To think protesting doesn't work anymore?

[022828MAN]

From BLM, Extinction Rebellion, Anti lock down protests in Melbourne.

I'm not arguing whether the context or reason for the protesting is justified or not, but I just wonder whether protesting is ever going to get results for anyone in this day and age.

It seems as though it's just the go-to answer nowadays, yet I've not seen anywhere it seems to have yielded any results. All I see is prolonged anguish, anxiety, vandalism, violence and arrests.

I feel like police / gov actively won't respond to demands through protesting as they believe it will show them to be able to be manipulated, and therefore they purposely do not give in to protests.

I'm not here to say people shouldn't be vocal when they believe in something, but is protesting the answer in modern times?

In general I think people should have the right to protest and I am not against the marches etc that take place. Extinction Rebellion, however, I think have totally failed to read the room and win hearts and minds to the cause. Massively inconveniencing commuters who are returning to work for the first time in months and already anxious enough about that? Not something to endear people in my opinion.

Unfortunately those protests you've mentioned above were almost all organised by very unpleasant left-wing activists as anti-government marches. The actual point of the 'March' is irrelevant. As the majority of the country voted for, generally supports the government and sees through the bullshit sadly genuine Protests get lost.

Protesting worked during the Poll Tax riots. I think it's a good time to protest with a government that seems to change its mind a lot.

This is a brilliant article on this specific question OP: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/613420/

Basically, yes - protests do work. But not necessarily on the timescale we expect. They don’t tend to lead to overnight change, but they have a huge societal impact which unfolds gradually in their wake.

Protestors like XR, who throw paint everywhere and break stuff are scum. Many of them are ignorant and there to cause trouble. I certainly don’t listen to them. Go protest at the Chinese embassy or others who really are ducking up the environment.

Protesting does work - but social change is generally a slow process - often far too slow for the early believers (and especially for young people!) It takes time for radical ideas to enter mainstream consciousness. It takes time for society to reach consensus on contentious issues. It's an organic process, with the timeline measured in generations.

I think they act more as a safety valve so that people feel they can have their say.

It's obviously going to win Trump a 2nd term (even if he encouraged it and /or made it way worse), because they are happening in all of the blue states. Seems very counter intuitive to me.

Of course protesting works, as evidenced in several examples upthread. Thank goodness. But as a pp pointed out, not necessarily in the timeframe expected.
Take XR, for instance. The initial objective for the first set of disruptions 18 months ago was to move the Overton window, which is basically to shift an issue, in this case the climate emergency, into public and media focus and so bring said issue further up the political agenda. And it did: nations (and local government as well as corporations) all over the world declared climate emergency and begun to put in place policy to reflect this.
The problem for XR and other environmental campaigning organisations is not whether they 'read the room' as a previous poster phrased it: we, the general public, are not reading the room -the environmental science, which is widely available and compelling. Too many of us are too busy being affronted at being hectored by someone whose hair-colour irritates us, to really take it in.
I, for one, am thrilled to see XR back in action this month, disrupting things. It's not a popularity contest. We're all adults, capable of making informed decisions based on the science available: it is infantile to expect environmental campaigning groups to be trying to win hearts and minds, or convince people of their cause, when it is already spelled out all over the planet in the form of fires and floods.

Protests are one of the few ways to get your voice heard in real time and they do bring about change.

Did protesting ever work (in the short term)? CND marches didn't result in nuclear disarmament. Suffrage happened eventually but after many decades of protest.

I do wonder how we are supposed to bring about change/stand up for what we believe in (especially at the moment with politicians encouraging division on topics like Brexit and immigration, and being slow to act on issues like climate change). Protests don't work (apparently). I don't think petitions work - they seem ten a penny now and half of the links I see circulates aren't through the official government website so does anyone pay any attention to them? So what can we do as individuals???

Yep I agree. Extinction rebellion just piss people off now and have done more to put off people helping stop climate change than they have to achieve anything positive.

BLM protests really took the piss too in the time of a mass pandemic. Fully supportive of the message etc but protests were as counter productive as productive. Most people I know were infuriated that anybody dare meet in such large numbers and show such disrespect to those that have worked to save lives through out the pandemic.

Why dont these so called 'protesters' do something positive for a change rather than destroying things all the time. Because the changes needed aren't going to be effected by small individual acts.

