Limited Protest

2014 was another year of protests and reminder of their limits. From Africa to Europe to the Americas, 2014 has been a year of extraordinary protests. Some of these protests succeeded in overthrowing political leaders, others retreated but fundamentally changed the political landscape and still others are still ongoing. People in the USA marched to protest grand juries' failure to indict white policemen in the deaths of unarmed black men, in Hong Kong to demand democratic elections, in Ukraine to oust an unpopular regime. Huge marches gathered in Mexico to demand investigation into the disappearance of 43 student activists, and in Hungary to oppose an Internet tax. There also were big demonstrations in Venezuela, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Thailand and Burkina Faso.

Jeremi Suri, a University of Texas historian who has studied global revolutions, explains: "The protests were fragmented; it wasn't one movement. With 1968 or 1989, we think of protests with big themes – more than just street actions.''

The futility of some previous protest movements became glaringly apparent in 2014. As Suri puts it, "we've relearned the lesson that it's a lot easier to get people out in the street than it is to make a political difference.''

Three years after Occupy sprung up in lower Manhattan, says George Washington University political scientist Eric Arnesen, its biggest issue – income inequality – "is just a talking point. It's not part of anyone's political agenda.'' The use of social media, allows demonstrators to mobilize and organize quickly, often without leadership hierarchies, established organizations or specific agendas but Arnesen cautions "Sometimes people put too much faith in the revolutionary potential of an app.'' Christian Davenport, a University of Michigan expert on the subject, says 2011's activists proved good at getting people into the street, which is often exciting, and not so good at following up.

Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at the University of Denver, and Maria Stephan studied more than 300 resistance movements. She says the most important factor in determining their success is non-violence; 53% of the non-violent movements succeeded between 1900 and 2006 – including Martin Luther King's in the South and Ghandi's in India – compared with only 26% of those that were violent. Almost every movement has what she calls "a violent flank.'' Successful movements contain and isolate them. Chenoweth says that given the outcome of some of 2011's protests, cynicism is understandable. But in light of hundreds of successful protest campaigns over the past century, she says, "it's also ahistorical.''

A similar note was struck by  Alex Chow, a Hong Kong student leader who was arrested during the pro-democracy demonstrations, as police demolished the protest camp: "People will come back again, and they will come back with stronger force.''

The Socialist Party can agree with the sentiments expressed by Chenoweth and Chow. As long as capitalism exists so will socialist ideas. We can maintain with confidence that capitalism will not be able to resolve the problems and injustices it causes, that there will be constant protests in one form or another, and that socialist arguments remain relevant. However, it is the task of socialists to help create that consciousness rather than assume that socialism will come automatically. What is needed is to go beyond a moral outcry and to attack the system which creates misery and suffering. Good intentions and spirited slogans will not solve social problems but there is a revolutionary alternative: We must destroy capitalism and our protests must unite around that objective.