I'm a senior in high school, and for the past year I've served as the president of my school's Amnesty International chapter, a human rights club. The club is best characterized as liberal, though there was once a day and age when supporting human rights was an apolitical cause that everyone could advocate. Point being, in my position in this club, I have a lot of self-righteously indignant liberal students nagging me to host constant rallies at my school to protest various human rights abuses.
My problem with all of this? The act of protesting is pointless and ultimately selfish. First off, the purpose of Amnesty International, which is an international organization based in London, is to write letters to various foreign and domestic government officials demanding justice for those who have their basic human rights violated. For you skeptics, this occasionally works. Under pressure from regular high school kids like me, foreign governments have actually released people who were unduly incarcerated or politically oppressed. This, then, is an effective and honorable thing to do.
Protesting is not nearly as honorable nor effective. All a protest does is make those participating feel as if they're making a difference in the world, so that they can claim they care and did their duty, in order to assuage their own guilt. In the end, nothing is truly accomplished. This is why protesting is selfish: it is an act which makes the individual feel good about himself rather than accomplishing something meaningful for others.
Protesters spew out lots of hard words and slogans, usually accompanied by little action (no, walking in a picket line does not constitute the type of action I'm talking about here). Real action would be to write a letter to your newspaper editor about the situation, urging neighbors to donate money or time to improve someone else's life. Even better, organize and host a fundraising event yourself. Amnesty International often holds benefit concerts; proceeds are sent to charities like Doctors Without Borders. Or, you can write letters (like Amnesty does) to government officials to the same effect.
How can I convince these people that wearing orange jumpsuits to school, dressed in shackles and chains (this was a suggestion I got for protesting Guantanamo Bay) gets nothing accomplished except inflated egos, over-exaggerated claims of righteousness, and a pacified guilty conscience?
Perhaps I need to clarify my position... obviously, some protests, like those of MLK or Gandhi, really did work. These protests occurred on the national scale, however, and were accompanied by calls to the government and authorities to act. Boycotts also played significant roles in each, which I would classify as meaningful action. By contrast, a small city or school rally with no objective but to simply protest is futile and selfish.
I feel like maybe I should organize a protest against protesters. Then again, forget that.
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The protests that work are strategic and focused. While the argument can be made that protesting the Iraq war at highway overpasses raises consciousness and keeps the issue in the forefront of people's minds, I agree with you that it doesn't really DO anything or CHANGE anything. But protests like the Unity at Gallaudet protest in D.C. two years ago really lead to measurable change. The students at Gallaudet were upset with the appointment of a president who doesn't sign so they organized and they shut down the campus for about a week. The president was replaced. It worked because they targeted their protests in a place where it matters. Protesting human rights abuses in your high school won't get much done. The protest has to get to the people committing the crimes...as it does in the letter writing campaign. Keep it up!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Interesting post. For the most part, I think you're right, although I submit that a worthwhile protest encourages the actions you suggest are important.
I've been raised to believe that demonstrating injustice is the initial step towards change. "I just don't understand why people aren't in the streets," my dad often says. His generation, I deduce, sees protests as seriously meaningful gigs.
Look at the protests during Vietnam--it's difficult to argue that they didn't sway public opinion. French protests and marches--they're held for just about anything.
Honestly I believe that protests have been fazed out of our culture. There are probably many reasons for this. I'd point to the shrinking middle class and a growing inability (financially and logistically) to attend such rallies. I read this year that group attendence in America is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. If you've read Tocqueville, you know that group formation and participation was what he (a French foreigner) was most impressed by.
Do you have any other explanations for our dwindling participation in protests and groups?
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I haven't read Alexis de Tocqueville, though I've studied him briefly and read that very statement recently (in fact, it was in Ron Paul's book that I mentioned in a comment on one of your blog posts). The America he described, and revered, was a nation of individuals who could gather together for a common cause, with no initiative from corporate interests or the government. It was real democracy; rule of the people by the people. I'll agree with you that Americans are no longer as interested in such things; many of us have been seized by apathy and political malaise, perhaps a result of our schedule-oriented hectic lives. On the other hand, though, many community groups continue to thrive.
Hehe Yeah! When was the last time you helped your neighbor with a barn-raising?(!)
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