Are we really surprised by the violence during the weekend’s protest in London against government cuts?
There has been much debate on various mediums about the power and value of protesting. People have been predominantly peaceful in their protests for years but to no avail. Iraq is a perfect example.
200 people were arrested out of nearly 500,000 that participated on the March. I am not condoning violent protesting but I do think that we should to focus on why people feel the need to be violent. Could it be because there voice is not being heard? Could it be because people are losing their livelihood, homes and families? Could it be that fear and frustration are behind these violent attacks? It is easy to blame it on troublemakers and hooliganism but harder to acknowledge and deal with the real issues.
I wish that the media would not focus on the vandalism and focus on the march itself and the issues behind them. By focussing on the vandalism, politicians are getting away with skirting issues and not responding to public opinion. Clearly, we have the freedom of speech and to protest, but, are these freedoms just paying lip service to the human rights we think we have?
More so, I get the sense that politicians in the UK get elected and feel democracy ends there. They take on a journey of what I would consider democratic dictatorship. Translated, this means elect me through a voting system and then I will do as I please regardless of public opinion.
Whilst violent protesting is not the answer, peaceful protesting has not provided us with any solutions either. As a tweeter said yesterday, the best way to protest against the banks that have created this mess is to withdraw your money out of them and the whole system would collapse overnight! That would make the politicians pay attention.
Bunty