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Protests and the things that make or break them
By yaman | November 21, 2006
I value the idea of protest, but I have always had an anxious relationship with protests. Attending one for me is always an exercise in the suspension of any sense of self-consciousness–participating does in a sense require being melded into the crowd. Otherwise you can’t help but feel like a moron with all the chants and those around you with whom you probably do not agree, but must produce an image to the contrary. In this sense I have always been a greater fan of group consciousness than of group identity. The former allows empathy without assimilation, while the latter requires a sacrifice of the self, an inseparability of the individual from the group.
So, when it became apparent last weekend that I had unwittingly thrust myself into the position of a “protest organizer,” I had to consider all these issues and reconcile them with myself. In retrospect there are a number of things I regret about the protest organizationally. The message advertising it failed to reach a large number of people who would have attended had they known the circumstances leading up to it. I blame this on a number of different things, besides my own ineptitude and inexperience: 1) the lack of any coverage from the Daily Cal regarding the taser incident at UCLA last week, which is to what the protest ostensibly was a response 2) the lack of a structure linking pre-existing groups to each other in the case that a “coalition” movement is necessary on short notice 3) the holiday weekend, which for many people began at the end of last week.
Ideologically, I had a number of other issues with the protest. I wish some of the speakers had not been invited to speak. As is typical with all protests, different contingents attempted to co-opt the cause for their own ends. I suppose it is tempting to proselytize your beliefs whenever you find a group of people conveniently assembled, even for other reasons. Unfortunately, this is a serious problem that threatens to unravel the coherency of any protest: 1) It undermines the cause for which the protest originally was designed by deflecting attention to other issues and by wasting the valuable time one has with the assembled. 2) It annoys those who attended and were subjected to irrelevant propaganda and reinforces stereotypes that people who hate protests generally have–that it is all the ’same group of crazy leftists’ who organize every protest. You can’t blame them, I suppose, when at a protest regarding police brutality you have somebody on stage ranting about the “parallels” between the torture of a student at UCLA and the torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghurayb. Maybe such a parallel exists, but it is not one that can be explained in 30 seconds on a podium, and definitely not at a protest. Whatever the case may be, encouraging the construction of a broad “anti-war movement” at a protest championing civilian oversight over the police is simply bad manners, and wins you many demerits amongst other activists.
Ultimately, these problems arise out of the very nature of a public protest. As an organizer, one simply cannot control who shows up, what is said, and what is done. As a result these aberrations are unavoidable and squabbling about them should be limited to planning for the next time. Nevertheless, no matter who comes, what they say, and what they do, this should never detract from the essential and intentional message of the protest–you can always tell when somebody lacks the ability to argue about core issues when they use such incidents as a “justification” for ignoring the crux of a protest.
The protest on Monday was not about the war in Iraq, even if somebody took a tangent in that direction. It was about the presentation and delivery of a letter of demands to UC President Robert Dynes, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, and Chief of Police Victoria Harrison outlying very reasonable demands regarding community control of the police. We took the protest to the UCPD station and delivered the letter to Assistant Chief of Police, Michael Celaya, and then went to California Hall where we handed copies to Assistant Vice Chancellor Charles Upshaw, who accepted them on behalf of the President and Chancellor. I have already heard back from Celaya, who has agreed to set up a meeting. More importantly, the Chancellor and President must respond, as they have the power in their hands to get real change. Despite all of this, I am almost sure that the typical protest haters will focus on the uncontrollable facets of the protest while ignoring the letter and its potential for effective change.
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