http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War
Protest is important as a way of showing our governments that we do not agree with them, and that we care about the effects these criminals have when they go to steal a countries resources and massacre its citizens. A few days ago i was talking to a representative of Amnesty international, who proclaimed "If 100 people start complaining about something then the government wouldnt care, but if 2 million people marched on downing street, that is something they could not ignore!", to which I simply replied, "They did with the Iraq war".
"After the biggest series of demonstrations, on February 15, 2003, New York Times writer Patrick Tyler claimed that they showed that there were two superpowers on the planet, the United States and worldwide public opinion."
- Question is, who has the nukes?...
"...between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq war"
Looking down that wikipedia page highlights perfectly the problem with protesting - that it is almost always totally ignored. It is truly heartbreaking reading about those millions of people across the whole world uniting under a single cause, against just one war, and against the few countries that were planning it, only to be utterly ignored. Just one war they could have reconsidered, just a little less money and a little less power they could have had, to appease 36 million people, not to mention the other members of government and the people who didnt protest, but they just had to go ahead. The government is there for 4 years and during that time there is no accountability for their actions, this is why protest will not change their minds so long as our system allows them to do what they like to us and the world, opposition be damned.
Our governments certainly do have power. Their power for ignoring public opinion is infinate, and insurmountable, and this is something we must understand. Does that mean we stop protesting? No, certainly not, if we were to do that then not only would we be ignored, but we would also sink into apathy. Does it mean that we should use violent protest? A topic for another whole discussion of course, but in a few words certainly not! Violent protest gives them a fantastic excuse to ignore us, and provides a great way for the media to swing the rest of the public against the protesters and their cause. Of course, the government dont need any extra excuse to ignore us, and the media will just totally ignore peaceful demonstrations anyway, but alas, these are the kind of people we are dealing with.