During the last week in the USA and to a
lesser extent in other parts of the world there have been loud demonstrations
protesting the systemic racism within the US's justice system. I hope that
someone, somewhere is planning on looking at these most recent protests to
consider their effectiveness. Some will argue that because the State has increased
the charges against the police officer who was recorded kneeling on the neck of
the individual, the protest has been at least partially successful. I would
argue that they have been a dismal failure. I would further argue that
virtually all of the protests in the last 20-30 years have been generally unsuccessful.
It is true that some protests have generated a positive response from the
various governments. But that response has been limited, short term and
ineffective in dealing with the systemic issue. Someone needs to examine why.
Two of the most successful protest movement of
the 20th century were the Civil Rights movement and the student protest against
the Vietnam war. What successes those
movements had were not accidental. Those who wish to protest in 2020 need to
understand why.
Rosa Parks' decision to sit at the front of
the bus was not totally spontaneous. The roots of her momentous and courageous
act lie in part with some of the black soldiers coming home from WWII. Those
soldiers had been exposed to other cultures, they had developed new skills,
they had developed a sense of their value and they came back determined to
change things. As well, there was, especially in the southern US, a very strong
network of churches who were committed to change. For a decade after the war, groups
coming together to discuss change and strategies to achieve it. There were
weekend training sessions, supported in part by those churches, that allowed
people to be together and to talk about what they could do. Rosa Parks attended
at least one of those weekends. Leaders within the various communities got
together, got to know each other. They shared their dreams and their aspirations
with each other. It was hard work with no results for years. They were planning
and preparing because those individuals knew that to change even a small part
of the world was hard work.
The student movement of the 1960s was
different. There was not a long history of oppression. In fact, the majority of
the students who protested came from the white elite (look at any picture of a
protest in the 1960s and see how many people of colour you can count). The
students did not have decades to plan or to even find common ground. For the
most part, they did not share common life experiences. But generally, they were successful in getting
thousands of young people marching down the streets of various cities across
the US, not just one or two times but for a number of times over many years.
How?
Francesca
Polletta, a sociologist has suggested in one of her books, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting that some homogeneity in terms of philosophy
and action was achieved by those who were serious about the need for change, by
working very hard at it. They spent countless hours, days arguing about how decisions
would be made, why they were doing what they were doing and how they could do
it. Informal groups across the country met and argued, debated the issues long
before anyone got on the streets. Even though many of these groups had no
formal connection to each other - many of them came to the same conclusions
about such things as consensus building and community action. They did so
because they worked at it.
Both of the above groups, no matter how loosely
organized they may have been, knew what they wanted. They had the intellectual
resources, the practical training and the sense of "collectivity"
that is crucial for any successful social action. Their accomplishments were
not an accident. They worked at it. Before any protest can be successful,
everyone needs to understand the objective and agree at a basic level of what
and how they are going to achieve it. They must all be prepared for the long
uphill struggle.
I see no evidence of any of this in the most recent
protests.
No comments:
Post a Comment