There’s a lot of baggage associated locally with the word “protest”. Generally speaking, it has become a word with a whole bunch of hidden meanings, depending on who is using it. When the government uses it, it tends to be talking about the “good old days” of anti-apartheid protest against the previous government.
But when there’s protest now, from the people, it’s rather funny to hear officialdom warn against anyone using the same methods that got the current government into power in the first place. (The delicious irony of history strikes again. Having used certain tactics to obtain power, suddenly those people with power don’t want anyone else possibly to do the same to them.)
Protest has a long history. In medieval times, peasants with a grudge would starve themselves on the doorstep of the person who had done them wrong. Luckily, by 1789, this dumb idea was replaced with a much better and more effective one: killing the people in charge. Read The Ideology of the French Revolution and Wikipedia: French Revolution.
Music has always been a part of protest, a way of helping folks join together against “the enemy” — there is a great example of the ever-changing face of music and protest, beginning in 1776 and onward through the centuries to now, at PBS’s online feature Strange Fruit.
In recent times, protest has taken many forms. The late Sixties saw anti-capitalist groups such as The Weathermen. (And if you’re curious to read declassified FBI files on this short-lived but rather influential group, you can find them at FBI Files on The Weathermen.) Also, for a crash course, see Wikipedia on Weathermen.
Then there was Germany’s odd Bonnie-and-Clyde anti-fascist, anti-Nazi violent group known as the Red Army Faction, which gained pin-up status in airports across Europe for its members. See The Baader-Meinhof Gang. The fun part of the story is that a sympathetic journalist first wrote stories about them, then ended up not only staging a breakout for the group, but also joining them. Try This Is Baader Meinhof.
But the growing protest that society faces now tends to be against the various multinational corporations and the assorted “trade agreements” that are being signed, bypassing local laws and often penalising countries that try to maintain a decent wage or safe conditions for their workers.
Naturally, local television is not going to bother to give you a context, or explain what’s unfolding, or do anything other than show you footage of marchers getting beaten. But the anti-globalisation movement worldwide is gaining momentum. If you think this has nothing to do with us here in South Africa, you’re wrong — we’re beginning to reap the effects of Faustian deals done in our name, by our government.
To give you a non-boring and easily understood breakdown of the whats and whys of it all, start at World Bank and International Monetary Fund Questions and Answers. Then try the readable and interesting article What I Learned at the World Economic Crisis.
You might want to pause by the back-and-forth argument between two economists on the World Bank and Mozambique’s Cashew-Nut Exports. Then browse Fifty Years Is Enough. And if that’s not enough info for you, read The Tyranny of Geography.
Locally, for instance, there’s growing protest on a number of fronts. For instance, against what appears to be the government’s attempts to exclude the poor from universities, read Student Revolt Erupts in KwaZulu.
Then there’s the scam, as used by other governments, to shrug off their responsibilities to their citizens by simply “privatising” key delivery systems. Learn more than the official media will tell you, at The Anti-Privatisation Forum. And to get a sense of what this “means” to the average poor citizen locally, do yourself a favour and grab this 2,5 meg PDF file, detailing the ongoing struggle against pre-paid water meters: Download Silent Disconnections: Prepaid Meters and the Struggle for Life.
To get a sense of how local NGOs are seeing the world, dip into Alternative Information and Development Centre.
Slight gear change. To find a side of Anant Singh that doesn’t quite mesh with the “poor guy made good and always trying to do what’s right for SA” PR spin that one is used to, read the very informative and interesting reality check on Singh and local films about the “poor”, at The Ironies of Intellectual Property.
For me, the best kind of protest — apart from beheading the swines in power — is to humiliate them. Nothing brings a pompous windbag self-important politician down to our level as when he or she is being pelted with food and made to look bloody stupid.
To this end, there are a number of groups and organisations in action, around the world, that have made a point of non-violent but wonderfully messy protest. The United States has the Biotic Baking Brigade (also known as Al Pieda). Have a look through its gallery of Great Moments.
The Netherlands has Taart. Canada has Les Entartistes. They haven’t updated in a while, but go look at Les Entartistes. Then there is The Mad Anarchist Bakers’ League.
In case you wondered, the most that can be done legally to anyone throwing a pie at, for instance, our president, is a slap on the wrist and a minor fine for common assault. (It’s only the self-important politicians themselves who get really upset and outraged by having their “dignity” affected. Everyone else gets the joke and laughs at them, which is exactly the desired effect wanted by all of these and other pie-protest groups.
Quick and easy odd sites of the week:
Screaming Teacher Caught on Cellphone Cam by Student
Hunter Thompson’s First Appearance on Doonesbury (As “Duke”)
A Hand-Cranked Charger for an iPod
Something for the Homeless: Inflatable Clothing
Too Busy to Catch Your Chickens? Buy an Industrial Chicken Catcher Machine
The Diary of a Fan of … Horse Testicles in a Jar?
Convert Your Webcam to an Infra-Red WebCam. Why?
Celebrities Caught Blinking?
Kitten Taking Pic of Dog Taking Pic of Kitten
(Adult) Female Bloggers Dating Emails. The Horny Cometh
Until the next time, if the change in format doesn’t get me.