The lifeline of small, urban protests today, is the Press. From
my observation, this seems to be a trend. I found this to be true of the Anonymous protest in Bangalore (and in other parts of the country like Kolatta,
from my readings) as well. Please note that by virtue of this post being about
urban protests, I am talking about the communication technology enabled Public
and Protestor. Much of this post takes from the
fresh experience at the Anonymous protest in Bangalore yesterday but it has evolved out of engagement with
several other such events over a long time. It might make sense to
read my previous post, before this one.
I’ll proceed by first setting a context.
The Aim of a protest is many fold and usually all of these
reasons below, no matter what method is employed-
- Awareness to the general
public of the cause
- Awareness that there is
work being done on the cause
- Mobilising the public
- Effecting change at the
policy level
Largely, it is Public Outreach work and Policy Work (Advocacy
and Lobbying). Another way of looking at it is that there is work that happens
at the Grassroots and other work that needs to happen with those in the Ivory Towers.
Most organizations, formal or informal, work on the first three Aims, with a Grassroots
engagement. Very few work at the Policy level. They are usually less well
known, quieter in their methods, and involve more information than that which
floats at the Grassroots.
“Let’s Bring the Change” rhetoric works in a few different
ways. Sometimes it concentrates solely on the first three Aims, if it is an
issue solvable by the common man. For example, “Let’s stop littering our
surroundings.” Other issues cannot be solved by the common man, and so Mobilization
becomes important only to show policy makers that there is now a democratic
mandate for the change in request, such as, “Let’s remove fuel subsidies for
businesses.” In this case, the first three Aims are optional to fulfill and if
they are fulfilled, its only to reach the fourth. Other issues need a
partnership of common people and policy makers, in which case the protest
should ideally try to fulfill all four Aims. For example, “Let’s end caste
discrimination at the work place” is an exhortation to employers, employees and
the government to put in effective laws.
Now with regards to the first three Aims specifically, and
the fourth one by trickle down, here are the Methods that concerned individuals
use to realize their Aims.
- Connecting to the “man on
the street” (which includes ALL types of people. At least a protestor
would hope so. Ideally, the protestor should try connecting with the man
he may not normally be able to interact with), by protesting in public
- Connecting to the man in
the virtual armchair, by using social media
- Using mainstream media to be
the one stone that gets both birds above (The man in the arm chair can
also be the man on the street, but the assumption is that it need not
happen the other way around, and thus it necessitates a public demonstration)
The problem with Method ‘a’ listed above is that, the man on
the urban street usually only stares. Ive been involved as spectator, skeptic
and participant at a number of social justice events and I have almost never
seen people walking up to social workers, and asking for information. Social
workers on the other hand will try and go to the people, by shouting slogans,
holding placards with thought provoking statements or handing out flyers. Yet
people are in a hurry and seem to feel comforted by the rationalisation that
“There are some good people in the world. Their energy can offset my apathy”
and leave. I can only once remember a passerby, who stopped to see what was up.
Correspondingly, people who attend social justice events, are nearly always
members of the organizing group, members of related invited organizations, and
other regular faces involved in the cause in question. I cannot remember
meeting a brother, sister, mother, friend or cousin, who wanted to “learn more”
or “find out how they can support the cause.” Maybe it is not that we are
apathetic, but that we are acurious.
The protest of yesterday, employed Method ‘b’ first, Method
‘a’ next and Method ‘c’ last (as do most protests that work with Web 2.0). At
MG Park, protestors were looking around shiftily and someone suggested shouting
slogans. It didn’t look like anyone was going to take the initiative, neither
did it seem like anyone could think up a smart slogan. Besides, there is the
futility of shouting at traffic to consider. And in the case of this protest,
the masks were effectively muffling speech (not to mention vision and breathing
as well). At FP though, there was slogan chanting. But the protest area in FP
is flanked by wide borders of parking space, a line of trees and a footpath.
