Is violence the best way to protest and to be heard? - published: 13/10/2023

Extract

[...] Is violence the best way to protest? Malcolm X once said: "You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom." These past years social protesters tend to get more violent in order to obtain their claims: We saw that recently in Chile, with some environmental activists all around Europe, or even in France with the "gilets jaunes." Thus, lead us to two important questions: Are peaceful social movements still able to pressure a government? [...]

[...] Nowadays, if we mention a black leader we rarely mention Malcolm X. The usage of violence is probably one of the reason. II. Is violence the only way to be heard? Besides that argument, I will say that, protesters must use their intelligence to be heard. Many people are afraid of violence. In order to gather more and more citizens to a noble cause, security and peace have to be considered. All over the world, protests against climate change happened. [...]

[...] This ignorance tends to be reduced nowadays through social media. However, 30years ago, there were not many means to know about social injustice. If people wanted to speak out, they often needed violence. We have seen that in the 80's in the black ghettos. Music turned to be aggressive in words denouncing inequity, cops violence, poverty and inactions of country leaders. From funk and disco, the street had its new way of expression: Rap. Black people situations were finally exposed to everyone in the world with the help of violent lyrics. [...]

[...] This is probably the best thing that could happen for ecology. Yes, we can be heard, without being aggressive. In the history, demonstrations had sometimes been violent. Violence showed some positive results. However in some non-democratic countries, the risk is real: the response, from country leaders might be harder: last cases happened recently in Iran or in Thailand. Whether anger is around us, we should never forget that most of causes don't need deaths to be heard. Furthermore, I believe that gathering millions of people against a political project is the best way ever, to win. [...]