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One way to sustain ourselves in these absurd times, we wrote last week, is to follow in the footsteps of Albert Camus and rebel.
As student protests for Gaza vanish from the news cycle, it is worth reflecting on their wider impact and meaning. While horrors continue, they are neither failed nor fickle, but part of a deeper practice.
History is full of examples of student protest movements that stood up to power, usually against wars, colonialism and racist policies, and when widespread, were always on the right side of justice.
But only with hindsight, of course. Students protesting today have been met with disdain and increasing violence, the world over. And in countries that pride themselves on being democratic and free, brutal crackdowns are often followed by prison sentences, the denial of degrees and sweeping new legislation to punish further activism and even deportation for non-nationals.
The irony of course is that those leading the protests today may well one day be celebrated by those same governments as heroic and brave, maybe they’ll get a plaque or a street named after them. And when protests are repressed in other countries, those deemed to be undemocratic, they are celebrated by those same leaders who send riot police on our young people.
In his 1968 essay, The Nature of Mass Demonstrations, John Berger wrote that while protests might in theory be an appeal to the democratic conscience of the State, we should not presuppose such a conscience exists. This is very unlikely, he said.
For those on the frontlines, it can be hard to keep the momentum and it’s easy to feel disheartened by the swift actions of our increasingly militarised police. However, every protest is a problem for a sitting government.
It’s a reminder that people do not approve. It’s a reminder that people care about people elsewhere. It is how we connect with those who came before us, and those who will come after us. And no matter how many policies or laws are being pushed through, you cannot outlaw solidarity. You can try, but it would be like trying to outlaw love.
The true function of demonstrations, Berger said, is not to convince the existing State authority, “[t]he truth is that mass demonstrations are rehearsals for revolution: not strategic or even tactical ones, but rehearsals of revolutionary awareness.”
It is also the nature of demonstrations to provoke violence upon itself. While their threat is symbolic, they force the state to either display weakness (and do nothing) or display authoritarianism. In this way, Berger wrote, “the historical role of demonstrations is to show the injustice, cruelty, irrationality of the existing State authority. Demonstrations are protests of innocence.”
And importantly, demonstrations are a creative event, they give body to an abstraction, it gives those who participate an awareness of how they belong to a group, it creates collective strength. Regardless of the number of participants, it’s an expression of their imagination, it dramatises the power they lack.
Of course, not everyone can put their bodies on the line, for various reasons. And if we see them as rehearsals, it is not necessary. Demonstrations are just one way for solidarity movements to express themselves. For Camus, the only way to stand up to an unjust society was to keep resisting; the rebel was someone who said ‘no.’
Angela Davis said the most important work in resistance movements was the work done behind the scenes and that resistance doesn’t have to be spectacular. What matters, she said, was to develop the kind of consciousness that encourages us even in the smallest ways, to resist and speak back to power.
Berger concluded that revolutionaries must ask themselves, in any given historical situation, “whether or not further symbolic rehearsals are necessary. The next stage is training in tactics and strategy for the performance itself.”
Words, Veronica Yates and illustration, Miriam Sugranyes.
The Rebel, Albert Camus.
‘Neither Victims Nor Executioners,’ 1946, Albert Camus. Read here.
‘The Nature of Mass Demonstrations,’ John Berger, 1968. Read here.
‘The truth about campuses: A look into the largest student anti-war movement in a half-century.’ Jewish Voice for Peace. Read here.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Angela Davis.
‘Angela Davis: A Life of Activism,’ CIIS Public Programmes Podcast. Listen here.
Doppelganger, Naomi Klein.
Tools for Civil Disobedience, Beautiful Trouble, view here.
‘Famous student protests from around the world,’ Rachel Cavanaugh, Stacker, 3 May, 2024. Read online.
‘Solidarity protests with Palestinian people banned in at least 12 EU countries.’ Civicus News, 4 April 2024. Read here.
‘Deportation after one ‘like’ – German cabinet tightens up deportation rules,’ World Socialist Website, Peter Schwartz, 1 July 2024. Read here.
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, edited by INCITE, Women of Color Against Violence.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paolo Freire.
‘Reflections on Civil Disobedience,’ Hannah Arendt, September 4, 1970, The New Yorker, read here.
Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next), Dean Spade.
“Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.” — Hannah Arendt
“I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.” — Charlie Chaplin
“One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."— Martin Luther King Jr.
“Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde
Boycott (v.) : to engage in a concerted refusal to have dealings with (a person, a store, an organisation, etc.) usually to express disapproval or to force acceptance of certain conditions.
