Create, do not destroy
Firstly, lets start with the following question: What can I as an individual achieve? How much of an impact can I make on the world? Do I have any power over the society around me? Some people may say no. They may feel that the perfect world in their heads cannot be put into action because of their lack of power. I think this is a good thing. Democracy is all about spreading power. What can I do as an individual? Not too much - but if you could do more than you currently can, you'd probably f*** things up in short order!
Quite simply put, we will be in a much better position when power is taken away from particular individuals, and placed in the hands of organizations. Groups of people thinking about things, and discussing things, will argue, fall out, hate one another - all perfectly natural behaviours. And ultimately worth it for what those groups can achieve - a better society. This does not mean that individuals are impotent, for individuality is essential to creativity. Individuals should be powerful insofar as they can convince a group to take collective action in a creative way; to try something new and see if it works. Individuals should be powerful in a way that is not dominating.
How is this relevant to protest? I will now make my point clear.
A large group of people ready and willing to brave the streets is not an impotent gesture, so numbers should not be completed discounted, as numbers are essential to change. It is true that we have the liberty to protest, indeed it is the cornerstone of our democracy, but we should not think that just because there is a lack of water-cannon facing the masses that their struggles mean nothing; for what is the conclusion of this: That we should fund more riot police to make our protests more dangerous and therefore more viable?
Still, protest alone is not enough. We would not live in a meritocratic society if sheer numbers alone had the ability to alter it. We need tried and tested institutions.
Protest is useful as a symbolic gesture and as a social exercise (and I don't mean that in a casual, socialize-with-your-friends-way, I mean it in a meet-people-you-can-go-into-association with kind of way). After all, the rich and the powerful gather together all the time, why should we not also?
So, protest alone will not change anything. Nor should it. What will change things? Violence? No. Violence should not be completely ruled out, for who can predict when it may be useful to society (and we should not live by absolute rules - sometimes we need to make exceptions), but violence should be considered mostly derogatory, appealing to our basest, most archaic instincts, and inspiring the worst of humanity - in a word 'fear'.
We need to be creative, not destructive. The idea that there is a split between revolution (total and immediate overthrow of power) and reformism (gradual change to achieve a better society) is nonsense. We can develop new institutions within our current system, rather than tweaking the current institutions until they are eventually half decent or completely destroying our current institutions and replacing them (no doubt leading to something worse). What we must do is be creative, use our heads to think outside of the box.
Yet we must never alienate the general masses, who are our greatest ally. We must consent to law and order if we are to change law and order, or else our endeavours will appeal only to the fringes of society (who may well be moral people, but unfortunately impotent to bring about mass change). If a law is terrible, we can change it.
This is all very abstract, so I shall provide an example. We have a university system that is on the threshold of betraying the poorer elements of our society. We can overthrow the university system, along with other institutions, by any means necessary, and replace it with something (supposedly) better. We can try and reform the current system so that it is no longer s*** (which is a better option). Or we can try and create an alternative to the university system, and test it, and see if it works; to make something practically viable. We can compete with the present system and provide an alternative - if we fail, then our idea was unrealistic in the first place.
In conclusion, we cannot say 'we have a better idea, we are going to destroy the current idea and then implement our idea'. We must prove our idea works, alongside the current idea, and convince people with facts and working systems rather than speculation and ideology. This means that protest alone should not lead to creating a better society - creating working alternative institutions within that society is the way forward and protest is useful only so far as it enhances this goal.
By Selim 'Selim' Talat
