Why I Don’t Believe Peaceful Protests Work Without A Fear Of Possible Violence
Im not necessarily a full anarchist, but I felt like by posting it here, it might reach eyes with similar beliefs. Now when I usually tell people this, they react like I just beat down a helpless animal, but after I explain it to them they usually understand my point of view. They may not agree with me but they will understand my point of view. That is the point of my article now.
When we are growing up we are always given examples of how taking the higher road and participating in peaceful protests is how to get things done. We celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and learn how to power of peaceful protest was able to defeat segregation and discriminatory regulation within the US. However in reality politics didn’t end up working like that and the reason peaceful protesting worked was because they feared that the protest would turn violent and America would have a race war on its hands. Let me explain. Many people at the time were split between two groups, Martin Luther King Jr.’s peaceful protest group and the radical Black Panther party which advocated action and sometimes violence to get their point across. At the height of the two groups rivaling each other, many believed that Martin Luther King Jr.’s inaction would cause them to be crushed by the government. On top of that within Hoover’s FBI, King was seen as an enemy of the state and there is proof he was actively blackmailing him.
Eventually when the entire civil rights movement got past the point of no return, politicians realized that change was either going to come or things would turn violent. Rather than supporting the Black Panther Party, politicians supported King’s peaceful movement and endorsed him which essentially killed the Black Panther Party. Many who were on the fence moved to King’s movement and from there history was made.
Beyond the civil rights story, there are many others, but what most of them have in common is that the government feared that if they didn’t make peace there would soon be in a violent struggle. I believe there needs to be some fear for compromises to be made. If the government is feeling pressured they are either going to lash out or they are going to back down. If they chose the first option they end up looking , like a backwards country in the eyes of the world and lose international face. A good example of this was the crackdown on the protests at Tiananmen Square in China. Nearly a million peaceful Chinese staged a protest in Tiananmen Square and ended up getting mowed down for it.China decided that the protest was becoming too big so they cracked down and the world shamed them for it. I think had those 1 million used violence instead of peace they might have been able to topple the leadership in China.
All throughout history the amount of successful violent protests and Coup’s have outnumbered peaceful protest 100 to 1. I believe that if we want real change there needs to be some threat of violence to a government body. By violence im also talking about ways that aren’t exactly violent but don’t play by the rules, such as hacking whistle-blowing and revealing documents that can potentially get people hurt, for the greater good. I don’t want violent protests to happen, but I think that they are just a way of how things get done effectively. Solutions to problems just tend to get solved more quickly when people are in the streets throwing Molotov Cocktails.
If you agree with me or don’t agree with me leave a comment, im interested to see what the reactions will be.
-Calaber24p
I think passive non-compliance works better than violence. The problem is that people have a difficult time uniting themselves on a large scale for a common goal.
If you haven't seen the movie Cartel Land [2015], you should see it right away. It really explains how there is no real winners ..
My favorite "joke" is when people think that signing a petition is the way to keep problems in check. If that was the case, then there would be no war on earth. Nations would just produce signed petitions to one another. lol.
I agree.You are hereby upvoted and followed.You have made good comments before.Although I forgot what they were..
"By violence im also talking about ways that aren’t exactly violent but don’t play by the rules, such as hacking whistle-blowing and revealing documents that can potentially get people hurt, for the greater good. "
I believe this is a good thing to put pressure on our modern tyrants. Wiki leaks, snowden, things like this are crucial.
Please keep in mind I am not the type to take to the street and hurt a fellow citizen because I'm angry that he/she is a representative of the law, who tries upholds the peace. (law enforcement)
We can shake things up without mass violence!
The revolution will be powered by mass non-compliance. We will not convert law enforcement by violence, but by discussion. Everyone can see the truth in non-aggression. Once they open their eyes because of the censorship free parts of the internet, they will also see the government for what it truly is, a violent entity, and will join us in non-compliance.
But what about national security? Is there anything you'd be against releasing based on national security grounds? The guy who released the pentagon papers didn't run away to Russia. I think Snoden erred because he revealed some of our terrorist hunting methods + some of our foreign spy operations. from what I read he stole so much material he couldn't vet all of it, he just passed tons of shit to Greenwald. I'm not the most anti-snoden guy you'll ever come across, but I would like to see him tried by a jury of his peers on treason charges. Also there are many places where street protests are shut down with bullets, sometimes I think people protesting America's problems lack global context.
The problem with peaceful protests are the people they are protesting against aren't usually peaceful.
In a Utopian world full of compassionate and empathetic people, peaceful protects would be great. But not in our world, not yet anyway. The good news is people at large are indeed getting less violent over time.
Well that's the problem with the government then, most of the time they won't listen as long as they can have what they want. That's why politics were referred as the devil's playground.
The problem with peaceful protests is that they have an "exploit". 2 of the photos you used are from Greece / 2011. Now the protests were working very well for a while because they were peaceful. Half a million people were outside the parliament, nearly on a daily basis, and this image was delegitimizing the parliament which was voting things against the public will. The politicians were cracking and they had to find something to do about it.
The "exploit" is that the establishment "plants" some "violent" protesters among the peaceful ones and then says "oh these protestors are just violent hooligans". They then proceed to break the protest with violence. They did just that in late june 2011 in our case (Athens).
So, violence, in unarmed populaces, doesn't work for "resisting" because the people are outgunned. It could be different in countries with an armed populace.
I think this is a huge problem with almost all peaceful protests. You always get a minority of extremists who ruin the view and the government uses that for an excuse to turn on you, like what happened during occupy Wall Street.
