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Effective Protest In The 21st Century

different everytime | 26.09.2005 13:03 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation

Convincing the public through protest is no longer viable with our media being what it is. Protest should now be geared towards results not opinion.

It seems to me that, while large scale protests, like the anti-war rally on Saturday, receive some media coverage the majority of actions are now effectively air-brushed from history by a compliant mainstream media.
In years gone by, there used to be such a thing as journalism – you would hold a demo, disrupt some traffic or hold a few banners and this would be covered on the news, possibly unfavourably, but they would cover it.
I think we would all agree that this is far from the case now – even the travel reports referred to the DSEI train disruptions as an ‘incident’ the other week.
It is for this reason that I think that these sort of demos need to change their approach.
The majority of the problems we face as a planet these days stem from greed – People happy to commit all sorts of atrocities in order to increase their profit margins. My suggestions would be, let’s start targeting these people. At the moment the demos seem to be a case of trying to publicise a cause in order for the public to support it and thus pressure the powers that be to change things. I think we only need to see Blair’s attitude on Iraq to know that he couldn’t give a monkeys about public opinion and a good number of people who might otherwise care are sunk under a huge swell of disinformation.
Now lets consider another scenario: Mr F. Cat or his wife are at the gates of young Master Cat’s very expensive private school with all the other clique parents, only they cant actually drive into the school due to a large protest singling out Mr Cat and graphic details of all the not so fortunate children who have died or been maimed in his quest for profit. They get through that then Mr Cat goes off to have a round of golf to de-stress but what does he find but the same thing at his nice exclusive golf club. Not only does he have to deal with this but, as it is inconveniencing his peers, he may even have to rethink where his kids go to school or where he has his round of golf etc.
Hopefully you see the subtle difference here, basically these people don’t care one jot if the great unwashed are against them, they live in a nice little world where the MSM takes care of all of that for them, but, when the results of their profiteering come crashing down then you start making some headway – look at Huntingdon life sciences losing a wall street listing for example. You could have had a million on the streets in protest and nothing would’ve happened. As soon as all the other suits from the other companies thought they might be caught up in it and inconvenienced the company quietly had its listing dropped.
Lets start hitting them where it hurts – The individuals behind the corporates and their lifestyles!

different everytime

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

er, yes...

26.09.2005 14:54

in the simplest way i totally,, ,, agree.

it is that we need to actually directly effect/ affect change to achieve it- otherwise we r wasting our breakfast and our time...

thankyou imc poster. solidarity worldwide

roderick X aka fish


mmh...

26.09.2005 22:27

Well, I guess these kind of actions can be effective but should we be targetting individuals? If they go, will some other person not simply replace them?

It's whole ideologies and tradtions we need to work against. The best way may be a combination of hassling people in person and wider-scope general protests & demos. I don't think we should limit ourselves to either of them, both are effective, in different ways.

Tom


Good points

27.09.2005 02:18

I think that individually targeted protests should be done in such a way that, if reported properly (ie. here, or somewhere similar), depoliticized people will be inspired to participate in mass demos.

I don't want to risk "vanguardism" - assume that a hardcore group can affect changes at the top without taking public opinion with it, or assuming that the masses should just follow 'charismatic leaders', of any ideology.

But I like the ideas of picketing schools etc . yes, these people need to face their crimes!

anon


a problem

27.09.2005 08:10

I agree in principle, but these kind of protests will be clamped down on pretty quick by the anti-harassment laws that have been designed to protect these blameworthy people. Whilst many people are prepared to go on a demo with thousands of others, with no chance of arrest, it's only a hardcore few who want to risk imprisonment (like that seen in the case of Smash EDO) for their cause.

It's certainly a good idea, but the police will attempt to silence such protests pretty quick!

dan


Diversity of Tactics

28.09.2005 09:31

When looking at succesful campaigns recently direct action has always played an important role - and it doesn't have to be by just a handful of people prepared to go to prison - look at all the actions that happened with the fight against GM food - crop trashings (both open daytime and covert night time), blockades of supermarket depots, "trolley runs" in supermarkets, crop squats, invading offices of biotech companies and visiting directors homes. This wide variety of tactics was one of the reason the GM companies are running scared from Britain, but its not the only reason - consumers just don't want this food and there has been a strong anti-GM campaign with many "traditional" demos.

The animal rights movement has also been successful - partly because of the serious hardcore ALF actions, but also in the animal rights movement there are large regular demos and marches- which give a visible open face of the animal rights movement.

What characterises these campaigns is that there has been a strong show of unity between the open demos and covert actions.

What i feel has been missing from the anti-war movement is a failure to become more radical - the Iraq War saw the Stop the War Coalition undermining direct action and trying to diffuse any confrontation with the state. The Smash EDO Campaign seems to have failed to gain mass support in Brighton even though there was a massive anti Iraq War turnout - i'm not sure as to the exact reason why.

The anti-capitalist movement has been paralysed to a certain extent by a failure of the direct action movement (be they anarchists, environmentalists, communists, whatever) to work with people like G8 Alternatives - by too easily dismissing them cos there are a few SWP members in G8 Alternatives.

What is needed is a rational debate about tactics and a need for the "mainstream" (for want of a better word) to embrace direct action and for certain anarchists to stop being so superior to everyone else cos they are more hardcore.

Not everyone wants to march from A to B all the time, not everyone want to fight the cops all the time. Let's celebrate our diversity!

Miss Point