They are hallmarks of American history: protests, rallies, marches, demonstrations. They range from an early period before the United States would become what it is today, to the images and sounds echoing on university campuses across the US this activist spring.
As much a part of American history as they are, these events provoke discontent, condemnation, anger, calls for them to be stopped, and occasionally the involvement of the police and the use of aggressive tactics to stop them.
"Dissatisfaction is essential to democracy. However, discontent must never lead to riots," said US President Joe Biden earlier this month, summing up the enduring American paradox.
Americans value the right to assembly, to free expression, to petition to express discontent. This is covered by the first constitutional amendment. They praise the social actions of the past and acknowledge the progress towards equality made by previous generations, often at the risk of their lives.
However, these same activities can provoke anger and outright opposition when they disrupt daily routines and concern that those who come forward are outsiders who want to cause chaos and influence the compliant.
“The public for the most part did not like the demonstrations of the civil rights movement. The public generally did not support protests against the Vietnam War. And the public generally didn't like the women's rights protests ... and all the protests that have actually happened since then," said Robert Shapiro, a professor of political science at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and an expert on public opinion in American politics. .
However, this does not mean that the protests had no impact, although it was not immediately visible, he said.
"Public opinion changes its attitude towards a certain issue as a result of the effectiveness of the protest in terms of one very important thing, which is the increase in the visibility and importance of those issues".
Take, for example, the Occupy Wall Street protest of 2011. "It drew attention to economic inequality in the United States," Shapiro said. "People paid more attention to that debate after that. The issue of economic inequality in the US became, and remains, more visible".
In the past few weeks, protest camps have sprung up and been demolished due to the war between Israel and Hamas, which has been ongoing since early October.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in US schools are calling on their administrations to cut economic and other ties to Israel or companies they claim support the war. Protest camps appeared on April 17 at Columbia University and have since spread across the US and Europe.
There was also opposition to those demonstrations. The authorities, under pressure to restore order and normal functioning, claim to support the right to free speech, but not to disrupt the lives of other students or violate the rules of conduct. Police were called to US university campuses, and thousands of people were arrested.
But when it comes to protests, disrupting everyday life is key, said Celeste Faison of the Black Lives Matter Network, a coalition of organizations that came together after the 2014 Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
"Change is always possible in those uncomfortable moments and those uncomfortable pressures," she said. "Throughout history, change in the United States has been brought about by those who are willing to risk their bodies, their voices, their communities."
Andrew Bast, a fourth-year student at the University of Chicago who spent time at the college's camp, agrees. "Not only is it fair, but I actually think it is our responsibility to be a disruptive factor, to change our lives accordingly and to resist," said this 21-year-old.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer disagrees that disturbing public order and peace is necessary. He points out that demonstrations and protest rallies have been held over the years with permits and required approval and that people have expressed their views without blocking roads and disrupting the lives of others.
The right to freedom of speech and expression is a right "that we absolutely support as an integral part of every American, as part of serious human beings who know that no one has a monopoly on the truth," said Hauer, vice president of the Jewish organization Orthodox Union. "We need to train ourselves to listen to other voices and people who raise their voice, clearly expressing their opinion - regardless of whether we like that attitude or not."
However, he is among those who are in disbelief about the current protests on university campuses. He claims that they have devolved into anti-Semitism and created an atmosphere that is not safe for Jewish students and communities. This, as he says, is the reason for confusion, when a movement decides to "define its tactics with things like intimidation, threats, which clearly leads to violence."
Calls for peaceful protest are common in American history and sometimes accompanied by nostalgia for previous eras that can be misdirected.
"That romanticization of the past is actually not true. For example, the media now covers Martin Luther King with a lot of love and respect. However, we know that at that time he was presented in the media as an anarchist miscreant," Faison said. "At the end of the day, we have a really bad pattern of humiliating protesters while they're fighting and then celebrating them when they win or after they put themselves at risk."
It's a kind of "ideological appropriation" when people considered radical or crazy at the time of their protests are later considered to have been on the "right side of history," said Charles McKinney, an associate professor at Rhodes College who studies the civil rights movement. .
This confirms the idea that the power of protest is not necessarily in convincing people in the present, but in their impact on narrative and culture. The most powerful protests in American history—from the Boston Tea Party of 1773 onward—resonated far beyond their eras and, with their enduring notoriety, produced results.
"It works, doesn't it," said Robert Videll Jr., an associate professor of history at the University of Rhode Island who has studied political movements. "It's effective, at least in the sense that it changes the terms of the debate and changes the way people think about a particular issue or group of issues, or simply instills in people's brains that something is happening."
Prepared by: NB
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