Barbara Cruikshank, Associate
Professor of Political Science at UMass, Amherst came to discuss her research
on the role of protests with students at Muhlenberg College this past week.
Protests post-2011 are unique in that their scale is unprecedented, they use
social media to mobilize, and they no longer have a specific request from
politics or the state. She addresses how protests have evolved over time and
the impact they carry. Her research raises the question as to whether protests
should be viewed as independent, isolated events, or rather if protests can be
grouped together to be part of a bigger picture, and if so, how?
The focus
of Cruikshank’s research seems to be based around protests as events and
occurrences as opposed to focusing on the message that they carry into the
public sphere. Protests have long been a tool for the oppressed and
disadvantaged to express their voice and get a specific message out as a
movement. Some of Cruikshank’s most intriguing comments come early on in her
presentation while giving us the background and recent trends of protests. She
proposes grouping modern-day protests into a post-2011 category. Cruikshank
uses unprecedented turnout to justify the grouping. The protests of today show
an accelerated “contagion effect” where one group sees an online article about
another movement’s success and mimics it, but the reason these protests and
observations are so intriguing is because they are reshaping governmental and
cultural institutions from the ground up at LTE speeds.
The Arab Spring has impacted 20 countries, 17 in significant ways, and caused 9
regime changes or collapses (inclusive of the Syrian Civil War). This is much
louder than a voice or a gathering of people. This is a section of our world
reconstructing itself because it found a voice in social media, but decided
conversation wasn’t enough. This type of sociopolitical change raises the most
alarming questions the Western world has ever faced, and for decades we chose
to completely turn a blind eye to the message they were trying to communicate
with us; they want our freedom too. The last time Tunisia held a free election
before 2011 was 1956. I don’t think I ever learned about Tunisia until it
became an issue in the news. We turned our backs to a corner of the world for
over half a century, and chose not to hear their voice. For a country that
prides itself on being the global beacon and protector of Western values, we kind
of screwed that one up. My point is that this unbelievable change has all
stemmed from a voice that needed an action to follow. By definition this is
something more than a protest and has been since the start. Cruikshank even
notes that the post-2011 protests are no longer about sharing an idea but have
an agenda for change.
The question
now is what changed? The answer is not a lot. As different events and voices
became more prominent every news organization began to talk about how Twitter
and Facebook were used to mobilize thousands of people under one banner and one
message. The biggest thing that changed from the pre-2011 era to the post-2011
era was social media and its integration into our daily lives. The most
important implication of social media is that I now also have the ability to
group my friends and strangers based on what mutual interests we have. In terms
of creating a social tidal wave that can be under one message, that sort of
thinking seems rather important. Once I group my friends I can now communicate
my thought to them all at once, which was nearly impossible 25 years ago.
It may be beneficial to measure the
efficacy of different methods of protest and that is highly important research,
but where does it lead us? Does it lead us to a more equally voiced society or does
the integration of social media set a standard for voices to require
entertainment value in order to carry weight? Ultimately we shouldn’t be
looking at these protests as events and occurrences. Defining and constricting
a movement that is about setting people free almost has a beautiful tone of
irony. As Cruikshank notes in her talk, breaking down a voice to numbers and
analysis only ebbs away the message it carries. She questions how to group
these protests and the answer seems to be we don’t.
These
protests are indicators. Regardless of whether or not they are isolated events
or chains of occurrences set off by one another they have noticeably changed in
their nature and power in the last few years. What they show us impacts our
lives to a far greater extent than strictly the study of political science.
These protests act as indicators to the first steps of a global frontier and
cosmopolitan society. That has no implication that we are about to join hands
under some New World Order unified government and simply be “The People of
Earth”. It does however mean that I can’t turn my cheek to the cries from
across the world anymore, even if I wanted to, because the medium those cries
use for expression is the same medium my friends use to tell me about their
day-to-day experiences. Aside from not being able to tune events out, we can now
look at this on both a micro and macro level.
On the micro level we can look at
the domestic example of the Ferguson protests. My generation grew up being told
that racism is prevalent and the battle is far from over. Anybody who didn’t want
to believe that and did not want to see that didn’t have to up until last
month. The response the community of Ferguson had to Michael Brown’s shooting
gave a voice to an entire community they never even met. It seemed as though
any person who ever experienced or witnessed racial discrimination was
empowered to come forward and share their experiences. You could no longer look
away to the fact that racism is – unfortunately – alive and well. It took this
collective voice of a protest and turned a message into a personal experience
for me by listening to my friends’ and associates’ pains and anger. Before the
only windows into the lay man’s life a protest had were the media outlets, who
would spin the story as they chose, or the experience of the protest itself. The
integration of social media now gives protests the power to change from an
event to a tangible life experience.
On the
macro level protests are easier to identify as an indicator. The post-2011
protests have shown us national changes in values and entire societal
upheavals. We now see a shift towards a
global value system where what were once Western values are now becomes Latin
American values, such as economic freedom and/or equality; or Middle Eastern
values, such as universal suffrage or freedom of speech. When America fought
its bloody battle for those rights there was no Facebook or medium for the
world to hear our struggle, let alone in under a minute. That does not give us
the right to pretend that other nations aren’t fighting the same battle as you
read this post. Our Western Bubble has been popped and we now must face the
entirety of the world at once. We now must acknowledge that there are other
nations and people living very real lives. These are no longer places we just
read about in the paper or hear about on the television. We now can talk to the
people who are out in the streets risking their lives for a right like voting
and ask them why they do it. In the words of Bill Gates “The Internet is
becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.” As the first
generation who grew up without understanding a world without global
connectivity, it may very well be our responsibility to ensure that every voice
is heard everywhere in a safe global community. Our global community isn’t one
run by a tyrannical government overlord, but rather a safe journal for
humanity’s progress as we come together as one.
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