Public Discourse and Resistance

 The liberal news media in the US continually reports on this or that European country going autocratic or being threatened by blocs of voters supporting autocracy. More sporadic, though, is their coverage of political ferment and expressive dissent in the many places in the world that are already autocratic (albeit with paper democracies). One of those places is Peru. Reading a Reuters article last weekend about a particular direct action organized by a group named “Gen Z,” I was struck again by the chasm between the language used by the liberal media (and, therefore, in liberal public discourse) and the reality of events they are either purporting or honestly trying to describe. To its credit, the Reuters article cites information that can provide at least some context for interpreting the impoverished language used for description: that Peru’s president has a 2.5% approval rating and its congress a 3% approval rating, and that the “protest” as they call it is just the latest event in an ongoing struggle (not a word that the article uses) against an oppressive government (and no, they did not of course use the O-word).

 

"There's been a low, simmering level of discontent in Peru and it's been that way for actually quite some time," said Jo-Marie Burt, a visiting professor at Princeton University's program in Latin American studies who has researched Peruvian politics for decades.

 The discontent, Burt said, has been fueled by corruption scandals, economic insecurity, rising crime and anger over a lack of accountability over dozens of protesters who were killed by security forces when Boluarte assumed power in late 2022 after former President Pedro Castillo was removed from office and arrested. [quotes from the Reuters article]

 

Searching on “protests” in Peru, I found reports from other news organizations on a massive transportation workers strike, including video footage featuring scenes of violence. For me, interpreting such videos is difficult; my experience of street actions has all been in the US, where peaceful protest is the rule and most violence is perpetrated by the police rather than by participants in the action. Visual news media finds peaceful activity boring and of no visual value, and so they inevitably seek out scenes that show or even simply imply violence, no matter its relevance or significance, and duly declare the action to have been a riot or a “violent protest.” (Anyone remember the Subway sandwich incident that got thrown out of court?) Riots, in the US, tend to be police rioting, not civilians. The late anthropologist and veteran political activist David Graeber has an excellent essay anatomizing the power dynamics of political street action in his posthumous collection The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World. I recommend it for anyone interested in reading between the lines of mainstream media coverage.

 

So. One of the things bothering me about the coverage (which in the case of this Reuters article is as “objective” as it ever gets) is the inadequacy of talking about “protests” when street actions (what half a century ago were called “demonstrations”) are constant and ongoing and the political conditions in which they occur are extreme, such as in the case of Peru. “Protest” is a word that implies weakness and reflects an attitude that considers it as something like a tantrum. Street action is taken in order to amplify political speech that is either going unheard or is being drowned out by money (which according to the US Supreme Court is a form of protected “speech”). Putting one’s body into the street in the face of possible state violence requires powerful determination and willingness to risk one’s physical, social, and economic well-being. (Yeah, there are a few people who love risk-taking, but it’s not characteristic of most activists.) 

 

“Protest,” to be clear, is a belittling description for an important form of public speech. But it’s in common parlance, so we tend to use it without thinking. (As I mentioned above, “demonstration” used to be common parlance.) Our discourse, I believe, needs to recognize that resistance against oppressive policies and actions, a form of struggle against the status quo, is not simply “protest.” Rather, it’s an assertion of public speech that is not being heard by the people who are running things and so requires amplification.  

 

So now, to the US. Contrary to the perceptions of the New Yorker political round table folks who recently lamented the lack of “protest,” every day there are “protests” all over this country, a response to the regime that is constant and ongoing. Such demonstrations are being made all over the US, not just in “blue” cities like Seattle, Chicago, and NYC. A ferry ride away from Seattle, across the Salish Sea in rural Kitsap County, for instance, at least three small-town organizations have had weekly Pro-Palestine demonstrations since January 2024 and other groups have mounted at least three anti-fascist, anti-regime actions a week for the last several months. 

 

Such public demonstrations of resistance are necessary because the current regime is forcing deadly, impoverishing, antisocial policies on us that the majority are seriously, deeply opposed to. Interestingly, mainstream Time magazine offered an alternative to the dismissiveness of “protest” (and thus makes it headline more powerful): “The Growing Resistance to Mass Deportation. “Resistance,” yes, says all that “protest” cannot. Sometimes semantics are more important than we are aware of in the moment of speech.

 

I’d like to conclude with Nisi Shawl’s manifesto for resistance, recently posted on Bluesky.

 

“Strategies and Qualities of Unstrained Resistance”

by Nisi Shawl

Transparency - We will be surveilled and infiltrated.  Let them know we know and that there’s nothing to hide.  I realized this fifty years ago, when I found out the government had a file on me.

 

Withdrawal - Rather than confrontation: maybe a general strike or evacuation or self-imposed lockdown is in order.

 

Fullness - Or maybe the opposite is called for: peaceful occupation.  Thousands of visitors and tourists.

 

Art - This has consistently been favored via divination. Any forays into shared or public space or time should be framed as art.

 

Kindness - We need to pay attention to one another’s needs and do our best to meet them: food, medicines, labor, supplies, knowledge.

 

Entanglement - We want to recognize our kinship with those deployed against us.  We greet their highest selves with our highest selves.