A Year in Protest

I saw this article showing an incredible photo catalogue of protests worldwide.  I find it amazingly inspiring because it chronicles the actions of thousands of individuals, acting together or alone, all moved to action by what they see as unacceptable.  Some protest in defence of an ideal or privilege they don’t want to lose, others in favour of a change they see as necessary – it gives me huge joy to see such passionate expression.

What I find disturbing is the fact that there is a need to protest.  This is the 21st century, as we’re often reminded, an age of comfort, security and technological optimism.  Mankind has conquered the planet, claiming the dominion the Bible supposedly grants him over the beasts and birds, over the planet itself.  But going through these pictures, the protests are for the most basic of rights:

– to protest and assemble

– to speak, live and act freely

– to be represented by a government that puts its citizens first beyond all other considerations

– to promote equality for women as well as lesbian, gay and transgender people

– to end barbaric punishment for crimes against religious orthodoxy

– to stop the brutalising of journalists and free thinkers

– to free the wrongfully imprisoned

– to recognise the rights of people to have a country of their own

Anyone reading the above would think that these are in fact the bases of our culture as we understand it.  By our culture, I mean Western culture, but in an increasingly global world, these values are worn at the cuff by governments of all stripes.  What nation does not promote all or most of these values?  What government does not use the violation of these rights as an excuse for hard talk, sanctions or even violent action against others?  What human being does not believe, beneath any indoctrination or relativism, in the fundamental importance of these things?

So why do people have to storm buildings, burn cars, gather in the streets, be beaten, tear gassed, water cannoned, injured and even killed, all for the sake of fighting for things we all agree on?  That disturbs me.  It also speaks volumes about the broad-based sense of unease and dissatisfaction among the populace of the world, that these actions are becoming more common, more angry, more desperate to make an impact.

We all have a sense of time passing, of ourselves as a species and a civilisation moving towards something else.  We sense a change.  We see hard times and are told that they are temporary.  We have reason to question the way things are done and we’re told that it is only the work of a few bad apples which undermined our confidence and stability.  We’re told that the solution is in a return to the way, not the seeking of a new way.

These pictures tell us that the old way is no longer enough.  Our confidence cannot be restored – it can only be earned, anew, through the building of a more equal, more representative world.  We recognise, perhaps only intuitively right now, that apples do not go bad in the social or political sense – they are bad from inception because they feed on toxic soil.  Whether we are on the right or the left, religious or atheist, gay or straight or in between, we all know that something has to be done, not just to uproot and replant but to alter the composition of the soil itself, perhaps even right down to the bedrock.  How we will do it is another question for another day.  These pictures inspire me to redouble my own efforts.  They also shake my sense of complacency that all must be well because I cannot smell the burning from my apartment.  The “we” I believe in is not European or white or religious or sexually aligned – the “we” I see in these pictures is a unified majority of this planet’s people who know that something has to be done.  We are in control.  We can make this work.  We just need to keep going until all doubt is swept away.

For a musical accompaniment to the photographs, try this.