Assignment 3, Opinion Based

Social movements take on varied forms or action and protest. Dr. Martin Luther King founded his Civil Right campaign on organized civil disobedience whereas Malcolm X adopted the mantra of “by any means necessary.” This dichotomy of radical versus “passive” tactics has long been the convention by which social protests and movements are classified. In the United States social protests and movements have evolved to where violent protests are largely frowned upon and considered ineffective in the long run. As I stated in my previous post, those radical approaches are marks of sensationalism and extremists.

Today, more peaceful approaches have become the norm and are the “industry standard” if you will for initiating social change. I can hypothesis that especially in this day and age (again post-9/11) that any bit of violence on behalf of an organization will result in it being disbanded by the federal government and therefore effectively killing that section of the social movement.

Being a college student and facing exposure to varying forms of social protest on a daily basis on ASU’s main campus I can safely say that I have yet to see any violent actions regarding social movements. In my little corner of the social movement world most of the protests I have seen have been peaceful, most akin to actions like the Clothesline Project. These types of protests are interesting, they attempt to be “in your face and revolutionary” when in reality they seem to be a small group of individuals standing in front of some cool pieces of concept art shouting trough microphones. While I read the piece concerning the Clothesline Project I immediately pictured a feminist group whose name escapes me protesting on Hayden lawn in the spring of last year.

On occasion these protests garner what I would deem as significant immediate support since they attract a sizable crowd and likely recruit a few members each time they have an event. This method, in my opinion is much more effective than a single violent outburst which would likely end in injuries both physical and those inflicted on the movement.

The pro-life sidewalk movement is in a bit of a different class. These demonstrators actively engage a captive audience in a heavy attempt to influence their decisions about aborting a pregnancy. This is a much more in-your-face approach to protest. It is also more likely to piss people off. However the people who support this campaign are not likely to support a violent means to support their cause since they are Christian based and “pro-life”

However, all that being said violence still is prevalent in social protest movements. The act of executing a social movement is just like the politics of foreign policy. There is a procedural chain of events that must be followed starting with diplomacy, escalating to sanctions and embargos (boycotts and the like) and finally as a last resort war (violent protests). In social movements a voice may start as a whisper and increase in loudness until it becomes a scream. However if that scream falls on deaf ears then it means nothing. That is where violence becomes the only viable option. Especially if the situation is so dire that lives innocent lives may be at risk and no one takes notice. This has long been the case in sub-Sahara Africa with all the atrocities over there including acts of genocide and brutality. This movement never turned truly violent in the United States but the scream of injustice was unanswered by the United States and the United Nations who failed to officially recognize those actions as genocide and crimes against humanity. The language was worded less harshly as to not incite mandatory political and military action on the part of the developed world. Atrocious.

Malcolm X likely felt that his screams were unheard and of course unanswered therefore he felt that violence was a means to an end and a way to create real social change. In his case it somewhat worked, judging from historical texts King’s peaceful protests beat him out in high school textbooks.

In a sense this supports my convention that violence does not have a place in popular social protests and movements. It no longer works, and it highly unlikely that any violent movement will take shape under the watchful eye of the government. The negative publicity generated by such an act will deeply hurt the campaign. The course of action must be followed in order for a successful social protest and movement to take place.