Demonstrations useful instrument of change

Monday, January 26, 1998

Demonstrations useful instrument of change

Disobedience can force those in power to appease movements

By Jake Sexton

Brian Ewing’s article on Jan. 20 ("Mob doesn’t get message
across") basically denounces the idea of protests, demonstrations
and illegal civil disturbance. He says that such things do not
bring about change. He obviously does not know what he is talking
about.

It is possible to slowly inform the public, until popular
opinion is such that the policymakers cannot help but give in to
public pressure; it just does not happen very often. In my own
studies of history, it appears that the type of calm, informative
attempts at consensus-building that Ewing espouses are almost
completely ineffective. As near as I can tell, polite requests for
change are ignored, or at best given mere symbolic notice by
politicians. Social movements seem to only achieve their goals
(some of them, anyway) when the establishment becomes so disturbed
or frightened by them, that it becomes safer to concede to the
least frightening of the movement’s demands. Effective tactics
include civil disobedience, peaceful non-violent protest and
violent insurrection. The government’s concessions usually disperse
the movement, while the new legislation is often only symbolic or
unenforced. I could give dozens of examples, but I don’t think I
have room here.

Therefore I imagine that the Chiapas demonstration was not
exactly aimed at informing Ewing. I don’t want to speak for the
protesters, but perhaps they were more interested in both raising
awareness of the problem, letting people and politicians know how a
large number of people feel about the issue and to be a general
pain. If demonstrators blocked off major streets across the nation
on a regular basis and police could not adequately quash these
actions, it could perhaps lead to a change of U.S. policy, simply
to alleviate the street problem. And if you’re going to say that
the lives and suffering of some Mexican peasants is less important
than some well-off Americans missing early evening reruns of
"Seinfeld" or eating their supper a little late, then, well, you’re
probably like most Americans.