide environmental devastation & despite centuries of social, economic and class struggles I am once again hearing the clamour of people saying "We should organise...& rise up... & protest" 🙄 Because that's worked so fantastically well before?
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten.”
(Jessie Potter)
Until you stop being grateful for the blunt weapon of protest that you're granted permission to wield...
Until you accept that those in government and positions of authority will only ever give as little as they can get away with to keep you inactive...
Until you yourself start instead taking direct actions that create tangible, potent and lasting social, economic and environmental changes...
...you are destined to have your gravest concerns and discomforts be as relevant to the world's tomorrow as yesterday's headlines.