They are "planted" by the establishment:
They throw the firebomb on the ground (not the cops), then when the riot police tries to counter-attack, they are like "hey hey, not us man, we are undercover"... one even unmasks, and after the unmasking the riot police retreats ;) All theatrics.
(check it in full screen)
I think this is a very good point. Every action that is effective is so because of leverage. Without leverage, you have no position of power to demand action of another.
Boycotts, therefore, can only be effective if there is a significant number of people who will commit to be faithful to the boycott and ensure and adverse effect on whom they are protesting.
Likewise, protests without some sort of leverage will not be effective. Leverage can be gained in the form of media coverage that then reflects poorly on the protested and could effect a change. But, without some sort of leverage...like threat of violence...protests are a waste of time.
I believe there is a more effective way: Change the economical system(capitalism) by collaborative ownership of the means of production,these means being increasingly localised digital manufacturing ,sustainable energy ,and food production(automated as much as possible).
Then at the political level;fight for more local democracy,also using blockchain techology for online voting. There are initatives like flux in Australia, https://voteflux.org/ ,which has a a more radical form of direct democracy,where they pledge to only represent the voters direcly,and this is working through a blockchain app.
These are some transtional steps.on our way to an abundant and non hierarchical and post capitalist society.
What do you mean when you say "capitalism"? I see capitalism as free market capitalism - which barely exists yet, because it was introduced into an imbalanced and biased system... it may take another few decades for things to find a better equilibrium and people to realize that most short term gain translates into long term pain, even for themselves.
You are correct @calaber24p - non-violence was once beneficial when attempting to raise awareness, and perhaps has great propaganda-benefit when the boots wade-in and brutalize. However, when 'EVERYONE KNOWS' what the problems are and that we have moved on from education to demanding change, then allowing the state to place protesters in holding-areas, and make selective arrests of leadership etc. is totally f'n useless.
The state responds only when there is a 'real threat', first they respond with violence, but if the threat is sustained, it will respond with reform. If the objective is massive change to societal power-structures, then this threat must be sustained 'and' widespread. Of course when I say threat, I do not mean only violence .. aggresive non-cooperation as in refusing to acknowledge the demands of the state on every level, slowly causing failure over time in-aggregate ...
Standing in a group, ignored by the mass-media, waiting silently to get pepper-sprayed and stomped into the ground no longer has any value .. last time it did was the Battle for Seattle in 2007 .. when people still watched television, and was of such a scale, never seen in the United States that mass media could not ignore it.
It's never "the state" that responds, but just a small party within the state, who has power over its machinery. We should rather ask ourselves: Do we want to build such minority-controllable apparatus?
I think in a democratic society, a peaceful protest should be the only acceptable norm. - The voices of the people are heard and taken into consideration. Since it's the people ruling through representatives.
In an autocratic society, an aggressive one should be the only norm. - People don't pick their leaders and leaders don't care about the people much. Change has to be made by force.
***I'm not naive. This only applies in extreme cases. A 100% democratic and uncorrupt society vs an unhuman dictatorship.
I don't believe that our government fear their citizens in the US at all. I think most people here are too complacent with their cushy lives and turn the other way when their rights are breached. I see our country slowly turning into more of a security state as time goes on, maybe not 1984 levels , but definitely to a point that is undesirable.
Same here.
This reminds me of the idea: It's easy to control prisoners, when we give them the illusion of freedom.
All we can do is educate people, make them question the government.
What would happen if a coup would take place in the US. Would the indoctrinated people stand with the new or the old?
So... what's the best solution to get rid of an autocracy which masks itself as an democracy?
Need to identify the enemy and call in "the expendables" :)
I don't know what to do.
It's not whether "our government" "fears" anything. It's about what those with the keys to the castle fear, think, and believe.
Saludos desde Venezuela, espero ganar mucho dinero con esto.
The problem with violent protests is that it is hardly ever the government or their agents that suffer.
It's private citizens, private property, private businesses that suffer.
People come to harm, property is damaged or destroyed, businesses both cannot do business and therefore lose revenue, or their shops and goods are also damaged or destroyed.
The government agents of force (police, nat'l guard) are very rarely harmed, with their riot shields to block incoming projectiles, tear gas to keep people away, sound-blasting machines to keep people away, the sheer intimidation of an MRAP with a huge gun on the top of it, etc.
Government buildings hardly ever are damaged or destroyed. For some reason, violent protestors love to smash car windows, business windows, throw molotov cocktails on the roof of a McDonalds...but never City Hall. Never the local IRS office. Never the local police department.
(A skeptic would say this is because the protestors can't immediately be rewarded from the government buildings the same way they can from, say, a big-screen tv store or a jewelry store.)
Even if you had violent protestors who were dedicated to the idea of harming only government property, those people would soon be joined by hordes of opportunists who would bring violence to the streets simply to cause panic and loot. Once that happens, any sympathy the protest may have had with the general public will be lost, and the entire thing will be viewed as simply a reason to loot.
(Again, skeptics would note that many protests have been waylaid in this fashion by people who were hired to cause trouble and loot. Agent provocateurs.)
Keep in mind, I'm not saying violence is never the answer. I'm simply wondering how you would keep it focused on the government and its agents, and keep out the bad actors.
In the short term that is certianly true. However, if the protests are successful and bring about change to bad policies then it is the citizens, property and businesses that benefit from a more just and productive society over the longer term. The premise of the OP is that violent resistance or at least peaceful resistance backed by a credible threat of violence is 100x more effective in bringing about positive social change. I don't know if history backs up that claim, but if it does then the argument is sound.