Reader’s response: Anti-Tory protests controversy
Read Matt Barker’s article.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hroughout history, political movements have been fractured by the use of violent methods. While violence can be a cause for concern, violent protests can also hold power in effecting change. Putting aside the debatable level of violence, the same can be said for the anti-austerity protests which took place on May 9.
Although most major media corporations capitalised on the apparent violence of the protests, dubbing them ‘anti-Tory’, to accept this as truth would be willful ignorance. I use the word ‘apparent’ because it is alleged that the violence was a response to the police action. They attacked and kettled protesters without provocation. Considering the video footage and the police’s track record during various protests over recent years, these allegations are not difficult to believe.
Rather than allow the media to oversimplify the protest as an irrational response to the ‘legitimate’ election, the wider issues at play must be exposed.
The Facebook page for the protest outlines its aims rather clearly; protesters were taking action against proposed cuts within a day of the Conservatives re-election, not to mention a whole host of other policies intended to be passed within the first 100 days of being in power. From plans to reintroduce the Snoopers’ Charter and repeal the Human Rights Act, it is not difficult to see why protesters chose this form of action.
Moreover, the government is working fast to introduce these changes. It only makes sense that those members of the electorate who disagree acted with the same haste. And, with a saturated system of petitioning, where it could take months for petitions to be effective, or noticed, protests are the quickest way of expressing dissent. Petitions are easy to ignore – protesters less so.
If protests are supposed to be last resort, then it is clear that this is a last resort.
Petitions have been started, people have lobbied their MPs and, as can be seen from the surge in membership post-elections, people have joined political parties.
Even so, that’s not to say petitions and other means of protest shouldn’t be utilised. Only that formal methods can act in conjunction with the anti-austerity protests. Positive engagement is certainly important but that implies that protests such as that of May 9 were intended to be positive; rather, they are designed to make people uncomfortable and show that there are concerns which cannot be brushed under the carpet.
Rather than allow the media to undermine protests and ignore the historical significance of protests in enforcing change, we should be wondering why the government treated protesters as a threat to stability instead of a legitimately concerned fraction of the electorate. And why the police took to using violence to disperse them.
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