People are so frustrated with the failure of politicians to address their needs that many have turned to protest as a way to demonstrate their displeasure.
The most common ways of protesting are attending physical protests/demonstrations, ranting on social media, writing letters to politicians, or civil disobedience.
The problem with all of these things is that they, on their own, play according to the existing rules of our political system and have little, if any, impact on policy or political action.
Sometimes people will take to the streets to show their displeasure, but ten or even 50 people showing up at a protest in a city of 20,000 people means nothing, because it actually means that 19,950-19,990 people chose to not attend.
If a politician disagrees with your position, they will not be dissuaded by the actions of several dozen people, and you will more likely be dismissed as “crazy”.
Letter writing has the same issue: write something they agree with and you might get your letter shared publicly, but disagree with them and you will be dismissed as a crackpot.
Many people resort to surveys and petitions because they are easy ways to express displeasure, but they are useless in that regard.
Surveys and petitions are not designed to gather feedback which politicians can use to better represent your views in government; they are used specifically in order to identify which issues are important to you and whether or not your views and values align with the politician and his/her political party.
For example, if a politician or political party asks for your position on gun control, they are not asking because their position on gun control is dependent on the feedback they receive; they are asking so that they can know whether or not you might be a potential supporter come Election Day.
This is not to say that organized political actions have not made a difference, because they have.
The civil rights movement and mass protests, Ghandi’s civil disobedience, the labour union formation in the early 20th century, all of these are examples of political action making a significant difference.
The problem with modern day political action is twofold:
First, these successful examples of political action involved entire generations of people; these were not neighbourhood groups gathering in protest, they involved thousands of people from all walks of life who spent years demanding change.
The second problem is that these very political actions that were so successful were also novel at the time; politicians expect and respond to these actions today, forcing you to play by their rules.
Political action that results in positive change requires two important aspects:
First, it must be not a group of people but a movement that spans generations demanding change and willing to spend years fighting for it.
Second, it requires a novel action that neither plays by the rules of the existing political dynasty nor is anticipated by contemporary political strategy.
In my next post I will be talking about how we should be questioning everything that we hear and consider to be true in politics and social constructs.
I think another problem with modern protests is lack of focus, for example the Pro-pipeline rally on Parliament Hill couple years back was hijacked by other groups taking about illegal immigration or the occupy wall street movement winch was originally a cross-poltical protest against the 2008 bank bailouts but quickly devolved into a general protest against capitalism.
That’s a good point, Luke. And these protests peter out so quickly that they come and go without anyone noticing beyond a news story or two. Even the Occupy Movement could not sustain itself long enough to enact lasting change (though it did spark conversations around the world).
The focus can be really key, though, because if there is no clarity, there will be no result.