Thanks to my family tree resembling a monkey-puzzle rather than an orderly oak, I have close French relatives. As a result, I generally challenge the spoken antipathy towards our nearest neighbours, which seems to rear its head whenever they are mentioned. “Actually, half my family are French” I state, calmly, when Francophobic statements are made, and the near-universal response is a grudging “well, whatever you think of the French, at least they know how to protest.”
Indeed; the trope of the striped jersey, the bicycle and the ropes of onions has been replaced by the gilet jaune and the aroma of burning tyres in our mental imagery of our Gallic cousins. As many of us, I suspect, are now wondering how bad things have to get in our society to provoke any kind of public outcry more tangible than comments on social media, the key question is: why don’t we take to the streets, unlike those on the other side of La Manche?
Historical roots of civic disengagement
A facile answer would be: we had our revolution, our Civil War, far too early. Nearly 400 years ago, our population was more rural than urban, and the Levellers, the nearest thing to a revolutionary force separate from the London elites on either side, were eventually suppressed by their own ‘side’, the victorious Parliamentarians. England, ultimately, did not have a ‘Storming of the Bastille’ movement to look back on and to enter the national consciousness. Two hundred years later, the Chartist movement took us as close as we have come to sustained mass protest, but in a typically English fashion, petitions rather than direct actions were the main form of revolt, and regardless of the movement having inspired Marx, the ultimate result was the continuation of the status quo.
So here we are; unhappy, in the main, disillusioned, downtrodden, adrift. We gathered to beat pots and pans as a paean to the NHS, yet as our key social achievement, the Welfare State, teeters on the verge of collapse, we do nothing, except quietly grumble in our uniquely British way.
Effectiveness of modern public protest
You may struggle to remember the last national protest that achieved any result, so I will remind you. In 2000, the price of fuel (at 80p a litre – those were the days) had risen to levels which the haulage industry said were unsustainable. Protests in September of that year by hauliers, who instigated rolling roadblocks and blockades of fuel refineries, closed three quarters of fuel stations, lead to rationing by supermarkets – and ultimately, the reduction in fuel duty that had been campaigned for. Direct action can demonstrably achieve results.
Several years later, millions of us – myself included – took part in marches against the Iraq War. At the time, public sentiment was so much on the side of the protestors that I firmly believe had a National Strike been called, participation in it would have achieved, at the very least, the vote in Parliament that would probably have curtailed the hostilities. The 15th February 2003 was, across much of the world, a day marking probably the largest protest event in human history with anything between 6-10 million protestors in 60 countries taking part.
Yet it achieved nothing. I do not march any more, and I sign petitions more under duress than in any hope of their achieving anything. As the prophetic writer Alan Moore said, in the brilliant V for Vendetta: “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people”. If you’ve not read the book, or seen the film, just watch this quick extract, please:
As it says:
“There is something terribly wrong with this country” and follows with:
“Cruelty and injustice…intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told…if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.”
Or, to quote the Sex Pistols: “No one is innocent”.
Empowering civic engagement in today’s society
We – and I am as complicit as you are, dear reader – give legitimacy to the chronic mismanagement of this country through our inaction, through our misbelief that a petition, a ‘like’ on a social media post, a moan down the pub or in the post office queue, is going to make a blind bit of difference.
It won’t; and I remain suspicious of how much change will be introduced following the forthcoming elections. Probably ‘meet the new boss: same as the old boss’; probably.
One can take to the streets in peaceful protest; regardless of whatever legislation has been passed in recent years and where the ‘crime’ of the demonstration being noisy means it could be shut down. I do not advocate riot, or violence. Just – numbers. Numbers of us, coming out in force, literally reclaiming the streets; and staying there. Disrupting the fragile web of commerce, that depends so much on our buy-in, and which generates the only thing those in power hold in any esteem – profit.
Rise up; or, as the song by Tracy Chapman eloquently says: “live and die this way”.
Frankly, they can’t arrest all of us. “Whose streets? Our streets”, so the rallying cry goes. As John F. Kennedy once said: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
I remain, yours, the eponymous – Citizen Smith.
