The politics of change need to change

Carson Jerema, Staff

Last week, in a fit of so-called student solidarity, 500 students in Quebec descended on the province’s capital to rally for free tuition. While I am probably the last person who would be seen holding a picket sign protesting the cause of the day, I still believe that public protest is an important and integral part of any democracy.

But, the way this form of political expression is acted out often cheapens the cause at hand. In Quebec, some of the students were throwing paint at banks, McDonalds and Burger King. When they arrived at the legislature they met a police barricade, to which some students responded by throwing rocks. The police then doused the crowd with tear gas.

The rally in Quebec City illustrates two problems that make it quite easy to discount movements such as these as irrelevant. The first problem is relatively obvious — the rallying students used violence and vandalism.

The second problem that was illustrated at the Quebec rally is somewhat more subtle and is all too often characteristic of these sorts of campaigns. In a protest that was supposed to be directed at tuition, banks and corporate companies were vandalized, morphing the rally into an anti-everything campaign. I fail to see how protesting for free education needs to involve an attack on multi-national corporations and banks. The issue at hand could be more effectively dealt with if the seemingly perpetual rage against capitalism was left at home.

The same is true for the anti-globalization movement, which was often a tangled campaign against everything from environmental issues to workers’ rights and women’s rights. The anti-war rally in Washington this past September also featured activists incorporating environmental issues onto the agenda. All this does is serve to perpetuate the image of the granola-eating slacker who has nothing better to do than protest against something . . . anything . . . everything.

Certainly not everyone who thinks the war in Iraq is a bad idea (a sizeable portion of Canadians, and Americans for that matter) is comfortable being associated with the green movement or the union movement or whatever mangled mess of a coalition is present at these events. It wouldn’t be surprising that certain causes would have a broader appeal if such movements did not bring along enough baggage to sustain the anti-everything cause for eternity.

And broader appeal would not be the only benefit. Those who are critical of radical (and not so radical) movements would have less reason to credibly dismiss these causes if they were not tied to a host of other issues. Other issues that make rallying against tuition policies, for example, appear as only one part of some ungainly ideology, instead of a legitimate concern.

Unfortunately, the image of the stereotypical protester is embedded within our political culture. Defeating this stereotype is a feat that is up to those involved in the politics of protest to change. And until then, broadening the appeal of a particular cause and engaging in a meaningful dialogue that others will actually listen to is unlikely.