WHY YOU ARE NOT PROTESTING

Social movements are a very important medium of empowerment, yet many of us are discouraged to “go out there” and raise our voices in protest. What is the source of this discouragement, you may ask? I was talking to a friend of mine from Colorado some time during this semester. Our discussion was about student protests. I told him that in Italy students would organize riots and protests during a normal school day and get the lesson to be cancelled. At that time I was happy to get my classes cancelled but now I understand the importance of gathering. We used to organize one each month, together with other schools. This went on for about a semester, until the Department of Education gave us a day every month to “democratically discuss the issues related to the school and society in order to maximize the cultural and civil education of the students." I remember our professors being very biased about a protest. The overall reaction was “I am going to give you all a zero for participation if you don’t come” and many times I was threatened by that zero that I did not protest. He had a very surprised face and told me that “authorities, including the government are against the people here.” My follow up question was “Have you ever taken part in a protest?” and the answer was negative.

In these three months spent in Portland, I heard a lot about protests. I talked to people that participated in some. And I talked to people that wish they could bring up a change. I can’t avoid the fact that all the protests I heard about surely enhanced the negative consequences that they caused. I started to believe that social media has a big influence on how people perceive rallies and their willingness to protest. Sigmund Fraud investigates in his article the reasons that hinder citizens from protesting. In primis threats from military authorities, followed by regulations from the government and the media that simply focuses on any kind of violence that happens.

This is a screenshot of the results from the search “Ferguson riots” on Google Chrome. The fire, the angry faces and the masks portray the idea that protests are hazardous and perilous, thus lessening the willingness of citizens to even challenge an attack. Another technique used by the media is glittering generalities, or phrases and mottos that address people’s pathos by touching upon important values. The pictures above and the news linked to the rally description portray “the other side” in a way that the average citizen cannot sympathize with it.

An example of this happened some months ago when the NFL players decided to kneel instead of standing during the anthem as a form of protest against the police assaults against African Americans. Many critics argued that this action led to a loss of patriotism and perceived it as disrespectful towards the country, the flag and the anthem too.

Trump was the first to discourage the behaviour by posting tweets condemning the protest.

The ethics behind what the news describes as going against the moral code of “being American” turn out to be an argument against protesting. Nationalism and the idea of belonging restrain the impetus of the citizens to openly protest in favour of their beliefs, not simply by fueling the idea that only amoral citizens protest, but also by reinforcing the opinion that there are more bad outcomes than good ones in protesting, and no change is achieved, only the shame of treason.

Despite these negative conceptions of protests, many disagree. The article “How Social Movements Matter” explores the importance of using social movements to empower the individual’s voice. The author, David S. Meyer provides multiple examples of social movements that affected public policies and the internal affairs of political institutions in the long run. For example, the nuclear freeze movement further affected the federal bureaucracy of gun controls during Kennedy’s presidency and the many environmental movement that collect money from donors and publicizes government operations. His report enhances the positive vision that social movements can and do make a change, functioning as an incentive for people to gather and protest.

It is clear that the authorities and media conceal the truth that protests have power to prevent public support and magnify individuality more than the idea of being part of one community.

I believe that there are two sides, the protester and the anti-protesters.

Do we now stand together with our people or with the government?