Protest Vs Extremism

[modeller]

Which achieves its purpose . Peaceful protests or more extreme action.
What causes authorities to take action ?

[jomifl]

Thanks for the correction Em, 10,000 did look like a rather small number when I typed it.
Modeller, the petition was about a government plan to remove crafts from the category of 'creative industries'.

[emmie]

there have been any number of petitions on this site, 10 thousand wouldn't be considered large and even 100 thousand signatures still may not get their attention.

[modeller]

jomifl I wish you luck with your petition and will add my name to it.
It has 27,877 signatures with a deadline of 8 Aug 2013. However you can't say // it has a result // . It hasn't even been accepted for a debate yet, which is a long , long way from any result.

With great repect your petition is on a minor matter .

My post o said // I can not think of a single peaceful large protest that achieved its aim without provoking extreme action on one side or the other.//

I agree with Fred re Gandhi although it was not completely without violence.
Also he was assassinated a year later. and after independance civil war broke out and over million died.

[jomifl]

Modeller, it is not my petition, I was just informing ABers that it existed. Unfortunately a host of nitpickers descended who rather than ignore it tried to discourage others from signing it, why? I cannot imagine.

[mibn2cweus]

The right of protest is born out of the need to condemn and subdue violence and the violation of ones essential human rights, to point out precisely whose rights are being violated . . . and how.

[ludwig]

// So shall we take the army's guns away and give them placards? //

As long as the placards were blank. We wouldn't want to offend the enemy with harsh words.

[Kromovaracun]

It really depends on the issue and the circumstances.

So for example, if there are any Zimbabweans left plotting to kill Robert Mugabe, then I would consider them wholly justified because they do not have the luxury of peacefully effecting change.

However, there's still a difficulty as governments that are largely democratic do sometimes ignore their people (and sometimes for good reason). The anti-war demonstration against Iraq in the early 2000s was one of the biggest demonstrations in British political history, and almost certainly represented a huge swathe of public opinion, but changed nothing. However I can't see that the followers of that particular cause would have been justified in turning to violence and can't quite put my finger on why.

[ludwig]

I'm sure there are cases of both peaceful and non-peaceful protest achieving their aims.

The american civil rights protests in the 60s were largely peaceful.

[ludwig]

// What causes authorities to take action //

Pragmatism and self interest usually.

[modeller]

ludwig // The american civil rights protests in the 60s were largely peaceful. //
I don't know how you describe peaceful . There was extreme action on both sides from 55 to the 80s . It gave birth to the Black Power movement who criticised their more peaceful brothers, and even when the laws were changed to enable black students to attend what had been white schools violence continued. Governor Wallace who deployed police against the protesters was himself shot and was confined to a wheel chair.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/sept98/wallace.htm

[modeller]

ludwig
Info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1955%E2%80%9368)

[ludwig]

// I don't know how you describe peaceful //

Marches, sit-ins and actions like those taken by Rosa Parks.

These things largely became violent when counter protestors and police tried to break them up - violently.

[modeller]

Ludwig Thats true of many protests but you can't then describe them as
largely peacful. In fact there were riots across most of the southern states and it went on for years, many were injured and some were killed.

What is more it is still going on. e.g as recent as 2009 the two extremes
Black Power and the white supremists KKK were involved.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-5177561-504083.html

[ludwig]

from the above article..

// Previous protests over the case by the Panthers and the Nation of Islam were mostly peaceful and resulted in no arrests. A handful of white supremacists have showed up each time. //

There are always extremists attached to any dispute on both sides of the argument. They'll tend to make things violent, but the main story in the civil rights movement is the NAACP, Martin Luther King, and their policy of non-violent civil disobedience.

Another example of a successful non-violent policy to promote political change is Ghandi in India.

[ludwig]

I'd also cite the so called 'peaceful revolution' which led to the fall of the Berlin wall and German reunification.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_revolution_(German)