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I'm struggling to think of a violent protest, at least in the western world that caused a change in government policy, beyond causing police departments to inve
by jiggy2011 12y ago
I'm struggling to think of a violent protest, at least in the western world that caused a change in government policy, beyond causing police departments to invest in watercannons.
Of course it's difficult to measure the effectiveness of a peaceful protest, but it wouldn't surprise me if vocal opposition to say the Iraq war had an impact on foreign policy for Syria for example.
- smtddr 12y agoCompletely disagree. I assume you're imply protests around slavery/discrimination. I think those protests had to reach a boiling point before real change could occur. If it just stayed super-peaceful and nobody ever showed pure rage I doubt anything would have changed. In fact, when I think about history, I believe most major changes happened only after protests reached a boiling point because the people in power who benefit from the broken system won't be convinced with words alone. That doesn't mean I support wild violence, but I think that's just the unfortunate fact of society that a bad social structure can't be changed without it reaching extreme stress.
- DanBC 12y ago> I'm struggling to think of a violent protest, at least in the western world that caused a change in government policy IRA is the [edit] obvious example.
- jiggy2011 12y agoIt's a stretch to call the IRA "protesters".
- DanBC 12y agoWhat's meant by violent protest then? Perhaps we can use animal rights protests in the UK. These started off by increasing welfare for farm animals; reducing use of animal testing in cosmetics; reducing the amount of fur sold in department stores. But then other changes included tighter controls on what demonstrations could do and now UK government is hardline on supporting vivisection and denying rights to (even peacefully) protest such.
- jiggy2011 12y agoI would say something where people organise an event and bring placards rather than outright terrorism. The difference is probably that a majority of people don't support the fur trade but most people support animal testing for medical research and it's unlikely that any form of protest would really change public opinion.