Jonathan Cook, journalist
The Crisis Within Activism is a Crisis Within Democracy
An insightful short interview with Canadian activist Micah White on on
how modern social protest movements need to rethink their strategies.
"In the early stages, the Internet is very important for social
movements. However, over time, the Internet becomes harmful because
things start to look better online than in real life. This happened with
Occupy. The protest looked better on Facebook than it did in the
streets. This is negative because people start to prefer the online
experience to the real world. So the Internet is a double-edged sword.
The internet is a weapon that is not fully under our control, and it is
very difficult to wield effectively. ...
Today, social movements
ask their participants do very basic and small actions: to take to the
streets, holding posters and shouting. These are very basic behaviors
and no longer have a political effect. Occupy Wall Street and the 15M in
Spain, brought more complex behaviors, such as participating in general
assemblies or utilizing hand gestures, but these are still very simple
behaviors. I think we have to ask more of social movement participants.
We must show that social movements require difficult behaviors like,
winning elections, drafting legislation, governing our cities ... We
need to demand a greater investment than just show up."