Once you cut through all the thicket, you arrive at a high speed road, with the
nearest traffic signal being about one kilometer away and so vehicles are whizzing
past (which does not actually happen in other parts of the city where roads are
bad, vehicles are too many, signals are frequent and traffic crawls). No man on
the street heard the slogans or read the thought provoking placards. No unaware
person was made aware, no uninitiated person was mobilized. It was a protest/
awareness drive that was self contained among those who are already aware. The
hope of a TV channel or newspaper reporting it was really the only way any kind
of un-aware person could become slightly aware. And perhaps this was the goal.
What happened during the public demonstration was really,
only an exercise in pandering to the media. Protestors did not actually reach
out to the man on street at all. Protestors came, they were photographed, they
left/ got lost. Methods ‘b’ and ‘a’ were really an elaborate lay-up for the
execution of Method ‘c.’ One consolation perhaps is that the masks prevented
gloating. Had there not been masks, all the weary twenty would have wanted in
on the frame.
Awareness of the cause, the work being done and mobilisation,
was all communicated by the Method of the internet. The public protest was not
to connect to the public directly, but was a show of strength so that the
mainstream media, the intermediary (
to use relevant jargon), the amplifier,
would do the hard task of letting the non-web savy person know of the cause, the
work being done on it and mobilise. To put it easily, all the first three Aims
of a protest that I had listed above (and the fourth one as well, by extension),
are being taken care of by the third Method of protest.
Does this b->a->c practise harm anything? Information
is still getting out there, fulfilling all the three Grassroots Aims. People on
the street also probably read the newspaper or watch the news on TV. So even if
no one bothered to hand them a flyer, or they have not been part of the process
online, they are still initiated into the awareness process. What initially
targeted only 10.2% resulted in the rest of the connected populace being put in
the loop. When more people are aware, the trickle starts flowing down and the
fourth Aim of effecting public policy gets underway. This is even without the
help of those who work with the Ivory Tower residents. All in all, it seems
like a very effective way to get redressal to a cause. Especially when the man
on street is also acurious.
And thus online or offline, high turn out or small turn out,
if mainstream media covers it, a protestors work can be said to be “done” and a
cause nearly accomplished. Shout slogans for the mic, raise placards for the
camera, go home and wait for the evening bulletin. Do whatever you have to
before the media arrives, to ensure that they do arrive. Breathe easy once they
do. At least at the end of this, you Protestor, will have a link to post on
your website. The next time you make a presentation to seek donations, you can
use the line, “Several national dailies wrote about our struggle in xxxx to do
xxxx. It was well covered by both television and print media.”
It thus seems that the quantum of protest does not matter in
this form of urban protest. One does not need to protest long durations of time.
One does not need to make a “large human chain.” One does not need to baptize
five hundred new people into the fold. One only needs to get ten people
together and the photographer will fill the frame with ten people (better if it
is an aerial shot) and the reader of the newspaper will imagine that there were
at least another hundred people packed behind those ten.
It is this argument that I would also like to claim as my
response to the
Reuters report that came out yesterday on the Reuters blog. The
article seemed to poke fun at the grandiosness of the Anonymous movement and display
it as lame, with the blog’s inverted commas, embedded links and second comments.
While I am not an Anon nor do I wish to be one, I would like to prop up the
argument that the protest was not about connecting with the people on MG Road,
or about showing up in large numbers (which the article is taking for granted
as markers of a real protest). The protest was an attention seeking stunt. This
is Anonymous’ selling point. And this is exactly what they achieved. So the
Reuters talk-down of the protest is really, so irrelevant to Anonymous. Those
who did not attend or did not support the movement at all, may enjoy what they
consider a barb to Anonymous but to them, it will bounce off with no mark (Also
because there is no known horse to flag).
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Is there a way protests around the world should change in
their approach? Consider all the parties involved- the protestor, the public,
the media, the state. Do share your views in the comment section on this post.