Only voting works Voting works? Really?

@YouWereGr8InLittleMenstruators You refer to my post. What I am saying is that I think protesting does work and should be allowed, but that I think there should be some constraints on it lawfulness. It is both effective and OK to protest but Extinction Rebellion in my opinion should not be allowed free rein to disrupt daily life for days on end to their own agenda. Despite them, not because of them, I still think climate change is a very important issue requiring greater action. So I am not saying they need to win hearts and minds to the cause, but rather to themselves as an organisation if they wish to be taken seriously. What is "infantile" about that?

I think sadly for the organisers of these protests, for every person that might applaud them, there is at least 1 or 2 that they actively turn the other way.
I care about climate change but cannot get on board with XR. I am not racist, but cannot get on board with BLM. I just think the excessive force of the protests are enough to get the exact response they don't want.
As a PP said, I think the BLM riots and looting will actually win Trump another term. Do they realise the repellent effect they have on a huge amount of the population?

Did you read the article I posted OP?

There's a lot of defeatism here. They don't work immediately but often create awareness of a problem which eventually does get fixed.
The Poll tax riots took around 4 years to work and that was fast.
Votes for women took decades.
Marriage equality took decades as well.
The fox hunting ban was another long one.
We shouldn't give up protesting just because it doesn't work straight away. It rarely works like that.

Bet the same was said about the suffragettes !

The UK population is meek and easily controlled, look at france and the protests they had over pension reforms?
Here the UK we just bend over and accept being shafted.

Protesting works but unfortunately, it has to be violent before the authorities will listen, anyone think women would have the vote if they had signed a petition?

@TheHappyHerbivore

Did you read the article I posted OP?

Sorry, missed the link upthread (just woken up from a night of insomnia!), will read now!

I was in Manchester earlier this week and London currently and have come across XR in both cities. I would class myself as part of the ‘silent majority’ and absolutely despise XR - privileged idiots.

We shouldn't give up protesting just because it doesn't work straight away. It rarely works like that.

Exactly. It’s never been as simple as just holding a protest and then seeing change fall into our laps. The value of protests is in shifting the narrative on a topic along, and changing public perception. You only have to look at the staggering increase in the number of people who support the BLM movement and / or acknowledge that racism is a widespread issue now compared to ten years ago to see that protests work and are effective.

I think we also need to challenge the narrative that protests are violent. A small minority of people who attend protests are violent and destructive. Often, the people behaving in this way are opponents of the movement behind the protest just trying to stir up trouble. You can’t judge an entire movement which is overwhelmingly peaceful on the actions of a handful of malcontents taking advantage of an opportunity.

People also fail to acknowledge the violence of past protests. The suffragettes actively promoted and encouraged violence as a legitimate and necessary tactic, and set off bombs. And yet they’re regularly lauded for the enormous, positive change they wrought in society.

That’s not to say I’m in favour of violence and bombs - of course I’m not. I just think that it’s too easy to dismiss protests occurring today on the basis that a small minority of participants behave violently while protesting, even as we enjoy rights and freedoms won by violent protests of the past.

Protesting peacefully, fine. Anything with violence, fighting, looting, bombs or just disturbing or inconveniencing people trying to get to work or go about their day is unacceptable. Though I do hope someone beat up those protestors who deliberately blocked any ambulance with lights and sirens on from getting through roads.

People are just so angry about everything these days, not just recently, the last 5 years or so. I am now at peak boredom with it all. I see Diversity doing a protest dance on Britain's Got Talent, I just switch over. Everyone is either virtual signalling or protesting.

@Msmcc1212

‘Today 04:42 VettiyaIruken

Walking down a street waving banners has never worked.’

Protests of different sorts have worked. If you are a woman in the UK, the only reason you get to vote is because of protests and direct action.

Indeed. That was my point. Direct action Poll tax riots as another poster said. The French went a bit too far...

I stand by my belief that walking down a street waving a banner doesn't work. Historically, real, genuine change has been fought for.

I don't know what the answer is because obviously it isn't ok to riot, set fire to stuff, go on a hunger strike and so on but I just don't have any faith in peaceful protest achieving anything beyond token chance that doesn't really change anything in day to day life.

Voting for a party that will make changes would be ideal but voter apathy is so high that there's bugger all chance of that. Plus of course, no such party exists.