Why I have not taken part in protests for years.
In UK alone hundreds of thousands demonstrated prior to the war on and invasion of Iraq. They were sent/went back home on the same day. They did not stop the British regime from being part of the crime, and the destruction of Iraq that ensued and lasted for years.
May times demonstration/protests in support of the Palestinians took part in London. They did not change the British regime’s policy in supporting the Israeli state. In this regard, Mark Fisher’s argument is still valid: radicals in Britain should direct their efforts to mobilise working people around social issues at home and attack the British regime’s socio-economic policies.
A regime change at home is the way forward. We have seen that even with a self-proclaimed socialist like Bernie Sanders, leaders can side with the oppressors and be complicit in crime. Sanders would have not changed American imperialist support of the Israeli state.
Social movements in the beginning of the twenty-first century are fragmented or coopted. ‘Identity politics’ or ‘the politics of recognition’ have sidelined the politics of redistribution. More identity, less class, has been the global trend.
Protests have been in many ways legitimising the existing order: ‘people can express themselves. We live in a democracy,’ etc. Meanwhile, major Western regimes carry on arming and protecting client and authoritarian states.
Demonstrations have also been controlled by both the organisers and the police. There have been no democratic culture in organising those protests by creating multiple platforms and debates of what it should be done. The organisers kept a lid on that. Demonstrations turned into pastime activities.
Furthermore, the conjuncture meant distraction and demonisation of the Other. Blatant racism was manifest in the way Ukrainian refugees – or the refugees from East Germany before 1990 – have been treated in comparison to the way other refugees – brown and black ones – were mistreated or ignored and left to die/be killed.
That has worked well to a significant degree, especially in a conservative country like England where celebrity culture, the adoration of pets, banal TV shows, football, a corporate media, self-centrism, ‘liberal’ feminism, filtered history textbooks … reinforce Western centrism, neo-Orientalism and amnesia.
Besides a weakened trade union movement since Thatcher, even the recent so-called ‘winter of discontent’ in the aftermath of the pandemic has not led to radicalisation and revival of the labour movement. Radical groups and grouplets remain sectarian and fragmentation prevalent. A few of them even either supported or remained silent while the Assad regime killed and displaced a large number of Syrians. The ‘Palestinian cause’ though remains an arena where they can express their anger.
Conservatism also means acceptance of obscene inequality, and even applauding wealth accumulation while those who do the socially-valuable work such as nurses, teachers, drivers, etc are undervalued. Celebrities, footballers, TV presenters, are more important and highly paid. Then there is the mass production of clips, games and other means of distraction for instant consumption and the use of subliminal stimuli … That has been normalised and accepted by the general public: no demonstrations against such injustices. Resignation is the norm. Even professors who are supposed to help learners question refrain from expressing their opinion openly.
When I look at events in modern history, especially at ‘the long 20th century’ and how mass murder could not be stopped and how the ruling classes succeeded in mobilising people to slaughter each other, I am not optimistic in the short run. I see people protest and demonstrate and even counter state violence with counter-violence, but I also see a silent majority sunk into the mondaine and their narrow interests, fostered by the dominant ‘ideology’ of the nation state, of fear, insecurity, consent, and selective mourning and empathy such as this.
There is also a whole machine run by a few people and used for PR and public consumption: it consists of aid organisations, the NGOs industrial complex, ‘the international community’ etc.
Heiko Khoo speaking:
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